By Blood Written

“when I really think about it, I hate that so much money is being made off human suffering. It’s evil what he did. We ought to give the money to the families.”

“Let ‘em sue him if they want to,” Brett said. “But this is the publishing business, and it’s a business fueled by this kind of media attention. We’d be crazy not to take advantage of it. You gotta make hay while the sun shines.”

“I know,” Taylor admitted. “Doesn’t mean we have to like it.” “So that brings up another subject,” Brett said. “All this money, the royalties, the sub rights income. Where’s it going to go? If the author is an escaped fugitive on the run, where do we send the checks?”

“Joan and I met with the lawyers on Wednesday,” Taylor said. “We’ve set up an escrow account to hold the money until he’s caught-or whatever. At some point, I would assume the courts will have some input into where the money goes.

I know they’ve frozen all his bank accounts. He couldn’t get to the money even if we did write him a check. He’s already had his passport confiscated. His options are really limited.”

“Then what’s he using for money?” Brett asked.

“Who knows? My guess is he had some stashed away somewhere.”

Brett and Taylor lingered over lunch for two hours, with two more glasses of wine each, then coffee afterward. Taylor enjoyed the company, the chance to get away from the office and to simply get lost in a crowd of people where if anyone recognized her, they had the good manners to not acknowledge it.

Just after two-thirty, the two left and hailed separate cabs.

They made plans for dinner the following Friday night and agreed to talk before then. Taylor was relaxed and drowsy as she settled into the back of the cab. The driver headed across town back to the office on East Fifty- third.

As he pulled to a stop in front of Joan Delaney’s brownstone, Taylor’s cell phone went off. She stuffed a ten-dollar bill through the tray in the clear plastic shield between the front and back seats, then scrambled out onto the sidewalk.

She fumbled in her purse for the cell phone, then pulled it out and flipped the cover open.

“Hello,” she said.

“Taylor,” a voice said.

Taylor froze. Everything around her seemed to go quiet and still, the people around her shifting into slow motion, the traffic noise hushed.

“Michael?” she gasped.

CHAPTER 37

Thursday afternoon, Manhattan

“What’re you- My God, where are-?” Taylor stammered.

She felt like she’d been body slammed. It was all she could do to remain upright.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, as if he’d been away on holiday.

“Michael, where are you?” she asked.

“I’m in the city. You’ll pardon me if I can’t be more specific.”

Taylor’s mind raced. How to handle this? What to say?

What had Hank told her?

Don’t get into it with him, he’d said. But what did that mean?

“How did you get here?”

“It’s a long story, but let’s just say I had to take a very circuitous route.”

Yes, Taylor thought, and how many dead bodies did you leave behind on the way?

“Look, Michael,” she said, trying to keep herself and her words calm, “why are you calling me?”

“Because I missed you,” the disembodied voice said with a thin layer of cell-phone static over it. “And because I hoped you’d be glad to hear from me.”

Taylor stood there. The wind picked up off the East River, funneled down through the city streets by the rows of buildings. She shivered, wondered if she should just walk on to the office, but she knew from experience that her cell phone wouldn’t work inside the building.

The silence was broken by a low hiss and crackle. She wondered if she’d lost the signal.

“And because I need your help,” he said.

“My help? Are you crazy? I can’t help you, Michael. You need to turn yourself in. Get this over with. They’re coming after you and they’ll eventually get you.”

“Turn myself in so they can kill me? Is that what you want?”

“They haven’t passed sentence yet, Michael. You don’t know that that’s what’s going to happen.”

“C’mon, Taylor. You and I both know that if the state of Tennessee doesn’t do it, somebody else will. They’ve got it in for me.”

“Michael, what do you want from me?” Her voice stiffened, sounded cold even to her.

“I know things are over between us,” he answered. “I’ve accepted that. But surely you can’t want them to kill me. I have to get out of the country.”

“They’ve got your passport!” she said. “You can’t leave!”

“I can sneak into Mexico,” he said. “And if I can get there, then I can go anywhere else. Someplace where they won’t extradite capital cases. France, maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far.”

“That’s crazy, Michael. How are you-”

“I need money,” he interrupted. “Cash is the only thing that’s going to get me out of here. They’ve frozen all my accounts. I can’t even use an ATM machine. But I’ve got money hidden, Taylor. Overseas. Lots of it. Enough to disappear forever. All I have to do is get to it.”

“And what about the girls, Michael? What about all those girls, and God knows who else?”

There was a long beat of silence before Michael spoke again. “I know what you must think, Taylor. But I really am not guilty of everything they say I’m guilty of. Besides, I’ve lost my taste for it. It was something that got out of control because of the writing, because I was so far into the writing.

I’ve got it under control now, for good.”

“You make it sound like a drug problem, Michael. But it wasn’t a drug problem. You were killing people!”

“You don’t understand, Taylor. You don’t understand what it’s like.”

“Of course I don’t. I hope I never do! There is no understanding, Michael. You were killing people.”

“Look, I can’t stay on this phone forever. They’re probably listening now. So I’ve just got to come out and say it: Are you going to help me or what?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

“Taylor, how much money have I made for you and the agency and that damn publisher? You owe me. Just call it an advance on royalties. And besides, they’ll kill me if you don’t. And while I know you don’t anymore, remember, you once loved me.”

Taylor felt her head swim yet again. Would this ever go away, ever be over with? “Look, I don’t know. I need time to think, Michael. I just need a little time to think.”

“How much time?” he asked, his voice just on the edge of desperation.

“Call me tonight,” she answered. “I’ll be home after seven.

Call me on my cell tonight.”

“I’m trusting you, Taylor. My life’s in your hands.”

She cringed. “Don’t say that, Michael. Please don’t say that.”

He clicked off, and the phone went silent. She stood there a moment, staring as the steady stream of pedestrians shifted to avoid bumping into her. Taylor held the phone out in front of her and squinted to read the screen in the harsh sunlight. She pulled the number up and didn’t recognize the area code.