light, in a blur of motion, he recognizes his precious wife.
Unknown people have eradicated his memories of her, but the photograph
he discovered yesterday is imprinted on his heart.
He whispers, “Paige.”
He starts the Camry, backs out of the parking space, and turns toward
the shopping center.
Acres of blacktop are empty at that early hour, for only the
supermarket, a doughnut shop, and an office-supply store are open for
business. The BMW races across the parking lot, swinging wide of the
few clusters of cars, to the service road that fronts the stores. It
turns left and heads toward the north end of the center.
He follows but not aggressively. If he loses them, locating them again
is an easy matter because of the mysterious but reliable link between
him and the hateful man who has usurped his life.
The BMW reaches the north exit and turns right into the street.
By the time he arrives at that same intersection, the BMW is already two
blocks away, stopped at a red traffic signal and barely in sight.
For more than an hour, he follows them discreetly along surface streets,
north on the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways, then east on the
Riverside Freeway, staying well back from them. Tucked in among the
heavy morning commuter traffic, his small Camry is as good as invisible.
On the Riverside Freeway, west of Corona, he imagines switching on the
psychic current between himself and the false father. He pictures the
rheostat and turns it five degrees out of a possible three hundred and
sixty. That is sufficient for him to sense the presence of the false
father ahead in traffic, although it gives him no precise fix.
Six degrees, seven, eight. Eight is too much. Seven. Seven is ideal.
With the switch open only seven degrees, the attraction is powerful
enough to serve as a beacon to him without alerting the enemy that the
link has been re-established. In the BMW, the imposter rides east
toward Riverside, tense and watchful but unaware of being monitored.
Yet, in the hunter’s mind, the signal of the prey registers like a
blinking red light on an electronic map.
Having mastered control of this strange adducent power, he may be able
to strike at the false father with some degree of surprise.
Though the man in the BMW is expecting an attack and is on the run to
avoid it, he’s also accustomed to being forewarned of assault. When
enough time passes without a disturbance in the ether, when he feels no
unnerving probes, he’ll regain confidence.
With a return of confidence, his caution will diminish, and he’ll become
vulnerable.
The hunter needs only to stay on the trail, follow the spoor, bide his
time, and wait for the ideal moment to strike.
As they pass through Riverside, morning traffic thins out around them.
He drops back farther, until the BMW is a distant, colorless dot that
sometimes vanishes temporarily, miragelike, in a shimmer of sunlight or
swirl of dust.
Onward and north. Through San Bernardino. Onto Interstate 15.
Into the northern end of the San Bernardino Mountains. Through the El
Cajon Pass at forty-three hundred feet.
Soon thereafter, south of the town of Hesperia, the BMW departs the
interstate and heads directly north on U.S. Highway 395, into the
westernmost reaches of the forbidding Mojave Desert. He follows,
continuing to remain at such a distance that they can’t possibly realize
the dark speck in their rearview mirror is the same car that has trailed
them now through three counties.
Within a couple of miles, he passes a road sign indicating the mileage
to Ridgecrest, Lone Pine, Bishop, and Mammoth Lakes. Mammoth is the
farthest–two hundred and eighty-two miles.
The name of the town has an instant association for him. He has an
eidetic memory. He can see the words on the dedication page of one of
the mystery novels he has written and which he keeps on the shelves in
his home office in Mission Viejo, This opus is for my mother and father,
Jim and Alice Stillwater, who taught me to be an honest man–and who
can’t be blamed if I am able to think like a criminal.