Faces of Fear

It wasn’t ruined yet — not all of it. If he worked quickly—

A new sound now rose over the blaring strains of Vivaldi.

Sirens.

Conrad snaked his arm around Michael’s neck, knocking his feet from under him and squeezing off his carotid artery.

Michael thrashed wildly on the floor, trying desperately to get his feet back beneath him but succeeding only in slashing dozens of cuts into the palms of his hands as he tried to grab hold of something that might help him escape from the choking arm around his neck. But Conrad only increased the pressure on his neck, and then Michael could no longer breathe.

He clawed at the arm around his neck. He wouldn’t die — not here, not now, not as long as Alison needed him. But even as he tried to find new strength, he felt his body weakening.

And with the weakening, a strange blackness began to gather around him.

The blackness of death…

I’m sorry, he silently cried out to Alison and to Risa. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Just as the blackness was enveloping him, Michael reached over his head and tried to grab Conrad by the back of the neck to pull him down to the floor with him.

Then his muscles went slack and he slid into the blackness.

CONRAD BARELY NOTICED a new shadow in the room before he felt fingers close on his hair and jerk his head backward. The attack came so quickly that he lost his grip on Michael Shaw and let his body drop away from him. Then he was twisted around and forced down as well.

Michael rolled over onto his back and lay still. Then, as his lungs took a deep, convulsive breath, the darkness began to clear from his vision.

He saw Conrad Dunn squirming on the floor next to him, and heard a scream of agony as an oddly familiar tan shoe ground the fingers of Conrad’s right hand into the broken glass.

As the music of Vivaldi that still filled the air faded to a quiet passage, Michael could hear the crunching of glass beneath the heavy shoe — or maybe it was the sound of the surgeon’s fingers being crushed.

Next to the shoe lay the scalpel that Conrad Dunn had clutched only a moment ago, and without hesitation, Michael picked it up.

With a quick glance up at Scott Lawrence, who still gripped Conrad’s hair in both his hands, Michael’s rage suddenly came into tight focus.

His eyes fixed on the wide expanse of Conrad Dunn’s throat.

Without making any conscious decision at all — without even thinking — he slashed the blade upward, its razor-sharp blade cutting deep into Conrad Dunn’s exposed flesh.

A gush of blood spurted from the artery the scalpel opened, pouring down Conrad’s surgical gown to mix with the green gel that covered the operating room floor.

“Are you okay?” he heard Scott ask.

He nodded quickly, then: “What about Alison? Did he cut her?”

The ensuing silence seemed to go on for an eternity, then he heard his partner say, “He was just beginning. I think she’s fine.”

As the sirens in the background abruptly fell silent and he heard voices shouting in the distance, Michael took a deep breath, chasing away the last dark cobwebs of unconsciousness.

The voices came closer, growing louder.

He heard the squawk of a radio.

At last he stood up, battling the weakness in his legs and the wrenching pain in his back. With Scott’s hand steadying him, he moved through the shattered glass wall into the laboratory.

He limped over to Risa’s still form and knelt next to her, then gently pulled the sheet away from her face. Laying a gentle hand on her cheek, he felt a terrible wave of grief wash away the last of his energy.

“She’s safe,” he whispered to Risa, gathering her body into his arms. “Our little girl is safe.”

EPILOGUE

One Year Later

ALISON DUG HER TOES INTO THE WARM SAND AND LAY BACK ON HER beach towel. It was the kind of perfect day in Santa Monica that had always made her love living there; not too hot, but far from cool, with the breeze off the ocean keeping the smog well back from the coast.

Not like Bel Air at all, or at least not like she remembered it. In fact, she was already forgetting a lot about those weeks when she’d lived up in the hills above Westwood Village and gone to Wilson Academy and lost not only her mother, but even herself and all her real friends as well.

The memory of her mother’s death still caused her a pain that was almost physical, and thinking about what had happened up in Conrad Dunn’s house seemed to make the sunlight dim, as if a cloud had drifted over it. But when she looked up into the sky, it was as clear as it had been a few minutes ago.

So much of it was like a bad dream, and sometimes when she woke up in the middle of the night, she still had the awful feeling that she was back up there in the hills in Conrad Dunn’s mansion instead of in her bedroom in the house her father and Scott had bought — and insisted on moving into even before they’d sold Scott’s house above Hollywood. The new house was perfect — an easy walk to Santa Monica High, and an even shorter one to Cindy Kearns’s house.

On an identical towel next to her own, Cindy rolled over, propped herself up on an elbow and looked at Alison, her expression serious. “I have to tell you something.”

Alison reached into the cooler for a bottle of water while she tried to decide what Cindy’s look meant. With Cindy, of course, it could mean almost anything, since Cindy not only liked to surprise her, but was a good enough actress that she could almost always do it.

And her expression now didn’t give anything away.

Still, she looked serious enough that it might be bad news. Maybe boyfriend problems? “You’re going to break up with Justin Rhodes?”

Cindy rolled her eyes. “Not until the end of summer — guess again.”

Alison cocked her head quizzically. “You already tell me everything as soon as it happens. So what is there I don’t already know?” She handed Cindy the bottle, then grabbed two more and handed them to her dad and Scott, who were sprawled out next to them in their canvas beach chairs, both of them buried in books.

“I got my letter.”

My letter. In the spring of their senior year, that could only mean one thing: college. They’d both applied to half a dozen schools, and Alison’s acceptance at Stanford — her first choice — had arrived two weeks ago. Now she tried to analyze Cindy’s expression — and her tone — one more time. Cindy wasn’t even looking at her anymore, and Alison thought she saw a tear glistening in the corner of her eye.

But it wasn’t fair — it seemed like it had only been a few weeks since they’d put their friendship back together again, and—

“I got in!” Cindy shouted. “I got into Stanford!”

“Shut up!” Alison looked squarely at her friend. Was she kidding? She had to be kidding. But if she was, Cindy was an even better actress than she thought.

Cindy shook her head. “Don’t have to shut up — it’s true!”

“No way. Really?” Alison sat up. “I didn’t even know you applied.”

“I didn’t think I had a chance, so I didn’t want to tell you, but I went ahead and applied anyway. And I got in!”

“We’ll be roommates!” Alison shrieked, grabbing Cindy in a bear hug.

“Hey, watch those boobs,” Cindy said. “Those ought to be registered as lethal weapons.”