Chapter 38

FUMBLING, I MANAGED to insert my key and open the door. Harrison shoved me inside, kicked the door shut and flipped on the lights.

“How—?” That one word came out of my mouth as a faint croak.

“I called you from my cell phone.” He patted the pocket of his navy blue windbreaker with his free hand. The other hand held a nine-millimeter Beretta; he was pointing it right at my heart.

I gaped at him, dumbfounded.

“Much as I dislike stating the obvious,” he said, “you’re surprised to see me walking.”

Still not trusting my voice, I nodded. I was even more surprised to see the madness in his eyes.

“I’ve been able to walk for almost two years,” he said. “That’s how long I was planning to kill Damon. That’s why I reported this pistol as stolen, when it just went into hiding.”

Propelled by the Beretta, I backed up into the room until the corner of the desk jabbed me in the derriere. It hurt, and that made me realize my brain cells were reassembling themselves; I was beginning to form coherent thoughts. Keep him talking until I can think of something to do. I tried my voice again. “Why . . . are you here?” It wasn’t steady, but my vocal cords were working.

“There’s something you’re going to do for me,” he said. “Sit down and turn on the computer.”

I moved behind the desk and lowered myself carefully into the chair, and did as instructed. As I waited for it to boot up, I said, “I’ll do whatever you want—you don’t have to threaten me.”

“Ah, Doll, I wish that were true.”

“I hated Damon as much as you did—”

“Nobody hated Damon as much as I did,” he snapped. “He turned me into a vegetable.”

The computer was whirring; in a few moments it would be ready to use.

“What did he do—to bring on your stroke?” I asked.

Harrison pushed a pile of scripts out of the way and perched on the corner of my desk, where he could see the monitor and keep the gun on me at the same time. “Teresa and I fell in love on a movie set. She’d been married to Damon for a year, but she already wanted a divorce. He refused—said he needed the image of being married to her. He threatened her so badly she was terrified to leave him.”

The desktop image appeared on the screen.

“Go to your Letters file,” he said.

I did as directed. “He found out about you and Teresa the day you had the big fight?” I asked.

“He’d known for years, since he caught me visiting Terry in the hospital when she had Jeremy.”

There was something in Harrison’s voice—an unexpected softness. “You’re Jeremy’s real father, aren’t you?” I guessed. “I used to wonder how such a terrific boy could be . . .” For a moment I forgot a gun was pointed at me. “Oh God—did Damon know that?”

Harrison nodded. “That’s how he kept her so frightened. He threatened to take Jeremy away. I would have died before I let that happen. I was about to strangle Damon but I collapsed with a stroke instead . . .” He paused, his face twisted into a grimace of remembered fury. “That’s when Damon finally let Terry have the divorce, when he thought I was as good as dead.”

Harrison gestured toward the monitor with the Beretta. His voice was lighter, almost teasing, as he said, “Take a letter, Ms. Tyler.”

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, ready to type, but covertly I was looking for anything on my desk I could use as a weapon. The only loose object within grabbing distance was a ballpoint pen that lay between the mouse pad and the keyboard.

He started dictating, “Type the date. Then ‘Dear Jeremy.’ ”

Midway through the word “October,” I stopped.

“Harrison—I love you like a father. I’ll keep your secret.”

There was a flicker of sorrow in his eyes. “I can’t afford to bet my life on that.” Then they hardened as he said, “You saw Terry outside my house, but you didn’t ask me about it. Then you and that writer she knows were parked across the street from her house. We saw you. You’re a danger to everything I’ve worked for.”

He paused for a moment, remembering something that amused him. A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Serena was the one who hit Damon with the car. A jealous fit. If she’d been a better driver, I wouldn’t have had to shoot him.” His smile disappeared. “I’m sorry you were the one who found her. I heard you fall and scream; I was still in the stairwell.”

“But why—”

“Serena came over unexpectedly and saw me walking. I had to kill her; I waited two years, I couldn’t let her spoil my plans. I’m genuinely sorry for it. I made it quick, She didn’t suffer.”

With my left hand hovering over the keyboard, the thumb and little finger of my right hand gripped the pen as I concealed it beneath the palm of my hand and my wrist. “How did you kill Damon without anyone seeing you go in or come out of his building?” I asked, playing for time. Praying for time. And inspiration.

Amused again, he said, “Terry called and purred about the days they were happy together. She hinted she wanted to come back to him. It was a great performance, and the egotistical idiot believed her.” He made a sound of disgust before continuing. “Damon sent everyone away so they could be alone. Then she and I slipped in through the delivery entrance and went up in the service elevator. Terry let herself in with a key she’d kept, and left the door unlocked for me. We both left the same way. No one saw us.”

“Jeremy told the police they were together that night,” I said.

Harrison smiled with pride, and for a moment I glimpsed again the Harrison I knew. “He’s a good boy. Terry told him she’d gone out to a movie by herself and was afraid the police would suspect her. Jeremy protected her. That’s what a man should do.” He had begun to relax into a conversational posture but caught himself and straightened up. “Story time over,” he said. “Let’s write that letter to Jeremy.”

“What kind of a letter is this going to be?”

He looked at me with regret. “Your suicide note.”

Sweat born of fear was beginning to make my hair damp. I felt it beading on my forehead and brushed a few drops away with my left hand. My right hand was next to the keyboard, gripping the pen as my insides roiled with nausea. His tone was reasonable, conversational. Professorial. Once again he was instructing me, but this time it wasn’t in the craft of daytime drama.

“In this letter to Jeremy,” he said, “you’re going to confess to killing Damon and Serena. You’re going to apologize for the pain you’ve caused him. And then I’m going to shoot you so that it looks like you took your own life—with my Beretta. You’ll say in the note that you stole it from me while I was hospitalized.”

“Harrison.” I forced myself to swallow the bile that had risen in my throat. With determination, I managed to keep my voice steady, and my tone as conversational as his. “So many murders go unsolved. No one suspects you. You could keep up your pretense of being paralyzed and let this case get cold. Colder.”

I made myself smile at him, hoping he’d think of me as a co-conspirator. “Any moment a celebrity—much more interesting than a daytime TV executive—will do something stupid, get in big trouble, and the media will be all over it. Damon will be forgotten. He’s almost forgotten now.”

“No,” he said.

His voice was cold. His “no” was my death sentence. He truly was insane.

“Terry and I want to take Jeremy and leave New York. We’re going to make a new life, together. In order to do that, this case has to be solved. No loose ends. I’d trust you with my money, Doll, but not with my life. Or Terry’s.” There was sadness in his eyes, but I saw something else, too. I saw resolve. “I’m sorry,” he said.

That was it. He wasn’t going to let me go, so I had nothing to lose.

“I’m not going to write this note. You’re going to kill me anyway.”

I was surprised to hear the cool, firm tone of my voice. Sheer bravado.

“If you don’t write it, I’ll kill you anyway, but there’ll be a double funeral. I know your friend Nancy. I can get to her, and I will, unless you start writing.”

His voice was hard as stone. There was not even a trace of pity in his eyes. I knew in the pit of my stomach that he meant every deadly word. I lifted my shoulders slightly and rotated my neck as though trying to relieve stiffness between my shoulder blades. What I was really doing was using the motion to glance around the office for anything I could use as a weapon. I saw one object that might be able to save me. It was sitting on the shelf to my right, just inches beyond the desk. All I needed was to get to it . . . I had to keep Harrison talking.

“You win,” I said. I laid the pen down at the edge of the keyboard, my hands hiding it from his line of sight. I typed the note, reading it aloud to him as I composed. I was trying to make it as convincing as possible. He liked what he heard.

“You always did write well under pressure,” he said.

When I finished, I put a piece of my personal stationery in the printer and clicked “Print.” I palmed the pen as the two of us watched the printer. Is this how I will spend the last few moments of my life, staring at a printer? “Who fired at me from the park?” I asked. “Teresa?”

“No,” he said. “She’s not a good enough shot—she might have killed you. I was a sniper in the Corps—I could part your hair with a round from eight hundred yards and not draw blood. We didn’t want to hurt you, just scare you away from poking into Damon’s death.”

The letter slowly emerged from the printer.

“Pass it over,” he said. With my left hand, I removed the page from the tray. I started to hand him the letter, then raised my curled right hand and hurled the pen at him. At most, I’d hoped to distract him for a moment, but it was an extraordinarily lucky throw. The pen hit high on his cheek, dangerously close to his eye. Instinctively, he touched his face. That instant gave me the precious second I needed to reach the shelf next to my desk and grab the gleaming brass Emmy that sat there. Harrison emitted a primitive roar, dropped his gun and lunged at me, ready to kill me with his bare hands. I swung the heavy brass award with all of my strength and smashed him on the side of the head with it. He groaned, staggered backward and then fell.

There was a loud crack as the base of his skull hit the window ledge.

I stood over him, stunned at what I had done.

Time was suspended as I clutched the Emmy. Harrison lay unconscious. Once I’d said the golden statue should have his name on it. Now it had his blood on it. Loud sounds in the hallway pulled me out of my trance. I heard feet pounding, people running. A man’s voice shouted, “Morgan!”

The door burst open. Matt Phoenix and G.G. Flynn were there, guns drawn.

I looked at them. Fighting back tears, I tried to make a joke. “It’s me again,” I said. “With another body. But this time I really did do it.”