The Next to Die

“I’m from out of town,” Sean explained. “Um, could you recommend a good, clean, family-type of hotel in the area?”

The woman shrugged. “There’s Debbie’s Paradise View off of Main Street. That’s nice.” Sean could tell she still had her guard up.

“Thanks very much.” She nodded politely and started to walk away—for a few seconds. Then she stopped and turned around. “By the way, you don’t happen to know the Bender family down the block, do you?”

Frowning, the old woman sighed. “Only too well, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, really?” Sean pulled Joan’s card out of her purse. “I’m Joan Kinsella, and I’m an attorney from Eugene. I’m conducting an investigation here on behalf of Mrs. Bender’s aunt, who…” Sean trailed off and quickly shook her head. “Oh, you’re too busy. I shouldn’t bother you right now.”

“It’s no bother,” the woman piped up. “What are you investigating?”

“Well, it has to do with the children and a discipline problem.”

She nodded. “I happen to have had a few ‘problems’ with the Bender children myself, believe you me. They’re wild little hooligans! The mother can’t control them. And Lyle—Mr. Bender—he’s never around, always out of town or on one of his hunting trips with the men’s club….”

“Men’s club,” Sean repeated. She glanced back at the children in the yard. “Um, I don’t want to impose,” she said, turning to the old woman again. “But if you have a few minutes, I’d like to ask you some questions about Lyle and Mrs. Bender—and the children, all in confidence, of course.”

“Oh, don’t get me started on those kids,” the old woman said. “Could you carry in the milk and orange juice for me, dear?” She handed the items to Sean, then hoisted up the torn bag and led the way to her door.

Tom watched Hal’s Corsica pull away from the curb. Hal hadn’t asked for a photo to use on his passport tomorrow. Passports, vaccinations, converting money—these were basic necessities for international travel, and Hal hadn’t addressed them at all.

Tom swallowed hard and glanced at the front entrance of his apartment building. Stepping inside, he checked his mailbox for what would be the last time: only one letter, announcing he was a finalist in the Clearing House Million Dollar Sweepstakes. He lumbered up the stairs, then down the corridor to his apartment. Everything seemed so final.

Wandering around his living room, Tom gazed at the pictures, furniture, antiques, and souvenirs he’d collected through the years. Already he felt homesick. It was sad saying good-bye to everything. He tried to convince himself that tomorrow night he’d be staying at a plush hotel in Rio de Janeiro. But the reward they promised still seemed so vague and unreal.

Tom headed to the kitchen cabinet where he kept the Jack Daniels. He had barely enough in the bottle for a couple of shots. He poured half, then quickly drained his glass. He’d need a lot more to make it through the night.

Since taking that first ride with Hal Buckman, Tom knew Hal’s people were watching him. He’d noticed guys standing in the street below his window for hours at a time. Sometimes, they sat in their cars parked out front.

Tom wasn’t surprised to find one of them now, smoking a cigarette by the front door. This kid was about thirty, with a handlebar mustache, shaggy blond hair, and a ruddy complexion. He wore jeans and a rugby shirt. Smiling at Tom as if he were an old friend, the kid flicked away his cigarette. “Hey there, Tom. You gotta go back inside.”

Tom stopped in the doorway of the building. “What do you mean?”

“Orders from Hal,” the kid said, shrugging. “You can’t go out tonight. They don’t want you to run away or try anything stupid. Didn’t you notice in your place? They took out your phone. It’s tempting to call up certain people to say good-bye. But no can do, Tom. You can’t call the police either. The phone will go back in after you leave tomorrow morning.”

“But I just want to get some bourbon,” Tom admitted.

“Sorry.” He shook his head. “Now, go back inside. Okay?”

Frowning, Tom backed away and closed the door. He retreated up the stairs. The kid didn’t understand how important the bourbon was at this time. Without it, Tom couldn’t sleep; without it, he would have to face the clear, sober truth that he was doomed.

For a while there, he’d actually bought Hal’s sweet talk, and the promise of a hideaway in Rio. It made him more willing to kill Dayle Sutton for them. And for the first time in a long while, he’d felt important.

But the sentry outside his building stood as a reminder that they’d actually trapped him. He had no choice in any of this. What was the term business people used? Cost effective? It wasn’t cost effective to hire a phony ambulance and two drivers; to find a corpse that resembled him; to buy a ticket for Rio, and drop a quarter of a million on someone so expendable.

They had no intention of flying him to Rio tomorrow. He would be killed by that bodyguard seconds after murdering Dayle Sutton for them. He was their fall guy, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

The following conversation appeared in a private mailbox on the Internet’s Dog-Lover’s chat line at 3:55 P.M., on Monday, November 18:

PATRIOT: Subject is staying at Opal Lakeview Lodge, registered as Phoebe Daniels…No license plate number…but Vicki thinks it’s a beige Tempo…subject dressed in jeans, black sweater & trench coat, hair pinned up…should have her located shortly…received call from Ray D. minutes ago, thinks he’s spotted her.

AMERICKAN: Have U talked to Taggert about Cooper?

PATRIOT: Yes…Taggert enroute to designated spot & will call 4 relief upon arrival…so far, Cooper unharmed.

AMERICKAN: B prepared to drive Spokane tonight: 3 cars—1 carrying captives Cooper and lawyer. Arrangements made for staging kinky murder-suicide in Spokane hotel room. Cooper’s sperm samples still at our disposal & will B used on lawyer to show evidence intercourse before death…Also confirms Cooper’s guilt in Stoddard crime. Should nicely close case 4 us. Details 2 follow…Notify me as soon as U confirm lawyer’s location. SAAMO Lieut. signing off.

The old woman who lived down the block from the Benders was a widow named Mrs. Hildegarde Scott. But after fifteen minutes, she insisted that Sean call her Hildy. Her house smelled a bit like rotten cantaloupe, and the Lipton’s tea she served was weak. But once Hildy started talking, Sean couldn’t shut her up—which was just fine. Occasionally, Sean had to steer her back to a question: “Um, you were going to tell me about this men’s club that Lyle belongs to…” But the old woman didn’t need much prodding.

Mrs. Bender’s name was Vicki. The husband, Lyle, was hardly ever home. A while back, he’d tried to become a state trooper, but had been rejected. He was a part-time security guard for the city, which around these parts meant that they let Lyle direct traffic for parades, graduations, funerals, and weddings—probably with a .45 strapped to his belt, if his bumper sticker were any indication. During the summer, he taught driver education at the high school.

Sean asked how Lyle Bender could support a wife and three kids, manage house payments, and buy a new station wagon—all from two low-paying part-time jobs. Hildy didn’t have an answer for that.

Lyle had a group of pals he met regularly for hunting expeditions. Most of the men were married with kids, and none of them held steady full-time jobs. A couple were railroad workers, laid off last year. Yet they all had nice homes, new cars, and enough leisure time for frequent trips out of town with their buddies. Hildy mentioned several of Lyle’s friends by name. Sean wanted to take notes, but feared that would make Hildy uncomfortable.

She’d found a spot to sit in the living room that allowed her to view the Benders’ front yard. The children continued to play and fight out there for nearly forty minutes. It had become too dark to see them now, and Sean took that as her cue to leave. Besides, Hildy started venting again about the Bender children using her yard as a shortcut to and from school.

Sean asked for Hildy’s phone number so they could talk later. Thanking her profusely, she slipped out the door and trotted toward her car. She climbed into the front seat. The Bender kids didn’t seem to notice her.

She needed to write down the names of Lyle’s friends—before she forgot. Digging a pen and notepad from her purse, Sean glanced out the passenger window, and realized something was new. Another vehicle had parked across the street. It took a moment for her to recognize the Chrysler LeBaron. She squinted at the blue car and the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. “What the hell?” she murmured.

All at once, Sean knew she wasn’t alone. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a pair of eyes fixed on her.

The man in the backseat grinned. “Hey, chickie,” he whispered. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Twenty-three

The policeman sneezed.

Avery didn’t say “God bless you.” He’d given up trying to communicate with the creep about three hours ago. That was how long he’d been riding in the back of the squad car with his hands cuffed behind him. The grate partition between him and the front seat made him feel as if he were in a cage. The car was muggy, and smelled of Vicks Vaporub and B.O.

Avery had asked the policeman for his name. He’d asked why he was being arrested, and where he was being taken. The husky cop with the runny nose didn’t respond. He sat at the wheel, and occasionally those red-rimmed eyes glanced at his prisoner in the rearview mirror. Mostly, he watched the road ahead, and as the chilly afternoon turned to dusk, he must have sneezed, coughed, blown his nose, and spat out the window about fifty times.

He drove the back roads. His police radio came on from time to time, but he always rolled down his window before grabbing the mike and mumbling into it. The howling wind drowned out his conversation.

Avery leaned forward, moved his cuffed hands, and glanced back at his wristwatch: 6:10. If the lights of a gas station and a neighboring burger joint were any indication, they’d reached some semblance of civilization. But the cop kept driving, and the cluster of sleepy stores and streetlights gave way to darkness again.

Then they slowed down, and the squad car bounced over a set of railroad tracks. Avery saw a deserted train depot and a neglected Tudor station house. Two box cars sat in the depot, so old and ravaged they were mere shells. The policeman pulled up alongside the station house. “The Great Northern used to run through here,” he said. “This was a major freight stop. But not anymore. Fuckin’ Jews on Wall Street put an end to that.”

He stepped out of the squad car, then opened Avery’s door. “All right, O-U-T,” he said, grabbing Avery’s arm and pulling him from the cop car.

Avery finally caught a glimpse of the cop’s name tag. “Listen, Officer Taggert, you haven’t even told me what I’m being charged with. I think—”

He didn’t finish. Without warning, Officer Earl Taggert punched Avery in the stomach, a hard wallop that knocked the wind out of him. Avery doubled over. “That’s enough out of you,” Taggert said.

He led Avery up some steps to the train platform and station house. The battered door looked painted shut, and cobwebs clung to the top corners. But Taggert unlocked the door and pushed it open. The place had a musty odor. Taggert shoved him, and Avery stumbled across the dusty floor and bumped into a bench. “Sit,” the cop said.

In the darkness, Avery plopped down on a bench. He was still bent forward, trying to catch his breath after Taggert’s sucker punch. He watched the cop move amid the shadows to an office alcove caged off from the waiting area. Taggert switched on an overhead, and the light spilled into the main room. Avery sat on a long, dusty bench with a curved back. Across from him were doors to the men’s and ladies’ rooms, and a ticket window with bars.

Sitting on the edge of a beat-up metal desk, Taggert made a call on a beige Touch-Tone phone. Avery stared at the ring of keys he’d casually tossed on the desk. He wondered which one worked his handcuffs. For the last two hours he’d been trying in vain to squeeze his hands free.

“Okay, we’ll be here,” Taggert said, then he hung up. Grabbing his keys, he swaggered over to the radiator. He gave the knob a twist, and Avery heard the sound of steam building up in the old pipes. “We might as well be warm while we wait for the federal men to come pick you up, Mr. Avery Cooper.” He sneezed, then blew his nose. “Murder and rape. If it were up to me, I’d put a bullet through your head right now.”

“I didn’t kill that woman,” Avery said. “I never even touched her.”

“Shut your pie-hole,” Taggert grumbled. He wandered back to the tiny office and picked up the phone again. “Move one muscle, and it’s just the excuse I need to put you down. Okay?”

His hands cuffed behind him, Avery stared at Taggert. Cop or no cop, he obviously worked for the group in Opal. There weren’t any “federal men” coming. Taggert was just biding time, waiting for his friends to arrive.

Avery tugged and pulled at the cuffs until his knuckles felt raw. He’d never picked a lock in his life. Still he checked the station house floor for a lost bobby pin or piece of wire.

His only hope was acting dumb and obedient, placating Taggert until he found the right moment for a sudden attack—a head-butt or a kick to the groin. He hadn’t slugged it out with anyone since breaking Steve Monda’s nose in ninth grade. But recently, the stuntman who trained him for his fight scenes in Expiration Date, had said he was a “natural.” Avery figured the guy was just yanking his chain. And besides, in these cuffs, he didn’t stand much chance of overpowering anyone. Still, he had to try something.

Taggert raised his voice in the next room: “You tell that son of a bitch, Hal, that I’m the one who caught him, I should be able to take him to Spokane and do the job there….” A minute later, he hung up the phone.

Through the barred windows, a beam of headlights swept across the musty waiting room. “What the hell…” Taggert stomped over to the window. Avery twisted around to look at him.

“Ah, crap. It’s Tonto. Goddamn pain in the ass.” He turned and glared at Avery. “Want to get yourself into deeper shit? Go ahead and talk to this guy. But if you’re smart, you’ll shut up.”

Avery watched the headlights go out; then after a moment, a tall figure walked past the dirt-smeared window. Slowly, the door opened. A policeman stood at the threshold, one hand poised at his gun. The cop was a Native American in his late twenties, with neatly trimmed black hair, and almost too brawny a physique. His muscles bulged against his blue and gray uniform. He seemed to recognize Taggert and stepped inside. “Earl?” the young policeman said, cracking a wary smile. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Pete, how’s it hanging, buddy?” Taggert gave his shoulder a punch.

“I saw your squad car outside….” He looked at Avery, eyes narrowed.

“I’m hauling this joker to Lewiston,” Taggert said, pulling out a handkerchief to blow his nose again. “He raped a teenage girl there on Thursday night. I just stopped here to take a pee.”

Pete seemed puzzled. Hands on his hips, he glanced at Avery—and then at Taggert. “I didn’t hear anything about a rape in Lewiston on Thursday.”

The other cop laughed and scratched his head. “Hell, then you must be slipping, Pete.”

He chuckled along. Stepping in front of Avery, he stared at him again. “Wait a minute,” he murmured. “My God, you’re Avery Cooper. What are you—”

A loud shot rang out.

The young policeman gasped. He seemed paralyzed for a moment, standing there with a dazed look in his brown eyes, Then he twisted around and keeled over, slamming onto the dusty floorboards.

Avery gaped down at the bullet hole in his back, the blood slowly blooming dark crimson on his gray shirt.

Officer Taggert still had the gun in his hand. “Now look what you’ve done, trying to resist arrest,” he said. “You just shot a police officer.”

“I asked you a question, doll face.”

Sean didn’t turn to look at the stranger in the backseat. Gripping the wheel, she studied him in the rearview mirror. “What do you want?”

“I just want to know you better.” He brushed her ear with a gun.

“Okay,” she said calmly. “Then let’s go some place and talk over coffee.” She started the car.

“Turn off the goddamn engine,” he growled.

Sean obeyed. Leaving the keys in the ignition, she slowly sat back.

“I almost ran you down a few hours ago—outside the post office. You ought to be more careful, honey. Why were you in such a hurry?”

“I had to meet an old friend of my mother’s. She lives in that white stucco.” Sean nodded toward Hildy’s house. She furtively slid her hand toward her purse. There was a pocket-knife inside, within her reach.

“Bullshit. But say something else in that high and mighty tone of yours. Say: ‘I’m not supposed to hang up on you, though I’m sorely tempted.’”

Sean stared at him in the rearview mirror.

“We talked on the phone night before last. You’re Dayle’s lawyer friend, Sean Olson.”

Sean swiveled around. The stranger was a handsome guy, despite his unwashed long, black hair. In that leather jacket, the jeans and T-shirt, he had a certain cheap, lounge-lizard sexiness. Beside him on the backseat was a big, black leather satchel. “Are you Nick Brock?” She murmured.

“Pleased to finally meet you, babe,” he said with a cocky smile.

She gaped at him. “You’re supposed to be dead. That hotel fire—”

“Oh, yeah.” He reached inside his bag and took out a wallet. He flipped it open and glanced at something. “The guy toasted in the fire was Charles W. Stample, age forty-nine. I figure, with the police force here, I have another day before Sheriff Andy and Barney Fife figure out the charcoal briquette in their morgue is actually one of Opal’s most eligible bachelors. Meanwhile, I’ll take advantage of them thinking I’m dead.” He slipped the wallet and his gun back inside his bag.

“Charlie,” Sean murmured. “Hildy mentioned him. He’s one of Lyle’s hunting buddies.” She scowled at Nick. “Did you kill him? Are you the one who set fire to that hotel room?”

“No, Charlie did. I stepped out for some ice, and the SOB pulled a gun on me by the vending machines. We went back to my room, and he conked me on the head. But what he didn’t know is that Nick Brock has one hell of a thick skull. While I was down, he started to torch the place. So I jumped up, punched him in the throat, grabbed his wallet and keys, and got the hell out. The joint was already on fire.”

“And you left him there to burn to death?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I feel really bad about it too. I mean, hell, lady, check out what this bozo did to me.” He bowed his head and parted a clump of hair to reveal a fresh, ugly scab. “You ought to feel this bump. The guy was trying to ice me, for Pete’s sake. Go ahead, feel it.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take your word.”

“I checked out his apartment. Lots of expensive shit: a big-screen TV, state-of-the-art computer, jacuzzi in the can, the works. Yet the guy lived like a pig. The place was a sty. And old Charlie had a stash of porn tapes and magazines that would curl your hair. Real kinky stuff. I kept only a couple of the videos. The rest, forget about it. Too out there, even for Nick.”

Sean glared at him. “During this exhausting search for evidence, did you uncover anything useful?”

He nodded. “With the porn stash, I found some Polaroids he’d taken of naked hookers. And this was among them.” Nick pulled a photo out of his vest pocket. “I’m not sure I should show you, honey. It’s of Charlie Stample—with Tony Katz after they finished with him. It’s pretty sickening.”

“Give,” Sean said, her palm out. But as soon as he handed her the color snapshot, she regretted even glimpsing it. Like a proud hunter, Charlie Stample grinned for the camera and held Tony’s head back by the scalp so his face was visible. Tony’s eyes were open in a dead stare. The handsome movie star had been stripped naked and tied to a tree. Lacerations covered his limp body, and long streaks of blood ran down his chest, torso, and legs. It looked as if his genitals had been mutilated. Charlie Stample brandished a pistol in his other hand, and aimed it at Tony Katz in a jocular fashion.

“Oh, my God,” Sean muttered in horror.

“Still feel bad about good ole’ Charlie the Crispy Critter?”

Handing the Polaroid back to him, Sean quickly shook her head.

Nick tucked the photo back inside his pocket. “I combed through his place, but couldn’t find an address book. I don’t know who his buddies are.”

“I have some names from the old woman across the street,” Sean said. “She gave me a lot of useful information about her neighbors. Mrs. Bender picks up the mail for this group.”

“Mrs. Bender? You mean the heifer with the two brats?” Nick asked.

Sean winced. “You’re really offensive, you know that?”

Nick chuckled. “Oh, a tough classy broad, just like Dayle Sutton.”

“Dayle’s not so tough. In fact, she was pretty broken up over your premature demise. God knows why. But she actually cried.”

He smiled. “Really? Well, let’s not mend her broken heart just yet. These jokers have somebody working close to Dayle. I’m better off if she thinks I’m toes up.” He nodded up ahead at the LeBaron. “Guess that’s as good a place as any to ditch his car. I’ve been driving it around since yesterday morning, scared shitless someone would mistake me for Charlie. I high-tailed out of town after the fire. Came back this morning to watch the post office. I had a hunch about you when I saw you hanging around—”

“Heads up,” Sean said.

Vicki Bender emerged from the house with the bundle of mail. She said something to the two children, then headed into her station wagon.

“Looks like she’s going to make her delivery,” Sean murmured, starting up the car. “I can’t believe she’s leaving those two kids alone.”

“Oh, you missed it,” Nick said. “About twenty minutes ago, while you were with Grandma, this older kid came home on his bike. Mama met him at the front door, and jumped on his skinny ass about something. From what I could hear, the twerp was supposed to baby-sit for the other two brats.”

Nick put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, let Mama go for half a block, then start to follow. It’s how I tailed you.”

Sean let out an exasperated sigh, but took his advice. She watched Vicki Bender back out of the driveway. Then she followed a safe distance behind the station wagon. She wished Avery were with her now—instead of this rude, cheese-ball detective. Wherever he was, Avery had to be worried about her. She hated leaving Dayle in the dark too.

“You know,” she said, watching Mrs. Bender’s station wagon. “If I don’t get in touch with Dayle by tomorrow morning, she’s sending in the FBI.”

Nick let out a defiant laugh. “Tomorrow morning? Listen, counselor, the shit’s going to hit the fan a hell of a lot sooner than tomorrow morning. Let’s just try to survive the evening, okay?”

Sean studied him in the rearview mirror for a moment. Then she nodded, because she knew he was right.

Dayle listened to the answering machine in her study while she slipped off her shoes. Leaning over her desk, she lowered the volume on the machine. She didn’t want Ted hearing if Sean came on. He was getting comfortable in the guest room down the hall. So far, there were three messages from studio publicity people. Dayle skipped ahead to the next:

Beep. “Hi, Dayle—” It was her agent.

Beep. “Hello, Dayle? This is Jonathan Brooks.”

She quickly grabbed a pen. Jonathan’s gravelly voice somehow managed to sound unmasculine; on the phone he could have been mistaken for a brash old aunt who smoked too much. “I just flew back into town today and got your message. It’s funny too, because I saw you on the E-Channel Friday night, giving a fabulous pro-gay speech, and next to you is one of the biggest homophobic assholes I’ve ever met. I’m talking about Teddy Kovak. It’s true, he worked for Gil, but—well, I’m just surprised you hired him. Anyway, I’m home tonight, so give a buzz….”

Dayle dialed the number on her cordless, then glanced down the hall. Ted’s door was open a crack. She heard a toilet flushing.

“Hello?”

“Jonathan?” Dayle whispered. “Hi. It’s Dayle Sutton.”

“Well, hello there, Dayle. You got my call back?”

“Yes, thanks.” She ducked into the study again, and closed the door. “I’m not sure I understood your message. Ted was Gil Palarmo’s personal bodyguard for nearly a year, yet you say he’s homophobic?”

A robust laugh came over the line. “Did Picasso paint? Of course, it took old Ted a while to figure Gil out. At first, he believed that ladies’-man routine Gil sold to the public. Plus Gil always had these bimbo groupies following him around, and he gave Ted his pick of the harem. If not for those fringe benefits, I think Ted might have quit, because after a spell, like I say, he realized he wasn’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. And let me tell you, he didn’t try to hide his contempt for Gil and the rest of us.”

“Why didn’t Gil fire him?” Dayle asked in a hushed tone.

“Oh, we were having way too much fun teasing him. Gil used to flirt with Ted, drove him crazy!” Again, Jonathan bellowed that husky laugh. “I mean, Ted wasn’t hard to look at, and we delighted in getting a rise out of him. He was so uptight, so easy to piss off.”

“Then Gil just had him around for laughs?” Dayle whispered.

“No, Teddy was good,” Jonathan said. “He knew his business. Gil hired him in the first place because he’d had a bad brush with the mob. They wanted Gil to sing in certain clubs, and he wouldn’t play ball. Ted knew how they might get past all the security in Gil’s penthouse undetected, where they could plant bugging devices or a bomb, how to tap a phone line. He knew everything there was to know about surveillance. I tell you, if Ted was working on the other side, Gil would have been a goner.”

A knock came upon the door. It gave her Dayle a start. She hadn’t heard any footsteps. “Just a sec,” she whispered into the phone. Then she opened the door. Ted had changed into a pair of khakis and a T-shirt. He also sported a shoulder holster and gun. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “I was going to order Chinese. Do you want some?”

Smiling nervously, Dayle shook her head. “No, thanks,” she murmured, a hand over the mouthpiece. “I’ll just heat up some soup later. Thanks.” She gently closed the door, then whispered into the phone, “You were saying?”

“Well, I was about to say that old Ted has to be pretty full of himself to put Gil down as a reference. Then again, Gil’s dead. And like I say, Ted did do a good job. Even I have to admit that much. But…well…”

“Go on,” Dayle urged him.

“I think of that speech you made about fighting homophobia, and I applaud you, Dayle. But I see Teddy Kovak standing with you, and I’m telling you, he’s not on our side.”

They followed Vicki Bender’s station wagon past the post office minimall. Sean stayed two or three cars behind her. She couldn’t help looking around at other cars and wondering if Avery was in one of them. Had he even made it to Opal? Certainly, she would have heard something on the radio if he’d been arrested or hurt. It was hard concentrating on her conversation with Nick in the backseat. “I’m sorry, what was I saying?” she asked.

“You were giving me the skinny on this men’s club.”

“That’s right,” Sean said, eyes on the road. “According to the neighbor, it’s a bunch of hunting buddies, very few of whom hold steady full-time jobs. Yet they all seem financially fit. For example, your late friend, Charlie Stample, owned a gun and tackle store, open three days a week—as long as there wasn’t a sign on the door saying GONE HUNTING.”

“Other incomes,” Nick said, nodding. “It explains all that expensive crap at Charlie’s place. This hate group must pay well.”

Up ahead, Vicki Bender turned into the parking lot of a bowling alley. On the side of the long building, blinking neon white bowling pins led to a sign: OPAL STRIKE N’ SPARE—THE KINGPIN RESTAURANT—GAMES N’ FOOD.

Sean parked five rows away from Vicki Bender’s station wagon. Clutching the bundle of mail, Vicki headed into the bowling alley.

The glass door was still swinging back and forth when Sean and Nick stepped in after her. Rock and roll oldies were piped over speakers, competing with the echoing din and clamor. The place smelled of cigarettes and shoe leather. Vicki knocked on a door by the vending machines. As the door opened Sean glimpsed five men inside, seated at a round table; it looked like a poker game in progress—except one of the men had a laptop computer in front of him. They seemed normal enough, between the ages of thirty and fifty, dressed casually, but clean. They didn’t look like monsters. In fact, all of the men stood up when Vicki walked into the room. Then the door closed.

Sean and Nick strolled over to a rack of bowling balls. She kept glancing back at that closed door. “Well, any ideas?” she asked, over all the noise. Someone had cranked up Del Shannon’s “Runaway” on the speakers. “We can’t hang around here too long. Someone’s bound to recognize us.”

Nick feigned interest in a bowling ball. “Just keep cool. I’m thinking.”

“Well, don’t blow a fuse,” she muttered. Sean checked the back room door again. The girl at the shoe-rental booth was staring at them. “Is it too soon to call in the state police or the FBI?” Sean asked. “We could try to explain the situation to them.”

“No way,” Nick replied. “If what Grandma Hildy says is true, these guys are friendly with the police. Someone would tip off the local authorities about what’s coming around the pike, and—chain reaction—these guys would scatter or clean house before anyone got near Opal. No, nice try.”

Sean sighed. Nick was right. And if Avery were here, he’d be the first person they’d arrest—not someone from the group. Outside of the late Charlie Stample’s Polaroid, they had no proof implicating these other people in the celebrity murders. “I have a little recorder in my purse,” she said, thinking out loud. “Too bad we can’t pry a confession out of one of them.”

“We could always grab the first guy who comes out to use the can,” Nick said, studying the closed door. “Then we can take him for a ride to a remote spot, and scare a confession out of him.”

“Abduct one of them—right here? Are you nuts? This is their turf. We’ll have the whole group on our tail—and the local police too. We’d never make it.” She took another look toward the shoe-rental booth.

Snapping her gum, the girl leaned on the counter and continued to stare at them. Sean guessed she was twenty-five—with more than her share of hard knocks. She might have been pretty at one time, but now she just appeared tired and burned out. The red STRIKE N’ SPARE T-shirt hung on her emaciated frame, and she’d carelessly pinned back her limp brown hair.

“That woman in the booth won’t stop looking at us,” Sean whispered.

Nick glanced over his shoulder. “Huh, she’s checking out my butt.”

“Oh, would you please get over yourself for just five minutes?”

But Nick wasn’t listening. He was on his way to talk to the girl, whose face lit up as he approached. Fascinated, Sean watched them. Nick whispered something to her. She giggled and tossed back her head—the official flirt laugh. After a minute, she took a pencil from behind her ear, then scribbled something down on a score sheet. She looked up and caught Sean staring.

Sean turned away—toward the rack of bowling balls. A couple of minutes passed, and then Nick came up to her. “Okay, the wheels are in motion,” he said, handing her a piece of paper. In schoolgirl penmanship with little circles over the I’s, the young woman had written down seven names. “See if those match with any of the guys Grandma told you about,” Nick whispered. “By the way, that’s Jill in the booth, and if she asks, you’re my sister. Jill says these guys meet here regularly three or four times a week. I asked which one has the nicest house, and is married with kids—in other words, the one with the most to lose.”

“What are you talking about?” Sean asked.

“We’re going for a ride with Larry Chadwick,” Nick whispered. He threw a smile at Jill, raised his eyebrows, and nodded. She winked back.

“What’s going on?” Sean said.

“In a minute, Jill’s gonna step into that room and tell Larry Chadwick he has an emergency phone call from his wife. Jill thinks it’s all part of a practical joke. When he comes out to take the call, I’ll walk up, tell him I have a gun, and we’ll go to his car—”

“My God, this is insane—”

“You hang by that meeting room door, and make sure Jill doesn’t screw up. She’s supposed to tell the boys that Larry will call them from home later.”

“How could she be dumb enough to cooperate with you in this—this ‘practical joke’? You’re a total stranger to her—”

“Doll, she’s twenty-seven years old, handles smelly shoes all day for minimum wage, and she’s hot for me. Believe me, she’s dumb enough to cooperate. Once you know these guys have bought Jill’s song and dance, head outside. I’ll make Larry flash his headlights. Are you following me?”

Sean saw the young woman come out from behind the booth. She started toward the meeting room door.

“We’ll drive out of town,” Nick went on. “You’re the lawyer. Promise Larry a deal, immunity for his confession. We’ll get it on that recorder of yours, then call the state police once we’re far enough away from Opal.”

“And they’ll arrest us for kidnapping, you idiot,” she said urgently. She watched Jill knock on the door. “My God, she’s going through with it. This is crazy. I don’t have the power to make any immunity deals—”

“Well, maybe Larry Chadwick won’t know that.”

One of the men opened the meeting room door. Jill said something to him, and pointed toward her booth. The man nodded, then stepped back inside. The emaciated girl turned and gave Nick a sly smile. Then she scurried toward her workstation.

“Nick, this is a terrible idea,” Sean said.

“It’s all we got, babe,” he replied. “See you in Larry Chadwick’s car.”

“No—” she started to say, but Nick started toward the shoe-rental booth. Someone emerged from the little conference room, a tall man with wavy, strawberry-blond hair and wholesome good looks. He was about forty, and wore pressed khakis and a crisp white shirt. He looked very familiar.

Nick strolled up to the man—just as he reached for the phone on the shoe-rental counter. Sean moved a bit closer. Nick whispered something to the tall man. Even at this distance, Sean could see him tense up. She kept trying to remember where she’d seen him before. After a moment, he stiffly turned and started toward the exit—with Nick close behind him.

Jill returned to the meeting room and stuck her head in the doorway. “Excuse me?” she announced, loud enough for Sean to hear over all the noise. “Mr. Chadwick had to run home, but he said he’ll call you guys later.”

Sean heard one the men reply: “Thanks. Can you close the door?”

Sean retreated toward the exit. Jill caught up with her by the shoe-rental booth. She smiled and snapped her gum. “Tell your brother to pick me up here at ten. Okay?”

Sean nodded. “All right. Thanks—for playing along with the gag.”

Her stomach in knots, Sean headed for the exit and stepped outside to the cold. “God, please, get me through this night,” she whispered.

In the parking lot, a green Honda Accord flashed its headlights twice.

Dear Sirs,By the time you get this letter, I will be dead. I will have also killed Dayle Sutton. Much will probably be written about me in the next few days, and I want you to get the story right, why I did it, and who I am.

Tom stopped writing for a moment. He’d never sent a letter to the Los Angeles Times before, and he wanted it perfect. He’d thought about typing the letter to make it more official. But if Hal and his gang had planted bugs in Maggie’s house, they’d certainly done the same in his place. The clicking of his Underwood’s keys would give him away. So Tom had switched on the TV, and started his correspondence in longhand.

The mailbox across the street had a morning pickup at 8:15. If he mailed the letter tonight, it would be posted before Dayle Sutton’s death tomorrow. They’d know it wasn’t some crackpot. But he still had to slip past Hal’s guard outside.

Returning to the apartment after his aborted bourbon run, he’d noticed the telephone was gone—just as the young fellow had said. The phone would be returned once he left in the morning. No doubt, they would also search the place and erase any evidence of their association with him. It had to appear as if he’d acted alone in killing Dayle Sutton.

They might even plant something to confirm that he’d murdered Maggie. Why not? It was true. And they could do anything they wanted. He wouldn’t be around to defend himself. He wouldn’t be in Rio either. He’d be dead.

This letter to the Times was his only way of making people understand. Tom picked up his pen and continued writing:

I was forced into killing Dayle Sutton by a group who hate her politics. There are several people in this organization. I didn’t act on my own. I’m the fall guy. My contact has been a man who calls himself Hal Buckman. Hal promised to smuggle me out of the country when it’s all over. But I think they’ll kill me after I’ve done what they want.I have no choice in what will happen tomorrow. But if anything comes from all this, at least, people will know who Tom Lance was.I was an actor, a good one too. But I had some unlucky breaks, so nowadays, not many people know who I am. I suppose all that will change after Dayle Sutton is dead.People should know that I helped Maggie McGuire get her start in movies. I was her fiancé at one time, and I’ve never stopped loving her. I killed Maggie. It was an accident. I went to her house, we argued, and I shot her with a gun I meant to use on myself later. I wish I could take that moment back.These people were after Maggie the same way they’re after Dayle Sutton. Maggie’s place was wired, and they had a recording of me shooting her and used it to get my cooperation.I apologize to Dayle Sutton’s family. I also apologize to Maggie’s children, and her fans. Please know, I loved her.I hope when people talk about Tom Lance, they realize that I didn’t want to be a murderer. I hope they realize that I made some good movies, and I helped Maggie McGuire become a star.Thank you.

Tom signed and printed his name on the bottom. Folding up the letter, he slipped it into an envelope he’d already addressed.

Moving over to the window, he glanced down at the mailbox across the street. Only a few car lengths away, Hal’s guard leaned against the hood of a white Taurus. He looked up at the window, and Tom quickly stepped back.

He turned up the TV, then went to the door. He almost expected to find another one of Hal’s henchmen in the hallway, but the corridor was vacant. The neighbor he knew best was an old woman who walked with a cane. He could hardly ask her to zip down to the mailbox for him. He tried the apartment across the hall from her. A stocky, young black man had moved in about two months ago. Knocking on the door, Tom tried to remember his name.

The door was answered by a huge black woman with big auburn hair that had to be a wig. She wore a red sequined gown and brandished a cigarette. “Yes, honey?” she said.

Tom took a step back. “Um, doesn’t a young man live here?”

“You’re looking at him,” the woman said, a hand on her hip.

Tom shook his head.

“I’m a performer, I do drag, honey. This is my alter ego, Catalina Converter. Aren’t you from down the hall?”

His mouth open, Tom nodded.

Catalina looked at the envelope in Tom’s hand. “Is that letter for me?”

“Um, no,” Tom managed to say. “I have a touch of the gout, and I need to stay off my feet. I was wondering if you could mail this for me.”

Catalina shrugged. “Sure. I’m about to take off for the club. I’ll drop it in the mailbox outside.” Opening the door wider, he turned and put out his cigarette, then grabbed a long black feathered boa from the sofa.

Tom saw an apartment even more cluttered with movie memorabilia than his own. On one wall, Catalina had a poster of Marilyn Monroe, and another of Paul Newman. Glamour shots of actresses—mostly Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge—adorned the walls. The sofa tables were full of ceramic images of Marilyn, and James Dean, along with framed standing photos of various other stars. Movie books and videos overflowed on the brick and board bookshelves.

Tom had no idea this movie mecca had been down the hall from him. “I like your film art collection,” he said to the drag queen, who was checking himself in the mirror by the door. “Do you have any Maggie McGuire?”

“Oh, the late, Marvelous Maggie,” Catalina said, turning away from the mirror with a pained expression on his carefully made-up face. “No, sir. But I cried buckets when I received word she’d passed on. Let me tell you, honey child, I didn’t need to see clips from any naughty movie girlfriend made when she must have been starving. No, thank you very much. The lady had class, and she deserves better.”

Tom smiled slightly. “I agree.”

“On top of that, she has a cute gay son.” Catalina tossed one end of the boa over his shoulder; a rather melodramatic the-show-must-go-on gesture. Then he plucked the envelope out of Tom’s hand. “Well, I have to get this tired old ass of mine in gear. My public is waiting. I’ll mail your letter for you, honey. Stay off your feet.”

Tom thanked him. “Could I ask you for one more favor? You wouldn’t happen to have some bourbon, would you?”

Five minutes later, Tom was back in his apartment with a couple of miniature bottles of Jim Beam. Catalina’s last boyfriend had been a flight attendant. Now, at least Tom had something to get him through the night.

He turned off the lights, then crept to the window. Still leaning against the Taurus, Hal’s friend puffed on a cigarette and read the Auto Trader. He looked up from his magazine—toward the building’s front door. After a moment, Catalina came around the corner, sashaying in front of Hal’s guard.

Tom could see the letter in Catalina’s hand. The huge drag queen in red sequins was hardly an inconspicuous mailman.

“What the fuck?” Hal’s buddy said loudly. Tom could hear through the glass. “Goddamn faggot! Are you supposed to be a man or a woman?”

Catalina patted his big hair. “Honey, I’m a goddess. And if I weren’t in makeup, I’d beat the ever-lovin’ shit out of you, and you know I can.”

Hal’s friend stood there with his mouth open, looking stupid.

Tom watched Catalina move on, undaunted. He dropped the letter in the mailbox, then sauntered to the bus stop—half a block away. Catalina waved down the bus, then climbed aboard.

The letter had been mailed.

Tom opened the first of the two miniatures. He sat in the dark living room and drank. After a while, he turned on the lamp by the sofa and paged through his photo album. He pried certain photos from the four-corner holders, his favorites: Maggie and him talking with Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum;. Maggie alone; him visiting Lana Turner on a movie set, and a few others. To the pile, he added five movie lobby cards, his best shots from his best movies. Finally, he chose his favorite publicity shot, from 1950: him in a tux, smoking a cigarette, his black hair tousled, pretty damn glamorous. He set the glossy on top of the pile, then pulled out a pen and autographed it: To Catalina, Thank you for being a good neighbor. Tom Lance.

He carried these things he’d held so dear down the hallway to his neighbor’s door. One by one, he slid the photos and lobby cards under the crack. He knew the drag queen down the hall would take good care of these mementos for him, because like him, he too loved the movies and Maggie.

Dayle sat at her kitchen table with the Waiting for the Fall script, and Fred curled up in her lap. She had her big AA meeting speech tomorrow, and was reviewing her notes. But she couldn’t concentrate.

She kept replaying in her head what Jonathan Brooks had told her about Ted’s expertise. Ted knew how to break into secured penthouses undetected, where to plant bugging devices, how to tap a phone line. I tell you, if the guy was working on the other side, Gil would have been a goner.

She imagined Ted organizing the surveillance on her. She could see him slipping past the guards downstairs and breaking into her apartment while she showered. Was it Ted who had left that note about Cindy on her bed? Was he one of the men up on the roof at twilight a couple of weeks ago?

Dayle told herself not to get carried away. She was basing her fears on the mere fact that Ted didn’t like being teased by Gil Palarmo and his gay friends. Besides, even if he was working with this hate group, he wasn’t about to try anything tonight. Too many people knew he was supposed to be protecting her.

“Oh, there you are.”

Startled, Dayle glanced up at Ted Kovak, standing in the kitchen doorway. “You scared me for a second,” she said, straightening in her chair.

“What time do you want the limo tomorrow?” he asked.

“Six-thirty.”

“I’ll try to stay out of your hair until morning.”

She hugged Fred to her chest. “I might take a shower tonight, so if you hear the phone, just let the machine pick it up.”

He nodded. “Well, everything’s secure here.”

“It’s comforting to know that—especially while I’m in the shower.”

Grinning, he leaned against the door frame. “Psycho backlash?”

“No, more like the other day I told you about—when someone broke into the apartment.”

“Well, don’t worry,” he replied with a confident wink. “You have some good guys protecting you tonight, and I’m just down the hall. You won’t come out of the shower and find any weird notes pinned to your favorite party dress—not while I’m here.”

Nodding, Dayle managed to smile back at him. “Thanks, Ted. Um, did the other guys get something to eat?”

“Yes, ma’am. They’re taken care of. I’ll be in my room if you need anything. Good night.”

“G’night, Ted. Thanks again.” She watched him retreat down the hall; then her smile waned. He shut the guest room door.

Ted Kovak had slipped. He knew about the break-in; but she’d never told him about finding the message pinned to her dress on the bed. Besides Sean and herself, the only other person who knew about that note was the one who had left it for her.

Twenty-four

Sean approached the Honda Accord. Inside, the blond-haired man stiffly sat at the wheel—with Nick in back. She opened the front passenger door and climbed inside. Larry turned and glared at her. The handsome, strawberry-blond man seemed tense, but not particularly scared.

Sean now remembered where she’d seen him before, The My-T-Comfort Inn. He was The Boy Next Door—or The Asshole Next Door: If I knew you were stocking this place with whores, I never would have booked us here.

“Honey, meet Larry Chadwick,” Nick announced from the backseat. “Larry says he doesn’t know Charlie Stample or Lyle Bender.” Nick poked the man’s shoulder with his gun. “Larry, do you recognize my honey bun here? Here’s a hint. She’s a real smart lawyer.”

Sean frowned. She wanted to slug Nick for involving her in this awful abduction business. Nick handed her Larry’s wallet and keys. “Have a look through his wallet,” he said. “Lare, take the keys and start the car. We’re hitting the road. You still haven’t answered my question about our gal here.”

Sean gave Larry Chadwick the car keys. He shook his head at her. “I don’t know you,” he said. “But you look like an intelligent woman. Perhaps you can convince your friend here to let me go. You have my wallet. You can take the car. I don’t want any trouble.”

Sean glanced at his driver’s license. “We’re not here to rob you, Mr. Chadwick. And I don’t want any trouble either. So please, start the car.”

He took a long look back at the bowling alley, then turned the key in the ignition. Nick told him to make a left at the lot exit.

As they started down Main Street, Sean flipped through the photos in Larry’s wallet: pictures of his wife, two children, a collie, and Larry with a rifle, posed beside a deer carcass. As much as she hated this scheme, she had to go along with it now. “My colleague’s telling the truth, Mr. Chadwick,” she said, still browsing through the wallet. “I’m an attorney. I see here you’re a hunter—like Charlie Stample and Lyle Bender.”

“I told your friend already, I don’t know them.”

“Nevertheless, perhaps I can swing a deal for you.” Sean looked at the wallet again. “You have a wife and two very nice-looking children. I can’t guarantee anything, but if you cooperate with us, maybe you won’t be separated from your loved ones too long. We might work out a reduced sentence for you, maybe even immunity.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Larry said. “Besides, I’m not the one breaking the law here.”

“Take a left at the light,” Nick piped up from the backseat.

Sean studied Larry Chadwick for a moment. Something was awry. He didn’t seem very scared or intimidated—just miffed at what might be a temporary inconvenience for him. As they turned left, he checked the rearview mirror. Sean glanced back to see a Corsica a short distance behind them.

“A paper trail led us to you,” she continued. “This is your chance to cut a deal before—if you’ll excuse the expression—the shit hits the fan. We know your group is responsible for several celebrity murders and smears—along with an attempt to frame Avery Cooper for murder. Why not save your family and yourself a lot of grief? Tell us about this local men’s club, and your ‘hunting’ expeditions.”

“C’mon, Lare,” Nick added. “We’ll say you cooperated….”

Silent, he stared at the dark, lonely highway ahead.

They’d reached the outskirts of Opal. Sean checked over her shoulder again. The Corsica was still back there. “Pull over,” she said edgily. “Pull over now. I want this damn car behind us to pass.”

“I may go over a bump or two,” Larry calmly replied, eying Nick in the rearview mirror. “For the safety of all of us, could you please lower that gun for a few seconds? I don’t want it going off by accident.”

Nick grinned. “Sure, Lare.”

Larry slowed the car, steered onto the shoulder of the road, then brought them to a stop. His left hand casually slid off the wheel.

Sean turned and watched the Corsica approaching. She squinted as its headlights illuminated the interior of Larry’s car.

“HANDS ON THE GODDAMN WHEEL!” Nick yelled.

“I was just about to open the window—”

“You were just going for the door,” Nick said. “Hands on the wheel.”

Larry clutched the steering wheel as the Corsica cruised by. The teenage driver and his girlfriend briefly stared at them, then sped away.

Her nerves frayed, Sean took a deep breath and turned to Nick. “Give me that Polaroid, will you?” She switched on the interior overhead light, then showed the photo to Larry, the one from Charlie Stample’s secret archives: Charlie the hunter, posing with his kill—the mutilated corpse of Tony Katz. “You were there that night, weren’t you?” Sean said.

The tiniest flicker of a smile passed across Larry’s face as he studied the picture.

Sean began to tremble with anger. How could he smile at something so brutal and monstrous? Swallowing hard, she tucked the Polaroid into her purse, then pulled out the small tape recorder, and switched it on.

“We can’t stay here,” Nick said. “Let’s get moving, Lare.”

Ignoring him, Larry stared at Sean, the tiny smirk still on his face.

“C’mon!” Nick rapped the back of Larry’s skull with the gun muzzle.

“Ah, fuck!” he growled, wincing. He pulled onto the highway again. “Son of a bitch,” he grumbled, rubbing his head.

“I hope it hurts like hell,” Sean said. She adjusted the volume on her recorder. “Though I happen to think you’re scum, I’m still willing to cut you a deal, Mr. Chadwick. If you tell us about these friends of yours and your organization, I might get you a reduced sentence.”

“Hmmmm,” was all he said, as if to ponder whether or not he wanted to cooperate. Sean didn’t like it; he seemed too cool under fire.

“I don’t think Larry’s interested in making any deals,” Nick said. “Still, you want to tell us about your organization, don’t you, Lare? In fact, you’re just itching to tell us how powerful and righteous you guys are.” Nick nudged his shoulder with the gun muzzle. “C’mon, educate us, Lare.”

Larry Chadwick glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled a little. “Neither one of you have heard of SAAMO, have you?”

“Is that an acronym?” Sean asked. “What does it stand for?”

He turned his attention away from the road and gazed at her for a moment. “It stands for the future. That’s something you don’t have any more of, Ms. Olson, because you’re going to die. You, your buddy here, and your other unfortunate friend, Avery Cooper.”

Avery sat on the dusty wooden bench with his hands cuffed behind him. He numbly gazed at the young policeman, facedown on the dirty floor, a bullet in his back. Taggert was in the little office, on the phone with one of his cronies. At one point, he raised his voice: “Hey, he identified the prisoner, I had no choice! What was I supposed to do?”

He’d taken the other cop’s gun, but hadn’t unclasped the keys from his belt. Avery wondered if one of those keys might fit his cuffs. He inched his foot over toward the fallen policeman’s belt. With the tip of his shoe he tried to nudge the key ring from its clasp. For a second, it looked as though the dead policeman flinched. Avery hesitated. He checked on Taggert again, then slowly stood. Twisting to one side, he squatted down to reach for the keys.

“Fine,” he heard Taggert say on the phone. “So we make it look like he killed the son of a bitch, or you send somebody here to get rid of the body and the squad car.” He chuckled. “Yeah, no kidding. Bye.”

Avery vainly groped and tugged at the key ring. He heard Taggert hang up the phone. The cop sneezed and blew his nose. Avery almost stumbled backward, but quickly regained his footing and landed on the bench. He was still catching his breath as Taggert ambled around the corner.

Avery reminded himself to act dumb. It was his only chance of throwing this creep off guard. He innocently gazed up at Taggert, who kicked at the young policeman’s foot. “Why did you shoot him?” Avery asked, with a meek, obtuse look. “Was he a crooked cop or something?”

The stocky officer gaped at him, not quite sure someone could be so ingenuously stupid. Finally, he folded his arms and snickered. “Yeah, him heap big crooked lawman. Injun no good. Me fix.”

Avery wanted to vomit, but he merely nodded. His eyes downcast, he thought he saw the young cop breathing. Then again, it might have just been air escaping a dead man’s lungs. He wondered if Taggert had seen it too. “I hope we can clear all this up once the federal men arrive,” he said quietly. “When are they due?”

“In an hour.” Taggert blew his nose. “Just hold your water.”

“Well, that’s why I’m asking,” Avery replied timidly. “I almost peed in my pants when you shot this guy. And I’ve had to go for about an hour now.” He nodded toward the men’s room door. “Could I? Would it be okay?”

Taggert sighed. “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

Avery stood and stepped around the body on the floor. “Thank you,” he said. He pushed the men’s room door with his shoulder.

Taggert followed him inside and switched on the light. The bathroom had a sharp rusty odor. It seemed cold and damp after the heated waiting room. A toilet stall occupied the corner, and two tall porcelain urinals lined the graffiti-marred wall. Avery stepped up to one of the urinals, then glanced over his shoulder. “Um, Officer Taggert? Could you—help me out here?”

The cop looked at him as if he were crazy. “Oh, yeah, sure. Fuck that.”

Avery shrugged helplessly and wiggled his hands in the cuffs behind him. “I’m sorry….”

Shaking his head, Taggert grabbed A very’s arm and unlocked the cuffs. He left one hand shackled, then stepped aside and drew his gun. “Okay,” he said in his congested voice. “I don’t have all day.”

“Thanks very much,” Avery said, unzipping his trousers.

Taggert nodded distractedly. He put the keys back in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He looked as if he was about to sneeze again. His eyes were closed and he had his mouth open in a sinus-blocked grimace.

Instead of reaching inside his pants, Avery suddenly lunged at Taggert. The cop was in the middle of his sneeze when Avery punched him in the face.

The gun went off, and the shot echoed within the tiled bathroom. Avery felt a sharp burning pain in his left thigh, but it didn’t slow him down. He slammed his fist into Taggert’s face again. The policeman dropped his gun, then flew back against the toilet stall partition. Avery kept hitting him. He was like a crazy man. He wasn’t thinking about escaping. He was pummeling the smarmy son of a bitch who had amused himself with an injun impersonation after shooting that young cop in the back. Avery punched away at Taggert until the crooked cop slid down to the dirty tiles, half dead.

Standing over him, Avery suddenly realized he’d been shot. Blood trickled down his leg and wet the top of his sock.

Taggert stirred a little and reached for the gun on the floor. Avery kicked it away. But he was overwhelmed with fatigue, and his movements were labored as he grabbed Taggert by the front of his shirt and dragged him toward the urinals. “Who killed Libby Stoddard?” he asked. “Who set me up?”

“Fuck you!” Taggert snarled. Blood dripped from his mouth and nose.

Infuriated, Avery let out a crazed yell and swung him against the urinal. Taggert’s head hit the porcelain, and he howled in pain.

“Give me a name!” Avery demanded. He pushed the policeman’s face toward the bottom of the smelly receptacle.

Officer Taggert started crying. “All right, all right! It was all arranged by higher-ups in the organization….” Blood and saliva dribbled down from his mouth to the rusty drain. “The one who did the job on her is dead now. His name was Lyle Bender. They used your sperm samples from a fertility clinic to make it look like you’d raped her. That’s all I know about it, I swear.” Taggert started coughing and choking. Avery let go of him. It took a few moments for the cop to recover. He sat up a little, wiped the tears from his eyes, then spat a wad of blood and phlegm into the urinal. “Goddamn prick,” he gasped. “You fuckin’ broke my nose.”

With his last drop of adrenalin, Avery reeled back with his fist and punched Taggert in the face. The policeman flopped over on the tiled floor.

Avery snatched up the gun, then braced himself against the wall.

Almost out of nowhere, a set of handcuffs flew past him and hit the unconscious Taggert in his shoulder. Avery glanced up. The Native American cop had dragged himself to the doorway. “Cuff him to that pipe over there, will you?” he said, nodding toward a corner conduit by the urinals.

“Jesus,” Avery murmured, starting toward him.

Officer Pete impatiently pointed to the set of cuffs by Earl Taggert. “Hurry up, okay?”

Avery backed away and grabbed the handcuffs. He managed to drag Taggert over to the corner of the bathroom, then cuffed him to the pipe.

“It was—a—a rewarding experience, watching you—beat the crap out of Earl,” Officer Pete said between gasps for air. Sweat covered his forehead. “I’ve been wanting to do—to do that for three years. Pat him down, take away his keys.”

Avery followed his directions. “This guy’s with a hate group out of Opal. They’re responsible for several celebrity deaths. They tried to set me up for murder and rape. Did you hear any of what he said to me?”

The young cop nodded. “I knew he belonged to some kind of—of good ol’ boys’ club, but I thought it was just about keeping Opal white.”

Pocketing Taggert’s keys, Avery hobbled over to Officer Pete and helped him up. He walked him to the bench in the waiting room. His leg started to go numb, and he tried to ignore the burning pain in his thigh. “You need to lie on your side and not move around,” he said, lowering him on the bench. “Is there someone I can call? Someone you trust?”

Pete nodded. “Just dial 9-1-1. It’ll patch through to my boss, Sheriff Goldschmidt. Tell him Peter Masqua is badly wounded—and so are you. We have someone in custody. We’re in the old train station. Tell him I said to move his ass. We’re expecting some more trouble here within the hour.”

In the last two hours, Dayle hadn’t moved from the kitchen table. Now she pushed aside the script, picked up Fred, and tiptoed down the hallway to the guest room door. She checked for a strip of light at the threshold. It was dark and almost too quiet. She didn’t hear any snoring. Maybe Ted was lying there with the lights off, listening for her.

With the cat cradled in her arms, Dayle retreated to the foyer. Every creaking floorboard seemed like a loud groan. She checked the front door’s peephole. She couldn’t see the guard, but her view was limited. Quietly, she unlocked the door and opened it. To her immediate right, the guard sat in a folding chair with a Coke, a box of Archway cookies, and a walkie-talkie on the floor beside him. A husky kid in his late twenties, he had curly brown hair and a baby face. His tie was loosened. He’d been reading The Fountainhead. Dropping the book, he jumped up from the chair. “Ms. Sutton? Um, is everything okay?”

She smiled and shifted Fred in her arms. “Oh, hi. Yes, everything’s fine.” Down by the elevator, she noticed a second guard muttering something into his walkie-talkie.

“I really don’t think you should be out here,” the husky kid said.

“Oh, I thought I’d go for a walk before bed. I’m kind of keyed up. Maybe it’ll help me sleep. I just need some fresh air. In fact, I figured I’d go up to the roof. It’s perfectly safe up there….”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ll have to clear that with Ted first.”

“Oh, now don’t be silly—”

“He’s right, Dayle.”

She spun around.

Ted stood in the foyer with her. He’d thrown on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and his shoulder holster. He had a walkie-talkie in his hand. “We’ve taken all these precautions for your safety,” he said. “If you want to step out of the apartment, you need to see me about it.”

Dayle frowned at him. “I’m not sure I like that.”

“I wouldn’t like it either if I were you, but it is necessary.” He smiled at her, then set the walkie-talkie on the hallway table. “It’s late, Dayle. Why don’t you get some sleep?”

Sighing, Dayle retreated back into the apartment. Ted stepped inside after her. She heard him close and lock the door.

Sean’s tape recorder picked up everything Larry Chadwick had to say. It wasn’t so much a confession as it was an hour’s worth of steady gloating. Despite the stranger with a gun in the backseat of his car, Larry seemed to think he had the upper hand. He was still at the wheel, still in control.

Yes, he knew who she was. His friends were quite aware that Avery Cooper’s lawyer was in town, and they had a full description of her. They also had Avery Cooper in custody: “Last I heard, he was being held just outside Lewiston, two hours from here. He might still be alive. I’m not sure. My friends were trying to determine his exact whereabouts when you lured me away with that phony phone call.”

He explained about his friends, the Soldiers for An American Moral Order, who were going to bring back family values and godliness to the people of this country. He defended the torture and mutilation deaths of Tony Katz and his friend: “Faggots aren’t human beings. And right now, those two deviates are burning in hell.”

Larry freely admitted to having participated in the murder of Leigh Simone. They had made it look like a drug overdose: “Leigh Simone got what she deserved. She advocated homosexuality, abortion, and the restriction of our constitutional right to bear arms.”

They didn’t set out to kill people. They merely wanted to silence those celebrities who posed a threat to moral order and traditional family values. Often, all it took was a little research into their pasts or intimidation. A good scandal could always discredit a loudmouth liberal celebrity’s cause.

“And if you can’t dig up dirt on someone, you manufacture it,” Sean said. “Did SAAMO arrange the murder of Libby Stoddard?”

“Yes.” Larry studied the dark, winding highway.

In the last hour, they’d encountered only six cars on this road. The most recent was a minivan, which had been keeping a steady, respectable distance behind them for several miles now. They were driving through a forest preserve. The unlit two-lane snaked around clusters of trees.

Sean adjusted the volume on her recorder again. “You had a nurse named Laurie Anne Schneider steal Avery Cooper’s sperm samples from the fertility clinic. One of those samples was planted in Libby Stoddard. Is that correct? Yes or no?”

“Yes,” he said, with a hint of a smile. “And we still have some of those samples, Ms. Olson.”

“You framed Avery Cooper for murder, because he’s a threat to your fundamentalist agenda. Is that correct?”

“He’s no threat anymore,” Larry replied.

“Dayle Sutton, she’s the next to die, isn’t she?”

Larry didn’t hesitate to answer. “Yes. But I’m not in on that one. The wheels are already in motion. We have people in L.A. handling it. She’ll get hers on the set of her movie. It’s slated to happen in the next day or two.”

“Talk about a cold-blooded bastard,” Nick whispered from the backseat. “Lare, you must piss ice water.”

Unfazed, Larry scratched his chin, then glanced at the tape recorder in Sean’s hand. He seemed so blasé. It was almost as if he somehow knew that all the information he was revealing would never make it outside of this car.

Sean looked over her shoulder at the minivan, still trailing several car lengths behind them. Nick caught it too. Frowning, he turned forward and tapped Larry’s shoulder with the gun. “Both hands on the wheel, Lare. This is the fourth and last time I’m telling you. See the little trail up ahead? That’s where we’re going.”

With a sigh, Larry pulled off the highway onto a gravel road that dipped into the woods.

“Are they still following us?” Nick asked Sean.

“I can’t see,” she said, twisting around in the passenger seat to check the rear window. “They might have moved on, I’m not sure.”

Engulfed in darkness, they steadied themselves as the car bounced over the rocky trail. Eventually, the gravelly road gave way to a smoother, narrow dirt path.

Sean wondered if perhaps the minivan had switched off its headlights and was now following them. She couldn’t see a thing back there. Larry and his hunting buddies probably knew every inch of this forest. No doubt, he and his friends could maneuver these trails blindfolded. Meanwhile, she and Nick were totally out of their element here. The deeper they moved into the bowels of these woods, the more doomed she felt.

Ahead, she could only see as far as their headlights pierced the blackness. The path grew more narrow and hazardous with tree roots and rocks. An occasional branch from above scraped against the roof of the car. Twigs snapped under the tires.

She turned to Nick. “As soon as we can,” she whispered. “Let’s swing around and head back to the main road.”

He nodded distractedly. “In a minute.” He tapped Larry’s shoulder with his gun. “Someone in Dayle’s camp has been providing you guys with information. It’s how you know I was here. Who’s the stoolie?”

Larry studied a curve in the path ahead. “It’s a guy who works for her, his name’s Dennis Walsh.”

“Well, well, that fat piece of shit….”

Sean watched Larry casually slide his left hand off the wheel, down to his lap. She wondered why he kept doing that. Nick had already warned him about it four times.

They hit another bump, and she dropped the recorder. It landed between her seat and the car door. She went to reach for it.

“Slow down,” Nick barked.

Sean heard Larry laugh a bit. “Sorry.” He sounded so damn confident. What did he know that they didn’t? Or was he just so self-righteous that he figured no one could hurt him? Why wasn’t he scared? It had become so dark in the car, she couldn’t quite see his expression. But somehow she knew Larry was smiling.

Sean pried the recorder from under her seat, and an image suddenly hit her. She remembered the first time she’d set eyes on Larry Chadwick—in the parking lot of the My-T-Comfort Inn. He’d pulled up in his car, opened the door, then reached under his car seat, and taken out a gun.

“Nick?” she said. She sat up and stared at Larry. For a moment, her heart stopped. He had only one hand on the wheel, and in the other he held a semiautomatic, pointed at her.

“Oh, God, no,” she whispered.

A loud shot rang out. Sean felt as if someone hurled a punch in her shoulder. The force of it took her breath away and sent her slamming against the passenger door. The back of her head hit the window.

Another shot resonated, and the car lurched forward. Sparks exploded from the dashboard. A third blast immediately followed, and Larry let out a howl as the gun flew from his hand. Sean felt a spray of blood hit her in the face. Dazed, she watched Nick club Larry over the head with the butt of his gun. Larry flopped against the driver’s door. A pungent smoke from the singed fuse box began to fill the car as it rolled to a stop.

Sean slouched against the door, not wanting to move. It was as if someone had stuck a hot steel rod into her upper chest—beside her right shoulder. Larry was still half conscious as Nick climbed out and opened the driver’s door. He yanked him out of the car. Larry vaguely grumbled in protest, then fell to the ground.

Nick snatched his gun off the car floor, then stared at Sean. “Where are you hit?” he asked, trying to catch his breath.

“My upper chest,” she murmured. “By the shoulder…can’t feel my arm.”

“Shit, you’re bleeding bad. We have to get you to a hospital, doll.”

“Don’t call me doll,” Sean replied in a shaky voice. “We—we can’t go anywhere. The car’s dead. The fuse box is shot….”

Nick tried and tried to restart Larry’s Honda Accord. The engine made a grinding noise, but refused to turn over. Meanwhile, Larry had managed to sit up on the dirt path. He held on to his bleeding left hand. A trail of blood slid down from the gash on his forehead. Yet he was laughing like a crazy man. “You screwed yourselves!” he called, staggering to his feet. “You’re trapped! You’re not going anywhere….”

He kept laughing and taunting them, until finally Nick jumped out of the car. Half delirious, Larry didn’t even see him coming. Nick coldcocked him. He might as well have been swatting a pesky fly. One expedient, forceful hit, and Larry Chadwick went down.

The last thing Sean heard him say was: “She’ll bleed to death. That cunt’s going to die out here.”

Earlier, when they’d driven up the dirt path, Sean hadn’t noticed all the other forest trails merging into this one. Those few minutes in the car had covered several miles.

They’d been trudging through the woods for close to an hour now—lost, swallowed up in the darkness. Cursing, Nick stumbled over rocks and tree roots while she staggered behind him. With her good hand, Sean clung to his belt at the back of his jeans and faltered along with him.

She tried to ignore the pain in her shoulder. Her arm was in a sling—crudely fashioned by Nick from Larry’s khaki trousers. Her arm and her right side down to the hip were sopping wet with blood that had turned cold. Sean could see her breath in the chilly night air, yet she was burning up inside. Drops of sweat trickled from her forehead. She had a fever—an infection from the bullet, or maybe from all the blood she’d lost. Still, she pressed on.

In addition to relieving Larry of his trousers, Nick had also stripped him of his shirt and undershirt. He tore up the shirt and tied Larry’s hands in back of him with the shreds. After shooting a couple of breathing holes in the Accord’s trunk lid, Nick had dumped the unconscious, underwear-clad Larry inside. Sean weaker protested that he’d freeze to death. Nick said he didn’t give “a frog’s fat ass.” He shut the trunk, then pocketed Larry’s keys.

He found a bottle of water in the glove compartment. With that and Larry’s T-shirt, he tried to clean the bullet wound by Sean’s shoulder. Then he made a sling out of Larry’s pants. As they started down the path, Larry must have regained consciousness. They heard him pounding on the trunk lid, the muffled yelling and cursing.

That had been nearly an hour ago. Now, Sean blindly held on to Nick. For all she knew, they could be heading deeper into the forest, away from the highway. She felt herself growing weaker and dizzier with every step. Suddenly, the ground seemed to drop out from under her. She tripped over a tiny rivulet, almost pulling Nick down too. The fall knocked the wind out of her.

“You okay?” Nick asked, hovering over her. “From what I can see, you don’t look so hot.”

“Flatterer,” Sean murmured. She didn’t think she could stand up again. “How can you even see anything?” For the last hour, she’d been praying for some point of light that might lead them to the highway—some wonderful, bright, artificial light. But there was only darkness.

“Let’s rest here for a sec, okay?” Nick said.

Sean nodded again. Shivering and sweating, she listened for the sound of a car, a radio, maybe some people talking at a nearby campsite. Nothing. Yet she and Nick weren’t alone. She could hear creatures moving in the shrubs all around, twigs snapping beneath feet—or claws.

“God, listen to that,” Nick whispered. “I’m a city boy. Gentle Ben or Bambi, either way, I don’t like this shit….”

Sean laughed, but she felt herself slipping away. She didn’t think the darkness could become any blacker, yet it was happening. She couldn’t move. Nick was still talking to her, but through a fog.

Sean thought of Danny and Phoebe. She remembered them playing on the beach with their aunt a couple of nights ago. And she felt her body shutting down.

Twenty-five

Tom glanced in his rearview mirror at the white Taurus—his escort to the studio. He wore his blue seersucker—along with his disguise: glasses and a fake mustache. Beside him in the front seat, Hal was reviewing details for Dayle Sutton’s execution one last time. When he started to explain about the “getaway” afterward, Tom told himself not to believe a word.

“In the ambulance,” Hal said, consulting a notepad, “you’ll be furnished with a new passport and all the necessary papers. By the way, your passport photo is just an old picture of you that we doctored up. Your new name is Robert Allen Bryant. You’ll receive ten thousand dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks in the van—”

“Ten thousand?” Tom interrupted. “But you told me—”

“You have reservations tonight at The Best Western Golden Park in Rio,” Hal went on. “Under the name Robert Allen Bryant. It’s not the Hilton, but it’s affordable until you find your retirement villa. Three days from now, you’ll receive an another eighty thousand in traveler’s checks. It’ll be sent to the hotel. After that, additional payments will arrive every month. You’ll end up with a quarter of a million—as promised, Tom.” Hal grinned and patted his shoulder. “Or should I say ‘Robert’?”

Gazing at the traffic ahead, Tom bit his lower lip. Suddenly, the whole Rio dream didn’t seem like such a lie. He thought about last night. He could still see that drag queen dropping his self-incriminating letter to the Los Angeles Times in the mail. Had he screwed up his chances for a clean break?

“Um, where will you find a body of someone who looks like me?” he asked, stopping at a traffic light. “You’ll need a body….”

“I know.” Hal glanced out the passenger window. “It’s a nasty detail we’ve already taken care of, Tom. The less you know about it, the better.” His cellular phone rang. He took it out of the zippered pocket of his designer sweatshirt and answered, “Hal speaking.”

The light changed, and Tom pressed on. They weren’t far from the studio. Soon he’d be on his own.

“Well, where’s Larry?” Hal said into the phone. “Hasn’t anyone heard from him?”

Tom kept hoping against hope that the call was about canceling Dayle Sutton’s assassination. He’d done a prison movie years back, in which a last-minute call from the governor had saved him from the electric chair. Was it too much to ask that this last-minute call be his salvation?

“I want them tracked down,” Hal continued. “Have Larry call me right away…. Well, then keep paging him. Over and out.” He pressed a button, and quickly folded up the phone. “Damn it,” he grumbled.

“We’re still—doing this?” Tom asked, feeling his stomach lurch.

“All systems are go,” Hal said. “Pull over. I’m switching cars.”

Swallowing hard, Tom followed Hal’s orders. In the rearview mirror, he saw the Taurus veer over to the curb and stop behind them.

“Don’t forget,” Hal said, opening the car door. “At the studio gate, your name’s Gordon Swann, and you’re an old friend of Dennis Walsh.”

Dennis was in a good mood this morning. He’d had a particularly amorous evening with Laura last night, then slept over to help her move today. They’d had another go at it about a half hour ago. Now she was in the shower, and he was dressed, fixing them breakfast.

Someone knocked on her door. “Just a sec!” Dennis called. Threading around storage boxes, he checked the peephole. He didn’t recognize the guy; then again, he didn’t know Laura’s neighbors. “Can I help you?” he called.

“Um, I live upstairs,” the man called back from the other side of the door. “Some of Laura’s mail was put in my box by mistake.”

Dennis opened the door. The neighbor was a small guy, about twenty-five, with athletic good looks, and straight blond hair. He handed Dennis an envelope from Pacific Bell. “Sorry. I wasn’t looking when I opened it up. I thought it was mine—until I saw all those calls to Idaho.”

Dennis stared at the man, then at the envelope.

“I don’t know anybody in Opal, Idaho,” the neighbor explained.

Dennis studied the phone bill. One call to Opal after another, and always the same number: 208-555-4266. She’d phoned every day—at all sorts of hours.

Dennis managed to smile at the neighbor, and nodded vaguely. “Um, thank you.” Closing the door, he glanced down the hall toward the bathroom. He could hear the shower’s torrent. In a stupor, he wandered back into the kitchen, picked up the telephone, then dialed the Opal number.

It rang twice before a man picked up. “Hey, there, Laurie Anne,” he said. “How are things with you and fatso?”

Dennis quickly hung up. It took him a moment to realize that the party in Opal had Caller I-D. But who was Laurie Anne?

The phone rang. They were calling her back. Dennis let it ring. Her answering machine came on, and they hung up.

Eyeing the bathroom door, Dennis tried the machine for old messages.

Beep. “Hi, honey—” It was him. He skipped to the next message.

Beep. “This is your mother, Laurie Anne. Pick up. Are you there? Oh, you’re not there. Listen, someone from your old job at the clinic called me last night, asking for a Lauren Schneider. Anyway, this Grace somebody says they owe you over a thousand dollars from some kind of social security withholding mix-up. I gave her your number. She’ll be calling. Maybe now you can pay me back some of that loan, Laurie Anne. Call me, okay? God bless.”

“End of Messages,” announced the prerecorded mechanical voice.

“Laurie Anne” must have erased all the calls from her Opal cohorts. Dennis didn’t want to think it was true. Once again, he picked up the phone and dialed the number in Idaho. It rang once. “Yeah?” the man said warily.

Dennis hesitated. “It’s Ted,” he grunted.

“Ted? What are you doing at Laurie Anne’s? It’s execution day, for God’s sake. Why aren’t you at the studio with the bitch? Ted?”

Dennis hung up on him. In a daze, he wandered down the hall—past all the packed boxes—to the bathroom door. He tried the knob. She hadn’t locked it, trusting soul. Quietly, he opened the door. He saw the figure on the other side of the pink-tinted shower curtain. Dennis ripped the curtain aside.

Laurie Anne swiveled around and automatically covered her breasts. Then she saw him and burst out laughing. “You silly—”

Dennis grabbed her and slammed her against the tiled wall. She struggled helplessly. The shower matted down his hair and drenched his clothes as he held on to her. “I just got off the phone with a friend of yours in Opal, Idaho,” he growled. “I know you set me up. I figured out about Ted too. But tell me this, Laurie Anne. Who’s this Gordon Swann you wanted me to smuggle onto Dayle’s film set?”

Tom didn’t need to mention this Dennis person at the studio gate. All he said was, “My name’s Gordon Swann,” and the guard gave him a pass—along with directions to the administration building and visitors’ parking.

He felt sickly, and couldn’t stop trembling. Within an hour, he would be dead—or riding to the airport in an ambulance.

The thin, pretty Asian girl at the front desk must have seen it in his face. After calling for his escort, she asked if he was feeling all right. She made him sit down, then fetched him a drink of water.

He felt a bit better by the time the studio’s young page pulled up to the building in a golf cart. He reminded Tom of himself—about fifty years ago, a good-looking kid with black, wavy hair. Driving down alleyways past the vast soundstages, the kid started in about how big the studio was, the different movies and TV shows shot there—the standard tour-guide spiel. His words were just background noise, like the prayers the prison chaplain reads for a man led to his execution.

Tom felt another wave of dread when Soundstage 8 came into view. The page dropped him off at a side door, where Tom showed his visitor’s pass to the security guard. He tried to keep his hand over the bulging pocket of his seersucker jacket. The gun felt heavy and awkward.

The security man led him into the building, down a hallway to a door with a green light above it. The guard opened the door for him. Tom was overwhelmed with a million memories as he stepped onto that movie-making soundstage. The McDonald’s ad two years ago had been filmed at a tiny studio. Nothing major league like this. The cameras and lights were different from his heyday, but the feel of it was the same: they created magic here.

He gazed at the movie set: a town hall meeting room. Extras sat in folding chairs facing a podium on a small stage. Some folks had cigarettes going—for the scene obviously, since NO SMOKING signs were plastered on the soundstage walls. Behind the podium stood Dayle Sutton in an unflattering gray wig. She looked bored. No one seemed to pay any attention to her.

Tom touched the gun in his pocket.

“Mr. Swann? Hello, I’m Beverly. Is this your first time on a film set?”

Startled, he managed to smile at the woman with the blond beehive hairdo. She was around sixty, in great shape, carefully made up and decked out in a pink suit. “No, I—I’ve been on a movie set before,” Tom said, carefully taking his hand out of his jacket pocket. “I used to be an actor.”

“Oh, really?”

He shrugged. “Bit parts mostly. That was a long time ago.”

“How interesting,” she said. “Then you must already know, sometimes they’ll ask for ‘quiet on the set…’” Beverly went into a long, elementary explanation of how to behave on a film shoot. The only other visitors on the set were three Japanese businessmen. Beverly paid more attention to them, which was all right by Tom. He didn’t want her watching his every move.

He glanced over at Dayle Sutton, leaning sluggishly against the podium. “Um, Beverly,” he said. “Would it be all right if I moved a bit further down along the wall? I want to get a better look at Dayle Sutton.”

Beverly grinned. “Certainly, Mr. Swann. But she’s Ms. Sutton’s stand-in. Dayle’s in her trailer right now.” Beverly pointed to the mobile unit against the soundstage wall—past of an array of lights and sound equipment.

Beverly started explaining the various duties of a stand-in. Tom didn’t hear a word. He noticed a lean man with thin blond hair standing by the trailer door. He wore a blue suit. Her bodyguard. Was he really with the organization—as Hal had said?

The bodyguard scanned the set. He checked out the group of Japanese businessmen; then those eyes kept moving along the outer wall until his gaze locked onto Tom’s. They stared at each other for a moment. The bodyguard gave a single nod, and smiled ever so subtly.

“Quiet please!” someone called.

A dozen spotlights switched on, illuminating the set. Somebody held a light meter to the stand-in’s face. Amid all this, Dayle Sutton emerged from her trailer. She looked older and careworn in the dowdy tweed suit, and with her trademark auburn hair hidden beneath a brown-gray wig. She started onto the set, studying her script. The director was talking to her.

Tom felt a little short of breath. He checked his target. He wished the director would move out of the way. Accompanying her up to the podium, he kept stepping into the line of fire. He patted her back and whispered to her.

Tom held on to the semiautomatic in his pocket.

“Quiet on the set!” someone yelled again. The director finally moved away. A mike, hanging from a boom, descended closer to Dayle’s head. Both hands on the podium, Dayle took a deep breath. Tom had a clear shot, but then the man with the clapboard stepped in front of her. “Scene eighty-seven. Take four!” He slapped the clapboard together, then stepped aside.

“Roll cameras,” the director barked.

She stood alone up there. He had her in range. No one was looking. Tom took the gun out of his pocket and brought it up to his chest, burying it in the folds of his jacket. He glanced up toward the podium.

Dayle Sutton seemed to be staring right at him. She had tears in her eyes. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Susan…and I—I’m an alcoholic.”

Tom took a step back, bumping into the wall.

The congregation applauded her and called back, “Hello, Susan!”

The smile she gave them was heartbreaking. For a moment, the dowdy woman had the face of an angel. “Thank you,” she replied in a stage whisper.

Mesmerized, Tom forgot that he was holding a gun—until, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Dayle’s bodyguard coming toward him. The tall, blond man glowered at him and angrily muttered something under his breath.

Tom nodded sheepishly. He raised the gun, and aimed it at Dayle Sutton. Just another Coke bottle on that front porch railing.

“Cut!” the director bellowed. “Does everyone in the meeting have to smoke? Looks like a goddamn Turkish bath! I can hardly see Dayle….”

While the director complained, a woman stepped up on the stage to dab powder on Dayle Sutton’s chin. She blocked the line of fire. Another woman approached Dayle, pointing to the trailer. Tom couldn’t get a clear hit. He watched Dayle retreat back into her trailer, and then he turned to see the bodyguard scowling at him.

Tom looked away. With a shaky hand, he slipped the gun back into his coat pocket.

It would take a while for the fans to blow away the excess smoke. So Dayle headed back toward her trailer to answer an “urgent” phone call from Dennis. She wasn’t anxious to talk with him. Having pushed Ted Kovak on her, Dennis didn’t sit high on her list of trusted friends right now.

She hadn’t slept last night—what with Ted in the next room. By 5:45 this morning, she’d been dressed and anxious to leave. She and Ted had driven to the studio in her limo together. She’d used studying her script as an excuse for not talking with him.

She would figure out later today what to do about Ted Kovak. For now, she wanted him to think everything was status quo. She felt safe—for the time being. He wasn’t about to try anything on a crowded movie set.

On her way to the trailer, Dayle glanced over toward where Beverly corralled the visitors—a handful of Japanese businessmen and an elderly man in a blue seersucker suit. Ignoring Ted, she ducked into her trailer.

She picked up the phone and pressed the blinking red button. “Yes, Dennis?” she said warily.

“Dayle, thank God,” he said in a rush. “Listen, I just found out, they set me up. Laura, she’s one of them. They’ve been getting to you through me and my big mouth. I didn’t know, I swear—”

“Hold on,” Dayle said. “I don’t understand.”

“Ted Kovak is with that hate group. Laura arranged for me to ‘bump into’ Ted at this party. She’s been making calls to Opal, Idaho, for a couple of weeks now. And that old man I told you about, the one visiting the set today, Laura asked me to arrange it and keep her name out of it. I don’t know the guy, Dayle. It’s some old fart, but he’s a good shot, and he’s been hired to kill you. He’s probably there already.”

“Is he wearing a seersucker suit?” Dayle asked. “Glasses?” She glanced down at the phone. Her other line was blinking.

“I’m not sure what he looks like, but Ted’s supposed to waste the guy once you’re hit. Listen, Dayle, stay in your trailer, lock the door. I’ll call security at the studio and the cops. We’ll have a net over these guys within three minutes.”

Someone was knocking on her trailer door. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sutton,” the studio secretary called. “There’s another urgent call for you on line three.”

“What? Who is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s collect, from Opal, Idaho.”

“Thank you!” She got back on the line: “Dennis? Okay, contact the police. I’ll stay put. I have Sean on hold here. I’ve gotta go. Bye.” She clicked off and pressed line three. “Hello, Sean?”

“Yo, don’t keel over or anything. You probably figure I’m toes up.”

“Nick?” she muttered, stunned.

“Yeah. Are you okay? Has anyone taken a potshot at you today?”

“I can’t believe you’re actually alive,” she murmured. Dayle sank down on the sofa. “What happened?”

“Tell you later. Here’s what’s important. Either today or tomorrow, they plan to whack you on your movie set—”

“I know,” Dayle cut in. “The police are on their way. Listen, did you ever meet up with my lawyer friend out there? Sean Olson?”

“Yeah, she got a full confession from one of them on tape.”

“Is she there with you?”

He said nothing for a moment.

“Nick? Where are you anyway?”

“I’m at a police station in Opal. I was arrested. You’re my one call.”

“I’ll have somebody get you out of there. Is Sean with you?”

“Um, no,” he said soberly. “I don’t think she’s going to make it, Dayle.”

“What do you mean?”

“The guy whose confession we taped, he was hiding a gun. He shot her. It was hours before the cops picked us up. They took Sean to the hospital just a while ago. She lost a lot of blood. The paramedic said she didn’t have much of a chance.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Dayle.”

“Oh, God, no….” Tears came to her eyes, and she started to tremble. Dayle took a couple of breaths. “Okay. Find out what you can about Sean and—and let me know. I—I’ll have someone get you out of there, Nick.”

Dayle hung up the phone, and wiped her tears. As if in a trance, she moved to the vanity, pulled off her wig and hair net, then shed the jacket. She went to the trailer door. She was supposed to lock it, stay inside until the police showed up. Instead, she opened the door and came down the trailer steps. The police and studio security hadn’t arrived yet.

Ted Kovak stood beyond the sound equipment—near where Beverly had assembled the visitors. Dayle started toward him. He was scowling at the old man in the seersucker suit. Ted didn’t see Dayle until she was right on him.

“You son of a bitch!” She slapped him hard across the face.

Everyone on the set stopped to gape at them. Ted reeled back, startled. “What the hell—”

She slapped him again. “Murderer…”

He took another step back and put up his hands to defend himself. But she swatted at his arm, then connected again across his face with another forceful slap. “Goddamn you and your hypocrite friends! How many good people have you killed? Tony Katz and Leigh, Maggie, my friend, Sean…”

Ted grew more furious with her every slap. He glared at Tom, who retreated back with the other stunned bystanders on the set. Ted seemed ready to shoot Dayle himself. She clawed at his face, drawing scratch marks above his left eye and down his cheek. Finally, he pushed her away. “You crazy bitch!” he snarled.

“It wasn’t enough for you to kill these people,” she hissed. “You had to shit on their memory too. You made Leigh look like a drug addict, and you dug up those stag films Maggie McGuire did back when she was struggling. Think about their families….”

She lunged at him again, swinging her fist. But Ted dodged her and reached for his gun. He glared at Tom. “Kill her, goddamn it!” he growled. Only a few people might have heard him over the noise and chaos.

Tom was one of those few. Yet the words still echoing in his head had been spoken a moment ago by Dayle Sutton: You dug up those stag films Maggie McGuire did back when she was struggling. Tom wondered how he could have blinded himself to that fact. The group he was working for had—as Dayle put it—shit on the memory of Maggie McGuire.

“What are you going to do, Ted?” Dayle said, gasping for breath. She clinched her fist. “Are you going to shoot me in front of all these people?”

His face bleeding and nearly purple, Ted glared at his employer. He aimed the gun at her heart. Someone screamed.

Dayle Sutton spit in his face. “Go ahead and shoot, you lowlife, sorry son of a—”

She did not get the last word out. The loud gunshot silenced her.

Tom Lance had raised his semiautomatic, aimed carefully, and squeezed the trigger. He put a bullet through Ted Kovak’s right eye.

Twenty-six

The police and studio security had a lot of questions for the old man who had wandered onto Soundstage 8 with a concealed gun. But after saving Dayle Sutton’s life, Tom had some leverage. He was a hero, and people wanted to believe him. His story didn’t stray far from the truth. He was recruited against his will to assassinate Dayle Sutton by an extremist group. They threatened to kill him if he didn’t cooperate. He gave a not entirely accurate description of Hal Buckman, hoping his SAAMO contact could elude authorities for a while. As long as Hal was on the run, Tom figured his story was safe. In his telling, Tom had never intended to kill Dayle; he’d shown up on that movie set to protect her. When asked why this group had singled him out as their assassin, Tom explained: “I was very close to Maggie McGuire once. These people were going to pin her murder on me.”

No fake ambulance ever arrived. Tom knew he’d done the right thing. His picture would be on the front page of the evening edition—sans the glasses and fake mustache. Blinding camera flashes went off inside the soundstage while Dayle Sutton thanked him. She didn’t seem to recognize Tom from the failed audition. She shook his hand, and hugged him. The photographers would use that shot for the news story, he knew.

Leaving the soundstage with a police escort, Tom watched members of the press shoving one another to get closer to him. “Tom, over this way, please! Tom, just one picture! Over here, Tom!” He smiled as the shutters clicked. At last they wanted him.

Dennis Walsh arrived at Soundstage 8 in time to see two attendants carrying out the draped corpse of Ted Kovak. He also caught a glimpse of the hero of the hour, Tom Lance, as they escorted him to a police car.

Back in his fraternity days, Dennis had learned how to trap a frat brother in his room by squeezing a penny between his door and the hinge near the latch. The pressure against the latch made it impossible to pull the door open. He employed the same trick on Laurie Anne, incarcerating her in the bathroom—only he raised the ante by tossing out her clothes, the towels, and that ugly pink shower curtain. She was trapped in there, wet and naked. Dennis phoned the police about her involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder, then left the apartment unlocked for them.

Laurie Anne was violent, hysterical, and still quite naked by the time the police were reading her her rights and offering her a robe.

At that same moment, Dennis struggled through the crowd outside Dayle’s trailer. Dayle stood on the steps by her door with reporters firing questions at her. Dennis had only one question for his boss. He wanted to know if he still had a job.

Though still dressed in her “old lady” tweed suit, Dayle must have had someone perform a quick touch-up on her face and hair, because she looked every bit the movie star, standing by her trailer. She saw Dennis in the crowd and waved at him. “Dennis, please, I need you!” she called.

He worked his way up to the steps. She grabbed his arm, then pulled him into her trailer. “Thank God you’re here,” she sighed. “You have to get rid of these reporters for me. I’ll talk to the police, but that’s it.”

Dennis gave her a wary look. “So I’m not fired?”

“God, no.” Dayle said, her voice quivering. “I’m not dumping you just because you made a mistake. You’re my friend, Dennis.” She gave him a quick hug. “Listen, more than anything, we have to track down Sean Olson. She’s in a hospital somewhere around Opal. I need to know if she’s still alive.”

After making his one call, Nick Brock was cuffed to a desk in the Opal police station. He was covered with scratches, dried sweat, and dirt.

He and Sean had been lost in those dark woods for nearly three hours. Her strength and determination amazed him. In the second hour, Nick held her up. The only peep out of her was when she mumbled incoherently to someone named Dan. Limp as a rag doll, she pressed on. But she began falling so many times, he had to carry her the last couple miles.

They stumbled upon the highway at around three-thirty in the morning. Nick covered her with his jacket, then sat by the road and waited for a car. In two hours, he counted only six cars—each one speeding by. He tried flagging them down. But who would be dumb enough to stop at this hour—in the middle of nowhere—for a crazy man covered in blood? It became light out. Sean’s face had a blue tinge, and her every gasp for air was a death rattle.

Somebody in one of those automobiles must have called the cops, because two patrol cars came up the timberland road at seven in the morning. The policemen were from Opal: a gaunt, old sheriff, and his deputy, a tall, big-boned kid who seemed like a pretty dim bulb.

Nick told them his girlfriend had been shot by someone in the woods, and their car had broken down. The sheriff took a look at Sean and radioed paramedics. Nick helped him move Sean into the warm police car. They covered her with a blanket. She didn’t regain consciousness.

It was another forty minutes before the paramedics arrived. Once they’d loaded Sean in back of the ambulance, Nick pulled one of them aside, and asked about her chances. The medic frowned. “She’s in bad shape, and the hospital’s fifty miles away in Lewiston. Doesn’t look good.”

Once the ambulance sped away, the old sheriff asked him for more details about the shooting. Nick reluctantly forfeited his gun, showed him his private detective credentials, and explained that he wasn’t answering any questions without his attorney present. However, he did volunteer to lead them back to where he’d left the car.

They found the original trail and, eventually, Larry’s Honda Accord. The backseat had been kicked through from the trunk, and Larry was gone. The sheriff sent his deputy to look for him.

When he finally hauled Nick into the Opal police station, the sheriff was greeted by a chorus of ringing telephones. Once a line cleared, Nick was allowed his one call to Dayle. The phones kept the old sheriff busy, while Nick remained cuffed to the desk. Over the police radio, the deputy reported that he’d located Larry Chadwick, staggering along a forest trail in his undershorts. With a bullet wound to his left hand and a gash on his forehead, Larry explained that he’d been kidnapped and assaulted.

Two hours later, he marched into the police station as if he owned the place. The dim-witted deputy was on his heels. Cleaned up, and with his wounds bandaged, Larry now wore an aviator jacket, an Izod sport shirt, and pressed blue jeans. “There’s the scumbag!” he declared, stabbing a finger in the air at Nick. “He’s the one! Asshole….”

With his free hand, Nick snuck Sean’s tape recorder from the pocket of his jacket. He let the tape rewind for a moment, while Larry continued his tirade. “You’re gonna get yours, prick….”

The sheriff and his deputy restrained Larry. They gently guided him to the other desk, then sat him down.

Nick pressed play on the recorder, then slowly increased the volume to compete with Larry’s diatribe. “…close-knit group,” Sean was saying. “You and your hunting buddies had a real time of it in those woods outside Portland back in September, didn’t you?”

“Yes, it felt good,” Larry answered on the recording.

Larry stopped yelling as he listened to the sound of his own voice.

“It felt good murdering Tony Katz and his friend? It felt good torturing two fellow human beings?”

“Faggots aren’t human beings. And right now, those two deviates are burning in hell….”

“Turn that off!” Larry barked. “You can’t use that, you son of a bitch. You had a gun to my head the whole time….” Red-faced, he glared at Nick. He didn’t seem to notice that the sheriff was pulling out another set of cuffs. The old man locked one cuff around the desk drawer handle, then slapped the other around Larry’s wrist. “What is this?” Larry let out a stunned laugh. He yanked at the handcuffs, and the heavy desk moved a bit. “Hey, what gives?”

The tired-looking sheriff shook his head. “Sorry, Larry,” he said. “The feds are on their way. Within the hour, they’re gonna have a net over this whole town. You and the guys are finished.”

“Goddamn it!” Larry shouted. “Let me go! You can’t do this! What the hell is happening here anyway? Son of a bitch, LET ME GO!”

Nick Brock shut off the recorder. He sat back and smiled at him. “Hey, Lare. You know, you have the right to remain silent.”

One of the nurses at Lewiston General Hospital showed Avery the bullet they’d extracted from his thigh. Stored in a small glass jar, the tiny, dark-gray projectile couldn’t be kept as a souvenir just yet. It was part of the state’s evidence against Officer Earl Taggert, now charged with two counts of attempted murder and a growing list of misdemeanors.

Avery and Deputy Peter Masqua had shared an ambulance to Lewiston General. Earl Taggert had ridden behind them in a police car. After doctors had treated his broken nose, split lip, and other bruises, the soon-to-be-ex-cop had been escorted to jail. His cohort, an unemployed timber-mill worker named Don Sheckler, had pulled up to the old train depot in his new Cadillac to find three state troopers waiting for him in the station house.

Officer Peter Masqua was in stable condition. Confined to a wheelchair, Avery kept trying Sean’s cellular. No answer. He called her hotel, but she wasn’t in her room. He knew something had to be wrong.

After all of Taggert’s talk about the impending arrival of the “federal guys,” the real FBI had shown up at the hospital early in the morning. Both Avery and Officer Pete had given them enough information to expose the Opal Chapter of SAAMO. The FBI clamped a tight lid on the hospital to keep the information contained and the press oblivious about what was happening. No more outside calls for Avery. Rumors spread among the Lewiston General staff about a gag quarantine of hospital personnel for the next twenty-four hours.

“You’re the biggest thing to hit this little hospital since the Chichester quadruplets were delivered here in 1987,” said Judy, the nurse who had shown Avery his bullet. A petite redhead, she had freckles and a cute face that belied the fact that she had a son in college. She was pushing Avery in his wheelchair down the corridor after a visit with Pete Masqua.

Avery liked Judy. On her morning break, she’d dashed out and bought him pajamas and a flannel robe. “K-Mart’s best,” she’d joked. But it was a big improvement over his skimpy hospital gown. He made a point of telling Judy how grateful he was.

“Well, as an Idaho native and a Christian, I’m on a mission here,” she said, steering him down the hall. “I want to prove to you that we aren’t all hate-mongers. A tiny fraction of nutcases have given this beautiful state a bad rep. And most real Christians are very tolerant, good people.”

“I know that,” Avery assured her.

Judy patted his shoulder. “Okay then, end of sermon. Did you hear? The FBI is now monitoring all calls going in and out of here. Visiting privileges are temporarily suspended. There’s even talk that none of us on staff will be able to leave today.”

“I’ve really screwed things up for everybody, haven’t I?” Avery said.

“Oh, I think it’s kind of exciting,” she said. “But maybe you could use your influence with the warden to release me in time for Thanksgiving.”

Avery managed to smile at her over his shoulder. “I can’t promise anything but an autographed eight-by-ten glossy.”

“Just the same, maybe you can offer me some inside information. I seem to be the only one around here who sees a connection with you and Pete Masqua—and this third gunshot case who came in this morning.”

Avery shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, that’s my point. The paramedics brought in a woman at eight o’clock. She’s upstairs in intensive care, practically in a coma. She has an infection, and her temperature’s a hundred and five. Apparently, she was wandering around with a bullet in her shoulder for seven hours. I heard it was a hunting accident in a forest outside Opal. But snoop that I am, I checked her admission chart and she’s a lawyer from Los Angeles….”

Tom watched Entertainment Tonight in his hotel suite. Bracket, McCourt & Associates had put him up for the night at the Beverly Hills Hilton, hoping to sign him with their talent agency. He’d agreed to meet them for breakfast downstairs in the morning.

Tom sat on the bed, wearing one of the hotel’s terrycloth bathrobes, sipping champagne and snacking on some foreign crackers from the honor bar. The night final of the Los Angeles Times was at the foot of his bed. The photo of Dayle hugging him had made the front page, with the headline: ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON DAYLE SUTTON FAILS, CONSPIRACY EXPOSED.

By the time the evening news came on, several arrests had been made, including seven of Opal’s most solid citizens. But Howard Buchanan—a.k.a. Hal Buckman—had eluded authorities, and so far, Tom’s story still had no detractors.

Everyone wanted to quote him, and take his picture. Suddenly Tom Lance mattered. Several video companies were now vying for the rights to his old films. At last he’d be in video stores. There were job offers too: playing Tom Hanks’s guardian angel in a comedy-fantasy and as an aging mob boss in a Harrison Ford movie. His dreams were coming true.

“Continuing with our top story,” the handsome, sporty E.T. anchorman announced. “The man who saved Dayle Sutton’s life and blew the lid off an extremist conspiracy is a seventy-six-year-old film-acting veteran named Tom Lance. According to Lance, an organized hate group used extortion and intimidation to get his cooperation….” Tom watched the same clip of himself from all the other evening newscasts. It was taped outside the police station. The seersucker suit didn’t photograph well, and he looked a bit tired. Still, he relished seeing himself on TV.

The telephone rang. It was the hotel operator. She’d been screening his calls. He’d taken only a handful since checking into the hotel: a couple of talent agents, someone from People magazine, and somebody at The Today Show. With the remote, Tom muted the TV, then picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“Hello, Mr. Lance. Do you want to take a call from an Adam Blanchard?”

Tom frowned. “Who’s he with?”

“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Lance. He didn’t say.”

He sighed. “Well, I don’t know this Blanchard fella. Take a message and…” He trailed off. Blanchard. Maggie’s first husband. Adam was the son.

“Mr. Lance?”

“Um, yes. On second thought, put him through. Please.”

He heard a click, then: “Hello, Tom Lance?”

“Yes?”

“Tom, you don’t know me, but I’m Maggie McGuire’s son, Adam.”

“Oh, well, hello,” Tom replied, feeling awkward.

“I want to thank you for helping put a stop to this hate group. They killed a lot of good people—including my mother. If it weren’t for you, they’d have gone on killing. Anyway, I’m very grateful to you.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say. I don’t deserve any gratitude, son.”

“Just the same, thank you, Tom. I’ve always wanted to meet you. I’ve seen Hour of Deceit several times. I know you helped my mom get her start in films, she told me.”

“She did?”

“Oh, yeah. Anyway, you’re probably swamped with calls. I don’t want to keep you.”

“How’s your health?” Tom suddenly asked, remembering his HIV status.

“Good, thanks. I’m taking a new drug. It’s supposed to help.”

“Son, I wish more than anything your mom was still alive.” Tom struggled to say the right words. “I—I wrote a letter to the L.A. Times, and they’ll probably print it in tomorrow’s night edition. You should know, I meant what I said in that letter.”

There was a dubious chuckle on the other end of the line. “Well, I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand.”

“You will tomorrow night,” Tom said. “I’m glad you called, son. Thanks.”

“Thank you, Tom,” he said. “Take care.”

Tom hung up. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow. In the past few hours, he’d basked in the knowledge that they wanted him again. He was important, a hero to millions of people. But by tomorrow afternoon, his letter—with its full confession—would reach someone at the Los Angeles Times. That letter was supposed to be read after his death.

Tom tossed back his glass of champagne, then poured another. Grabbing the remote, he channel-surfed for more news coverage of the assassination attempt, another story about Tom Lance. He had only tonight to savor the glory—before it turned bad.

On one of the movie channels, he paused to watch Robert Duvall walking with another man around a chain-link fence. Tom turned up the volume. It took him only a moment to identify the older, raspy-voiced actor as Michael V. Gazzo from The Actors Studio. The movie was The Godfather, Part II. Duvall was explaining to his old Mafia chum how in Roman times, some generals, accused of plotting against the emperor, chose to die with dignity. They’d draw a warm bath, then slash their wrists and bleed to death.

Frowning, Tom switched channels. One of the news shows had a clip of him with Maggie in Hour of Deceit. With a sad smile, he watched and drank his champagne. Only two weeks ago, he’d been a forgotten film actor, ready to shoot himself by the Hollywood sign. His death would have gone unnoticed. But by tomorrow, his suicide would make headlines.

Another movie scene came to mind: George C. Scott’s speech in Patton, about how—again, in Roman times—during a victory parade, the general would have an aide-de-camp whispering in his ear: “All glory is fleeting.”

Tom had the speech in a book of movie monologues. He’d read it aloud a few times. But he’d never fully understood what it meant until now.

“All glory is fleeting.”

He went into the bathroom and found a disposable razor in the complimentary kit from the hotel. Tom broke off the plastic and took out the blade. Then he ran the hot water in the bath.

Stepping back into the bedroom, he called the hotel operator and asked her to hold all his calls. He poured himself another glass of champagne, and toasted Maggie.

Then Tom Lance went into the bathroom with his glass, a razor blade, and his dignity.

“Hello, I’m Mrs. Russell Marshall.”

“Hi, Elsie!”

Elsie Marshall sat behind her desk, surrounded by copies of her book, A Little More Common Sense. In the guest chair today sat a balding, pasty-faced man of fifty with a sparse, thin mustache that failed to draw attention from his small eyes and double chin. He wore a pinstriped dark-gray suit.

“If you’re just tuning in,” Elsie chirped. “You don’t want to touch that dial, because we’re talking some Common Sense with Mr. Roger Crayton, who decided enough is enough, and got certain filthy books banned from public libraries in his home state of North Carolina. Stay tuned!”

The studio audience applauded. Elsie glanced up at the sound booth and made a slashing gesture at her throat, indicating they should turn off the mikes. Then she turned to her guest. “Mr. Crayton, I hope you won’t mention how you tried to ban The Color Purple and A Catcher in the Rye from the libraries. I for one say bravo. But there are just too many bleeding-heart liberals out there who think that—well, if you pardon me—such crap has literary significance. Let’s stick to the books you actually had pulled from the shelves—like Heather Has Two Mommies, and that other horrible one—”

Mr. Crayton seemed distracted by something going on behind her. Elsie turned to see an Asian woman in a beige suit shaking her head at the production assistant, who was trying to keep her from coming onto the set.

Elsie glared at the intruder, then looked around at all her production people. “What’s going on here?” she demanded to know. “I’m taping a show, for pity’s sake. Somebody get this Oriental woman off my set!”

The audience became restless. A rumbling of whispers rose from Elsie’s subjects. She bristled at the disruption this trespasser was causing. “Who do you think you are?” Elsie said indignantly.

The “Oriental woman” pulled out a wallet and flashed a badge at her. “I’m Lieutenant Susan Linn, LAPD, homicide division,” she said. Then her quiet little smile widened. “Hi, Elsie.”

Judy had invited Avery to share Thanksgiving dinner with her family, but he preferred to stick around the hospital’s intensive care unit. He was still confined to the wheelchair. The press had been allowed to interview him and Officer Pete for an hour yesterday. Now the state patrol worked overtime—with holiday pay—to keep out the reporters. All visitors had to be screened.

A few thousand miles away, the Beverly Hills police had dropped Avery as a suspect in the murder-rape of Libby Stoddard. Their manhunt for Howard “Hal” Buchanan had ended late last night with the discovery of his body inside a rented Ford Taurus in the underground parking garage at a San Diego Ramada Inn. He’d shot himself in the mouth.

Elsie and Drew Marshall denied any knowledge of an organization known as SAAMO. As federal investigations progressed, the Marshalls lost several of their more lucrative Common Sense sponsors—but none of their audience. In fact, there was even a small boost in ratings of the syndicated show.

Still, they were now a target of ridicule, and an embarrassment to most conservative politicians who had once backed them. In newspapers and magazines, editorial cartoons showed Elsie and Drew behind bars in prison garb—and made references to Drew’s Best Dressed Man credentials and The Family That Slays Together….

“The sexiest man headed for San Quentin,” one TV talk show host called him. “Drew Marshall’s a ten, all right. That’s how many years he’ll have to serve….”

Like Tony Katz, Leigh Simone, and Maggie McGuire before them, Elsie and Drew Marshall became the tainted stars of tabloid headlines. Even if they avoided prison, their reputations had been poisoned by scandal.

The strangest development of all was the suicide of Tom Lance. He’d locked himself in the bathroom of his suite at the Beverly Hills Hilton, and slashed his wrists. A hotel maid found him at ten o’clock Wednesday morning. He’d left no suicide note in the suite, but the Los Angeles Times published a letter from Tom Lance, confessing to the murder of Maggie McGuire.

From the hospital in Lewiston, Idaho, Avery phoned Glenhaven for updates on Joanne. She was still letting the same nurse feed her, and seemed aware of people addressing her. But she’d yet to say a word to anyone.

Avery’s brother, parents, and George and Sheila had all volunteered to fly out to see him. But he’d told them to stay put. He would be released from the hospital Friday anyway. He didn’t mention his plans to remain in Lewiston—close to the hospital—until his lawyer was off the critical list.

Sean’s infection had developed into pneumonia. Her temperature was still dangerously high. She needed an oxygen mask to breathe. Perspiration from the fever had left her hair in limp, wet tangles. She drifted in and out of consciousness. When not sleeping, her thoughts were muddled. At one point this morning, she’d squinted at Avery in the wheelchair by the foot of her bed. “Dan? Honey?” she’d said weakly. “Phoebe’s school clothes are dirty….”

Avery had become a liaison for her family and the doctors at the hospital. For the last couple of days, they routinely paged him at the intensive care unit desk. One of her brothers was due to arrive later this afternoon. He telephoned from the Boise Airport.

Avery took the call on one of the phones in the small visitors’ lounge outside the ICU. A fresh box of Kleenex adorned every end table, the sofas were beige, and a TV—on mute—was fixed to a bracket on the wall.

“Tell me what I should expect,” her brother said warily. His name was Jack, and he was younger than Sean. In the background, Avery could hear a lot of people talking—along with flight announcements on a loudspeaker.

“It’s like I explained to you yesterday,” he said. “The doctors aren’t very optimistic about her chances. I’m sticking around, hoping she’ll prove them wrong. Has anyone told the husband how serious it is?”

“Yeah,” her brother replied. “Dan wants to come here, but the doctors won’t let him. And if the medical experts won’t allow him to fly, neither will the airlines—what with all the equipment he needs. He’s not doing too hot lately.” Jack’s voice become shaky. “God, if those two little kids lose both parents so close together, I don’t know what.” He sighed. “So listen, are you okay? I heard you were shot in the leg.”

“I’m fine,” Avery said. “I’ll be hobbling around for a little while, but I should be okay.”

“Well, I’ll be there in a few hours. Where can I reach you later on?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Avery said. “I’ll be right here.”

After he hung up the phone, Avery maneuvered the wheelchair around. He started back down the hall to Sean’s room. He would stay with her until after visiting hours were over.

Epilogue

Fans and paparazzi gathered by the cemetery gates. They had been standing in the rain for two hours just to see Dayle Sutton and Avery Cooper among the mourners.

The showers had ceased, leaving a mist above the wet grass and shiny, dark headstones. The clouds still looked ominous, so people clung to their umbrellas as they assembled at the graveside. A priest recited prayers over the casket. All the surrounding flowers seemed so vivid and colorful under the gray skies—and amid the congregation in their traditionally dark attire.

Dayle spotted Avery Cooper in back of several people on the other side of the grave. He caught her eye, nodded and gave a her a shy smile.

Citing “family obligations,” Avery had bowed out of their film project, now slated to start principal photography in February. The producers—along with Dayle—had begged him to reconsider. They’d even offered to push back the film’s starting date, but Avery couldn’t be swayed. Sniffing Oscar bait, a dozen big-name actors now vied for his role of the gay-bashed man on trial.

Everyone knew his wife was still in a mental hospital. The tabloids really cashed in on Avery’s Anguish. He looked lonely and uncomfortable, poised behind so many couples and families at the cemetery plot.

Dayle had already met most of Sean’s family during the wake. The in-laws, Doug and Anne, solemnly clung to each other by the graveside. In back of them stood a couple of Sean’s brothers with their wives. Dan Olson’s favorite nurse, Julie, was there. Dry-eyed and looking rather lost were Sean’s two children, Danny and Phoebe. They stood on either side of their mother. Danny was too old to hold on to her hand in public, but Phoebe had no such qualms. Her little fist clutched at Sean’s black skirt. Dayle had loaned Sean the charcoal brocade jacket she wore.

Sean still looked a bit pale and thin from her hospital stay. She’d been released from Lewiston General the first week of December. She’d had only six days with Dan before his condition had taken a drastic turn. He’d died at home on December eleventh.

Danny and Phoebe Olson each placed a flower on their father’s casket, then were led to a waiting limo by their uncle and aunt. Sean hugged and shook hands with people as they started to wander back toward their cars. A few starstruck mourners approached Dayle to say hello or ask how she knew Dan Olson.

Finally, Sean came up to Dayle and embraced her. “Thanks for use of the jacket,” she said. “And thanks for coming. It means so much to me that you’re here. We’re having a buffet back at the house. Can you come?”

Dayle touched her arm. “Oh, Sean, I’m sorry. I’d like to, but I have a publicity thing in an hour, a magazine cover story. I can’t get out of it.”

Sean smiled graciously. “I understand.”

“Did Dennis call you about the meeting next week? We need our technical advisor there. After all, the movie’s about you.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Sean replied. She glanced down the rolling hill of the cemetery, where reporters and dozens of stargazers waited outside the gate. “Dan really would have been pleased at this,” she said, with a sad laugh. “You didn’t know my husband. He was such a film buff. And here it’s his funeral and there are reporters, fans, and two movie stars in attendance.”

Dayle spotted Avery Cooper across the way. “Have you—talked to Avery yet?” she asked quietly.

Sean shook her head.

“Maybe you should at least say hi. You know, back when he found out that you’d gone to Opal, he went crazy. I was with him, and I could tell there was something—special between you two. I—” Dayle saw the pained look on Sean’s face, and she sighed. “It’s none of my damn business. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing ever happened,” Sean explained. “But the feelings were there just the same.” She smiled. “I’m glad you said something, Dayle. I didn’t like carrying around that secret all alone, especially today.”

Dayle gave her hand a squeeze. “Go talk to him.”

Sean nodded, then turned and started down the hill toward Avery.

The other movie star at Dan Olson’s burial was now retreating toward his car. Sean’s young nephew, Brendan, had stopped Avery to ask for an autograph. Avery scribbled his name on Brendan’s church program, then shook his hand. As the boy moved on, Avery glanced back and saw her.

Sean stepped toward him. The wind suddenly kicked up, and she swept back her hair. For a moment, she was once again on that ocean-view bluff, snuggled in his jacket, wanting so much to kiss him. She put aside those feelings now—just as she’d tried to ignore them back then. Crossing her arms to keep warm, Sean managed to smile at him. “Thanks for coming, Avery.”

He nodded. “How are—you holding up?”

She shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I miss him. I miss the sound of his respirator. I—”

“Sean?” a woman interrupted, passing behind her. “We’ll see you at the house. All right, dear?”

She glanced over her shoulder and nodded. “You bet, Lisa. Thanks.” Sean waited until her friend moved on; then she turned to Avery again. “How’s your wife? How’s Joanne?”

“She’s doing much better. In fact, I’m on my way to see her now.”

“That’s nice,” was all Sean could think to say. “Um, since you quit the movie, I guess I won’t be seeing you for a while.” She took another step toward him. “Avery, I don’t mean to pry. But if Joanne’s showing signs of improvement, and they’re shooting most of the picture around here, why did you quit? All these actors are fighting for that part now. Why would you give that up?”

He glanced down at the ground and sighed. “You know why.”

“Because of me?”

“We’d be working together—sometimes very closely. I couldn’t handle that, Sean. You know how I feel about you. But I still love my wife too. I can’t leave her—no more than you could have left Dan while he was sick. I wouldn’t like myself very much if I did that. I don’t think you’d like me very much either.”

Sean let out a tiny, grateful laugh. She took hold of his hand. “Thank you, Avery Cooper.”

He shook her hand and smiled. “Take care, Sean.”

She forced herself to turn away from him. Walking toward her car, Sean imagined him tonight in that place—at his wife’s bedside.

From a couple of weeks ago, when she’d been so sick and feverish in the intensive care unit, she remembered Avery in the room with her, a constant, comforting presence. He would be there for his wife tonight—and for as long as she needed him.

Glancing over her shoulder, Sean saw him walking alone down a grassy slope toward his car. He was still hobbling a bit.

Sean figured it was all right to cry. She wouldn’t have to explain her tears to anyone right now.

She turned and spotted Dayle, waiting for her. Dayle pulled a Kleenex from her purse and offered it to her. Sean blew her nose with the tissue. “Thanks,” she muttered, her voice a little raspy. “Aren’t you going to be late for your publicity thing?”

“The hell with it,” Dayle said. “I think you need me around today. And that’s more important than some lousy magazine cover story.”

Sean wiped the tears from her eyes. She hadn’t expected Dayle to come to her rescue. Yet nobody else really understood what she was dealing with today—except for Dayle. At a time when she felt all alone with her pain, she had Dayle Sutton coming through for her. “You’re giving up a shot at some major publicity?” Sean said. “That doesn’t sound like a movie star to me. Sounds more like a true friend.”

“I hope that’s what I am,” Dayle said. She took her hand and squeezed it. “Your kids are going back with your in-laws, right?”

Sean nodded. “I thought I’d want to go back alone, but—not anymore.”

“Well, then I’ll send my driver home, and ride with you.” Dayle glanced down toward where the cars were parked. She nudged Sean. “Only first we have to make it down this damn hill in our high heels.”

Sean smiled and put her arm around her friend’s waist. “We’ll make it, Dayle,” she said. “We’ll just lean on each other.”

A KILLER’S MASTERPIECE

At first, Bridget Corrigan’s work with her twin brother’s senatorial campaign is an exciting distraction from the trauma of her messy divorce. But everything changes when Bridget is reminded of the secret she and Brad had been keeping since high school, a secret that could destroy the campaign—and their lives. Someone else knows what they did. Someone who’s been picking off the members of their little group one by one…

WILL BE PAINTED

His job keeps him busy, but he loves every moment of it. Following them, photographing them, and immortalizing them on canvas. He knows exactly how they’ll look when the last breath is drawn, because he has planned out their deaths with perfect precision. And the best is yet to come: Bridget Corrigan. He has very special plans for her portrait—she just doesn’t know it yet…

IN COLD BLOOD

With every “accident” that befalls the members of her old clique, Bridget feels danger edging closer to home. Yet uncovering the truth about the killer would mean revealing what really happened that horrible night years ago. She’ll have to find someone to trust—the question is, whom? Because turning to the wrong person could be the last mistake she ever makes…

Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek at Kevin O’Brien’s newest thriller THE LAST VICTIM now available!

One

Desperation time.

The singer-pianist had just wrapped for the night, and the bartender announced last call. The bar would be closed within the hour. Not good.

Olivia Rankin didn’t want to go home alone tonight, and the way things were looking, that was just what would happen.

The cocktail lounge at the top of Seattle’s Grand Towers Hotel was all sleek metal and polished mahogany—with a sweeping view of the city and harbor lights. Very ritzy. Eleven-fifty for one stinking cosmopolitan. But at least it came with a fancy little silver bowl of mustard-flavored pretzels.

Sitting at the bar in a sexy wraparound pale green dress, Olivia once again scanned the Crown Room and decided the pickings were pretty puny.

Olivia was thirty-eight, with short-cropped, platinum blond hair and a perpetual tan—thanks to regular sessions at a tanning salon. Though attractive, she figured there was room for improvement and planned to lose twenty pounds by December. Once meeting that goal, she’d reward herself with a Botox session. Lately, her face was looking like a road map—especially around the eyes. Years of partying had caught up with her. On her birthday, a friend had sent her a card, which hit a little too close to home. On the front of the card was a cartoon of a woman holding a champagne glass. It said: Happy birthday! The years have been good to you.” Inside was the punchline: “But those weekends have really taken a toll!”

Olivia ordered a third cosmopolitan. She’d come to the Crown Room alone, hoping she would meet a better class of guy there. If she were lucky, she would end up with some guest at the hotel, and he’d let her spend the night. She wouldn’t turn her nose up at a room service breakfast in the morning either. The Grand Towers was pretty damn swanky. And it beat spending the night at home—alone.

It wasn’t so much that she was lonely. She was scared.

During the last week, some strange, disturbing things had happened to her. While undressing for bed Wednesday night, she’d caught a man peeking through her window. Olivia didn’t get a good look at his face. By the time she’d thrown on her robe and come to the window, all she saw was a tall, shadowy figure sprinting away from the townhouse. The next night, Olivia saw someone dart by her kitchen window. It scared the hell out of her. She immediately called the police. Two cops came by, asked a lot of questions, and then gave her some tops on home security and how to start up a neighborhood watch. Useless.

Then, two nights ago, she woke up from a sound sleep and immediately knew someone was in the house. She reached for the light on her nightstand, but hesitated. She didn’t want him to know she was awake. So she lay there in the darkness, afraid to move. She listened to the floorboards creak and told herself it was the house settling or the wind or something else totally harmless. After a while, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She focused on the bedroom door, which she’d left open a crack. If she stared at it too long, the shadows played tricks, and the door seemed to move on its own, ever so slightly. Still, she couldn’t close her eyes or look away.

Olivia remained paralyzed under the covers until dawn, when she heard the Seattle Times delivery person tossing the newspaper on her front stoop. She crawled out of bed, then checked the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, and even the closets. Nothing unusual, nothing out of place.

She desperately needed some coffee and put some water on to boil. When she wandered back to the living room, she noticed something. Her photo album was in its usual spot on the coffee table, but it was open. She’d had a couple of drinks before going to bed, and couldn’t remember whether or not she’d looked at any pictures.

The kettle’s shrill whistle sounded, and she hurried back into the kitchen. It wasn’t until after she’d had a few sips of coffee that Olivia thought to glance through the album. Three photos were missing, pulled out of their clear plastic sleeves. If someone had actually broken into her home last night, it didn’t make sense that he’d steal a few photographs of her and nothing else. She thought about calling the police again, but what good would that do?

Olivia wondered if she might actually know this stalker. Was he someone from the gym or the supermarket? Maybe he was a customer at the chiropractor’s office where she worked. A lot of creeps came through there.

Whoever he was, she had a feeling he’d just gotten started in some kind of weird courtship of her. And it would only get worse.

That afternoon, Olivia bought a package of bullets for an empty gun, which she’d been keeping in the back of her closet for years.

The loaded gun was now in the glove compartment of her car, parked in the underground garage at the Grand Towers Hotel. She liked having it around for insurance.

Funny, it took this stalker to make her realize how alone she was. She’d lived with several different men over the years, but since moving to Seattle a year ago, there hadn’t been anyone who lasted beyond a few dates. It had been pretty lonely. Hell, she couldn’t even keep a cat; she was allergic.

If she went home alone tonight, she probably wouldn’t sleep a wink. Her prospects didn’t look so hot either. The bar would be closing within the hour. Frowning, Olivia planted an elbow on the bar and sipped her cosmopolitan.

“Hey there, honey. Why so glum?”

Olivia stared own at her drink for another moment. Part of her clung to the impossible hope that the smoky-whiskey voice belonged to a tall, handsome hunk. Maybe he’d spend the night with her and this would be the start of something terrific.

When Olivia looked up from her near-empty glass, she couldn’t hide her disappointment. He was a short, balding ape of a man. He wore a red Izod short-sleeve shirt that looked painted on. He was very muscular, with a coat of black hair on his arms. He had hair coming out of his ears, too. In fact, he looked as if he had hair everywhere except on the top of his head.

He leaned against the bar and gave her a smug smile. “Whaddya say, honey? Can I buy you a drink?”

“I’m not your honey,” Olivia muttered. “Besides, you’re out of luck. It’s past last call.”

“There’s no last call at my place,” he said. “I have a bottle of scotch there.”

“Well, go home and drink it,” she replied, fishing for some cash in her purse. “Try some other woman in the bar, okay?”

He laughed. “Feisty. I like that. Are you feisty in bed too?”

Olivia waved at the bartender, then slapped two twenties on the counter top. She didn’t look at the creepy little man. “I’ll ask you nicely,” she said, staring straight ahead. “Would you do me a big favor, and leave me the hell alone?”

“Oh, c’mon, honey,” he purred. “You can’t mean that.”

“I sure do. So go haunt somebody else. Okay?” She continued to avoid eye contact with him.

“Fucking bitch,” she heard him growl. She caught his reflection in a mirror behind the bar as he walked away. He had the meanest, most hateful look on that ugly ape face of his.

The bartender came by and took her money. Then, a few moments later, he returned with her change.

Olivia defeatedly slid off the bar stool, and stared toward the elevator. She saw the creepy, little ape of a guy waiting there. Olivia stopped dead.

She didn’t want to ride down to the lobby with him, not alone. But she was saved. A handsome, well-dressed black couple stepped out of the bar area right after her. They headed toward the elevators.

Olivia followed them. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the obnoxious man glaring at her. She refused to look in his direction. The elevator door opened, and she stepped aboard.

The couple got in after her, and then the ape-faced man followed. He squeezed past the twosome and stood next to her.

Olivia kept ignoring him. She figured he wouldn’t say anything rude to her in front of the couple. The handsome black man was a head taller than him and looked as if he could tear him apart.

“Oh, God, I left my cellphone in the bar!” the woman exclaimed.

Her boyfriend grabbed the elevator door before it shut, and she ran out of the elevator. He tailed after her. The door began closing right behind him.

Olivia made a run for it.

The little man grabbed her arm. She recoiled, but he had a very strong grip.

The door shut. The elevator started its descent.

He was grinning at her. His eyes had a crazy, intense look. Olivia noticed a squiggly vein on the side of his forehead.

“Let go of me!” she snapped.

He chuckled, then released her. “I just didn’t want the door to slam on you, honey.”

Olivia backed away, until she bumped against the polished brass wall.

“I was afraid it would smash in that cute, fat little face of yours,” he said, touching her cheek.

Olivia shrank into the corner. She eyed the lighted buttons on the panel by the elevator door. They still had another thirty floors to go. She thought about pressing the alarm button.

Just then, he stepped between her and the door. He glanced up and down at her. Grinning, he brushed his fingertips against her blonde hair.

“Stop that.” Olivia shuddered. “Get the hell away from me. I mean it.” She looked up toward the ceiling. Where was the camera? Didn’t most hotel elevators have cameras in them?

The little man was still stroking her hair. “Whether you like it or not,” he whispered, “I’m going to fuck you.”

Just then, the elevator stopped, and the door opened.

The man backed away from her. He frowned at the tall, handsome stranger who stepped on at the eighteenth floor. The tall man wore a brown leather aviator jacket. He nodded politely at Olivia.

She felt such utter relief. As the door shut, she cleared her throat. “Excuse me, sir?” she said, her voice a little shaky.

The handsome stranger turned to smile at her.

Olivia shot a look in the direction of the crude little man. “This guy has been bothering me,” she said. “Would you mind staying with me until the valet gets my car?”

The tall stranger glared at the creepy runt. He grabbed him by the collar of his Izod shirt and shoved him against the wall. Olivia gasped. The elevator shook a bit at the sudden tussle. “You son of a bitch,” the handsome man growled. “Are you harassing this lady?”

The ape-faced man held up his hands, sort of a half-hearted surrender. “Hey, it’s cool, buddy. Relax.”

Olivia’s rescuer turned to her with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, Olivia. He won’t bother you any more.”

Olivia caught her breath and smiled back at him. She was so grateful for his intervention that it took her a moment to realize something was terribly wrong.

She stared at the man. “How do you know my name?” she whispered. She looked over at the short, hairy guy and wondered why he was smirking.

“He’s not going to hurt you,” the tall stranger said. He stepped between Olivia and the elevator door. “No, Olivia. Hurting you is my job.”

The elevator door opened at the lobby.

Suddenly, the short man came behind her and slapped his hand over her mouth. Olivia tried to scream. Only a muffled whimper emerged. She struggled desperately, but the ape-faced man was too strong for her. Olivia thought he’d snap her neck.

She caught a glimpse of the empty lobby. No one could see her—or save her. The man in the aviator jacket blocked her way out. He jabbed the button for the basement level.

“It’ll be easier for you, Olivia, if you just give in,” he whispered.

Olivia helplessly watched the elevator door shut.

Preston McBride started out the evening thinking he would get laid.

He’d met Amber (her last name hadn’t come up in conversation) at a kegger party at the house of some buddies near the University of Washington campus. Preston was in his junior year, studying business administration.

Amber wasn’t in college. She’d dropped out of high school a couple of years back. When she told this to Preston while nuzzled against him in a smoky, sweltering living room full of people, she seemed to be bragging. With a pink streak in her blond hair and her pierced nostril, she struck Preston as a free spirit. At one point, when she squatted down to pump the keg and refill her beer, he noticed a tattoo of a dragon on her lower back. He couldn’t help noticing her terrific body too. The front of her black T-shirt was stretched to its fiber limit. After an hour of screaming at each other over the noise, he heard her say: “I think you’re cute. Can we get out of here and go some place?”

They made out in his car for nearly two hours. Preston’s roommate was away, and he suggested they go back to his apartment. But Amber had another suggestion: “I know it’s September and all, but I’m hot. Aren’t you? Let’s go swimming. I’ve always wanted to make love on a beach at dawn.”

A half hour later, they were lost, driving around, trying to find the Denny-Blaine Beach. Apparently, Kurt Cobain used to meditate in the park there, and Amber wanted to visit the stomping grounds of the late rock legend. They never did find the place.

Birds were chirping and only the first light of dawn appeared on the horizon when Preston parked the car near a deserted Madison Park beach. With apartment buildings on both sides of the shoreline strip, and a quaint row of shops a stone’s throw away, the beach wasn’t exactly ideal for skinny-dipping and making love—even at this predawn hour. Some bushes camouflaged them at this end of the shore. Farther down, there was a beach house, a couple of lifeguard towers, and park benches staggered along the water’s edge, spaced out every few feet. Preston imagined people would be coming here soon for their morning run, or for a cup of coffee on one of the benches, or maybe—like Kurt Cobain—some morning meditation.

Preston felt cold—and terribly self-conscious—as he began to undress. He was still in his white briefs when he tested the water with his foot. Freezing.

He looked over at Amber, squirming out of her panties. For a moment, she stood before him naked, her long blond hair fluttering in the wind. Her lithe body was so white against the dark water. She swiveled around, and let out a shriek as she scurried into the surf. Preston stared at the dragon tattoo above her perfect ass.

He shucked down his briefs, then ran in after her. The water was like ice, but he didn’t care.

Amber wrapped her wet, cold, slippery arms around him. She was laughing and shivering. He felt her bare breasts pressing against his chest. Her nipples were so hard. He kissed her deeply.

With a squeal, Amber pulled away and splashed him. Then she swam out toward deeper water. Preston swam after her. But she splashed him again. He got water in his eyes and stopped for a moment. Standing on his tiptoes, he kept his head above water as he rubbed his eyes. He could hear her giggling and catching her breath.

When Preston focused on her again, Amber was dunking under the surface and swimming the length of the beach. He realized that if they were going to have sex, she planned to make him work for it. Once again, he started after her. She was a fast swimmer, with a good lead on him. “Come and get me!” she called, then dove below the surface again.

Preston was in over his head and had to tread water. Suddenly, he felt something brush against his leg. It felt slick. He wasn’t sure if it was a fish or a piece of seaweed or what, but it gave him the creeps.

Preston shuddered. He quickly swam toward the shore—until he was standing in shallow water, up to his chest. Then he glanced around to see where Amber had gone. He no longer heard her laughing and splashing. He didn’t see anything breaking the water’s slightly rippling surface.

He felt a sickly pang in his gut. Preston told himself that Amber was screwing around with him. He glanced over to where they’d undressed. In the distance, he could see the piles of clothes near the shoreline. He turned and looked out at the deep water again. Nothing.

Preston tread closer to the shore. The cold air swept over his wet, naked body, and his teeth started chattering. He gazed over at the opposite side of the beach from where they’d shed their clothes. In the darkness—and the distance—he hadn’t noticed anyone there earlier. But now Preston saw someone sitting on one of the park benches.

“Amber?” he yelled. The water was just below his waist.

Suddenly, something squirmed behind him in the water. Before he had a chance to turn around, he felt it grab his ass. Preston let out a howl, then swiveled around.

Amber sprang up from under the water. She was laughing.

Preston felt as if his heart was about to explode in his chest. But he managed to laugh too. He grabbed her and pulled her toward him.

With a finger, Amber traced a line from his chest down his lean torso. She drew a little circle around his belly button, gently tugging at the hair there. Amber grinned at him, but then her eyes shifted away—to something past his shoulder. “Who’s that?” she asked, frowning. “Is she staring at us?”

Preston glanced back at the person on the park bench. He moved a bit closer. He could see now, it was a woman. She hadn’t budged an inch—not even when some birds came and perched on the bench with her. She seemed to be sleeping. Her legs were spread apart in an awkward, sort of boneless way. Her green wraparound dress was bunched up to her thighs, and a huge dark stain ran down the front of it.

“Who the hell is that?” Amber repeated. Covering her breasts, she crept closer to the shore—toward the sleeping woman. “Oh my God,” she whispered.

Shivering, Preston covered himself up as well. He stared at the woman slumped on the bench. Had she been in the water? Her face was shiny, and her short, platinum-blond hair was matted down on one side.

Amber let out a shriek that must have woken up half the residents of the apartment building nearby. The birds flew away. One grazed the woman’s head, but she didn’t move at all.

Several lights went on in the building—including an outside spotlight. It illuminated the ripples on the surface of the lake.

Now Preston could see the gun in the woman’s hand. Now Preston realized the woman’s face and hair weren’t dowsed with water.

It was blood.

Sunlight sliced through the blinds in his studio loft. He’d been up all night, and had lost track of the time. That often happened when he was painting.

He favored classical music while working on his art. Wagner was on the stereo, cranked up to Twilight of the Gods, Funeral March. The orchestration was rousing. He felt goose bumps covering his near-naked body.

He wore only a pair of snug black boxer-briefs as he put the finishing touches on his latest masterpiece. His lean, chiseled body was flecked with several different-colored paint smudges. It was almost as if he’d become one with the canvas.

A tracklight from above illuminated the painting. On either side of the easel stood a pair of tall, cathedral-type candleholders he’d bought in Paris. The candles were almost burned down to stubs. It was his own fault they burned so fast. Every once in a while, he’d take one of those tapers out of its ornate holder, then tip it over his chest. The hot wax splattering on his skin gave him a delicious little jolt of pain that kept him going.

He was exhausted, having been up the last thirty-plus hours. He wasn’t sure how long ago they’d left Olivia Rankin on that park bench by Lake Washington. But he could still smell her flowery perfume on his skin—along with the oil paint and his sweat. The combination of scents was arousing; it smelled of sex.

His drive from Seattle to Portland had taken three hours. He’d arrived home at dawn, then immediately shed his clothes and gone to work on his masterpiece. He wasn’t going to bed until he finished.

The painting was of Olivia, sitting on that park bench by the shoreline—just as they’d left her.

In his one and only art show—given in a Portland café nine years ago—a critic commented that his work was “derivative of Hopper with its vivid colors, heavy shadows, and melancholia.” He didn’t sell anything at that exhibition, and he didn’t have another art show. But he didn’t change his style either.

Olivia Rankin’s “death scene” was indeed full of intense colors, shadows, and pain. And it was almost finished.

To his right, he had a cork bulletin board propped on an easel. It was full of location photos he’d taken last week: the beach at Madison Park, the beach house and park bench. Working from these “location shots,” he’d completed the background and the setting—right down to the DO NOT FEED THE WATER FOWL sign in the far right of the painting—a couple of days ago. All that remained was filling in Olivia. He’d done preliminary sketches from pictures he’d taken of her while she was out shopping—and again when she ate lunch in the park. She’d been an oblivious subject. Those photographs and his preliminary sketches were also tacked to the bulletin board—along with three snapshots he’d stolen from her photo album a few nights ago.

He stepped back and admired his work. He’d captured Olivia’s blank, numb expression as she sat there with a bullet in her brain. He was proud of himself for that little gleam of moonlight reflecting off the gun in her hand. He used the same method—adding just a few slivers of white—to make the blood look wet.

He’d decided to call the piece Olivia in the Moonlight.

Absently, he ran his hand across his chest—over the sweat and the dried flecks of candle wax and paint. His fingers inched down his stomach, then beneath the elastic waistband of his under shorts.

The telephone rang.

Letting out a groan, he put down his paintbrush and started across the room. His erection was nearly poking out of his underpants.

He passed a wall displaying several of his other masterpieces. There was a painting of a woman floating facedown in a pool; a vertigo-inducing picture of a man falling off a building rooftop, a businessman sitting at his desk with his throat slit; a naked woman lying in a tub with her wrist slashed open; and several other “postmortem portraits.” Some of the subjects in these paintings appeared to have died accidentally or committed suicide; but all of them had been murdered. He’d killed them all for money—and for the sake of his art.

He grabbed the phone on the fourth ring. “Yes?”

“Did you get any sleep yet?” his associate asked. “Or have you been painting all morning?”

“I’m just finishing this one,” he answered coolly. “What do you want?”

“We have another job—for the same client.”

“How soon does it have to be done?” he asked. “I need time to prepare, and I won’t be rushed.”

His associate let out an awkward chuckle. “Relax, you’ll have time. The client likes the way you work.”

He said nothing. Of course the client liked his work. He was an artist, and they were commissioning him to create another masterpiece. To him, each one was special. Each murder, each painting.

“Call me later and we’ll set up a meeting,” he said finally. “I can’t talk right now. I’m painting.”

“God, you’re a quirky, kinky son of a bitch.” His associate let out another uncomfortable laugh. “You and your artistic temperament.”

The artist just smiled and gently hung up the phone.