the glass door behind her. She looked at the phone, heard him saying
her name, over and over. Rebecca, Rebecca. Very slowly, she hung
up. She fell to her knees and jerked the connector out of the wall
jack. The phone in the bedroom rang, and kept ringing.
She pressed herself close to the wall, her palms slammed against
her ears. She had to do something. She had to talk to the cops.
Again. Surely now that someone was dead, they would believe that
some maniac was terrorizing her, stalking her, murdering someone
to show her he meant business.
This time they had to believe her.
Six Days Later
Riptide, Maine
She pulled into the Texaco gas station, waved to the guy inside
the small glass booth, then pumped some regular into her gas tank.
She was on the outskirts of Riptide, a quaint town that sprawled
north to south, hugging a small harbor filled with sailboats, motoroats,
and many fishing boats. Lobster, she thought, and breathed in
deeply, air redolent of brine, seaweed, and fish, plus a faint hint of
wildflowers, their sweetness riding lightly on the breeze from the
sea.
Riptide, Maine.
She was in the sticks, the boondocks, a place nobody knew
about, except for a few tourists in the summer. She was sixty-four
miles north of Christmas Cove, a beautiful small coastal town she’d
visited once as a child, with her mother.
For the first time in two and a half weeks, she felt safe. She felt
the salty air tingling on her skin, let the warm breeze nutter her
hair against her cheek.
She was in control of her life again.
But what about Governor Bledsoe? He would be all right, he
had to be. He had cops everywhere, brushing his teeth for him,
sleeping under his bed–no matter who he was sleeping with–
hiding in his washroom off his big square office with its huge mahogany
power desk. He would be all right. The crazy guy who had
terrorized her until six days ago wouldn’t be able to get near him.
The main street in Riptide was West Hemlock. There wasn’t an
East Hemlock unless someone wanted to drive into the ocean. She
drove nearly to the end of the street to an old Victorian bed-and-breakfast
called Errol Flynn’s Hammock. There was a widow’s walk
on top, railed in black. She counted at least five colors on the exterior.
It was perfect.
“I like the name,” she said to the old man behind the rich mahogany
counter.
“Yep,” he said, and pushed the guest book toward her. “I like it,
too. Been Scottie all my life. Sign in and I’ll beam you right up.”
She smiled and signed Becca Powell. She’d always admired
Colin Powell. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she borrowed his name
for a while. For a while, Becca Matlock would cease to exist.
She was safe.
But why, she wondered yet again, why hadn’t the police believed
her? Still they were providing the governor extra protection, so
that was something.
Why?
Chapter 2
New York City
June 15
whey had Becca sit in an uncomfortable chair with uneven legs.
She laid one hand on the scarred table, looking at the woman and
two men, and knew they thought she was a nut or, very likely,
something far worse.
There were three other men in the room, lined up against the
wall next to the door. No one introduced them. She wondered if
they were FBI. Probably, since she’d reported the threat on the
governor, and they were dressed in dark suits, white shirts, blue ties.
She’d never seen so many wing tips in one room before.
Detective Morales, slight, black-eyed, handsome, said quietly,
“Ms. Matlock, we are trying to understand this. You say he blew up
this old woman just to get your attention? For what reason? Why
you? What does he want? Who is he?”
She repeated it all again, more slowly this time, nearly word for
word. Finally, seeing their stone faces, she tried yet again, leaning
forward, clasping her hands on the wooden table, avoiding the
clump of long-ago-dried food. “Listen, I have no idea who he is. I