stretched out on his belly on the attic floor, reached down through the
hole, and pulled up the folding ladder, section by section. Slowly,
silently, he secured it to the back of the trapdoor. He eased the door
into place again with no sound but the soft spang of the big spring that
held it shut, closing himself off from the threes garage below.
He pulled a few of the dropcloths off the furniture. They were
relatively dust free. He folded them to make a nest among the boxes and
then settled down to await the passage of the day.
Regina. Lindsey. I am with you.
1
Lindsey drove Regina to school Way morning. When she got back to the
house in Laguna Niguel, Hatch was at the kitchen table, cleaning and
oiling the pair of Browning 9mm pistols that he had acquired for home
security.
He had purchased the guns five years ago, shortly after Jimmy’s cancer
had been diagnosed as termmal. He had professed a sudden concern about
the crime rate, though it never had been-and was not then-particularly
high in their part of Orange County. Lindsey had known, but had never
said, that he was not afraid of burglars but of the disease that was
stealing his son from him; and because he was helpless to fight off the
cancer, he secretly longed for an enemy who could be dispatched with a
pistol.
The Brownings had never been used anywhere but on a firing range. He
had insisted that Lindsey learn to shoot alongside But neither of them
had even taken target practice in a year or two.
“Do you really think that’s wise?” she asked, indicating the pistols.
He was tight-lipped. “Yes.”
“Maybe we should call the police.”
“We’ve already discussed why we can’t.”
“Still, it might be worth a try.”
“They won’t help us. Can’t.”
She knew he was right. They had no proof that they were in danger.
“Besides,” be said, keeping his eyes on the pistol as he worked a
tubular brush in and out of the barrel, “when I first started cleaning
these, I turned Ion the TV to have some company. Morning news.”
The small set, on a pull-out swivel shelf in the end-most of the kitchen
cabinets, was off now.
Lindsey didn’t ask him what had been on the news. She was afraid that
she would be sorry to hear it-and was convinced that she already knew
what he would tell her.
Finally looking up from the pistol, Hatch said, “They found Steven
Honell last night. Tied to the four corners of his bed and beaten to
death with a fireplace poker.”
At first Lindsey was too shocked to move. Then she was too weak to
continue standing. She pulled a chair out from the table and settled
into it.
For a while yesterday, she had hated Steven Honell as much as she had
ever hated anyone in her life. More. Now she felt no animosity for him
whatsoever. Just pity. He had been an ill man, concealing his
insecurity from himself behind a pretense of contemptuous superiority.
He had been petty and vicious, perhaps worse, but now he was dead; and
death was too great a punishment for his faults.
She folded her arms on the table and put her head down on them. She
could not cry for Honeil, for she had liked nothing about him-except his
talent. If the extinguishing of his talent was not enough to bring
tears’ it did at least cast a pall of despair over her.
“Sooner or later,” Hatch said, “the son of a bitch is going to come
after us. Lindsey lifted her head even though it felt as if it weighed
a thousand pounds. “But why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe we’ll never know why, never understand it. But
somehow he and I are linked, and eventually he’ll come.”
“Let the cops handle him.” she said, painfully aware that there was no
help for them from the authorities but stubbornly unwilling to let go of
“Cops can’t find him.” Hatch said grimly. “He’s smoke.”
“He won’t come,” she said, willing it to be true.
“Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next week or even next month. But as