At first Sam thought the voices were part of a dream and, since he had been working at lucid dreaming, he was pleased with his partial success. He closed his eyes tighter, not willing to wake up and lose the little gain he had made.

“You can’t just leave them wandering about,” one of two voices said. This was the reasonable one who sounded like a patient teacher.

“I know that,” the other one said, this one petulant, peevish, put upon, the way his mother used to get when she caught him doing something disgusting, like drinking milk from the carton. “I imprinted them with the rules. They can’t leave the estate.”

“They belong in quarantine. Out of sequence, into quarantine.”

“And I get a thousand questions. Who messed up, how, when? My unit’s been in trouble like this before, and I don’t want to go there again. Not my fault that they keep sending me newbies who don’t know squat. I’ll find the culprit and take measures, and meanwhile these two can put in time here, not in quarantine. They haven’t done anything to deserve that. It’s not their fault that they’re out of sequence, and it’s certainly not my fault, but I’ll be bla—”

Sam heard a sharp cry and the voices stopped. He bolted upright and stared into the face of a woman whose mouth was open, eyes wide staring into space. He was on a chaise lounge by Ben’s swimming pool, she on a matching chaise, and before he could say a word, she jumped to her feet and cried out again, “Stop!”

Lori, he remembered. Her name was Lori, Ben’s meek little secretary. He reached over to touch her arm, to shake her, to still a possible new scream.

“You were going too fast,” she said in a tremulous voice. “I told you to slow down and you kept driving faster and faster.”

“There weren’t any brakes,” he said. His voice was little more than a whisper. He jerked his hand from her arm and stood, looked at his hand, her arm, then down at his body, her body. No blood, no torn clothes. He was wearing jeans, a white sweater; she was in a shapeless blue pant suit, not a black hair on her head out of place. And that was impossible.

“Arthur!” she called. “Arthur, who brought us here? What happened?”

Arthur Beaseley, Ben’s security man, a former heavy-weight boxer with a seriously crooked nose, had walked out of the house onto the pool terrace. He went on to the bathhouse, entered, returned after a second or two and clicked off the lights there and on the terrace. Light from the house illuminated the terrace as he continued to the table nearest Sam and picked up two glasses.

“Arthur!” Lori screamed. “What happened? Where is Ben?”

Arthur’s slow, measured pace did not change, nor did he glance at Lori or Sam. He entered the house, closed the sliding glass door, and walked out of sight.

“He pretended he couldn’t see me or hear me,” Lori said in a faint voice. She twisted around to look at Sam. “He was pretending, wasn’t he? It was an act?”

Sam picked up an ashtray from the table, banged it down hard. He had substance, damn it! He had touched Lori, had felt her arm, solid in his hand. “Did you hear voices before you sat up? Did you hear them?”

She nodded. “I was dreaming.”

“The Voice said she imprinted us with the rules. One of the rules is that we can’t interact with any living creature! Do you remember something like that?”

“Oh, my God!” Lori cried. “I remember it now.”

“Arthur didn’t see us, didn’t hear you. Lori, we went over the cliff. I couldn’t stop the car, lost control. We went over.”

He started to walk toward the sliding door and Lori hurried to catch up with him. “Remember the party?” he said. “Forty, fifty people here. Where are they? When was that? How long have we been… whatever the hell we are?” He glanced at her. “You came in and said something to Ben, your car was blocked or something. Ben yelled to me to come over and he tossed me his keys. Remember? He told me to drive you home.”

“He never let anyone touch that Jag, but he let you. Why?”

“He said he’d report the Jag stolen if I wasn’t back by noon. He made that clear. He wants the new script. He’d let me play with his pretty shiny toy for a while, but at the stroke of noon, reel me in with the play in hand.”

He tried to open the sliding door, but it was locked. After a momentary pause, he walked through the door. He heard Lori gasp, and then she was inside, too. “Full access to the estate,” he said in a low voice. “Another rule. I knew we could do that. Come on. I want to find Ben, see what the bastard is up to.”

Lori pulled him to a stop. “Sam, either Ben wanted to kill us both, which doesn’t make any sense, or someone tried to kill Ben and got us instead. That’s why we’re out of sequence. Ben’s supposed to be dead, not us.” She sounded indignant. Although she did not add, It’s not fair! it was implied.

“Exactly,” he said. “And I want to find out what he’s doing about it.”

The room they had entered was what Ben called his party room. A long bar dominated one wall; scattered seating arrangements of easy chairs, tables, sofas and more tables could accommodate up to a hundred people, possibly more. The colors were bright red, royal blue, emerald green, with a lot of gilt here and there, a lot of crystals dangling from chandeliers. It was hideously expensive, Sam knew, having been told several times by Ben, but to Sam’s eyes it was tawdry, carnival-like and cheap. He hurried on through, past a sweeping staircase, into a broad corridor. Down this way was Ben’s office, Lori’s office, a screening room, a study, other rooms.

Abruptly he stopped his forward march and caught Lori’s arm to stop her. Ahead, Darla Spencer stood with her ear close to the study door, which was open a crack. An intent, listening expression on her face did not change as Sam and Lori began to draw closer. Darla was beautiful, with long, ash-blond hair that shone like platinum, limpid aquamarine eyes, peerless cheekbones, flawless teeth and a supermodel’s perfect body, formed after leaving that profession and gaining ten pounds. That was what Darla had done when she was discovered by Ben Carnahan and turned into a cinema superstar.

Sam hesitated when he was within touching distance of Darla, but Lori continued to walk and entered the study. Sam followed. Ben was striding around the room the way he always did, forcing his audience to keep swiveling about to keep him in sight, to pay rapt attention to every word. Ben was a massive man, six-feet-four-inches tall, close to three hundred pounds, with a great upper body, rather like a buffalo, it was often said of him. With sandy hair, thinning and down over his ears, a tendency toward a double chin, widely-spaced and deeply-set dark eyes, he owned any room he occupied. He had a deep, resonant voice that could rise decibels to an ear-hurting volume.

“Who’s the fat guy?” Sam asked, nodding toward a man who seemed to be cowering in a chair.

“Sy Wannamaker, his lawyer,” Lori said. “Scared to death of Ben. The other one is Harrison Coolson, his producer and partner. Shh. Listen.”

“I don’t care what the goddam protocol is,” Ben was bellowing at Sy Wannamaker. “Get one of your guys over there and get that script. Sam said it’s half finished. I want that half and we’ll go on from there with it.”

“Ben, be reasonable. I told you the police sealed his apartment, padlocked until they get the tox report. And his sister won’t even talk to us. She has her own lawyer handling everything.”

His sister had come? Sam was pleased and surprised that Susan had left Iowa to tend to his affairs. It was the first time, to his knowledge, that she had traveled farther than a hundred miles from Des Moines. Of course, since the family thought he was making a fortune, with his play picked up and made into a successful movie, they would spring for an attorney. He felt a bit of discomfort thinking that he might have said something to lead to that belief.

“I don’t give a shit about the woman,” Ben yelled. “Anything Sam wrote belongs to me! She wants a court fight, she’ll get it. But after I get that play. Let her sue me then.”

“There isn’t any play,” Sam muttered to Lori. “I told him that to get him off my back.”

“It could just be notes on his computer,” Sy Wannamaker said. “Maybe he didn’t have enough to print out yet.”

“Then get me the goddamn computer! Tomorrow, not next week or next month. It’s been over a week, and they’ve had time to do whatever tests they need, toxicology or anything else. I’ve waited long enough.”

Harrison Coolson stood then and started to walk toward the door. Sixty-something, well built, with gray hair and a matching mustache, always impeccably dressed, he exuded good breeding and decorum. His voice was well modulated, low key as he said, “Get the play, do what you want with it, but count me out. I won’t do that to Darla. She’s at the top of her form and you want to sideline her. For God’s sake, the new girl will keep, ripen. How old is she, eighteen, nineteen? Doesn’t matter. Darla deserves better than that.”

“Rebecca’s exactly the age Darla was when I created her ten years ago,” Ben said, his voice dropping to a low rumble, more ominous than his bellow had been. “Darla was yesterday’s pretty new face. Rebecca is tomorrow’s. Sam’s writing her a big part, bigger than Darla’s ever was, and that’s how it’s going to be. Now sit down and shut up.”

“There isn’t a new play,” Sam muttered again. “He told me to write Darla out, the big sister who gets cancer and dies, and pretty Rebecca saves the family ranch, or some other damn crap. He said to think about Elizabeth Taylor, a beautiful girl riding a big black horse, something like that, only different, maybe a race car driver. There isn’t a word on paper or in a computer file.” He turned to look at Lori. “I know why I hang around. He has me under contract, but why do they? Why is Coolson sitting down on command?’

“Blackmail,” Lori said in a low voice. “He keeps people by manipulative contracts, like yours and Darla’s, or by blackmail.”

“You know that?”

“I know,” she said. “Come on to his office, let me show you something.”

She walked in front of Ben, who didn’t break his stride or pause in his loud orders to Sy Wannamaker and Coolson. Sam trailed after Lori through another door, into Ben’s office. It was big with several upholstered chairs, a sofa in cream-colored leather, and a massive desk with an ebony surface as reflective as glass. There were three black-faced file cabinets and a six-by-eight-foot framed picture of the pyramids on one wall. Lori went to the desk, opened a drawer, and pressed a button. The large picture swung upward, to form an awning over the front of a safe.

“It’s computer coded to a silent alarm,” Lori said, joining Sam near the safe, where she pointed to a wall-mounted key pad. “You have to turn that off first, then use a key to open it. He changes the code every week.”

“What’s in there?” Sam asked.

“Good question. Not contracts. They’re in the file cabinets. Yours is in there. I read it.”

“So did I,” he said. “Six months too late I really read it and then took it to a lawyer and had him read it.” What he had learned was that he had signed over to Ben Carnahan everything he wrote while under contract, and that he had to submit and have accepted three complete, original scripts before the contract expired. Nowhere did the contract say that Ben was under any obligation at any time to accept a submitted play. Sam couldn’t write for anyone else, couldn’t even write his memoir and call it his own. He could have been tied to Ben for ten years, twenty years, forever. He had come to realize that Ben owned his grocery lists.

“Darla’s contract is like yours, like a lot of others,” Lori said. “She has to star in one more of his movies before she can cut loose, and he’s having her written out of the one you’re supposed to be writing. She can’t go anywhere, do anything else except wait to star in another movie. She won’t touch a supporting role. She’d be a fool if she did, and she knows that.”

“Jesus!” Sam said. “Standard operating procedure for him?”

“Pretty much. He has Sy Wannamaker write a contract, advises the newcomer to consult with a famous agent, Sylvia Coleman, and she advises the starry-eyed innocent to grab it, best thing since sliced bread, consider yourself kissed by the god of entertainment, etcetera, etcetera. Done deed.”

Sam nodded. Ben had sent him to Sylvia. “Cy Wannamaker, Sylvia, Coolson, his tools, his stooges. Under contract or blackmail?”

“Not under contract,” Lori said with a shrug. “But obedient as show dogs. They and a handful of others. I think they’re all in the safe.”

“They were at the party,” Sam said after a moment. “Any one of them could have had a chance to mess with his brakes on Friday evening. He drove the Jag that morning and it was okay then.”

“Forty-four people were at the party. Most, maybe all of them, with reason enough to want him dead.”

Sam eyed her narrowly. “What about you? Why do you stay? What’s he got on you?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just the hired help, replaceable, invisible except when needed. He could replace me in a minute, and probably did.”

“You didn’t answer the question. Why do you stay?”

She was looking past him, at the door to the corridor. “Someone’s coming in.” As she spoke the door swung open. Ben walked in.

Sam hurried back to the desk, to press the button to replace the picture over the safe. His finger passed through the button with no effect. Rule number one, he thought, trying again to press the button: they couldn’t interact with any living creature. It seemed that around people he and Lori became less than shadows.

“Forget it,” Lori said. “Let’s see how he reacts.”

Ben was carrying a drink. He took five or six steps into the room before he caught sight of the picture hanging over his safe. He came to a halt, dropped the glass, and looked about wildly as if expecting to see a burglar, or more likely a killer. He took a deep breath, another, and began to move again, walking like a man uncertain of his footing, as if blinded by a dense fog. When he reached his desk, he sank into his oversized chair with a groan, his gaze fastened on the exposed safe. He pressed the button and watched the picture shift downward until it was in place, the safe hidden. He was pale and his hand was shaking when he closed the desk drawer and wiped his forehead.

“He’s spooked,” Lori said.

“Ya think?” Sam said. “He’s probably trying to convince himself that he left it up and he knows he didn’t. Maybe he’s afraid his would-be killer is back. And you still haven’t answered my question: why are you here?”

She gave him a long searching look, then said, “Revenge. He killed my father.”

Sam blinked. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We have to talk. Unless you want to watch him suck air like a beached fish.”

Ben was drawing in long breaths, his gaze riveted on the safe, both hands on the desk top shaking. He was pale and sweating heavily.

“Out,” Lori said after a glance at Ben. She led the way through the door to the corridor, hesitated, then began to walk at a brisk pace. “Kitchen,” she said. “No one’s likely to interrupt us there.”

She led him to the kitchen, large enough for a restaurant. There, she went straight to a freezer, opened it and picked up a gallon tub of ice cream. After opening a drawer or two she found spoons and offered one to Sam. He shook his head. “How can you be hungry at a time like this?”

“You don’t eat ice cream because you’re hungry,” she said, hoisting herself onto a counter. “You eat ice cream because you want ice cream. Chocolate with pecans and caramel ripples. Good stuff.”

“Look, get serious, will you? Why aren’t we freaking out, dead, talking, moving around. We should be freaking out.”

“That one’s easy,” Lori said, digging for a second scoop of ice cream. “According to Ben it’s been more than a week since we got the ticket and we were somewhere being indoctrinated, imprinted, or something. I can’t remember a thing about that, but when we have a question, an answer pops into our heads. I guess we were instructed about our place here, enough to prevent our going apeshit, anyway. My question is for how long, and I don’t get an answer. Do you?”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. What did you mean when you said Ben killed your father?”

“He killed him. Twenty years ago, when I was eight, Dad was a stuntman at the studio, lead stuntman. There was an accident and later he died. That’s all I knew most of my life. Mom married again. A good guy, a dot com guy with more money than anyone maybe. He adopted me and I took his name. Mom and I both love him, but it’s not the same kind of love. Before, the three of us, Mom, Dad and I, we laughed a lot, had fun together, some kind of make-believe existence, magic. It’s not like that with Howard. Howard Earle is his name. I’m Lori Earle, but my dad was Jacob Leiber. He was the best stuntman of all times.”

She became silent and appeared to be concentrating on getting another spoonful of ice cream. Sam waited a moment, then said, “What about the accident? What did Ben have to do with it?”

“He changed something at the last minute and didn’t tell my father. It threw the timing off, and those stunts require absolute time control, to the second in some cases. The stunt involved jumping from a helicopter, landing in water and to all appearances going over a waterfall. The pick-up crew was supposed to fish Dad out of the water, and let a dummy take the falls, and the star would drag himself out of the lake. But the timing was off and Dad went over instead. Head injury, broken bones, internal injuries. It was bad, really bad.”

She looked at the spoonful of ice cream, shook her head, and jumped down from the counter to put the spoon in the sink. She replaced the cover on the tub and took it to the freezer. Only then did she speak again. “I didn’t know any details for years. No one tells a little kid much. School, college. One day I looked it up and found out a few things, and I made my mother tell me what happened. Ben had changed something that changed the time of the helicopter incident by two minutes. Just two minutes, but it meant that the pick-up crew wasn’t ready. And then Mom and Dad learned about an insurance clause that said if alcohol was involved in any accident, the policy was voided. The studio insured the stuntmen. No private insurance would cover them for anything related to the work. Dad had a beer with lunch that day at twelve thirty. The stunt was scheduled for four thirty and actually happened at four twenty-eight. Ben and others swore that Dad spent the afternoon drinking, and that was a lie. Dad had three surgeries and still needed brain surgery, but the money was gone. Bills were mountain high. Bankruptcy. While they were fighting with the insurance company, trying to raise money for brain surgery, he died.”

She gave Sam another long look, then said, “I learned all this three years ago. Two years ago I got this job, secretary to Ben Carnahan, with the sole intent of destroying him.”

“Why didn’t you bring in a gun and just shoot him?”

“I didn’t want to go to prison for the rest of my life,” she said with a shrug. “I knew that as soon as an investigation started, I’d be a prime suspect. Or, as they say, a person of interest. I wasn’t sure how to get him at first, then I began to believe that he was blackmailing people. It wouldn’t have been fair to any of them to have his safe opened and their past exposed. I just didn’t want to do it that way. I want to bring him down in front of the world, to let the whole world see what kind of a monster he is. That will kill him and I won’t have to do it myself. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could do it myself.” She looked thoughtful, nodded, and said, “I believe that now I could. When I think about the grief he’s brought to my mother again, first Dad and now me, I’m sure I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Except the Voice won’t let me. I’ll have to settle on exposing him.”

“How?” Sam asked after a moment.

“I don’t know yet. I planned to send the blackmail stuff to the owners. After that, his turn. I have pictures, film, tape recordings. I’ve been gathering my own files for over a year. When the time was right, I intended to send copies to news outlets, online blogs, television, print newspapers, magazines, Anonymous, people like that.”

“Jesus!” Sam looked at her with awe. “One more question, how did you manage to land a job here in the lion’s den?”

“I bribed the manager of the employment agency he uses to send me when his previous secretary quit, and I paid her off to quit. As I said, Howard Earle has more money than just about anyone, and he’s been very generous. I have more money, had more money, than I needed.”

“And he simply hired you? Why?”

“I showed him that I know my way around computers. Howard taught me a thing or two about computers over the years and I was able to demonstrate to Ben that his system had been hacked, that I knew how to fix it and keep it safe.”

“Had it been? Hacked?”

“Sure. I made certain of that.”

Sam swallowed hard. “Remind me to keep on the good side of you.”

“What more could I do to you than what’s been done?” she said. “Come on. I want to go to bed. There are half a dozen guest rooms upstairs. I’m going to make like a guest.”

“You want to sleep? I’m not tired, not hungry, not sleepy. Not anything.”

“Me neither. But I can stretch out and try to come up with another way to get Ben. I keep thinking about my mother and Howard, how grieved they must be, Mom especially. God, I hate Ben Carnahan.” She became silent for a moment, then said, “Sam, have you given any thought about what we’re supposed to do now? How we can get out of this mess we’re in? I mean, were we dumped here just to relax indefinitely until the Voice comes to collect us? It seems like we have to wait our turn, and if Ben has to die first, that could be years.”

How to get out of this mess? He shook his head. He suspected they had nothing to say about it.

They left the kitchen and ascended the sweeping staircase to the second floor. “Ben’s suite,” Lori said, motioning toward the end of another wide corridor. “Darla’s room is next to his, with a connecting door, which is probably locked tonight. Come on, down the other way, empty guest rooms.” They chose a large room with twin double beds and she threw herself down on one of them with a deep sigh.

Sam regarded her for a moment, then said, “I’m going to roam about, see if anything’s been changed during the past week.”

Lori jerked up to a sitting position. “You’ll come back, won’t you? It’s crazy, but I don’t want to be alone. I mean, what more can happen? But it scares me to think of being here alone.”

“I’ll be back,” he said. “I don’t want to be alone either. Just a quick look around, then back. Try to rest.” He laughed, an unhappy sound that turned into a near sob. Did dead people need rest? “I’ll be back,” he said and hurried out.

At first he thought little or nothing had changed, but then he saw a security company truck parked in the rear of the grounds. He entered, only to be bewildered by an assortment of cables, multi-colored wires, tools he could not comprehend, computers, and a counter with rolled blueprints. He unrolled one and realized that the security company was wiring the eight-foot-high-stone wall that encircled the estate. Ben was turning his mountaintop retreat into a fortress.

Outside again, Sam wandered down the driveway to the big iron gate. There was a new guard house there, with a man inside watching television. Before, a caller had pressed a button at the entrance, and from inside the mansion Arthur Beasley had identified the visitor and opened the gate. Now a real live guard had been installed. Probably other security features had been added inside and out. Security cameras? Had a camera recorded the action inside Ben’s office? Would it have recorded the picture being raised at the safe? With or without people, or shadows?

Sam saw car lights appear on the upper driveway and he leaned against the guard house to await this new development. Darla was driving her BMW convertible. She stopped near the guard house and yelled at the guard to open the gate. He spoke into a telephone, did something out of sight, and the gate swung open. She drove through with a roar of acceleration, fishtailed at the curve to the access road, and vanished, hidden by the wall. Sam hoped she would slow down at the killer curve that had done him in.

He began to trudge back up to the house, then paused. This time he didn’t ask a question, but simply knew something he had not known a second earlier. He wanted to be on the terrace by the pool, and he was there. It was like knowing he could walk. He never had to think he could walk, or wonder, or ask if he could; he just did it. “Okay,” he said to himself. Rule number something or other. He wished that they had been provided with a list of rules they had learned, a crib sheet, memorandum, something. He put himself in Ben’s office, nodded in satisfaction and thought of being in Ben’s bedroom. Nothing happened. Datum, he told himself. He had to have been there before, something like that. Then, sitting at Ben’s handsome shiny desk, he thought of his little sister Susan. She was twenty-four, a pretty little goldfish swimming in a tank of sharks. She’d be lucky if she got back home with her wisdom teeth intact.

He thought of a lot of things sitting there: Ben’s blanched face when he saw his safe revealed; Lori’s mother grieving for her only child; his laptop with two short stories and several chapters of a novel that would end up in Ben’s hands; the various people Ben appeared to be blackmailing, turning them into malleable slaves; a wannabe killer who might or might not try again to murder Ben….

Lori’s question kept intruding and he repeatedly pushed it aside. How could they get out of this mess they were in? No answer came.

At last he gave up thinking and put himself back in the guest room where Lori was still lying on the bed. “Sorry I was gone so long,” he said, sitting on the other bed.

“It’s okay. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said, pulling herself up to sit cross-legged in the center of the bed. “I can get into that safe as soon as Ben opens it again. I’ll watch him do the key pad thing. So that’s all right. But what then? If I burn everything, none of the victims will know they’re safe from him. Obviously, we can’t pick up the phone and call the living. I seem to know that it’s impossible to interact, and also impossible to contact anyone.” She drew in a long breath. “But we could burn down the mansion, and then the victims would know that whatever he had on them is gone.”

Sam shuddered. “And be stuck here wading through ashes? I don’t think so. Listen, we can’t pull any more stunts like that painting over the safe. You saw him, spooked out of his fucking mind. Scare him enough and he might take off, live on his yacht, or in the downtown condo, and we’ll still be cooling our heels here in miniparadise. Agreed?”

After a moment she said in a grudging voice, “Okay. Agreed.”

“Good. Next. If the guy who wanted to kill him tries again, we can’t let that happen. At least not yet. I can’t let that happen.”

“Why not?”

“Ben’s going to get his hands on my computer. There isn’t a play, but there are a couple of stories, drafts of stories, and the start of a novel. There’s enough for him to butcher, to hire a hack to turn into his kind of crap. Did you read my play?”

“No. I saw the movie.”

“Right. My play was called ‘Aftermath.’ It’s about six people, how they cope with the aftermath of a mass killing. No psychopathic killer, no close-up shots of terrified people trying to shield kids or anyone else, no sprays of blood, no swat team, no hovering helicopters, no standoff and tear gas, no car chases or explosions. Just six people trying to put their lives back together. Ben made some changes.” He could hear the bitterness in his voice and was unable to soften it.

“So you wouldn’t even start a new play.”

“You got it,” he said. “Anyway, if we can get to my computer maybe I can delete everything I don’t want him to have. Would that be interacting with him? I don’t know and won’t know until I try. After that, let the murderer do his thing.”

Lori shook her head. “Two problems,” she said. “First, the studio would own the material if Ben dies. Second, deleting stuff doesn’t really get rid of it. An expert could recover anything ever put on the hard drive. I could do it.”

There was a prolonged silence following her comment. Sam broke it. “I was being clever. A neat password, a pseudonym for the author. Just in case I ever left the laptop lying around and someone opened it. What for? Nothing. For nothing.”

“What was the password?” Lori asked.

He hesitated, then said, “NUj0628.”

“First guess is June backward and a birthday. Yours, your sister’s, someone close,” Lori said. “Who’s June?”

He groaned. “Susan had an imaginary friend. Pretty June. The pseudonym I picked was June Priddy. My sister’s birthday is June 28.”

This time Lori groaned. “Okay, we can’t let them get to your computer before I have a go at it. I can take care of the files. First things first, though. They have to bring it here to the house.”

Sam told her about his newly discovered method of moving around. “Just will yourself somewhere else,” he said. “Like ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”

“Cool. We’ll visit every room, make sure we can go anywhere we want. And we have to find out what happens if we’re doing something and someone comes in on us. Like drinking or eating, holding a book.”

They talked a long time, making plans, musing on the possibility of escaping from the estate, what they might do if they could get free, how they might bring about the destruction of Ben Carnahan….

“Growing up in Iowa,” Sam said in a low voice, “surrounded by good Christian folk, my mother especially religious, I took it for granted that when the time came, when people died, they went to heaven or hell. We’d have all the answers. Later, it seemed to me that there was another alternative: maybe it would be that long dreamless sleep. Here one minute, gone the next. That seemed more likely. I never dreamed of a quarantine, being not quite dead enough, but not alive. In between.”

“I think of quarantine as an infinite air terminal crowded with people with cancelled flights,” Lori said. “Just another bureaucratic screw up. All the customer service windows closed. No food service, no rest rooms, no water. I don’t want to go there.” Her voice faltered and neither spoke again for several minutes.

“Sam,” she said finally, “there’s something you should try. While you were gone, I got tired of thinking about the safe and stuff like that and I closed my eyes. Then you were here. I think I slipped out of time or something. Look, it’s three thirty in the morning and there’s not much we can do until daylight. Close your eyes and I’ll close mine. Let’s count to ten and open our eyes. I want it to be morning.”

“Me too. Out of time. Out of body. What next? Okay, here goes.”

He closed his eyes and silently counted to ten. “Ready or not,” he said. When he opened his eyes, morning sunlight was streaming into the room. He looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was seven thirty. On the other bed, Lori nodded.

“See?” she said. “Out of time. Let’s start getting acquainted with all the rooms in this dump.”

They entered every room on the second floor, descended, and went down to the lower level where they entered Arthur’s room and an adjoining room that had been outfitted with monitors and keyboards. Lori pressed a button or two at the monitors and watched a cleaning woman enter Ben’s studio with a vacuum cleaner, and another woman dusting the chandeliers in the party room.

They moved on to the other rooms, and then went back to the first floor. They had been in all the rooms on this level, except Lori’s old office. Sam had never been inside it. In the corridor near Ben’s office, Lori took Sam’s hand.

“Another experiment,” she said. “My office.”

Without a tick in time they were inside her office. She released his hand. “That might come in handy sometime,” she said, going to her desk.

Sam examined the simple, functional office, then started to walk out. He turned to see Lori busy at the computer and he stopped at the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“Getting rid of some stuff,” she said. “Two or three minutes, maximum.”

“You might not have even one minute,” he said. “Ben’s coming.”

“On his way to his office,” she said without looking up. “He doesn’t come in here.”

She was right. Ben walked into his office across the hall from hers and left the door open.

“Here comes Arthur with a woman in tow,” Sam said after a minute or two. They got close enough that he could hear her.

“Oh, Arthur, you shouldn’t talk to me like that. What a terrible thing to say.” She was laughing.

The woman was wearing spike heels, a very short skirt, and a blouse that revealed too much cleavage. She also seemed to have too much blonde hair. When they got near Sam, Arthur patted her bottom and turned toward Ben’s office, and she headed for Lori’s old office. “She’s coming this way,” Sam said. Lori keyed in something swiftly, then stood and picked up a post-it note. As the new woman entered and walked to the desk, the note fluttered to the floor. She glanced about, shrugged, and went behind the desk and sat down.

“New secretary,” Lori muttered. “Perfume from the Dollar Store.”

“Margie, get in here!” Ben bellowed from across the hall.

Sam and Lori separated then. One of them would stay with Ben all day and if he opened his safe whoever was with him would make a note of the combination. The other one would roam, keep tabs on the rest of the household.

Lori went inside Ben’s office and Sam headed for the security truck he had seen the night before. The guys from the company were already at work on the stone fence. He saw the landscape people come and start work. The cleaning crew left, and the cook arrived and bustled about in the kitchen. Arthur Beasley was checking the monitors, biting his fingernail over one in particular that showed the pyramid picture rising. No one, not even a shadow, appeared on the screen. Sam left him there. He relieved Lori in Ben’s office.

“Foreplay,” she said before she vanished. Sam stretched out on the sofa and for a minute or two watched Ben fondle Margie, who wriggled and giggled a lot. He closed his eyes. Ben dictated a letter, telling someone they would get together in a couple of weeks. Then Ben was on the phone yelling at Sy Wannamaker. Ben’s hand was under Margie’s skirt when Sam opened his eyes for a moment. He closed them again.

A kid from the studio, escorted by Arthur, came in with a box of manuscripts and books. Ben told him to leave them on the table and to beat it. The kid hurried to do so.

At eleven Arthur Beaseley called Ben to say that Mark Delacort had arrived, and was he up to his usual workout that morning.

“Tell them to let him in,” Ben said. “I’ll meet him in the gym.” He dumped Margie from his lap and stood. “Beat it,” he said to her. “Get those letters ready to sign.” Without another glance at her he strode from the office.

At that moment Lori appeared. “We’re having crab salad for lunch,” she said.

Sam grimaced. “Who’s Mark Delacort?”

“His personal trainer. He comes three times a week.”

“Today’s his day. You stick with Ben, I’ll check out Delacort.” He started to put himself at the front door to intercept the trainer, but hesitated a second to ask, “Did Ben swarm all over you when you were his secretary?”

She flashed him an indignant look, then gestured down her boxy pants suit with one hand, on down to her no-nonsense shoes, and put her other hand on her black hair, severely drawn back into a knot. “Are you kidding? Why do you think I dressed like this, no makeup, no jewelry, no Dollar Store perfume? And I don’t giggle. Strictly off limits from the get-go. I made that clear the first time he even thought of touching me. He thinks I’m a lesbian. That’s why I can work with computers.”

Sam was laughing when he left to take his place at the door to the house.

Delacort was six feet tall and looked like a male model, with wheat-colored wavy hair, deep blue eyes, an enviable tan, and a big smile that revealed perfect teeth. He was carrying a gym bag. Arthur walked with him to the gym, waved, and retreated. Delacort went to a dressing room with several lockers and a closed cabinet. He opened the cabinet and removed a stack of towels, then opened his gym bag and took out a revolver that was wrapped in sweat pants. He placed it on the shelf and put the towels on top of it. Whistling softly, he closed the cabinet, opened one of the lockers and began to change his clothes. Sam admired his body. His muscles had muscles, and not an ounce of fat or a hint of sag anywhere.

When Delacort finished dressing and went into the gym proper, he left the door open to the dressing room. Sam cursed. He was still too close to a living person to take on a material body, and that meant he couldn’t move the gun, or block Delacort if and when he decided to use it. Ben entered with Lori at his side.

Ben was dressed in baby-blue sweats with matching gym shoes. He strode to Delacort and patted his cheek. “How’s the pretty boy this morning?” he said in a mocking tone. He faked a punch to Delacort’s midsection and laughed when Delacort flinched. “Okay, let’s get started,” he said. “Warm up time.” Both men started to run in place.

“Look,” Sam said to Lori, motioning for her to come to the dressing room. “He brought in a gun and put it under the towels.” His hand passed through the towels when he touched them.

She frowned. “Not much we can do to stop him.”

Sam turned to watch Delacort and Ben go from the warm-up exercise to a treadmill. Ben stepped on and started. Delacort was at a control panel. He increased the speed and the tilt of the running board, then increased the speed again until Ben was running.

“How long does this go on?” Sam asked.

“About an hour. He’ll do the elliptical machine and press weights, and end up with a massage. Then he usually goes to the pool for a few laps.”

“Think,” Sam said. “There has to be a way we can prevent murder under our noses.”

“Would he really do it now, today, knowing he’d be caught? He was so careful with the brakes, making sure no one saw him, making it nearly impossible to accuse any one in particular. Why do it openly today?”

“He wasn’t at the party, was he? I didn’t see him.”

“He wasn’t invited. They had a workout that Friday, though, just like today.”

“Maybe he has a plan to get back in later, this is just stage setting,” Sam said, pointing to the towels. “Actually that makes a little more sense. Do it when more people are around.”

She nodded doubtfully.

They watched in silence until Delacort turned off the treadmill and said, “Take five.”

Sam felt every muscle tense as Delacort trotted over to the dressing room and the cabinet, where he grabbed two towels then trotted back to Ben. He handed one towel to Ben, who wiped his face while Delacort raised Ben’s sweat shirt to towel his back and shoulders.

Ben started on the elliptical machine, slowly at first, with Delacort gradually increasing the speed and resistance. It was going at a fast rate when the door to the corridor opened and Arthur hurried in with a cellphone.

“Stop the goddamn machine,” Ben yelled at Delacort. He snatched the phone from Arthur. “You got it? You got the goddamn computer?” He listened, then said, “Now! Bring it up now.”

He thrust the phone back to Arthur and got off the machine. “See that pretty boy leaves and tell Morehead I want lunch on the terrace.” Without another glance at Delacort he left the gym. Lori hurried after him.

Sam and Arthur watched Delacort change clothes, fold his sweats and put them in the gym bag, glance over the dressing room, and walk out with Arthur at his side. Sam, a few steps behind them, hesitated at the door. He could move the gun now, since they were in the corridor, but where would he put it? The gym offered few hiding places. A locker? A gun would stay hidden there only as long as no one opened the door. The gun would keep, he decided, and went out after Arthur and Delacort. He watched the trainer get in his car, watched Arthur make a call, watched Delacort drive away.

When he entered the terrace a moment later, he saw Ben, wearing a short white robe and sandals, at a table with a big salad and a frosted glass of what appeared to be juice. Ben’s legs were exceedingly hairy. Lori was in a chair opposite Ben.

“Body builder gone?” she asked. He nodded.

“Harrison Coolson is coming. And Darla called to say she’s on her way. Another party forming apparently. Ben isn’t happy about it.”

“Anything new from Wannamaker?”

“On his way. The usual suspects gathering. Where’s the gun?”

“Where he left it, under the towels. Arthur kept an eye on him until he was off the property. He’s another one of Ben’s lap dogs,” he added.

“I suspected as much. Ben treats him like dirt.” She turned away from watching Ben. “And he eats like a pig. Scarfing it down like there’s no tomorrow.”

“We’ll have to pick our time to move the gun,” Sam said. “There will be too many people around. I don’t want any of them to see a gun falling to the carpet.”

She shrugged. “With muscle man gone, it won’t make much difference, just so we do it before he comes back. The other problem might be harder. I have to get at your computer before they bring in an expert, and while it’s out of their sight. Let’s hope Darla and Coolson keep him busy with whatever is on their minds.”

Darla was the first to arrive. Arthur escorted her to the terrace. Darla was wearing a short sundress, her shoulders bare, and she carried a tiny clutch bag.

“If that dress was any tighter, it would be under her skin,” Lori said.

“What’s up, sweetheart?” Ben said as Darla approached his table. “Want some lunch?”

“Maybe later. I wanted to tell you about an interesting thing that happened this morning.” She pulled out a chair and sat down. “I was a little worried about Rebecca. I invited her to breakfast. You realize, of course, that she knows few people in town, and last week was so hectic with police asking us all so many questions, I just felt that she might be feeling a little apprehensive, a little bewildered, and perhaps I could help her. She’s such a sweet naïve child.” Her voice was honeyed, her expressive face registering nothing but concern. “It seems that she was puzzled by her contract. It’s so long and confusing, and darling Sylvia was not available, in a panic over that attempt on your life, and police and the media at her doorstep twenty-four seven. Poor Rebecca didn’t know where to turn.”

As she spoke, Ben stopped eating. He drank some juice and watched Darla with narrowed eyes and a deepening flush on his cheeks.

“I happened to remember that Rebecca has an uncle who is a lawyer in Denver. I suggested that she might want him to vet the contract for her, explain its many clauses in terms she can understand. She was very grateful. It really hadn’t occurred to her to do that. I assured her that there’s no hurry about it, since you don’t have a new picture lined up yet. Heaven only knows how much poor Sam had time to write, or if you can retrieve it. You might have to get a new writer, a new script, a new book or something. These things do take so much time, don’t they, darling.”

She stood. “Now I think I’ll get into a swimsuit and take a turn in the pool. That was a hot drive up here.”

“You’ll regret this,” Ben said in a harsh voice. “I’ll see to it that you regret it.”

“Darling, you know I’m thinking only of your future great works. Be back in a few minutes.”

Sam stood aside as Darla swept past him.

“Go,” Lori said. “You saw one of the most beautiful boy bodies. Now feast your eyes on the most beautiful girl body. I’d say look but don’t touch, but it’s hardly necessary. I’ll keep the pig in sight a while longer.”

Sam didn’t hesitate. He trailed after Darla and, to his surprise, she did not go up the grand staircase, but turned instead to the stairs to the lower level of the mansion. She glanced around, then went straight to the gym, to the cabinet, and to the towels hiding a gun. She picked up a towel and the revolver, and, using the towel to conceal the gun, she walked out and up the two flights of stairs to her room. She opened a drawer in a bureau and buried the gun in lacy under garments. That done, she sat on the bed and placed a call. “It’s me,” she said. “I got it. It’s safe. Good job, darling. I’ll call you later.”

When Sam rejoined Lori on the terrace, before telling her what he had seen, he said, “If I could sweat, I’d be in melt-down mode right now.”

They watched Darla slip off a shirt and dive into the pool. Her bikini couldn’t have had more than a dime’s worth of material. She swam two laps, climbed out and went into the bath house, taking a tote bag with her. When she emerged, she had changed into gauzy pants and a halter.

“If I had her body, that’s how I’d dress,” Lori said.

Sam couldn’t stop an involuntary glance at her shapeless jacket and clunky shoes.

Sy Wannamaker and Harrison Coolson arrived minutes later.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Ben demanded when Coolson approached his table.

“I want to see the new play,” Coolson said. “Janice is making noise about going to Italy, and I want to see how far along a new work is before I make up my mind about a trip.”

Ben scowled. “Let’s see what he’s got,” he said, motioning to Sy Wannamaker. “Open it up.”

Wannamaker put the laptop on a table and they all stood around as he opened it, to be greeted by a Welcome message and a request for a password.

“I have a guy coming at about three,” Wannamaker said. “He said he’ll need a desk with space for his computer and this one, and he’ll need to be left alone while he works on it. It can take hours. I thought maybe your office.”

“Forget that,” Ben said. “Keep it tied up for hours? No way. Margie’s office. What else?”

“He wants everything we have on Sam, bio, family information, everything. I called publicity to have the stuff scanned and emailed here. Margie’s computer. She can print it out when it comes.”

“The guy is probably pretty good,” Lori said. “That’s what I would have asked for.”

“It’s one thirty,” Sam said. “Let’s hope they put it somewhere soon, before the guy gets here.”

“Harrison, are you and Janice really going to Italy? That’s so sweet,” Darla said.

“Depends. Janice thinks I’m working too hard, need a rest, and we do have that villa available. I agree that a rest would be good.”

Abruptly Ben snapped the computer closed, picked it up, and started to walk away. “I’ll tell Margie to clear her desk and beat it as soon as she prints out the stuff on Sam. Help yourselves to drinks.”

Lori and Sam consulted with thumbs and nods. He followed Ben and she eyed the rest of the crab salad, in a bowl nestled in another bowl of ice.

Ben strode down the corridor, stopped at Margie’s door and told her to watch email for the information he was expecting, to print it all. “I’ll sign those letters and you can take them down to the mailbox on your way out. Leave as soon as you do the printout.” He turned and entered his own office and closed the door. He placed the laptop on his desk, opened the drawer and pressed the button to raise the pyramid picture. Sam was at his shoulder as he keyed in the numbers on the keypad and opened the safe. He looked at several bulging manila envelopes, picked up one of them and removed a snapshot, then closed the safe and, at his desk once more, restored the pyramid picture. He signed several letters on his desk, got up and walked out. Still dressed in the short robe, he headed for the staircase. Sam returned to the office, found paper in a drawer and jotted down the numbers. He put the piece of paper under a sofa cushion, then debated if he should stay with Ben or go to Lori. He decided to let Ben get dressed without an audience and put himself back on the terrace. Lori was eating crab salad, using the serving spoon. The others were in the party room sitting on stools at the bar.

“What exactly did he say about the mail?” Lori asked when he told her what he had seen and heard.

“She’s to take it down to the mailbox when she leaves.”

“That’s new. Arthur used to meet the mailman at the door. Now it seems as if the mailman isn’t allowed in, and that means a mailbox must be down near the gate, or at the guard house. We should find out where it is. That could be a way to get stuff out of here.”

“What difference does it make?”

“Tell you later,” she said. “What’s he up to now?” She nodded toward the door.

Ben had entered, dressed in slacks and a sport shirt. He went to the stool next to Coolson and sat down, then draped his arm around the other man’s shoulders and showed him the snapshot he had taken from the safe. Lori and Sam went to stand next to them.

“Now, Harrison, I really don’t think a trip to Italy at this time of year would be restful. Do you?” He put the snapshot in his pocket, patted his partner on the shoulder, and asked, “Who’s playing bartender? Why don’t I have a vodka sour yet?” Sy Wannamaker hurried to get behind the bar and start mixing the drink. Coolson slumped on his stool.

“How much stuff is in that safe?” Lori asked angrily.

“Half a dozen manila envelopes, maybe eight. Some video cassettes, some audio tapes, maybe six or seven. A box, like a cash box or jewelry box. He didn’t open it.”

“I will,” she said. “Let’s go. As soon as Margie is gone, we can get the stuff out of the safe, and I can start to work on the computer.”

Arthur was lounging against the open door to Margie’s office and she was putting a paper clip on printouts, laughing at something he had said. “I’ll pick up the mail and then I guess I’m out of here,” she said.

She crossed the hall to Ben’s office and picked up the mail, folded it and put it in prepared envelopes. The two of them walked down the corridor with his hand on her bottom.

“Let’s get that stuff now,” Sam said.

“Something I want to do first,” Lori said as Sam headed toward the sofa where he had stashed the code for the keypad. She looked around, then picked up a pillow from the sofa and walked to the end of the room where a camera was positioned, monitoring everything. She examined the pillow and pulled at the fringe, making a loop. Standing on a chair, she hung the pillow over the camera. “Now,” she said. “Let them wonder who hit the safe.”

Sam retrieved the keypad note as Lori went to the desk and pushed the button to raise the picture. He tapped the numbers in. Lori joined him with the key ring and opened the safe.

“Put everything in here,” she said, placing a wastebasket by him. “Everything except the box.” She reached past him to open the box, made a face, and closed it again. Just money. With the videos, the manila envelopes, and the audio tapes in the wastebasket, Sam closed the safe, and she pushed the button to restore the picture.

“One more thing,” she said, hurrying to the other office with the waste basket.

Sam watched her open a cabinet and pull out large padded envelopes. She quickly transferred the things they had taken from the safe to envelopes, took them to a postage scale, weighed them, punched in numbers, then stamped the envelopes.

“No addresses,” he said.

“Zip code is enough for now.” She finished and put the filled envelopes in the waste basket. “We have to stash that someplace where we can get it again later. Maybe the screening room. No one’s likely to go in there today. You do that and I’ll tackle the computer. Yell if they start to come. I’ll need a little time to back out and close it down.”

Cautiously he looked down the wide corridor, then hurried to the screening room, where he left the wastebasket. Back in Ben’s office, he found Lori already working with his laptop.

He began to flit back and forth. He watched Arthur go to his security monitors, looked in on the cook who was preparing a roast, glanced around generally, made certain that the four he had left in the party room were still there, still at the bar.

The third time he looked in on them at the bar, he saw Ben walking toward the restroom. The three at the bar drew closer together and he moved in to hear what they were saying.

Darla was speaking in near whisper. “Sy, since Ben’s your client, would you be the one to open his safe if he had an accident or something? Would the police demand that it be opened? Check out the contents?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Curious about what happens in such a case,” she said. When he compressed his lips and remained silent, she leaned closer to him. “Sy, I know he’s blackmailing some people. He admitted it. So, tell me, what would happen to that material if he had an accident?”

Coolson had gone tense with her words, and he looked at Sy with a pleading expression. “That’s a good question,” he said. “What’s the answer?”

After another pause—evidently a struggle was taking place in Sy Wannamaker’s mind—he said, “It would depend. A suspicious accident might be cause for the police to look, if they knew there was a safe to examine. A clear accident, probably not. I’m executor of his estate; when he passes, I’ll open it.”

“What’s on your mind?” Coolson asked then, turning to Darla. He put his hand on her arm. She winced and jerked away. “What are you thinking?” he demanded.

“What if Ben brought out a gun to show us and he accidentally shot himself,” she said in the same near whisper she had used before. “Three of us, his best friends, his attorney, witnesses to a gruesome accident. Ben was frightened by the attempted murder and he bought a gun for self protection, then, thinking it was unloaded, he accidentally shot himself. It happens all the time.”

Coolson’s expression didn’t change, but Wannamaker looked even more frightened than when Ben was present.

“Who knows about the safe?” Coolson asked him.

“Arthur, Darla. I do, of course. You. I don’t know who else.”

“Arthur’s not a problem,” Coolson said. “So, we’d get the stuff from the safe. And destroy everything. Right?” His gaze was fastened on Darla.

After a moment, she shrugged and murmured, “Of course.”

They drew apart when the door to the restroom opened and Ben strode into the party room. Sam flitted back to the office.

“They’re going to shoot Ben,” he said.

“Good. I need a few more minutes.”

It was closing in on three o’clock. He went to the end of the corridor where he could see the front door and keep an eye on the party room. Minutes later, to his dismay, Arthur came up from the lower level and went to open the door. The man he admitted was tall and thin, dressed in a button-down shirt, tie, and a black suit. He was carrying a briefcase.

“The nerd’s here,” Sam called to Lori and he followed the newcomer to the party room where Ben and the others came forward to meet him.

“Walter Portman,” the man said, holding out his hand to Ben, who ignored it.

“Come on,” Ben said, leading the way to the corridor and his office where the laptop was on the desk, closed. He told Portman what he was after, and that no, he would not work in this office. He picked up the laptop and the group left to enter the secretary’s office.

“Sam,” Lori said, “what did you just say?”

“The nerd is here.”

“Before that.”

“I told you they’re planning to shoot Ben.”

“We can’t let them do that. Are they all crazy? Come on, let’s move that gun. Darla’s room.” She vanished, and he followed.

“Make up your mind,” he said in Darla’s room. “It’s in that drawer.” He pointed and watched her hurry to the drawer and find the gun. She picked it up gingerly. “You wanted him dead. And anyway, how could we stop them?”

“We’ll hide the gun,” she said.

“They’ll drown him or push him down the stairs or something.”

Lori was looking around the room. “They’ll search for it,” she muttered. She went to a drape and pulled it open, revealing a glass door to a small balcony. She opened the door and stepped out. This was on the side of the house, overlooking a garden, bushes, trees, all manicured to the last blade of grass, the last fading blossom. “It will have to do,” she said and she threw the gun.

“Jesus,” Sam said. “You’re driving me insane. What are you up to, why ditch the gun there? The yardmen will pick it up. Then what?”

“We’ll pick it up first and heave it over the wall into the woods. Sam, if they kill him before we get the blackmail stuff out of here, the police will be all over this place. An attempted murder followed by a fatal accident? Those three are crazy. But if they can’t find the gun, it will slow them down until they come up with an different scheme. Maybe they’ll back off altogether. That will give us a little time. We have to wait until the coast is clear and put those envelopes in the mailbox.”

“Mail them where? Who to?”

“Let’s check on everyone and then go sit under a tree and I’ll tell you the rest of my story.”

A few minutes later they sat in the grass under an oak tree in the side yard. The gun was on the grass between them. “When I found out the whole story about my father’s accident and the insurance, I started planning,” Lori said. “I knew I was going after Ben, but I also knew that when I made my move he’d know I did it. I was afraid he’d gun me down if he possibly could, or have someone do it for him. I needed a place to hide, so I created a second identity. It took months, but I found an isolated house to buy, paid cash, and I got various identification cards. I opened a checking account and put all utilities and other recurring bills on autopay. There’s enough money in my checking account to pay them for ten years or more. My new personality wouldn’t hold up if a real investigation ever happened, but why would it? People don’t ask too many questions if you pay cash, don’t hold wild parties, or make noise some other way. Besides, I wasn’t doing anything illegal. I met a couple of my neighbors and let them believe I was a traveling consultant and needed a retreat now and then, and made it clear that I wanted privacy. They think I’m with a man at the retreat. I’ve been going there at least two weekends each month. Lori Earle flies to San Francisco and Bernadette rents a car and drives to her retreat. That’s why I didn’t apply for the job with Ben until two years ago. I wasn’t ready until then. I’m going to mail all that blackmail material to my alter ego.”

Sam swallowed hard. “Wow!” he said softly. “So the stuff will be there, but how will anyone ever know they’re safe?”

“They’ll know when I send that material back to various owners.”

“And you’ve figured out how to do that?”

She nodded. “But the next thing we have to do is get those envelopes up to our room and let me address them, and then get them down to the mailbox. That’s going to get tricky with so many people traipsing about.”

A woman came around the corner of the house and sat on a bench a few feet away from them. She lighted a cigarette.

“Mrs. Morehead, the cook,” Lori said. “God, I hope she doesn’t spot that.” She motioned toward the gun.

“Like you said, it’s going to be tricky.” He put his leg over the gun, which didn’t help since his leg passed through it.

Mrs. Morehead never even glanced in their direction. After she wandered away, Sam snatched up the gun, trotted to the high stone wall and threw the gun over it.

“Lori,” he said, dropping down to the grass by her again, “if Ben dies, does that mean the Voice will appear and collect us? You know, we take the next step. Or,” he said in a lower voice, “are we way out of sequence? You’re twenty-eight years old, and I’m thirty. We both would normally have another thirty, forty, even fifty years to go. Barring another joint accident, of course. How likely would that have been? We didn’t even know each other until this. How many people will have to die before it’s our turn? What if we’re in-between for decades?”

She looked stricken, aghast. “Here, or in quarantine for fifty years? That infinite terminal for fifty years!”

For the next several hours, they flitted back and forth, checking on everyone’s whereabouts, on the progress the computer expert was making, on the cook, and Arthur, but there was never a good chance to retrieve the wastebasket with the envelopes until nearly six o’clock.

“They’re having appetizers,” Lori reported then. “Let’s do it now. Arthur’s in the kitchen eating. We’ll have to hurry.”

She kept an eye on the group, again in the party room, sitting at a table spread with appetizers. Sam went to the screening room, picked up the wastebasket, and after a cautious scrutiny of the corridor, made a dash for the stairs. He raced to the bedroom and called to Lori to join him. She was there instantly. Then, with the door closed, she addressed the envelopes.

“We can use the balcony,” he said. “Me below, you toss the stuff down and we hide it until the coast is clear to the mailbox.”

She nodded and finished the last of the envelopes, all addressed, stamped, ready for USPS to do its job.

They had to wait, however. When Sam stepped out, he saw Darla heading toward her room. He followed and watched her go straight to the underwear drawer and feel about in it. After a second or two, she began to throw things onto the floor. She did the same with the other drawers, and then sat down on the side of the bed. She was pale, breathing hard. A flush began to suffuse her face, and a furious expression compressed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She cursed and walked from the room stiffly.

When Sam told Lori, she said, “Oh God! What if they start a search? Darla can pretend to have lost something else and they could be all over the place searching. We have to get this stuff out now.”

They gathered up the envelopes, ran to Darla’s room and to the balcony. Sam vanished and reappeared below. She tossed the envelopes down, closed the balcony door and the drapes over it, then joined Sam. Hurriedly they gathered up the envelopes, ran to the nearest bush and thrust the envelopes into the greenery.

Before they had a chance to discuss their next move, the computer expert appeared with Arthur on their way to retrieve the nerd’s car. Arthur watched until the car reached the gate, it opened, and the car rolled out of sight. Arthur returned inside the house with Lori and Sam at his heels.

They could hear Ben bellowing before the door opened, and the roar was ear-splitting as they approached the party room. Ben was cursing Sam, cursing Wannamaker, the computer expert, the world and everything and everyone in it.

“No play,” Sam said in an undertone to Lori. He was grinning. She grinned back at him.

“Let’s get that stuff in the mail while they’re all occupied,” she said.

They returned to the shrubbery where they had hidden the envelopes, gathered them up and made their way to the gate. The mailbox was situated outside the ironwork the gate was anchored to, with the slot for outgoing mail accessible to those within the estate properly, the retrieval door accessible to the mail carrier on the outside. The guardhouse was across the driveway, and the guard was watching a ball game.

“Here goes,” Sam said, walking to the mailbox with the envelopes. The guard continued to watch television, and Sam continued to have a working hand, a working body. He opened the mail slot and deposited the envelopes, then hurried back to Lori’s side.

“Done,” she cried. “We did it!”

“I still don’t see how that’s going to help,” he said. To his surprise Lori turned and flung her arms about him, held him tightly.

“Close your eyes,” she said. “Hold me.”

He closed his eyes and held her.

“Look!” she cried. “Just look!” She unwrapped her arms around him and backed away.

They were in a room with knotty pine paneling, a couple of easy chairs before a fireplace with wood ready to burn, a sofa with a brightly colored blanket draped over it. There were bookshelves with books, a television, a desk, pictures on the walls…

“My retreat,” Lori said.

“But how…?”

“I began to think about the Voice,” she said. “Everything else was implanted except the instructions that we couldn’t leave the property. Remember? That was spoken, not implanted, as if she had forgotten, or had been interrupted before she got to it. I didn’t know if it would work, but if it hadn’t worked, at least we’d both have a hug. Welcome to Bernadette Lowry’s house, Sam. There’s my computer on the desk and your stories and novel are on my hard drive. I left a back door open on your computer so if you want to restore that stuff after your sister gets it, I can do that.” She spun around, flinging out her hands. “My room. Yours, the guest room, is over there, kitchen, bathroom. If you want to go back to the mansion, go. I won’t go with you. If the Voice wants to collect me, she’ll have to find me first. I’m not going to spend fifty years in quarantine if I can help it.” She ran to a closed door, saying, “I’m going to change my clothes. There’s beer in the fridge. See you in a few minutes.”

Sam stared at her, stared at the room they were in, and slowly walked toward the kitchen.

He had never wanted a beer more in his life.

Lori’s voice floated out from her bedroom. “We’ll have to borrow a neighbor’s car to get stuff to a mailbox. I think at about three in the morning might be a safe time.”

Borrow? She meant steal. Steal someone’s car. He shook his head. They had to go back. The person behind the Voice, the entity, official, whatever she was, would find them. There could be a penalty, punishment, something.

“I thought I might be in hiding for a long time, so I stocked up on beer, wine, food in the freezer,” Lori called out. “A lot of ice cream. Not that we’ll need it, but for taste, something to do. Barbecues or something.”

When and if Ben died, they might just go on to the next step, not remain in quarantine, not continue in this in-between phase. Or it might be fifty years. What kind of punishment? He thought of his mother. Fire and brimstone?

“There’s a hiking trail down to the ocean. Great beach, but the water’s freezing.”

He opened a door to outside and drew in a long breath of fir-scented air. A forest, a hint of ocean air, cool and refreshing, long, slanting rays of evening sunshine filled with dancing dust motes, a bird call… He heard Lori’s door open and close and turned to tell her they had to go back.

Instead, he gulped a quick intake of breath. Her hair was down to her shoulders, lustrous black in soft waves. She was wearing jeans and a close fitting t-shirt, sneakers. She looked great, better than great.

“Have you decided?” she asked.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “There are seven billion people on earth. Let them find us if they can.”

For a moment Lori looked shy, surprised, then she smiled. “Let’s walk down to the beach. If the fog doesn’t roll in we might get a nice sunset.”

It was a good trail through the woods. Where it got a little steep he took her hand and he continued to hold it when they reached the sand. As she had said, it was a good beach, small, intimate, sheltered. Gazing seaward, he could see the white wall of fog already close and moving in. He tightened his grip on her hand as the first wisps of ocean fog curled around their legs.

“If we were regular people,” he said, his voice unexpectedly hesitant and husky, “what we’d do now is hightail it back to our retreat, maybe light a fire, maybe go to bed while we wait for the house to warm up.”

“I’m feeling pretty regular,” she said, her voice low and almost as husky as his.

“What I have to do is sort all my material on Ben, seven identical sets of pictures, DVDs, audio tapes, write a note to the recipients of the stuff, put it all in the prepaid post office boxes and everything will be ready to mail. That’s going to be tricky, you know. We have to pick our time when there’s no one around, and that’s hardly ever.”

Sam grinned at her. They were in the kitchen, having coffee and cookies for breakfast, just like regular people, he thought happily. “I want to look in on Ben sooner or later,” he said. “He must have learned that his safe was robbed by now.”

She nodded. “It’s going to be a couple days before we get the blackmail stuff. And not much to do while we wait.” She picked up another cookie.

“So we play at being regular people,” he said, his happiness mounting.

It was late in the afternoon the next day when they popped in at the mansion that was strangely quiet. A new man was in the party room reading a magazine, and another new man was in the kitchen eating a sandwich. Ben was stretched out on a sofa, one leg dangling off, his eyes closed, breathing heavily, something between a snore and an asthmatic gasping for air.

“He’s soused,” Sam said regarding him. “Looks like he’s been drinking a lot.” There was an empty Jack Daniels bottle on the floor by the sofa, another half empty on a table near it. “I guess those guys are security. Let’s have a quick look around.”

Darla’s room had been ransacked, other rooms had been tossed and nothing restored. Arthur’s room had been searched and he was not on the premises. It appeared that a hurried and careless search had been made of the entire mansion.

“Enough?” Lori asked.

“More than enough,” Sam said.

They flitted back to their retreat. “Way I see it happening,” Sam said, nursing a beer on the patio, “Ben went to his office and found his safe empty when he started to replace that snapshot. The security camera blocked by the pillow must have made him really sweat. No one had come or gone except the nerd and he couldn’t have known about the safe. It had to have been an inside job and we know who was present. His partner, his lawyer, his security guard and his lover. And the cook in the kitchen. So he made a search for the missing envelopes and junk. Probably had Arthur search everyone and sent them all packing. Called in more security and canned Arthur, just in case, and now he’s alone and hitting the booze. It looks like he landed on the slippery slope and it’s downhill from here on out. Want to edit anything?”

She shook her head. “There are a couple of gossip blogs that we should keep an eye on. They always come up with the latest rumor whenever a celebrity is in doo doo.”

From various bloggers and online tabloids, they learned that Ben Carnahan was suffering from fatigue, that he’d had a stroke, that he had fallen and hit his head, that he’d had a heart attack, that Darla had shot him, or he had shot her, that his long-time attorney was retiring and planned on writing a true insider book about Carnahan, that Harrison Coolson was selling his interest in the studio and moving to Italy…

It was reported that the investigation concerning the fatal accident that had claimed the lives of two people in Ben Carnahan’s Jaguar was focusing on Carnahan himself. A blogger had uncovered the story of Jacob Lieber, made the connection to Lori Lieber Earle, and speculated that perhaps Carnahan had had a motive in removing her. Two witnesses who had testified that Lieber had been drinking on the day of his death recanted, claiming that they had believed Carnahan when he made the statement, that they had repeated what they had been told. Another witness had since died, and two people had made sworn statements that Lieber had not had a drink all that afternoon.

“Good God!” Lori gasped when she read that account. “It’s unraveling like lightning.”

“I think it just needed a spark to set off the conflagration,” Sam said. “The rumor about the safe burglary must have set a speed record in spreading. I wonder how many people feel free enough now to add their own little bundle of kindling to the fire.”

“Let’s just burn all that blackmail stuff when it comes,” she said. “Why chance its getting opened by the wrong person? A wife, husband, kid might open mail and just cause more grief. It seems that we don’t need to confirm anything.”

Sam agreed. “Our work is done,” he said. “Your work, I should say. You accomplished what you set out to do. Satisfied?”

“No. There’s nothing concrete, nothing actionable. In Hollywood rumors come and they go and the high and mighty shake themselves off and it’s back to business as usual. Some of the stuff I gathered is illegal, actionable, IRS goodies. I have to mail those boxes.” She pointed to the post offices boxes stacked on the desk. “Sam, if no one does anything about that material, so be it. I’ll figure that I tried and if no one else gets interested, that’s it. Done.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said in warning.

The blackmail packages arrived the next morning and they spent a good part of the day feeding their own fire on the grill on the patio, creating a miasma of foul smelling smoke.

At one thirty in the morning they walked down the road to the Hutchinsons’ house. “They’re an old couple,” Lori said, “a retired orthodontist and his wife. Four grown children scattered around the country, and a slew of grandchildren that they visit a lot. Gone four or five weeks, back here, gone again after a few weeks. So we borrow their car, they report it missing, and the police find it unharmed miles from here and label it kids joyriding.”

“You know where the keys are?”

“Sure. I popped in this afternoon just for a second. The keys are on a side table near the front door. I’ll go in, pick up the keys, open the door and hand them to you. Pop back out and we’re off. We’d better push the car down the driveway, not start it until we reach the road. They’ll be in bed but they might hear something in the driveway.”

Before long they were on the black road winding through woods, heading for the highway. Lori was driving when Sam said, “Pull over.”

She pulled off the road onto the shoulder, turned off the headlights and the motor, and watched her hands melt through the steering wheel. Another car passed by slowly, almost close enough to touch.

“Want me to take over driving?”

“Not yet. Which is more nerve-wracking, driving or watching out for a living creature within interacting distance when you don’t know what that distance is?”

“We’ll toss a coin to settle it later,” he said. “Onward.”

They didn’t want to get close enough to anyone to lose their bodies, have the car continue on its own and probably crash, possibly injure someone. And scatter the boxes to be mailed. They stopped again minutes later and this time they changed places. Usually the trip from the airport to her retreat took about an hour and a half, Lori had said. That night, aiming for the nearest branch post office, miles from the airport, it took two hours.

“That’s it,” Sam said, pulling in at a curb. He turned everything off and pocketed the keys. Across the street a post office truck was leaving, and there was a car stopped at the outside mailboxes. They watched the truck until it vanished, then watched the car. The driver, a short woman, had to open her door to reach the mail slots, and evidently she had a lot of mail to post. Another mail truck appeared, this time going to the rear of the building.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Sam said when the woman finished and drove away. “Let’s leave the car here and walk over, in case someone else turns up. And let’s do it fast.”

They each picked up boxes, then, after making sure no one was in the process of coming or going, they ran to the mailboxes and shoved the boxes through the package slots. The last one was being swallowed by the collection box when a car turned in and headed toward them.

“Pray that stuff doesn’t go to the DLD,” Lori said.

“What’s that?”

“Dead Letter Department.” She took his hand and they popped across the road.

In the car they looked at each other grinning. “We actually did it,” Lori said in wonder. “It seemed impossible, a dream, a fantasy wish, but we did it.”

“We deserve a celebration,” Sam said.

“Absolutely! I put champagne in the fridge this afternoon.”

He had not been thinking of champagne, but it would do for starters. “Now we drive around a while, ditch the car miles away from here, and go home. Right?”

“You’ve got it.”

They left the car in a park miles away from the post office branch, and they left it running. “Joyriding until they ran out of gas,” Lori said. “Home, James.”

“We can go anywhere we want,” Sam said the next morning. “What would you like to see?”

“The Sphinx and all of the pyramids, inside and out.”

“The Great Wall of China.”

“That active volcano in Hawaii.”

He was clicking through television stations, catching news items, and she was at her computer. “Scrubbing,” she had said. “I’m making an external hard drive copy of everything. I’ll bury it under a rose bush. Just in case anyone ever breaks in while we’re away. Put the tree trails in Costa Rica on the list.”

“Done. Macchu Picchu. We can go first class all the way, stay in five-star hotels, luxury suites on luxury liners— Hey!”

She looked up. “What?”

“I know them.” He had half risen from the floor in front of the television and reached out to turn up the volume. “…Malcolm Vicente was known to be an avid outdoors man and spent time each year at the ChemAg resort, where the murder occurred last night.…”

“Who’s he?” Lori asked, leaving the computer to join Sam.

“Vice president of the company. I know his son, Alex. We were in the same writing workshop at Iowa State.” He put his finger to his lips and they both listened to a recap of the murder of Malcolm Vicente. He and his wife, his married daughter and her husband, and his son had gone to the Idaho lodge to celebrate Vicente’s sixty-fourth birthday. Also present were several close friends and associates. An altercation between Vicente and his son arose at dinner, and afterward Vicente had gone to an office he used at the complex. His body had been discovered the next morning by a housekeeper. He had been shot. The news reader moved on to another subject and Sam turned the television off.

“Wow!” he said. “Alex is in deep shit. They’ll pin it on him if there’s any way on earth they can.”

“Back up,” Lori said. “What’s the story here?”

“Okay. We met at the workshop, and we clicked. You do sometimes, you know. He invited me to the lodge for Christmas a couple of times and taught me how to ski. We’ve kept in touch over the past ten years. He wrote essays for awhile, did some newspaper work, and I wrote some plays. A few years ago he began to write articles about agriculture, GMO research and practice, climate change, things like that. He was getting a good reputation in the environmental movement. Months ago he told me he was writing a book, an exposé of ChemAg, including a lot of emails that reveal company knowledge of bad effects from some of their GM products, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, you name it. Studies had been hidden, discounted in various ways, destroyed. And he planned to show the manuscript to his father, give him a chance to come clean, turn whistle blower or some damn thing. It wasn’t going to happen, but he had to try before he submitted the manuscript.” He drew in a long breath. “Do you know the Rachel Carson book, Silent Spring? Decades ago, an exposé of the unintended consequences of DDT.” She shook her head. “Okay, it was a revelation and it caused a public outcry about the indiscriminate use of DDT, and eventually its being banned except for limited uses. His book is like that. He sent me chapters, bits and pieces now and then. It’s dynamite, Lori. Great research, footnotes, references, claims all proven and proven again. And they had an altercation on the night before his old man was killed. Why even mention that in such a preliminary account? Who do you think they’ll try to pin it on?”

“Maybe he did it.”

Sam shook his head. “No way. He wanted to save his father embarrassment, maybe legal hassles, maybe even jail time. Murder isn’t his style.”

“What else, Sam? There’s more, isn’t there?”

“Yeah. He saved my life. Like I said, he taught me how to ski. That first year up there, we were skiing cross country, with me a bumbling, awkward oaf. There was an avalanche. Not one of those big headline grabbers, but enough to send me flying. I ended up with a broken leg and Alex put together a makeshift sled and hauled me out, down to a clinic. Up to his hips in snow, half pulling, pushing, carrying me all the way. Protocol was to go get help, but he was afraid I’d go into shock, die from hypothermia, or else get buried in snow.” He looked down at his hands, spread them wide apart, then said, “Next Christmas, here he comes to our house in Des Moines with airline tickets for Boise, and he insists that I go with him, back up to the lodge, back to skis. Last thing on earth I wanted to do was go skiing. I was scared to death of trying again, but he made me. That was the year I learned how to ski, the second year, not the first. I owe him, Lori. He taught me more than just how to ski.”

“Okay, we have to go there,” Lori said. “I need another half hour on my computer. You can get the grill inside the garage, straighten up a little in the kitchen, and we’ll be ready. Deal?” He nodded. “And, Sam, you know how limited we really are. There might not be much we can do for your friend.”

Sam saluted and set about his chores. It didn’t take long. Standing on the back patio, breathing deeply of the incoming marine air, he closed his eyes for a moment. They didn’t need the food they grilled, or the beer and wine they drank; they didn’t need anything since they were never sleepy, tired, too hot or too cold, hungry. He doubted that they needed to breathe. But he drew in a long breath of cool ocean-scented air and it was good. They were pretending, just pretending to be normal, and that was good, too, he thought. That was good.

Then, thinking of the pretense that was their way now, he wondered how Ben was doing in the pretense of his life. The decision to look in on Ben and the transition were almost simultaneous. He stood in Ben’s study, where Ben was yelling at someone on the phone. Ben was pale, drawn and haggard. Next to his desk stood a short, plump woman who looked at Sam with a wide smile.

“I’m so happy to see you,” the woman said. “I was certain you’d pop up if I waited. It’s good to see you, my dear. My goodness, what ever have you and Lori been up to here? I’m afraid Ben is a quivering mess of nerves, and everyone else gone, vanished. I’m afraid you’ve been naughty.…”

The Voice! She was moving toward him with her hands outstretched, smiling broadly, not at all intimidating, nothing but good will apparent in her features. She had dimples in her unnaturally pink cheeks, bright blue eyes, frizzy white hair. She was inches from touching him when he cried, “No!” And he was back in the cabin in the woods, breathing hard, shaking.

“Sam! What’s wrong? What happened?” Lori jumped up from her chair and ran across the room to put her arms around him. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I have seen a ghost,” he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat and held her tighter. “The Voice,” he said. “She was there, she almost touched me, and I jumped back here. Lori, if she’d touched me, held my hand, she would have taken me to quarantine, or something.” He shuddered. “We’d have been separated and she would have started searching for you. Never go back there, Lori, back to Ben’s place. Never.”

“Never,” she said. “Let’s sit down a minute. Tell me about it.”

They sat on the sofa holding each other and spoke in whispers. “She looked like what your favorite aunt ought to look like, or your grandmother,” he said. “Someone you trust without question. But what if she can look like anyone she chooses? We can’t trust anyone who can see us. She might have workers who would report to her if we’re spotted. Spies. Cops. A ghost APB.”

“That means we can’t go back to see our families,” she said in a faint voice. They had both been talking about doing that, just looking in on her parents, his parents, his sister.

“Or the cemeteries where they buried us.” They had talked about that, too.

“Maybe any place we’d be likely to revisit.”

“Do you think she can trace us to this place?”

Lori pulled away and said, “I don’t see how. If she knew about it, she’d have shown up already, wouldn’t she?”

“Yeah, right. But let’s beat it as soon as you’re done with the computer stuff.”

Sam had been at the resort only twice, and that had been ten years ago, and the place that had come to mind was the restaurant. That was where he and Lori were standing now. Before, there had been a crowd; today there were two tables with people, four men at one table, three women at another.

Lori hurried to the group of men. Pointing, she said, “Pinky, Groucho—”

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Sam demanded.

“Giving them tags so we’ll know who we’re talking about,” she said. “We can’t just call them Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo.” She held her finger under her nose and again said, “Groucho.”

He had a big black mustache. Pinky had a very pink scalp showing through a stupid looking comb-over. “Colonel,” Lori said, passing her hand through the head of a man with a buzz cut who was scowling at his companions. “And last but certainly not least, Fats.”

Sam grabbed her arm and headed toward windows where he had seen uniformed men passing back and forth. “Come on, I want to see what’s going on out there. Crime scene or something.”

“Just a second,” she said, pulling back. She looked at the man who was speaking, the one she had named Colonel.

He was talking in a hard, every-word-significant kind of a way. “Just make sure the stories stick. Has anyone gotten to Marilyn yet?”

“No,” Fats said. “They’re still in the suite.”

“Alex, too?”

“Sure. Look, Greg, we all watched the movie, had a couple of drinks and went to our rooms and stayed there. There’s no ‘story’ to it. Just the plain simple truth. Except for Alex.”

“Right. Except for Alex.” Colonel poured more coffee for himself and scowled at the carafe. “God, this is a catastrophe, coming now. Avery is in touch with the governor. We’ve got to put the cork in this mess fast.”

“Okay,” Lori said. “They’ve got their stories straight, and I guess the wives are over there honing their lines or something. On to the crime scene.”

They went out to a wide, covered walkway that surrounded the entire building. Overhead was another one just like it. Every guestroom in the complex opened to the walkway, with chairs and tables placed outside each sliding door to the rooms, a place to park snow-covered gear, Sam had learned on his visits here. The walkway was six or eight feet high above the ground, although at his last visit snow had come up to the flooring. Two men were at the end of the building, one of them talking on a cell phone. The other was holding a medical bag.

“Sheriff, Coroner,” Lori said, passing them to observe a body sprawled on its back near the rail. A man in a white shirt, dark trousers, and a lot of blood. She looked around, then called out, “Malcolm! Malcolm Vicente! Are you here?”

Sam shook her arm. “Stop that! What are you doing?”

“Maybe he’s hanging around, like us. He can simply tell us who shot him and be done with it.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Listen.”

He stepped closer to the sheriff and heard him say, “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Sure, fine by me.” The sheriff pocketed the phone and gave the coroner a dour look. “Lieutenant governor’s on it. They’re sending in state investigators to take over. They said to leave him until Captain Conkling gets here with his crew.” He walked past the dead man and yelled to a deputy out on the lawn. “Come on in, Bud. Let the staties have fun searching.”

A deputy, who had been leaning over, inching his way along, straightened, nodded, and walked to the veranda and up the stairs.

“State’s taking over,” the sheriff told him as he approached. “Go get that manager and start a count of the guns, find out if any’s missing.” He eyed the corpse, shook his head, and pulled a piece of chewing gum from his pocket, unwrapped it and carefully put the paper in his pocket, the gum in his mouth. The deputy nodded and left. “You want some coffee, Doc?” the sheriff asked. “While you wait?”

“Not waiting,” the coroner said. “My daughter’s here visiting with her three kids. I told them we’d go fishing, and I aim to do that. I’ll get to the autopsy on Monday.” He hefted his medical bag, descended stairs to the ground, and walked to a convertible in the driveway. He got inside, waved to the sheriff, and drove away.

“We’ll catch up on what’s been going on when the sheriff reports to the captain,” Sam said. “I want to find Alex and see how he’s doing.”

“What guns?” Lori asked. “What does that mean?”

“They do skeet shooting, target practice, hunt in season. It’s a regular arsenal. Let’s go find Alex.”

They passed through the glass door to the lobby, a mammoth space with an oversized fireplace on one wall that was faced with multicolored granite stones. A uniformed deputy stood at a corridor entrance, another at the front entrance to the lobby.

“Registration book,” Lori said, spotting it on a counter. She hurried over to it. “Malcolm and Marilyn Vicente, room 101,” she called to Sam. “Alex is in 213. He’s probably with his mother, don’t you think?”

“This way,” Sam said, heading toward the corridor being guarded by a deputy.

Room 101 was the first suite in the corridor. When they entered, Marilyn Vicente was sitting bolt upright on a sofa staring into space. She was a round little woman with blonde hair streaked with reddish brown. That morning she had no makeup on except for poorly applied lipstick that looked garish on her white face.

“Harmon will know,” she was saying in a low monotone. “He always knows what to do.”

“Mother, snap out of it. Please, look at me.” A younger woman was kneeling before Marilyn, waving her hand before her face.

“Daughter,” Sam said. “Louise. Alex called her Cruella.” He nodded toward the sliding door where a man was standing, leaning against the frame, with his head pressed on the glass, his back to the room. “Alex.”

“And that one?” Lori asked, pointing to a second man seated at a table glowering at Louise and Marilyn.

“Must be Royce Stossel,” Sam said. “Louise’s husband. I never met him.”

“Mother, pay attention to me,” Louise said. She had a high pitched voice. “They’ll come to ask questions any minute. All you have to do is tell them you came to your room and took a sleeping pill and went to bed. That’s all you have to say. Are you listening to me?”

“I told you. I looked for him,” Marilyn said. “When I went to get a glass of milk, but he wasn’t there. I told you.”

“Good God!” Royce Stossel said and jumped to his feet. “Marilyn! You came to your room and went to bed! Period!” He pulled Louise away and took Marilyn’s arm, shook her slightly.

“He wasn’t where he said he would be. He does that, you know. That’s why I always call Harmon. He knows what it’s like. He’ll take care of it.”

“For God’s sake, Marilyn! Do you have anything you can take, a tranquilizer?”

Alex spun around to face the room. “Back off, Royce. Leave her alone. She’s in shock.”

“She doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on,” Louise said angrily. “She has to snap out of it before they come.”

“When did you look for him?” Royce demanded.

“I said to back off!” Alex took a step into the room with his fists clenched.

“You’d better be thinking about what you’re going to tell them! I heard you walking around all night!”

“You going to tell them you were up listening to footsteps all night?”

“We can’t let her tell them she was wandering around looking for him!” Louise cried over the two men yelling over each other.

Lori was watching them all, Alex advancing toward Royce, Marilyn sitting like a statue, Louise scowling at her mother, her husband turning a furious face toward Alex. Louise was tall and thin with sharp features, a narrow mouth and eyes that looked a little too small for her face. Big sister bully, Lori decided. She looked like a Cruella, ready to throttle anyone within reach.

Royce was red-faced, tall and muscular with thick black hair and an incipient black beard. He had the start of male pattern baldness on the back of his head. Beside him, Alex appeared almost thin, when she knew he was wiry, lean and athletic. He had to be strong since he had practically carried Sam through deep snow. Also, he was good looking, with wavy dark hair and deep-set, dark blue eyes, a good tan. At the moment he looked furious, ready to take on Royce. Everyone was talking at once, no one listening.

Ignoring the others, all speaking or yelling at the same time, Marilyn spoke again. “It was after you and Cal went to the bar,” she said in that same monotone, facing Louise. “You and Cal were having a drink, or maybe not. I passed you.”

There was silence for a few seconds. Then Louise said, “I went down for a nightcap and he was just coming out of the bar. We talked a minute or two.” She didn’t glance at Royce as she said this. “I thought I might find you there,” she added, and gave him a sidelong look.

“I was going over the schedule with Stuart,” Royce said.

“Colonel Mustard in the library with a sledge hammer,” Lori said, in disgust. “It sounds as if they were all up and wandering about most of the night. Is that a helicopter coming in?”

She and Sam hurried to and through the sliding door as Royce and Alex both went out to the walkway to watch a helicopter land on the lawn before the building.

“The staties have arrived,” Sam said. “Let’s go hear what the sheriff has to tell them.”

They flitted out to the walkway where the sheriff was waiting for the state police captain at the top of the stairs. The captain was taking his time getting from the helicopter to the resort, talking with a man at his side as he approached. They and several others who trailed after them were all in jeans, with cowboy hats or baseball caps, boots, and only the captain had a sport coat on, the others were in shirt sleeves.

Captain Conkling was as brown as tobacco and as wrinkled as a pecan. Lean above the waist, and long legged, thin faced, but with a big belly, he made Lori think of a caricature, a cartoon officer with parts that didn’t quite fit together.

“Lo, Mike,” the sheriff said as the captain mounted the stairs.

“What’s the deal?” Conkling said, extending his hand. “Been awhile. How’re you doing?”

“Tolerable. Tolerable. Malcolm Vicente, sixty-four yesterday, shot last night through the back, straight through his heart and out. No bullet yet, no shell casing, nothing. Checking now to see if a gun’s missing. There’s a passel of them in the lodge. Folks had dinner, watched a movie. Vicente went to an office to do some work. Had a fight with his kid at dinner. After the movie they all milled about for a spell, then took off to their rooms and went to bed. All but Vicente. He stayed in the office. Couple of them looked in on him before they went to their rooms. Heard nothing, saw nothing, know nothing. One of the housekeepers found the body this morning at seven fifty. Died between two and four. Doc will know more about that after the autopsy. And that’s all we’ve got so far.”

They walked to the body as the sheriff spoke. There, the captain drew in a long breath. “Sure as hell ain’t suicide, or accident either, I reckon.” He turned to the sheriff after surveying the body with a frown. “What time did you boys get here?”

“Quarter to nine.”

“And I bet that the whole kit and caboodle of them came out to have a look-see before that.”

“You’d win that bet. Stossel, Vicente’s son-in-law, even turned the body over. He’d been face down.” The sheriff adjusted his big hat. “Now, unless you want us, I’ll get my gang together and get out of here. You’re welcome to it. Bunch of big shots, big money, with more coming Sunday afternoon and Monday. You’re welcome to them.”

“What’s the deal up here? No real customers? What’s that all about?”

The sheriff had taken a step or two toward the stairs, but now stopped and said, “The company reserves the whole damn place this time of year to hold a pow wow or something. Some of them came here early for the birthday celebration, more coming in Sunday, Monday. Bringing family, some of them. They say fifty or more will be around when they all get here. Company big shots from around the country, around the world maybe. Right now the family’s in a suite, the others are in the restaurant. Staff’s all in a lounge off the kitchen, except the cook. He’s making coffee and putting together some breakfast. And that’s all I know. We got pictures if you want them.”

The captain shook his head. “Goddamn mess is what you got. Yeah, turn over your pictures. We’ll get more.”

Sam stopped listening and moved closer to Lori, who was standing near the body frowning at the rail.

“Looks like he was just standing here, maybe leaning against the rail when he got shot,” she said, pointing to blood on the railing.

“Maybe just walking, stretching his legs,” Sam said.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Look, you can see where he was holding onto the rail. Dusty everywhere except for those two places. I don’t think he was a moving target.”

Sam glanced over other sections of the rail, all covered with dust except where she was pointing.

The sheriff was now going down the stairs, and the captain was talking to two of his men, giving them instructions in quick staccato phrases. Get statements. Find the shell casing or the bullet. Secure the office where Vicente was working before he got shot. Tell the morgue guys to remove the body as soon as the photographer got through. At that moment the deputy who had been sent to check the arsenal appeared with the manager of the resort.

The deputy looked confused, glancing first at the captain, then at the sheriff, who waved to him and said, “Just tell him, and we’re out of here.”

“A Remington pump action 30.06 rifle is missing. Nothing else,” the deputy said.

“A goddamn deer rifle! You’re saying someone gunned him down with a deer rifle? On a porch?”

“No sir,” the deputy said. “I’m saying one’s missing.” He looked again at the sheriff, then headed for the stairs.

“Jesus!” The captain shook his head, then turned to one of his plainclothes men and continued to give orders. “A fucking deer rifle! Get statements, separate them first, for what good that’s going to do. They’ve had hours to get their stories lined up. I’ll go talk to the family.”

The man Lori had called Colonel strode from the restaurant, spied the captain entering the building, and hurried to him.

“Are you in charge?” he asked, drawing close. “I’m Greg Sharon. Look, we’re in a disaster mode here. Malcolm Vicente’s death has been a catastrophic loss to our company. It’s imperative that I get his notes on his laptop, as well as those in a folder he was working on last night. We have people flying in from around the world for a week-long series of meetings that Malcolm was to spearhead. Someone has to take over that function, has to acquaint himself with details that only Malcolm had at his fingertips.”

The captain gave him a sour look. He nodded to his detective and motioned toward the restaurant. “Get started.” He called to another detective just entering the lobby, “Find that fucking rifle! Tell him what they’re looking for,” he added to the manager. Finally, he responded to Colonel. “Take me to the office he was working in.”

“You want to sit in on the interviews?” Sam asked Lori. “I’ll stick with the captain.”

“Good enough,” she said. “But first a quick look at the office. I told you he was a colonel, didn’t I? He wants to take over.”

Colonel was already half way through the lobby with the captain at his side. They went down a corridor and entered a room furnished with a desk, a sofa and several chairs, a television, and a conference table. The captain went to the desk and opened a laptop, scowled at it for a second and closed it again. He opened a file folder and glanced through a sheaf of papers, then held it out to Greg Sharon.

“I’ll catch up with you later,” Lori said, and she vanished. Sam continued to watch and listen to Captain Conkling.

“We’ll look through the computer, see if there are threatening letters, anything like that. After that you can have it. What happened at dinner last night?”

Greg Sharon blinked at the change of direction, cleared his throat, then said, “It was to celebrate Malcolm’s birthday. We were all there, toasts, the usual sort of thing. Mal was in a bad mood, though. He turned on Alex, his son, and said it was a surprise to see him, that he had not expected him to join in the festivities, since he was planning on destroying his own father, his family, the company if he could. Just like that, out of the blue. The young man rose and said he wished him a happy birthday and that he would leave first thing in the morning, this morning. Malcolm said he also had plans for the morning. He said he planned to call his attorney first thing and tell him to prepare a new will, one that would leave his only begotten son exactly one dollar.” Sharon cleared his throat again. “The young man left the group without another word, and Malcolm said, ‘Party’s over. I have some work to do.’ He left us all at the table. Awkward, damned awkward with his wife and daughter there, his son-in-law, the rest of us. Then someone said there were movies, and the bar would be open all night, we should help ourselves, and we dispersed. Some of us looked in on Malcolm before going to bed. About twelve thirty. He said he still had work to do.”

The captain nodded, then went to one of the easy chairs and picked up a black suit coat draped over it. “Is that his, Vicente’s?”

Sharon looked it over and nodded. “It looks like it. He was wearing it when we looked in last night. It was warm in the hotel. He might have become uncomfortable working.”

“Go back to the others in the restaurant. We’ll take statements from everyone about last night. I’ll let you know when you can pick up the computer.”

Sam stayed with the captain when he left the office, crossed the vast lobby, and entered the corridor to Vicente’s suite. When he knocked on the door, Royce opened it and stared at him blankly, and Alex, standing outside the sliding door to the walkway gazing out at the surround of mountains, didn’t even look back.

“Mr. Stossel?” Conkling asked, entering. At Royce’s nod, he motioned him toward a chair and introduced himself. He pulled a chair around to face Royce as he slumped into an easy chair. “I’d like to ask a few questions. First, is Mrs. Vicente around? Is your wife?”

“Louise, my wife, is sitting with my mother-in-law. She had to have a tranquilizer. So upsetting, in shock. Marilyn’s trying to get some rest, pull herself together. Maybe you can delay talking to her for a couple of hours?”

“No problem, Mr. Stossel. What was the argument about at dinner last night?’

Royce glanced at Alex, quickly averted his gaze and looked down at the carpet. “A book Alex said he was writing. I haven’t seen it, but according to Malcolm, it is egregiously false in many ways, a slanderous attack on our company, with the sole purpose of harming Malcolm and various associates. False accusations, phony emails, doctored scientific studies…” He stopped and glanced again at Alex.

“He’ll say Alex is a disgruntled son,” Lori said, suddenly at Sam’s side.

“Kids aren’t disgruntled. They’re estranged. Employees are disgruntled,” Sam said. “What are you doing back here?”

She made a gesture with her thumb to indicate out there and said, “They all have their story and they’re sticking to the script. Movie, shoot some pool, drinks, bed. Pinky, Royce, and Colonel looked in on Vicente before they went to bed. No strange noises. No gun shots. It won’t matter what they tell the cops. What they say to each other is where the dirt will be shoveled.”

Sam held his finger to his lips and looked at Royce, who was speaking.

“I haven’t even seen the manuscript, but it was enough to make Malcolm change his will, cut Alex out all the way.” He sighed and shook his head. “Anyway, last night I woke up because it was too warm in the room. I opened the door to outside, to let in some air. I heard footsteps on the walkway above me and going down the stairs at the end of the walkway. I went over to the rail to see what was going on. Alex was hurrying to the side of the building, carrying something.”

“Next he’ll say it was a dastardly attack,” Lori said. “Shooting a man in the back.”

“People don’t say dastardly,” Sam said.

“You could see that it was Alex Vicente?” Conkling asked.

“No doubt about it. There’s a light at each landing. Such a cowardly attack,” Royce said in a despairing voice. “It must have happened after I closed the door again. I didn’t hear a shot.”

“Bullshit,” Lori said. “I’m going to see what the new widow and Cruella are up to.” She drifted to the bedroom door and vanished.

“Do you know of anyone who wanted to harm Mr. Vicente?” Conkling asked.

Royce shook his head. “Everyone liked him. Except maybe Alex. They were estranged, you see. And that damn book Alex was writing, probably out of spite. He was pretty furious, got up and left the table before dinner was even over. An ugly scene, awkward for everyone.”

Sam wished Lori had stayed long enough to hear Royce say “estranged.” He looked at Alex out on the walkway and drifted out to see if the voices were carrying that far. They were.

“I don’t know what’s in the book,” Royce was saying. “Enough to make Malcolm turn on him finally.”

“What was Alex Vicente carrying?” Conkling asked.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see what it was. I thought it was clothes, maybe his suit, maybe not.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. I’d been asleep. I didn’t look at the clock or turn on the light.”

“Sam! Come on in here,” Lori called from the bedroom. He joined her.

“Listen,” she said, nodding toward Marilyn, who was talking in a low voice to her daughter. Louise was leaning in close, both sitting in chairs near the glass door.

“We knew it would blow up sooner or later and we prepared. He was going to retire next year at this time, on his sixty-fifth birthday. Just retire and move to Zurich.”

“Mother, you have to keep quiet about those plans. Let all this end first, and it will. No one will publish that book, not if Alex is charged with the murder of his father.”

“For God’s sake, Louise, don’t talk like that! Alex isn’t a murderer.”

“Face it, Mother. No one else had a motive. Father was indispensable at the company. People here last night were all his friends and family. No hidden grudges or anything else. No one except Alex had reason to kill him.”

She put her hand on her mother’s arm and Marilyn jerked away and rose. She walked to the glass door and stood facing out. “We were going to keep up the façade, our bogus marriage, for the sake of appearances. I learned what was going on eight years ago. I was going to leave then but he talked me out of it. Keep up an appearances, start a new life in Zurich. We bought property there, opened a bank account, spent time there. Entertain his friends here, teas, dinner parties, openings, shows… I’m good at that, you know, the perfect hostess. Everything that shouts the good life to the whole damned world, and then next year, just one year from now, go to Zurich together and say goodbye. He’d go his way, I’d go mine. Free, rich, untouchable… Just one year more.”

She turned to look at Louise, and was herself no more than a dark silhouette against the bright morning light. “A year ago Alex came to visit, and I found him in Malcolm’s study, at his computer, his home computer, not the laptop. He told me it was time to move to Switzerland. That’s all he said, but I knew what he meant.”

“Did you tell Father?” Louise asked, her voice strident, harsh.

“No. I told myself it was unimportant, that Alex wasn’t anyone to fear. We thought it would be an internal threat, a whistle blower, perhaps one of the scientists. Some of them were unhappy about the work. Then the manuscript came. Malcolm didn’t tell me, but he was furious, a madman. I didn’t know why until his eruption at dinner. That’s why I tried to find him last night, to talk to him, to tell him it was time to leave. I wanted to tell him I would leave within the week, with or without him. But he wasn’t in the office.” She took a step or two into the room, and sank down into her chair again. “That’s what I want Harmon to arrange. The day after the funeral, I will be on a plane.”

Louise jumped up and knelt before Marilyn. She took her mother’s hands in hers and said, “That book won’t be published! It won’t. Alex killed his father, my father, and he’ll go to prison for the rest of his life. No one will publish a work like that from a deranged man who turns on his own father! He’s the only one in the world with a reason to kill him. Motive, opportunity, that’s all they need.”

Marilyn pulled her hands free and drew back farther in her chair. “He had no motive. The will? He hasn’t taken a cent from us for over eight years and swore he never would take money earned by poisoning the earth and its creatures, including people. He came to the house eight years ago and they had a terrible fight over the work. That’s when I learned what they were doing, when we made our own plans to get out in good time. Only we didn’t. Time ran out. But Alex did not have a reason to murder his father!”

Before Louise could respond, the door opened and Royce entered. Louise jumped to her feet. “How did it go?”

“Okay. No problem. He wants you.” He gave Marilyn an uneasy look, then said to his wife, “Honey, you came here with Marilyn and helped her get ready for bed, and you gave her a sleeping pill. You knew how upset she was. You stayed with her until she was sleeping and then you came next door to where I was in bed waiting for you. Clear?”

“Like mud,” Louise muttered. “Where’s Alex?”

“Out on the walkway. The cops are saving him for last.”

Louise tugged at her blouse, straightened her shoulders, and walked past him to the door to the adjoining room.

“Enough?” Lori asked Sam.

“More than. Let’s see how Alex is holding up.”

They went through the glass door to the walkway and spotted Alex at the far end sitting on the top step of the stairs to the ground. He was talking on a cell phone. They crowded close enough to hear a woman’s voice.

“You need a lawyer before you say a word. Just tell them you want an attorney.”

“It’s a preliminary investigation,” Alex said. “Just a brief statement is all that’s required. I can do that much without an attorney.”

“Alex, you can’t! You don’t realize how they can trip you up with whatever you say.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. I won’t mention that I went to the office to find him, to have a talk with him. None of that part. Since he wasn’t there, it’s irrelevant, anyway. My manuscript was. He’d been marking it up like a middle school teacher furious with a sloppy essay. It’s just as well I didn’t see him. He would have been too mad to reason with.”

“Oh dear God! Alex you can’t admit a thing, not a thing. Keep your mouth closed until you have a lawyer,” the woman said.

“Honey, don’t worry. My story is the simple truth. I spent time on the computer, channel hopped a bit on the TV, changed my clothes, slept a while, and decided to take most of my stuff down to the car because I planned to leave as soon as I got up.”

“Alex, I’m scared for you. You don’t understand what I’m telling you. Just don’t talk until I’m there.”

“Don’t be scared. I’m okay. As far as that goes, I think a lot of people were roaming about. Doors opening and closing all over the place.”

“I’m so afraid they’ll turn the light on you. I’m coming up there.”

“No way! I’m just glad you’re not here. I love you, Emma. I want you to stay the hell away from this goddamn mess.”

“I love you, too,” she said.

Lori stepped back. “That’s enough. No voyeurism. She knows he’s in deep shit and she’s really scared.”

Sam nodded and together he and Lori drifted away a few feet. “He knows it, too,” Sam said, nodding toward Alex. “Royce all but accused him of murder. That’s going to be the play book here, I’m sure.”

“Me too.” She frowned. “I don’t see what we can do. We can’t ask questions and demand straight answers. We haven’t got a clue about private disputes between Vicente and anyone else and there’s no way we can find out if there were any. We can’t do the forensics, but what good forensics could be is even problematic. They were all over that section of the walkway and they all fired guns yesterday apparently. Maybe they all are hotshot shooters. I bet they’ll find the rifle and it’ll be spotless, thoroughly wiped of fingerprints. Unless someone confesses and we happen to be nearby and overhear it, what can we do?” She shrugged, her attitude, her words, the expression on her face, body language all silently, eloquently registering her frustration and dismay. She felt as helpless as her attitude attested to.

He felt equally dismayed, equally frustrated. “Don’t know,” he said. “Let’s hang out with them for a while, see if anyone lets out anything helpful. I’ll stick with Alex through his interrogation, and you snoop among the rest of them. One of them just might let something helpful slip out if they don’t think a cop is within hearing distance. Hell, maybe a couple of them will talk about a conspiracy to do old Vicente in. Maybe the widow is in on it. She seems to relish freedom from a performance-only marriage.”

“Yeah. Push her button and watch her pour tea. Okay. Good enough,” Lori said and flitted back to the restaurant.

Sam reentered the suite where Captain Conkling was speaking to Louise. “Mrs. Stossel, this has been helpful. Of course, when your mother’s attorney arrives he’ll be admitted. It’s perfectly understandable that your family will want him to handle various legal details. I’d appreciate it if you’ll let us know when Mrs. Vicente feels up to a few questions.”

Louise was holding a tissue to her eyes and when she spoke her voice was trembling, as if she had been weeping. She kept her head lowered as she rose. “Thank you, Captain Conkling. I’ll sit with Mother for a few hours. I’ll send word when she’s composed enough to answer anything you want to ask.” She walked past the captain, and as soon as her back was turned, her face hardened and a steely glint shone in her eyes. She entered the bedroom.

Sam didn’t bother to follow her. He kept his gaze on the captain, who was regarding the walkway with a thoughtful look. After a moment, he straightened his shoulders, walked out, and continued down to the end where Alex was still on the phone.

“Mr. Vicente, I’d like a few words with you,” he said briskly as he approached Alex. “Maybe it would be better if we go to your room.” It was not an invitation.

“Sure,” Alex said, rising. He spoke into the phone then, “Gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

Neither said a word as Alex led the way up the stairs to the upper level, and on to his room, an upscale motel room with a king-size bed, a real table and chairs, desk with computer access, a refrigerator and coffee maker. A dress shirt was draped over one of the chairs, and a backpack on the bed was open with various items exposed, a necktie, socks, briefs. It looked as if things had been tossed in randomly, nothing folded. A laptop and windbreaker were next to the backpack.

“Planning on an early departure this morning?” Conkling asked. He picked up the shirt and looked it over, put it down again, and sat at the table. He motioned to Alex to sit across from him.

“That was my plan,” Alex said.

“Tell me about last night.”

Sam heard nothing new until Alex said, “He would have taken his morning run, and I planned to wait until he was past the parking lot and then take off.”

“He ran every morning?”

“Yes. At daybreak. It’s two miles total, but you can leave the track at various places and head back to the hotel. Half a mile, a mile, like that. He usually did the full two miles.”

“You wanted to avoid him? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not especially. But he wanted to avoid me and I planned to make it easy for him.”

Conkling regarded him for a time, then said, “So you knew he’d go out running, around the stables and the parking lot, then up in the trees for a spell. Did it occur to you to wonder why the killer chose a rifle for a murder weapon? Strange choice when handguns were also available and easier to hide.”

Alex shook his head. “I didn’t give it a thought.”

“Strange,” Conkling said. “But if the killer knew he’d be out there running and that no one would be around that early, a rifle begins to make sense. What did you take to your car last night, Mr. Vicente?”

“I changed out of the suit I was wearing, and the dress shoes. I lay down and watched television, I surfed the Internet for a time and dozed off. When I woke up, I took the suit and shoes to the car. I didn’t want to wear any of them today.” He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, sneakers. “I drove all day yesterday, up from Denver, and I planned to drive all day today, back home. And, Captain, my father wasn’t shot on the running trail.”

“No, he wasn’t. But maybe the killer didn’t know that he was going to be up all hours working. Maybe he figured that after such long hours, he’d skip his usual dawn run. Let’s go have a look at your car, Mr. Vicente.” He picked up the shirt and walked to the glass door. On the way he drew out his phone and spoke briefly into it, then motioned Alex to come along.

Sam wished there was some way he could signal to Alex that he wasn’t alone, that someone believed him, that his long-gone buddy was at his side. Alex looked stiff and miserable. He looked like a man who understood that ahead a deep pit awaited him, that just one step might plunge him down into it, and he had no way of knowing which step that would be. And, Sam also thought, the damn fool didn’t have the good sense to follow Emma’s advice and keep his mouth shut.

“See, how it might have been,” Conkling said as they walked, “the killer thought Mr. Vicente would start out at the front of the hotel and go around, and he, the killer, would go straight to the parking lot and wait for him, and after that keep him in sight until he was near the trees. A good clear shot, no one around to see or hear anything, no one expecting Mr. Vicente to return very soon, and the killer could get in a car and take off, dump the rifle along the way. He could have been a hundred miles away before the body was found. Not saying anyone thought along those lines, but we try out different scenarios, just to see if one fits the facts.”

“Your scenario doesn’t fit the facts,” Alex said.

“No, it doesn’t. But it’s a neat scenario, now isn’t it? And if your father changed his anticipated actions, the killer was obliged to change his. Maybe he had to go retrieve a rifle he had stashed somewhere, and then he saw another opportunity on the walkway. Just the way we think, Mr. Vicente. Try to make sense out of things.”

Neither spoke again as they went down stairs to the ground level, and through the back grounds of the hotel to the parking lot where Alex pointed out his car. Two men were waiting and they immediately went to the car. Conkling asked for the keys.

Forensics, Sam thought, watching. They were going to search for gun oil or something, confiscate the suit and shoes, keep the shirt, look for incriminating evidence. Alex was thinking along the same lines, he suspected, watching a tic jerk in Alex’s jaw, watching his hands clench and relax.

“Are you done with me?” Alex asked in a strained voice.

“For now, Mr. Vicente. For now.” Conkling waved him away and moved closer to his team.

Alex turned and walked back toward the hotel. Sam flitted to the restaurant, where he saw the four company men huddled over papers in a booth. Lori was sitting at a table where a detective was talking to one of the women he had seen earlier.

“Anything?” Lori asked, rising.

“They want to pin it on Alex. The captain’s okay with that. How about you?”

“She,” Lori said jerking her thumb toward the woman still talking to the detective, “thinks Alex is an unnatural son. He didn’t show enough emotion when he saw his father lying there, shot dead. Just went all white and froze. Like his mother. Royce was ready to jump him, beat him to death or something, and Colonel and Pinky held him back. So far, each and every one of them I’ve sat in on is convinced that Alex killed his father. And each and every one of them has said so in different words to the cops.”

She stopped talking. Then, pointing, she groaned. “Look at the spread they’re laying out. Brunch.” Two young men in white coats and black slacks were arranging dishes on a long table. Scrambled eggs, poached salmon, sweet rolls, fruit salad…

“Come on,” Sam said. He took her by the arm and when that didn’t budge her, he started to walk. She sighed and fell into step with him.

Side by side they walked from the restaurant, then hesitated in the lobby, undecided where to go next. “So much for the killer saying something indiscreet away from the cops,” Sam muttered. “They’re sticking to their stories, I guess, even with each other.”

“How do they ever solve crimes when all the people involved lie about everything?” Lori said. “I guess circumstantial evidence is enough. Oh, they found the rifle. Apparently it was tossed over the rail into bushes. Wiped clean, of course. About twenty-five feet from where Vicente was standing.”

“Let’s sit here and compare notes,” Sam said gloomily. “You might have heard something I don’t know anything about, or I might have.”

She looked as gloomy as he felt as they sat close to each other in the lobby.

“We know various people saw Vicente at twelve thirty. Working, still wearing his coat, maybe marking up Alex’s manuscript, or just going over it again. Maybe working on his speech, or the schedule for the coming week.”

“Hold it,” Lori said, closing her eyes, thinking. “What papers did that captain hand over to Colonel? I saw a schedule, maybe a speech, a menu. No book manuscript.”

Sam thought a moment, then nodded. “No manuscript. Alex said it was there when he went looking for his father. It was heavily marked up, lines crossed out, whole pages crossed out. That’s what he wanted to talk to him about, to reason with him, warn him of trouble ahead.” He nodded again. “If the murderer took it, that’s our chance. Find the manuscript, find the killer. Let’s go search.”

Lori jumped up. “No one’s had much of a chance to get rid of anything. Maybe not the killer, but someone was there after Alex was. And his mother was there at some point when Vicente was gone. How many people were in and out of that office after twelve thirty? It sounds like Grand Central Station.”

A waiter was crossing the lobby with a food cart loaded with covered dishes. He went down the hall toward Marilyn Vicente’s room. Sam and Lori passed him and started their search at the far end of the suites and minisuites.

An hour later, they entered Royce and Louise’s suite. “It could be a pharmaceutical convention,” Lori said. “Meds for high blood pressure, heart, constipation. Antacids. Enough tranquilizers to settle down a post-combat battalion. It’s like they invented sleeping pills and handed out samples. Enough Viagra for a reunion of World War One veterans.”

“And no manuscript,” Sam grumbled, glancing around the room.

No one was in the suite. “You start. I’ll see where he is,” Lori said. With a wave she passed through the wall to Marilyn’s suite.

“He’s in the restaurant with his team,” Lori said when she rejoined Sam. “Cruella’s still with her mother next door. They had sausage and bacon. And grilled portobello mushrooms wrapped in prosciutto. They’re drinking coffee and not looking at each other or talking. And the housekeepers have been turned loose to start on the rooms. Now that they’ve found the rifle they must figure there’s nothing else to search for.”

“So let’s get to it before they reach this room,” Sam said.

They went to the bedroom, where Lori nodded toward the two king size beds. “Interesting,” she said. Both beds had been slept in.

He went to the bathroom and she started opening drawers. It didn’t take long in the bedroom. They moved on to the other room where she went to a closet and pulled out suitcases while he examined the desk drawers.

“Sam!” Lori said after a minute. “Look what I found!”

Sam was at her side in an instant. “Jesus!” he said in a whisper. “He shot his father-in-law! Why?”

The bulky manuscript was in a folder too small for it, apparently a makeshift cover, simply to keep the pages together. The top sheet was crumpled and torn at one corner, dirty. They flipped pages and saw the heavily crossed-out sections Alex had mentioned. Entire pages with black-marker exes through them, underlining here and there. Sam was turning pages rapidly when Lori caught his arm.

“Someone’s coming,” she said, nodding toward the hall door.

Sam shuffled the papers together and stuffed the manuscript into the too-small folder. He put it back in the suitcase and was pushing the case into the closet when the door opened and two housekeepers entered.

“Let’s beat it,” Sam said. “Someplace where we can think. I want to throw stones or something.”

Lori nodded, and they left the suite, then paused at the stairs to the ground. “Over there,” Lori said, pointing to the start of the forest that edged the front lawn of the resort. “We can keep an eye on things and have a little privacy.”

Minutes later, sitting in shade, with a clear view of the resort and the helicopter parked on the lawn, Lori said, “It doesn’t mean he killed Vicente, you know. He could have picked up the manuscript early this morning, or even during the night. It’s not the smoking gun they keep talking about.”

Sam agreed. “I just can’t figure out a motive. Vicente practically adopted him when Alex refused to join the company. He was Vicente’s right hand, his go-to guy, his heir apparent, climbing the corporate ladder in the approved manner, married his boss’s daughter. All those good things. Why? Vicente was his ticket to top management.”

“Let’s go at it from a different angle,” Lori said. “We know Vicente was working at twelve thirty. Later, Marilyn Vicente went looking for him and she saw Cruella and Cal together. Royce said he was with Stuart, somewhere else. Alex was still in his room presumably. But he said when he began to walk around, doors were opening and closing, people coming, going, keeping out of sight. He assumed that his father had gone to bed and left the manuscript on the desk. Everyone else claims they were in their rooms, in bed, windows and doors closed. No one heard a shot, but he was up and about, why didn’t he hear the shot?”

“He could have been taking stuff to his car,” Sam said. “He saw the manuscript, realized it was pointless to try to talk to his father, and prepared for an early exit this morning.”

“Royce saw him,” Lori said slowly. “And Royce, who also didn’t hear a shot, ended up with the manuscript.” She picked a blade of grass and began to chew on it. A moment later she threw it away with a frown. “What I really want is some bacon and sausage.”

“Listen up,” Sam said after a prolonged silence. He caught her hand and held it. “You said try it from a different angle. I’ve been doing that. Royce sees Alex going to the parking lot. You want to relax, you take off a suit, shoes, tie, but not necessarily your shirt. So there he was in a white shirt, jeans that would have looked black. Royce has stashed the rifle somewhere and gets it, then goes hunting. He goes to the corner of the walkway, turns, heading for the main stairs down, the closest stairs to his suite. Just before he turns the corner, Vicente goes out through the main door, and heads for the far end. Stuffy inside, too warm. He’d taken off his suit jacket. Royce sees the white shirt and black pants walking toward the end of the walkway and he thinks he has his chance. Dim light, white shirt, black pants, dark hair. Bingo. Alex. He follows a few more steps, passes the hotel entrance, sees that his target has stopped walking, a perfect and easy shot, and he fires. The victim goes down. Royce doesn’t have to make sure of anything. He’s a crack shot. Wipe the rifle, dump it in the bushes, go inside and across the lobby to the office, maybe to tell Vicente their problem is solved. The office is empty. He assumes, exactly as Alex did, that Vicente has gone to bed and left the manuscript, but he knows there will be a hubbub in the morning and someone else might get to the manuscript first, and he can’t risk that. He takes it and goes back to his own room.”

Lori stared at him, wide-eyed. “No way to prove or disprove any of that,” she said.

“I know. But tell me again what that woman said about how Royce acted when he realized that it was Vicente who was shot.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “She said Alex was unnatural, that he turned white and froze. And she said Marilyn did the same thing, just froze. Royce was crazy. He even turned Vicente over, and nearly passed out on the spot. When he saw Alex, he jumped at him yelling it was his fault, that he should be dead. Two of the guys had to hold him back. She thought it was an accusation. They all thought that.”

“Not an accusation at all,” Sam said. “He really believed that Alex should be dead. Maybe he thought he was seeing a ghost. Actually, you gave me the idea yourself. Remember? When we got here you said maybe Vicente was like us, hanging around. I began to think, like us, the wrong victim.”

Lori’s eyes seemed to unfocus as if she were viewing something either very close or very distant. She shook her head a time or two, then began to nod. She turned toward Sam with a definite nod. “That’s the only thing that makes any sense. I kept thinking that no one acted as if getting rid of Vicente was anything but a catastrophe. They seemed genuinely panicked. But get rid of Alex? Yes. Absolutely.”

“It’s all speculation,” Sam said, troubled. “What if this or that, maybe, could have, might have.”

“But it makes sense. How do we prove it? Make someone else see it.”

“No idea,” Sam said. “How about you?”

“No. Let’s think about it. Spitball ideas.”

For several minutes it was as if they both had developed dust-dry mouths. No spitballs. Finally Lori said, “How much do you know about Royce?”

“Nothing. Nada. No more than Alex mentioned. To more or less quote him, he’s a brown-nose, apple-polishing, back-stabbing prick. Smart enough to get around the rules, clever enough to keep on the right side of Vicente. Mendacious, salacious, hypocritical, sanctimonious, superstitious, dominionist, misogynist…”

Lori put her finger on his lips. “I get the picture,” she said. “The question before the board is what would it take to make him blow it himself?”

“No idea. So we observe him. Meanwhile, I want to squirrel that manuscript to a safe place and skim through it. How damning is it, and who’s implicated in whatever it is that can’t be made public? Even getting it to a place with some privacy is going to be a bitch of a job.”

“I know. We can’t carry it in the halls or through the lobby, anything like that. Remember how hard it was with only a few people on the scene. Here we have dozens.”

They both turned their attention to the sprawling complex, with detectives here and there, housekeepers and their carts in the corridors, Alex sitting in a chair outside his room, apparently talking on his cell phone, detectives with metal detectors searching the lawn…

For a long time neither spoke again. A limousine was waved down on the long driveway to the access road, then motioned on. It rolled forward and came to a stop near a state police car. A tall man with a briefcase emerged.

“Bet it’s the lawyer for the widow,” Lori said without much interest.

“I’ll check him out,” Sam said. He rose and flitted to the hotel lobby where he waited for the tall man, who had been stopped by Captain Conkling. While he waited, Sam dropped in on the table of associates huddled in their corner booth. Royce was speaking.

“It’s a great honor,” he said. “I know I can’t do him justice, no one could, but I’ll do my best. I’ll have to rewrite much of it, of course, since it’s his first-person greeting, his personal congratulatory remarks for a remarkable year, and his personal rallying cry to meet and exceed all expectations for the coming year. He put many, many hours into his speech, and it is heartfelt and moving, inspiring…”

Sam left to check on the lawyer. He had entered the hotel, and was heading for Marilyn’s suite. Sam tagged along, examining him. Tall, thin, pale as if he lived in a cave he seldom left, not much hair, dyed brown, droopy eyelids, crepelike skin. His suit was grey silk, and his brilliantly shined shoes had to be patent leather or cheap plastic. Sam didn’t think they were plastic.

Louise opened the door at his tap. She drew him inside quickly and closed the door, holding his arm. In a low voice, speaking fast, she said, “Harmon, Alex killed him. We all know he did it. Even the police know it, but so far there’s not enough evidence for an arrest. They told him he can’t leave yet, no one can, but how long can they hold him, us? We can’t stay here indefinitely. Mother needs to go home, see to things, make arrangements. I’ll go with her, of course. She’s devastated. What can we do to make the police act? What would it take?”

He pulled his arm free, frowning, his lips pursed. “Hard evidence,” he said in a clipped voice.

“What kind of evidence?”

At that moment Marilyn appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. “Harmon! Thank God, you’re here! That policeman wants to ask me questions and I don’t know what to say to him.”

The lawyer hurried to her and air kissed her. With his arm around her shoulders, he led her to a chair. “Sit down, Marilyn. Tell me about it and we’ll decide what you should say. I met the captain and he’s anxious to talk to you, you understand. He’ll ask if Malcolm had enemies, if anyone wanted to harm him, things like that. He’ll want to know about the relationship between Malcolm and Alex, of course. And he’ll ask about your movements, and Malcolm’s, after dinner last night. That’s really all he wants from you at this time. I’ll be right there, of course.”

Marilyn moaned and shook her head. “They said I can’t talk about last night,” she said, nodding toward Louise. “I went looking for him and he wasn’t in the office where he said he’d be. That’s all I know about last night. Harmon, I want to leave the country just as soon as the funeral is over. The day after. When can we have the funeral? You have to take care of that, and put the condo up for sale, decide about the stock options, how much is involved. There’s so much to do. I can’t cope with it all. And insurance. Someone has to take care of that, too.”

Harmon patted her arm. “Don’t worry about it, Marilyn. I’ll handle everything. Now, tell me about last night.”

Sam flitted back to Lori under the pine tree. He seated himself next to her and said, “They’re deciding on what Marilyn should tell the police, and Harmon will handle all the messy details of closing down Malcolm’s sorry life. Louise wants to know what kind of evidence the cops need to make an arrest. Royce will rewrite Malcolm’s opening speech and give it himself.”

“He’ll probably work in the suite,” Lori said. “We’ll grab the manuscript when they go to dinner. Unless they have room service, which they probably will. Room service in Marilyn’s room again, you know, to protect the sensibilities of the grieving widow. Do you think Cruella will plant evidence if the lawyer tells her what would work?”

“Do I think the sun will shine, the rain will fall, the wind will blow?”

“Right. We’ll have to work fast.” She stared off into the distance for a short time, then said, “Sam, I don’t see any way to break Royce without physical evidence of our own. And even if we had it, how would we give it to the cops? I mean, they have the gun already. What else is there?”

Uneasily he said, “You realize we’re just speculating about his guilt. We don’t know it for certain.”

“If he doesn’t have a guilty conscience, haunting won’t bother him.” She plucked another piece of grass and began to chew on it, scowling. “What I really want is a portobello mushroom wrapped in prosciutto.”

His unease increased. “Haunting him? Meaning?”

“You know,” she said. “Meaningfully. Can I say that meaningfully?”

“You just did.”

She grinned and motioned toward the hotel. “Let’s do it.”

They put themselves in the corridor. At the far end a housekeeping cart was parked with its neatly stacked towels, sheets, toiletries. No one was in sight. Lori entered Royce’s suite and Sam flitted to the cart. He pushed it close to the door of the suite, then entered to find Lori stuffing clean shirts into a laundry bag stamped with the room number. She added socks, went to the door and looked out into the corridor, then opened the door and hung the bag on the handle of the cart. Sam had wrapped the manuscript in a towel by then and he put it on the cart also. He had started to push the cart toward the end of the corridor when Lori called out, “Park it!”

At the lobby end of the corridor Royce and the state police captain had appeared. Royce was carrying a laptop. Sam pushed the cart as close to the wall as he could before he and Lori turned into air. Then he waited. Neither of the approaching men glanced his way.

“I’ll download the speech onto a thumb drive,” Royce was saying. “Will you want the laptop back afterward?”

“No. We’re done with it. Mr. Sharon said he wanted it. Notes, schedules, other material regarding the coming meetings. Are you coming in with me?” They had reached Marilyn’s door.

“I’ll join you in a minute, after I put this in my room,” Royce said, hefting the laptop. He continued to his own door as the captain knocked and was admitted to Marilyn’s suite.

“Great!” Lori said, almost gloating, when Royce entered, carrying the laptop. Sam waited until Royce closed the door, then rolled the cart the rest of the way to the end room of the corridor. He let himself into the room, opened the door from the inside and removed the manuscript from the cart, deposited it on a desk, and returned to the corridor. He hesitated only a moment, then rolled the cart back to Royce’s room and this time left it almost blocking the door. When he entered the room, he saw Lori examining the laptop.

“No password,” she said, sounding very happy. “I’ll wait until he puts the stuff on the thumb drive. Meanwhile, let’s program the television remote.” She was smiling as she examined it. “What do you know, adult movies are available. It’s a neat remote, let’s you program up to twenty-four hours at a time. Isn’t that cool!”

“You do it,” Sam said with a shudder. He had never gone beyond on/off, volume up/down and occasionally changing a station successfully. He took a bucket of ice cubes to the bathroom and dumped them into the tub, then closed the stopper and turned on the water. He closed the stoppers in twin sinks and turned on that water in a slow stream.

“Sam, look what I found,” Lori called from the other room. When he entered, she was tossing a golf ball from hand to hand. “Let’s play catch,” she said and tossed a ball to him. It was initialed RS.

“I think Royce is on his way,” she said, tossing a second ball to him. “Let’s see how many balls we can keep in the air at the same time. She let loose with another one and he tossed one back to her.

A moment later Royce opened the sliding door to the walkway. Two balls were in the air going in opposite directions. One hit the wall near the bedroom door, the other smacked into the drape at the sliding door very close to him. Royce reeled, staggered and caught himself by the doorframe. He sucked in a long breath and looked around wildly, then slowly advanced into the room.

“Alex? What are you up to? Knock it off!” Royce yelled as he inched toward the sofa, casting glances at the d rapes, the desk, the bedroom door. When he reached the sofa he darted to the side of it and looked down, as if expecting to see someone crouching there. “Come on out, Alex!” he snapped. “This isn’t funny.” He edged back closer to the wall and looked behind one of the easy chairs, then the other.

“This is going to be harder than I thought,” Lori said, watching Royce, who was making his way to the windows. When he reached them, he yanked the drapes, nearly pulling them off the rod.

There was nowhere else in the room where anyone could hide. Moving with the same slow caution Royce made his way to the bedroom door and peered inside. “Come on out, Alex. Game’s over. You want to talk. Let’s talk.” He sidled into the bedroom, pounced to the side of the nearest bed, dropped to his knees and lifted the bedspread to look under the bed. He did the same to the other bed, then examined the drapes. Moving much more slowly, he drew near the closet. He took a long breath, then yanked open the door and shoved garments aside.

“I’m going to go read that manuscript,” Sam said. “You can play games with him if you want.” He lingered long enough to watch Royce discover the mess in the bathroom.

Royce went to the door, opened it, and stepped into a puddle. Both sinks were overflowing. He cursed and hurried to turn off the water and open the drains. He turned off the bathtub water and opened that drain.

“It’s getting to him,” Lori muttered. “At least, he’s sweating a little.”

Royce threw a couple of towels down on the water on the floor and stomped to the living room again where he stood glaring with his hands on his hips.

“Yeah, but the wrong way. He’s just getting mad. Wrong reaction. Now what?”

Royce was striding across the room to the door to the corridor. He pulled it open savagely, and cursed again, louder and more vehemently. He gave the housekeeping cart a hard shove, sending it back toward the end where it had been parked before. At that moment Louise entered the suite through the sliding door.

“Royce, for God’s sake, what are you doing?” she demanded in her shrill voice.

“Nothing!” He slammed the door and swung around to turn his glare onto her.

“Well, you don’t have to make a damn fool of yourself doing it.” She put a wrapped sandwich down on the desk. “Pastrami on rye. I think that’s what you ordered. Haven’t you even started on that speech yet?”

“See you later,” Sam said. He was laughing when he vanished.

“Someone banged on the door,” Royce muttered. He went to the desk and sat down, opened both laptops, his and Vicente’s, without speaking to her again. She regarded him for a moment, shrugged, and withdrew to the walkway. As soon as she was gone, Royce got up and went to the table where glasses and a couple of bottles were, along with the ice bucket. He poured an inch or two of scotch, opened the ice bucket and cursed again. He sipped his scotch, grimaced, and headed for the bathroom, where he ran water into the glass. While he was there Lori unwrapped the sandwich which had been cut into halves. She took a big bite of excellent pastrami on rye. Her hand melted through the sandwich a moment later when Royce returned.

He yelped and dropped his glass as the sandwich fell to the floor. Lori regarded it with regret. Pastrami had escaped and separated, mustard side down, on the thick pale carpet. Before Royce moved, Colonel opened the sliding door and stepped inside the room.

“Royce, if you’ve transferred the speech to a thumb drive, I’ll pick up—” He stopped. “My God, what happened?” He was looking at the mess on the floor with near horror.

“It slipped off the table,” Royce said quickly. “I tried to grab it and dropped my glass.”

“For God’s sake, man, call housekeeping and get that mess cleaned up. About the speech on your thumb drive?”

“I’ll do it immediately,” Royce said. “It won’t take a minute. I’ll clean up that stuff afterward.”

“Do the speech. I’ll get a towel and soak up the scotch. It smells like a cheap bar in here.” He started to walk toward the bedroom and bathroom beyond, and Royce blocked him.

How far away was the bathroom? Lori wondered, and put herself there. To her satisfaction, it was far enough. She had a physical hand. She used it to turn on the water in both sinks and close the drains, then flitted back to the sitting room.

“I’ll get to that,” Royce was saying. “Sit down, relax a minute. First the speech, then clean up.” He had put his hands on the other man’s chest.

“Nonsense,” Colonel said angrily, knocking Royce’s hands away. “You just get to the speech.” His voice had taken on a different tone, a tone of command without a trace of cordiality.

Royce backed away from him, sat down at the desk, and inserted the thumb drive into the laptop. He began to scroll, searching for the speech.

Colonel strode through the sitting room, through the bedroom and into the bathroom. He cursed in a loud voice. “Goddamn it, Royce, what’s wrong with you? There’s water everywhere, faucets turned on. Have you lost your senses?”

Royce groaned. “There’s something wrong with the plumbing,” he said. “It just comes on like that.” He had the speech finally and files were being transferred to the thumb drive. It didn’t take long. When he was done, Colonel was standing over him, regarding him with a frowning, intent expression. “The laptop’s all yours,” Royce said, removing the thumb drive. Colonel took the laptop without a word, turned and walked to the sliding door, where he paused.

He gave Royce another long, sober examination, frowning. “Pull yourself together, Stossel. When you finish rewriting the speech and print it, let me have a look,” he said coldly and walked out.

Well, Lori thought, that was interesting. The little bit of haunting had shaken Royce, but he had become angry, not frightened, while Colonel’s words and expression had washed the color from his face and made his hands shake. Afraid of Colonel, afraid for his position in the company, afraid of what was in the manuscript that could have repercussions for him? Maybe all of the above, she told herself. Sitting on the back of the sofa she watched Royce clean up the sandwich and toss a towel down on the scotch-soaked carpet. A smear of mustard remained on the carpet. He scowled at it, then went to the bathroom for a wet towel and spread that on the stain. Finally he sat at the desk and began to examine the speech on his monitor.

Lori flitted to the end room where Sam was reading the manuscript. “Anything?” she asked.

“Oh boy!” he said. “Emails between Royce and Malcolm, between Malcolm and a couple other company men, science studies heavily redacted, or rejected altogether. It’s dynamite. How about you?”

“Royce is afraid of Colonel, who called him Stossel, and who wants to see the speech when it’s rewritten. That’s the weak link, Sam. He wasn’t afraid of balls flying around, or water overflowing, but he’s afraid of Colonel. I need to think while you read away.”

Minutes later Sam looked up from the manuscript to see Lori with her eyes nearly closed, slowly rocking back and forth on the bed. “Enough of that,” he said shuffling the manuscript pages back together in a neat stack. “It’s damning, more than damning. Plenty to kill for to prevent publication.”

Lori did not respond.

“I’ll go eavesdrop some more,” he said. “I’ll leave this here if you want a look at it.”

She nodded and waved him toward the door. He scowled at her, then left to drop in on Alex first, then whoever came to mind next. In half an hour he was back. She was still sitting cross legged on the bed, but with her eyes wide open and a determined expression on her face.

“What?” he asked.

“I need a tape recorder, or a smart phone that can record, a tablet, something that can pick up sound and play it back. Can do? I think I have it. What do you have?”

“The captain’s been ordered to spend the night here. Alex’s clothes are in the helicopter on their way to the police lab where they expect to find forensic evidence linking him to the murder. The lieutenant governor wants an arrest in the morning, to clean up this mess and let the big shots get on with business. Alex’s girlfriend, who happens to be an attorney for the group he belongs to, is with him. She claimed to be his attorney and demanded they let her in. They’re in the sack. I didn’t linger. Royce is working on the computer in his room. The grieving widow and Cruella are packing up, planning to leave in the morning with their lawyer. They’re going to meet with the others for a drink, then dinner in their room with Royce. And that’s all.”

“It’s plenty,” Lori said. “All good. I’ll be in Royce’s room. When you get the recorder, whatever form it takes, I’ll tell you what I’m planning. See you.” She vanished.

Royce was still at the desk with two windows open on his laptop, comparing text from one side with the other. Looking over his shoulder Lori easily spotted the changes he had made. First, a sickeningly fulsome eulogy to Malcolm Vicente, followed by a welcoming statement to the attendees in Vicente’s name. A gradual slide into first person Royce Stossel praising the past year at ChemAg…

Lori left him to inspect the rest of the suite. No one had cleaned up a thing: a towel was still on the spilled scotch, another on the mustard-stained carpet. Wet towels were strewn about on the bathroom tiles. Thoughtfully she turned on the taps and closed the drains in the sinks then moved on to the bedroom. More thoughtfully she added a couple of pillows and punched down the top pillow on one of the beds and rumpled the bedspread a lot. The television was showing an interesting movie with the sound muted, and that made her want to look in on Alex and his girlfriend. They were in bed, a sheet pulled over them, her head resting on his chest, as close as two people could get to each other and still be separate entities. They were murmuring endearments. The girlfriend had copper-colored short, curly hair, and she had freckles. For some reason that pleased Lori and she blew them a kiss as she left, to flit back to Royce’s room.

She had just settled on the sofa when the sliding door opened and Cruella entered. She sniffed in disgust at the messy room and turned a glare onto Royce. “For God’s sake, haven’t you finished yet? How long does it take to make a few changes in a speech already written?”

“It’s harder than you think,” he snapped. “And I’m done. I just need to print it out.”

“Well, do it! We’re having a drink with the others and then dinner in Mother’s room at seven thirty. And for God’s sake, clean yourself up. You haven’t even had a shower today and you need a shave.” She talked as she moved through the sitting room to the bedroom door where she paused. “We’re leaving in the morning, Mother and I. I’ll come by and pack my things later.” She had moved on to the bathroom by then and she shrieked. “Royce, my God, what is the matter with you? There’s water running!” She turned the taps off and on tiptoes left the bathroom to go to the closet in the bedroom. She shrieked even louder.

“Oh my God! How could you?” She was staring at the television. “You’ve been in here watching porn! Are you out of your mind?”

Royce jumped up from the desk chair and ran to the bedroom where he stared, stupefied, at the television. He ran to the bedside and fumbled with the remote. She snatched it out of his hands and turned off the television. Her mouth was a tight hard line with virtually no lips showing. She threw the remote across the room, marched to the closet and snatched out a dress. Then, without another look at him she went to the door and out.

Royce didn’t move for a few seconds. He was pale and sweating, his hands shaking. Slowly he roused enough to return to the sitting room and go straight to the side table where he picked up the scotch bottle and drank from it.

“Shave,” he muttered, fingering his chin. “Shower. Clean up.” He bit his lip and went to his laptop, tapped in print commands, and then went to the bathroom where there were no more dry towels. Frowning, he went to the telephone, paused his finger over room service, and instead of calling for towels, he went to the corridor door and opened it. Cautiously, he peered down the corridor both ways, then darted out to grab some towels from the cart that was still parked near his door.

At the bathroom doorway, he took off his shoes and socks before entering. Lori watched him take off his shirt and toss it down and start to take off his slacks. She waited until the shower was running before she approached the laptop.

She was seated at the desk when Sam appeared. “I have a cell phone and a tape recorder outside, on the cart,” he said. “And don’t even ask how much trouble it was to snare them.” He looked at the monitor. “What the hell are you doing? We can’t contact anyone, remember.”

“But I can edit his text,” she said.

On the screen in large print on three lines were the words: Why me? Why murder Vicente? Why me?

“I just found the right letters and moved them around a little, added bold and a bigger font. His words, not mine.”

“He’ll just delete all that. Then what?”

“Take the first page of the printout and stash it somewhere. I’ll print this. You’ll see. I have this in the print queue for fifteen copies. It’s all he’ll print at least that long. Bring in the tape recorder and turn it on, and put the cell phone turned to record in the bedroom. After that no more talk between us, just in case. People can’t hear us, but who knows about a machine? It’s going to be show time any minute now. I’d be willing to bet that he doesn’t know a thing about print queues.”

She deleted her page of edited text, leaving the first page of the speech on the monitor as Sam went through the wall to the corridor in order to push the cart back to the door of the suite. At the far end of the corridor he saw Captain Conkling entering the last bedroom, the one he had come to think of as his room. Back inside Royce’s suite, he opened the door, retrieved the tape recorder and cell phone, and handed them both to Lori.

“The good captain is going into our room, and the manuscript is still on the bed. I’ll see what he makes of it.” He vanished.

Lori turned on the tape recorder and placed it on the desk with a sheet of paper over it. Then she hurried to the bedroom and set the cell phone to record and put it on the bedside table facing the television. Listening for the shower, she went to the television and turned it on again to the porn movie. When Royce entered a second or two later, dressed in the white robe furnished by the resort, she watched him go to the dresser and open a drawer where his shirts had been. He pulled it out all the way, cursed under his breath and pulled out the lower drawer, then went to the twin dresser and repeated his actions, cursing more audibly. He went to the closet and yanked out a suit, shoved other garments to one side and, after tossing the suit down on one of the beds, he spotted the movie playing.

“God damn it!” he yelled and ran to the television and turned it off. His hand was shaking. He sat down on the bed and rubbed his hand over his face. “What the fuck is happening?” he muttered and he buried his face in his hands and slumped. After several seconds he stood and returned to the bathroom where he picked up the shirt he had taken off and tossed down. It was wet. Everything in the bathroom was sodden, water stood on the tile floor, droplets fell from the mirrors. He looked ready to weep as he walked woodenly into the sitting room, carrying the wet shirt. He went to the desk and lifted the phone, then dropped it when he saw the printout with the words Why me? Why murder Vicente? Why me?

“Jesus Christ!” he cried. He yanked out the chair and sat down, and sat staring in disbelief at the screen, still with the first page of the revised speech.

Watching him, Lori nodded in satisfaction. He was bone ignorant about word processors, computers. He picked up the printout and crumpled it, flung it down, and hit the print key. His eyes widened and color blanched from his face as the same words printed out: Why me?… With a wild cry he jumped to his feet and backed away from the desk.

In the end bedroom Sam was watching Captain Conkling, who had entered and gone straight to the bathroom, and only afterward noticed the manuscript on the bed. With an irritated expression, he picked it up, looked around, searching for the wastebasket, apparently. He started to toss the manuscript in it, then drew back and looked at it more closely. Frowning, he sat down on the bed and began to read.

Sam returned to Royce’s room where he joined Lori on the sofa. “What’s happening?”

In a grave voice she said, “I believe Royce is having a bit of a computer problem.”

Royce was across the room, his back to the computer, clutching the side table with both hands, his head bowed. Slowly he straightened, took another drink of scotch, then turned and started to inch toward the computer desk. He sidestepped it and yanked the cord from the wall socket.

“Always unplug the machine, wait a few seconds and plug it in again. First protocol for a computer glitch,” Lori said. She added, “Eight, nine, ten. Ready or not.”

Royce plugged it in again and sat down to reload the word processor and bring up the speech, complete with the first page. His finger hovered over the print key a moment or two before he hit it. Why me?…

Royce cried out inarticulately and hit the print key again, then again. He was shaking all over as the pages of print rolled out. He yanked the print cable off the computer, grabbed the pages of hard copy, and ripped them to pieces. With fragments of paper all over the floor, crumpled sheets in or near the wastebasket, he pushed his chair away, sending it half way across the room. Then he reconnected the printer again and hit the print key.

He screamed when the words appeared: Why me? He dropped to his knees and held the desk top. “Stop it, Mal! For God’s sake stop!” he cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt you! My God, I wouldn’t hurt you! I loved you, Mal. You know that. You’re my father, my friend. Please forgive me. It was a mistake. Please.” His voice had started low and was no more than hoarse whisper when he stopped speaking one last word, “Please.” He hit the print key again.

Then, sobbing, he pressed his forehead against the desk. “Mal, I swear, I didn’t know it was you!” His words became more and more incoherent, mixed with sobs.

Sam touched Lori’s arm, and nodded toward the sliding glass door. Captain Conkling was in the doorway. He held out his arm blocking Colonel, who was at his heels. Neither man moved as Royce continued to sob and confess to the murder of his father-in-law.

“I thought it was Alex. It should have been him, Mal. Not you. I didn’t want to hurt you, Mal. Not you for God’s sake! Not you! I’m sorry, Mal. God knows I’m sorry.” His sobbing overcame the spoken words, and he knelt there at the desk with his forehead pressed against it crying like a small child.

Captain Conkling pulled Colonel away from the door and said, “I’ll stay with him. Maybe you should go speak to the wife.” He pulled out his cell phone as Colonel shook his head.

“Guilty conscience. The man’s been driven mad by a guilty conscience.”

Conkling scowled at him, motioned him away, and keyed in a number on his phone.

“Are we done here?” Lori asked.

“Let’s make sure. I don’t trust any of them,” Sam said. “If and when he gets his crew back and they begin acting like real law enforcement guys, that’s time enough.”

Conkling was speaking on his cell phone, ordering his entire crew back to the resort as Colonel left. Suddenly Royce stood up. He wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“Mal, just give me a sign that you forgive me. Please. I said I’m sorry. God knows I am. Please, Mal. Please.” He hit the print key and this time a scream of rage erupted. He grabbed his laptop and smashed it against the desk, snatched up the printer and hurled it against the wall and was sweeping papers off the desk before Conkling got to him, manhandled him to the floor and handcuffed him.

“Frothing at the mouth,” Lori said.

“He isn’t frothing. That’s plain old fashioned spit.”

“Spitting mad. That’s what they used to say. I guess there’s a reason,” she said. “I’m going to look in on Alex and Emma. Coming?”

“I’ll hang out here until the cavalry comes. Not that I can do much if he makes a superhuman effort to break his bonds and escape into the uncharted wilderness up there.” He motioned toward the forest.

“Save it for your next play,” she said. “I’d say he isn’t going anywhere except to the pokey.” She vanished.

That was true, Sam admitted, regarding Royce. He was still wearing the white robe, and his feet were bare. His face was puffy, his eyes red rimmed and he was quivering all over, mumbling incoherently, whimpering. The captain strode into the bedroom, glanced around, and his mouth became a hard, taut line when he saw the television, then the cellphone with a red recording light on. He didn’t touch anything, returned to the sitting room and surveyed the mess on the desk, carefully stepping over scraps of paper, bits of plastic and glass, wet towels on the floor. He picked up a crumpled sheet of paper and made a grunting sound as he read: Why me?…

He put the papers down on the desk and saw the tape recorder. He didn’t touch it, but he gave Royce a look of disgust, then sat down to wait for his men. Royce continued to whimper and weep.

Alex and Emma were curled together so closely that it would have been hard to say where one stopped and the other began. Lori blew them another kiss and sought Sam.

“Let’s beat it,” she said. “Do you really think they’ll try to cover this up?”

“Nope. The captain found the cell phone, the television, the tape recorder. I do believe his Calvinist soul has been shocked. I’d say it’s over. Where do you want to go?”

“It’s a big world, and it’s all ours. Up, up and away! Here, hold my hand. Away we go.”

• • •