THE POSTMAN CALLED on the Pinder home in the late morning on a government mule laden with heavy leather mailbags. In an effort to make his rounds a tad bit faster, residents of outlying areas had been asked to construct a receptacle of some sort where the road passed their property.
Lupe always kept an eye out for the postman and went to fetch the mail from a tin bucket that Nick had nailed to a fence post about a hundred yards down the path from the house. Retrieving the most recent batch, Lupe took it around the back of the house to Roz, fussing over some recently planted carrots in the vegetable garden.
Leaning back on her haunches, Roz used a sleeve to wipe the sweat from her brow and examined the only letter delivered that day. Nick’s name and address neatly typed in a font that she recognized, she knew the sender at once. Her first impulse was tossing the letter into the kitchen stove and swearing Lupe to secrecy. Whatever that envelope contained would no doubt derail the progress that she and Nick had made in their relationship over the past few weeks. If Nick did not read the contents, never knew of its arrival, the better for both of them.
But if the letter really was what Roz assumed it to be—another missive from the killer—there would be consequences even if she burned it. Nemesis would find another means of reaching out to her husband. Not to mention the drama if Nick ever discovered that she had purposely destroyed such a crucial correspondence.
Brushing the soil from her apron, Roz asked Lupe to saddle up a horse while she changed into riding clothes. Nick would have to make the decision himself, whether or not to initiate contact again with this maniac. He must be the gatekeeper, not her.
Nick and Clive were hovering over page proofs in the newsroom when Roz suddenly appeared at the front desk.
“You miss another lunch date?” Clive chided Nick.
“I don’t think so,” Nick answered, going to greet his wife. “What a pleasant surprise,” he beamed. But her grim expression told him that something wasn’t right. “What is it?”
“Can I speak to you and Clive alone?” she asked.
In the privacy of the editor’s office, Roz removed the letter from up a sleeve and passed it to her husband. Nick’s eyebrows arched in immediate recognition. He had to suppress a smile, struggling to contain his own glee.
Clive also recognized the envelope. “Did he kill again?” he asked hopefully.
“I wouldn’t know,” Roz said sourly, resigned to another change in their fate. “It’s still sealed.”
“Well, bloody well open it!” the boss shouted, sliding an ivory-handled letter opener across his desk.
Nick slit the envelope and shook out the contents: A single sheet of the same high-grade stationery that Nemesis had used for his previous letters. Nick took a deep breath, began to read out loud:
Dear Mr. Pinder:
I hope this finds you well. Some time has passed since our last correspondence, but I wanted to assure you that I have not ‘run for the hills’ as one of your competitors in San Diego journalism has so crudely suggested. Rather, I have been biding my time and waiting for an opportune moment to continue my work.
Nick looked up at Clive and then around at Roz. Nemesis was not finished; he would strike again.
In the meantime, I thought it might be useful to more fully articulate my motives and intentions via a completely different means. I would like to propose a dialogue in which you ask the questions and I furnish the answers. Please feel free to publish the queries, at your convenience, in the newspaper. I will gladly render the answers and post them back to you in short order …
Clive smacked the desk with the flat of his hand. “Bloody brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Can we make tomorrow’s paper?” Nick asked quickly. “Let’s double check downstairs.”
Roz couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re not seriously going to consider this?” She normally refrained from offering advice on her husband’s career. In the end, Nick always did what he wanted, almost always contrary to what she recommended. But this was different.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Clive said, truly mystified.
“You were already treading on thin ice publishing his previous letters. But this definitely crosses a line into something that most people—including most of your readers—would find morally reprehensible.”
“But still not illegal,” Clive pointed out.
“You know as well as I that something can be fully legal and utterly immoral all at once. I need mention nothing more than slavery.”
“Slavery? Oh please—” Nick blurted and immediately regretted it. Because he now saw something in her eyes that had never been there before, a loathing so strong he had to avert his own gaze.
“Perhaps you’re blind to the resemblance, but I’m certainly not. Human bondage and this perverse thing you call journalism both profit from the suffering of others.”
“Nobody suffers from publishing these stories.”
“How do you know?” she shot back. “How do you know that Nemesis wouldn’t have become discouraged and vanished after the first killing if you hadn’t paid him so much attention, given him a platform to spout his deranged rhetoric? Yankee Jim might still be alive, and God only knows how many people in the future. And don’t get me started on the fact that Nemesis is dangerous—and could be deadly—even to those such as yourselves who feel immune to his fury.”
“The bloke wouldn’t touch a hair on Nick’s head,” Clive countered. “One never kills the messenger.”
“That’s absolute rubbish!” Roz howled. “There are plenty of other people the killer could exploit if something happened to Nick.” And then she turned to her husband. “So don’t think yourself so damn exceptional. You’re just like any other tool—easily disposable, easily replaceable.”
“No disrespect, dear. But I agree with Clive. I don’t find Nemesis a threat, at least not to me.”
There was something eerie—or totally foolhardy—in his confidence. Roz took him by the shoulders, gazed straight into his eyes, and said, “Listen to me! For once in your life think instead of just diving in. I love you. I don’t want to see you hurt. And instinct tells me this is going to end badly. From the bottom of my heart, discontinue your dealings with this madman. And please, please, don’t raise it another notch.”
“Darling, I fully understand your feelings, but—”
Roz could tell by his tone that Nick clearly did not understand, that her words and emotion were not enough to dissuade him from the foolhardy path he seemed determined to follow. “Then bloody well get yourself killed or thrown in jail!” she shrieked. “I’ve had enough!” Slamming Clive’s door with enough force to make the walls quiver, Roz fled across the newsroom and out onto the street before anyone could see her cry.
Nick stared at the back of the door, wondering if he had finally gone too far, pushed his wife beyond the point of no return.
“She’ll get over it,” said Clive, lighting a cigar. “She always does.”
But Nick had doubts this time.