Watch Them Die

motion.

He stopped, and watched Ben and Hannah move on together.

He smiled, even laughed a little to himself.

Poor Hannah: so beautiful, so stupid.

And doomed.

“You never heard from Rae again after that last e-mail?” Hannah asked.

“No,” Ben replied, walking alongside her. “Like I said, I wasn’t able to get ahold of her. I wish I’d come to Seattle earlier, but I was having problems at work—and at home.” He sighed. “Anyway, I came out here the second week in September. But I think I may have been too late.”

Hannah didn’t say anything.

They were strolling down the sidewalk by a busy residential street across from Volunteer Park. Through the trees they could catch a peek at the park’s water tower, the art museum, conservatory, and a playground.

Ben said that when he arrived in Seattle, one of the first things he did was go to the hotel where Rae worked. They hadn’t seen or heard from her in over a week. It was more of the same at Rae’s apartment building, where Ben interviewed her neighbor and the building manager. Rae seemed to have just disappeared.

Ben knew Paul Gulletti reviewed movies for the local weekly. He tore Paul’s picture out of the paper and showed the photo to Rae’s coworkers and neighbors. Nearly all of them recognized Rae’s married boyfriend, but no one had seen him for months.

Ben went to the police and reported Rae as a missing person. “It was incredibly unspectacular,” he told Hannah. “You’d think I was applying for a fishing license or something. I tried to tell this cop at the desk what had been happening to Rae the past few months, and he didn’t seem to give a crap. So I filled out a form, and gave them a photo of Rae which I really kind of cherished. The cop said they’d contact me if they came up with anything. In other words, Don’t call us, we’ll call you. And guess what? Big surprise, they haven’t called.”

He ran a hand through his wavy blond hair. “To be fair, the cop pointed out that they have hundreds of new missing persons on file every week.” Ben squinted across the street at the entrance to Lakeview Cemetery. “I didn’t know there’s a cemetery here.”

Hannah nodded. “Bruce Lee is buried there. His son Brandon’s grave is right beside his.”

They reached a curve in the road, and a small, scenic overlook park with a view of Lake Washington, the University’s Husky Stadium, the floating bridge, and the Cascade Mountains. They sat down on a wooden bench built around a tree at the edge of a huge ravine. With dusk creeping over the horizon, many of the cars on the bridge had their headlights on. The little sailboats glided on darkening silver-blue water.

As Ben gazed out at the view, Hannah allowed herself to study his handsome profile and the sadness in his beautiful eyes. She still felt a bit cautious around him, and had to fight her attraction for this lonely man who was away from home.

And she had to tell him that his onetime girlfriend was dead.

He turned to her, and Hannah quickly looked away—toward the lights across the lake. “So,” she said, “what kind of job do you have that allows you to pick up and go to Seattle for a month?”

“A former job, I think,” he said. “I’m not sure I still have it. I’m in advertising. Do you know Gustov bottled water?”

“‘The champagne of seltzer waters’?”

He nodded. “I came up with that—and the advertisements about it being easier to open than champagne. If you hate those commercials, blame me.”

“Actually, I think those ads are very funny.”

“Thanks.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I took a leave of absence without pay. They hadn’t really approved it yet when I left. So I’m not sure the job will be waiting for me when I get back.”

“Your wife doesn’t mind that you went to Seattle for a month? And you’re chasing after an ex-girlfriend, no less. Jennifer—isn’t that her name? She must be very understanding.”

Frowning, Ben gazed out toward the bridge. “I’m not sure if she’ll be waiting for me when I get back, either.” He sighed. “It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll bend your ear about it sometime, but not now.”

Hannah nodded. Neither of them said anything for a moment. Hannah thought about his former girlfriend, Rae Palmer. Every concern Rae expressed in those e-mails was familiar to Hannah. In the last e-mail, when Rae mentioned wanting to run away, it scared Hannah that she’d had exactly the same reaction. Rae had admitted that she slept with a baseball bat at her bedside. Hannah had kept a hammer by her nightstand ever since the break-in. She remembered the Goodbar video, with the bloodied bed sheets and Rae’s dead gaze.

“What happened to Rae is happening to me now,” Hannah whispered.

“I know,” he said. “It took a while to figure out. I hadn’t planned on staying here in Seattle this long. But once I realized Rae might be lost to me, I couldn’t go back to New York. So I rented this cheap, dumpy studio apartment and signed up for Paul Gulletti’s film class. I registered under the name Ben Sturges in case Rae had ever told him about me. Sturgis, Michigan is where I’m from originally. I just changed the spelling a little. Anyway, I asked around in class, very casually of course, but nobody had heard of Rae Palmer. Apparently, no one in this current class has been taking Paul’s course for more than three semesters.”

“You didn’t ask me,” Hannah said.

“Well, I figured out pretty quickly you were Paul’s favorite. People said you two were an item. I kept thinking you must be Rae’s successor. When I heard you worked at a video store, I thought you might know something. But I couldn’t approach you about it; at least, not directly.”

“So you started following me around?” Hannah said, not smiling.

“Yeah,” he whispered, nodding. “I know that gives you a major case of the heebie-jeebies, and I don’t blame you. But I’m glad I did start following you, because I noticed someone else was watching you, too. That’s when I realized that this…this video stalker must have moved on from Rae to you.”

“Do you think it could be Paul?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve never really gotten a good look at the man following you. I thought Ronald Craig might have. That’s why I went to his hotel the other night. I was hoping Craig had left behind some information about this man. I thought Craig might be tailing you for the same reason I was. He was a private detective out of Milwaukee. I don’t think Rae knew anyone from Milwaukee. She had no family left. So I don’t know who hired him, or why. I can’t figure that out.”

Hannah said nothing.

“Gulletti’s married. Maybe his wife is from Milwaukee. Maybe she hired Craig to investigate you.”

Hannah gave an awkward shrug. “You know, I spotted a man videotaping me last night,” she said steadily. “It was around the time film class started. You said Paul was there, so he couldn’t be the man following me.”

“Well, maybe it’s someone working for Paul. He’s involved in this somehow. I feel it in my gut. Maybe it’s his assistant.”

“Seth? Why? Wasn’t he in class last night?”

Ben rolled his eyes and nodded. “Of course, yeah. He was there. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“He might be a good one to talk with about Rae,” Hannah suggested.

“Well, I didn’t approach him because I thought he was pretty tight with Paul. But Seth talked with me last night, and I guess he’s not Paul Gulletti’s biggest fan. If he’s been working with Paul since last December, he’ll remember Rae. I’m sure he can tell us something.”

Hannah gently took the folder from his lap, then opened it up. She studied Rae Palmer’s photo again.

“If only I had one definite lead about her,” she heard Ben say. “Someone doesn’t just disappear.”

“Did Rae ever mention to you getting a homemade video?” Hannah asked carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“The same way she was getting those other videos, only this one would have been homemade—with someone being murdered on it.”

Squinting at her, Ben shook his head. “I’m sure Rae would have mentioned it.”

“Such a video was dropped off at the store about a month ago. I think it was meant for me. It was a