Hideaway

understand exactly what was happening to him. He was a man of reason. He could not easily embrace supernatural explanations. He was not in the antiques business by accident; he had a need to surround himself with things that contributed to an atmosphere of order and stability.

But kids also hungered for stability, which included regular mealtimes, so they went to dinner at a pizza parlor, after which they caught a movie at the theater complex next door. It was a comedy. Though the film couldn't make Hatch forget the strange problems plaguing him, the frequent sound of Regina's musical giggle did somewhat soothe his abraded nerves.

Later, at home, after he had tucked the girl in bed, kissed her forehead, wished her sweet dreams, and turned off the light, she said, “Goodnight … Dad.”

He was in her doorway, stepping into the hall, when the word “dad” stopped him. He turned and looked back at her.

“Goodnight,” he said, deciding to receive her gift as casually as she had given it, for fear that if he made a big deal about it, she would call him Mr. Harrison forever. But his heart soared.

In the bedroom, where Lindsey was undressing, he said, “She called me Dad.”

“Who did?”

“Be serious, who do you think?”

“How much did you pay her?”

“You're just jealous 'cause she hasn't called you Mom yet.”

“She will. She's not so afraid any more.”

“Of you?”

“Of taking a chance.”

Before getting undressed for bed, Hatch went downstairs to check the telephone answering machine in the kitchen. Funny, after all that had happened to him and considering the problems he still had to sort out, the mere fact that the girl had called him Dad was enough to quicken his step and lift his spirits. He descended the stairs two at a time.

The answering machine was on the counter to the left of the refrigerator, below the cork memo board. He was hoping to have a response from the estate executor to whom he had given a bid for the Wedgwood collection that morning. The window on the machine showed three messages. The first was from Glenda Dock-ridge, his right hand at the antique shop. The second was from Simpson Smith, a friend and antique dealer on Melrose Place in Los Angeles. The third was from Janice Dimes, a friend of Lindsey's. All three were reporting the same news: Hatch, Lindsey, Hatch and Lindsey, have you seen the paper, have you read the paper, have you heard the news about Cooper, about that guy who ran you off the road, about Bill Cooper, he's dead, he was killed, he was killed last night.

Hatch felt as if a refrigerant, instead of blood, pumped through his veins.

Last evening he had raged about Cooper getting off scot-free, and had wished him dead. No, wait. He'd said he wanted to hurt him, make him pay, pitch him in that icy river, but he hadn't actually wanted Cooper dead. And so what if he had wanted him dead? He had not actually killed the man. He was not at fault for what had happened.

Punching the button to erase the messages, he thought: The cops will want to talk to me sooner or later.

Then he wondered why he was worried about the police. Maybe the murderer was already in custody, in which case no suspicion would fall upon him. But why should he come under suspicion anyway? He had done nothing. Nothing. Why was guilt creeping through him like the Millipede inching up a long tunnel?

Millipede?

The utterly enigmatic nature of that image chilled him. He couldn't reference the source of it. As if it wasn't his own thought but something he had … received.

He hurried upstairs.

Lindsey was lying on her back in bed, adjusting the covers around her.

The newspaper was on his nightstand, where she always put it. He snatched it up and quickly scanned the front page.

“Hatch?” she said. “What's wrong?”

“Cooper's dead.”

“What?”

“The guy driving the beer truck. William Cooper. Murdered.”

She threw back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed.

He found the story on page three. He sat beside Lindsey, and they read the article together.

According to the newspaper, police were interested in talking to a young man in his early twenties, with pale skin and dark hair. A neighbor had glimpsed him fleeing down the alleyway behind the Palm Court apartments. He might have been wearing sunglasses. At night.

“He's the same damned one who killed the blonde,” Hatch said fearfully. “The sunglasses in the rearview mirror. And now he's picking up on my thoughts. He's acting out my anger, murdering people that I'd like to see punished.”

“That doesn't make sense. It can't be.”

“It is.” He felt sick. He looked at his hands, as if he might actually find the truck driver's blood on them. “My God, I sent him after Cooper.”

He was so appalled, so psychologically oppressed by a sense of responsibility for what had happened, that he wanted desperately to wash his hands, scrub them until they were raw. When he tried to get up, his legs were too weak to support him, and he had to sit right down again.

Lindsey was baffled and horrified, but she did not react to the news story as strongly as Hatch did.

Then he told her about the reflection of the black-clad young man in sunglasses, which he had seen in the mirrored door in place of his own image, last night in the den when he had been ranting about Cooper. He told her, as well, how he lay in bed after she was asleep, brooding about Cooper, and how his anger suddenly exploded into artery-popping rage. He spoke of the sense he'd had of being invaded and overwhelmed, ending in the blackout. And for a kicker, he recounted how his anger had escalated unreasonably as he had read the piece in Arts American earlier this evening, and he took the magazine out of his nightstand to show her the inexplicably scorched pages.

By the time Hatch finished, Lindsey's anxiety matched his, but dismay at his secretiveness seemed greater than anything else she was feeling. “Why'd you hide all of this from me?”

“I didn't want to worry you,” he said, knowing how feeble it sounded.

“We've never hidden anything from each other before. We've always shared everything. Everything.”

“I'm sorry, Lindsey. I just… it's just that… these last couple months … the nightmares of rotting bodies, violence, fire,… and the last few days, all this weirdness. …”

“From now on,” she said, “there'll be no secrets.”

“I only wanted to spare you—”

“No secrets,” she insisted.

“Okay. No secrets.”

“And you're not responsible for what happened to Cooper. Even if there is some kind of link between you and this killer, and even if that's why Cooper became a target, it's not your fault. You didn't know that being angry at Cooper was equivalent to a death sentence. You couldn't have done anything to prevent it.”

Hatch looked at the heat-seared magazine in her hands, and a shudder of dread passed through him. “But it'll be my fault if I don't try to save Honell.”

Frowning, she said, “What do you mean?”, “If my anger somehow focused this guy on Cooper, why wouldn't it also focus him on Honell?”

* * *

Honell woke to a world of pain. The difference was, this time he was on the receiving end of it — and it was physical rather than emotional pain. His crotch ached from the kick he'd taken. A blow to his throat had left his esophagus feeling like broken glass. His headache was excruciating. His wrists and ankles burned, and at first he