on toward Lindsey’s studio.
Because the main hallway chandelier was directly ahead of him, his
shadow fell in his wake, which was fortunate. Otherwise, if the woman
happened to be looking toward the hall, she would have been warned of
his approach.
He inched to the studio door and stopped.
Standing with his back flat to the wall, eyes straight ahead, he could
see between the balusters under the handrail of the open staircase, to
the foyer below. As far as he could tell, no lights were on downstairs.
He wondered where the husband had gone. The tall doors to the master
bedroom were open, but no lights were on in there. He could hear small
noises coming from within the woman’s studio, so he figured she was at
work. If the husband was with her, surely they would have exchanged a
few words, at least, during the time Vassago had been making his way
along the hall.
He hoped the husband had gone out on an errand. He had no particular
need to kill the man. And any confrontation would be dangerous.
From his jacket pocket, he withdrew the supple leather sap, filled with
lead shot, that he had appropriated last week from Morton Redlow, the
detective. It was an extremely effective-looking blackjack. It felt
good in his hand. In the pearl-gray Honda, two blocks away, a handgun
was tucked under the driver’s seat, and Vassago almost wished he had
brought it. He had taken it from the antique dealer, Robert Lofiman, in
Laguna Beach a couple of hours before dawn that morning.
But he didn’t want to shoot the woman and the girl. Even if he just
wounded and disabled them, they might bleed to death before he got them
back to his hideaway and down into the museum of death, to the altar
where his offerings were arranged. And if he used a gun to remove the
husband, he could risk only one shot, maybe two. Too much gunfire was
bound to be heard by neighbors and the source located. In that quiet
community, once gunfire was identified, cops would be crawling over the
place in two minutes.
The sap was better. He hefted it in his right hand, getting the feel of
it.
With great care, he leaned across the doorjamb. Tilted his head.
Peeked into the studio.
She sat on the stool, her back to the door. He recognized her even from
behind. His heart galloped almost as fast as when the girl had
struggled and passed out in his arms. Lindsey was at the drawing board,
charcoal pencil in her right hand. Busy, busy, busy. Pencil making a
soft snaky hiss as it worked against the paper.
No matter how determined she was to keep her attention firmly on the
problem of the blank sheet of drawing paper, Lindsey looked up
repeatedly at the window. Her creative block crumbled only when she
surrendered and began to draw the window. The uncurtained frame.
Darkness beyond the glass. Her face like the countenance of a ghost
engaged in a haunting. When she added the spider web in the upper
right-hand corner, the concept jelled, and suddenly she excited. She
thought she might title it The Web of Life and Death, and use a surreal
series of symbolic items to knit the theme into every corner of the
canvas. Not canvas, Masonite. In fact, just paper now, only a sketch,
but worth pursuing.
She repositioned the drawing tablet on the board, setting it higher.
Now she could just raise her eyes slightly from the page to look over
the top of the board at the window, and didn’t have to keep raising and
lowering her head.
More elements than just her face, the window, and the web would be
required to give the painting depth and interest. As she worked she
considered and rejected a score of additional images.
Then an image a- almost magically in the glass above her own reflection:
the face that Hatch had described from nightmares. Pale.
A shock of dark hair. The sunglasses.
For an instant she thought it was a supernatural event, an apparition in
the glass. Even as her breath caught in her throat, however, she