are. Here’s the last brief we filed in
Anne willed her feet to move and crossed to the papers littering the desk. Newspaper clippings about Chipster.com lay scattered over the Formica surface, each one carefully razored from the paper. NAKED MAN APPEARS IN COURT, read one subhead, and Anne winced. She sifted through the articles, and it was as if Kevin had scoured all the newspapers; he had all the sidebars on Rosato & Associates and the features on the individual lawyers, as well as the Dietzes. Anne picked one up. It had been printed in color, from the web. How had Kevin managed that? She shoved the clippings aside and buried beneath was a laptop, hooked up to a Hewlett- Packard printer. “Hello. Add receiving stolen goods to the record, ladies.”
Judy had moved farther up the bed and picked up one of the papers. “Look at this. It’s a map of the city with streets circled on it.” She turned on a cheap lamp by the bed and studied the map. “Anne’s house, the office, the courthouse. Weird, but true.”
It sent a chill through Anne. “I don’t want to live through this again.” It came from her heart, speaking out of turn.
But Judy looked up, the map in her hand falling in jointed sections. “I’m not sure this is about you anymore,” she said, her face grave under her exaggerated makeup. “Beth Dietz’s house in Powelton Village is also circled here, and there’s a notation on a circle in the middle of Fifteenth Street. It reads, ‘Beth eats lunch here.’”
“What do you mean?” Anne went over to the bed, where Judy was holding up a photo of the Dietzes leaving the courthouse after a pretrial motion.
“There’s lots of photos here of Beth. Even one from a website that helps people find their high school classmates. He must have researched her and gone in under a fake name.”
“I know that website,” Anne said, scanning the newspaper photos. “You’re right. There are almost as many of Beth Dietz as of me, and he used that site to research me, too.”
Judy was about to set a photo down on the bed when she stopped in mid-arc. “Oh my God, look at this.” She picked up another photo of Beth Dietz and showed it to everyone. This one had a red heart drawn around her face.
Anne froze. She had forgotten until this minute. “He used to do that to my pictures.”
Judy turned. “What’s going on, Anne? Is he in love with Beth now that you’re dead? It looks like he’s switching over or something.”
“Erotomanics do transfer their obsession.” Anne felt a shudder start at the base of her spine, then inch up. “If he thinks he killed me, he may be letting me go. Maybe he’s going to start stalking Beth Dietz now.”
“So he’s in love with her.”
Anne nodded. “Yes, but that’s not the nature of de Clerambault’s. It’s the reverse, remember? What’s happening now is that Kevin is an erotomanic, so he believes that Beth Dietz is in love with him.”
“But she’s married,” Judy said, puzzled, and Anne tried to explain the inexplicable.
“No matter, he’s delusional. No reality destroys the delusion, except for a restraining order. And we know the Dietzes don’t have the best marriage in the world. Maybe Kevin knows that, too. He watched me for a long time before he asked me out. I didn’t find that out until the trial. He’d been stalking me for months without my knowing.”
“Can this happen even if they never met?” Judy asked. “I mean, I doubt that Beth Dietz ever spoke to Satorno.”
“Again, it makes no difference. It was an erotomanic who stalked Madonna, and Martina Hingis. And Meg Ryan. The man who killed that TV actress, Rebecca Schaeffer? He had de Clerambault’s.”
“That’s so scary,” Mary said. She came over and patted Anne’s shoulder, but Anne wasn’t sure whether she was comforting her or drawing comfort from her.
Anne surveyed the scene, knowing the implications for Beth Dietz as clearly as if she were clairvoyant. It would start with e-mails, visits, then roses, notes and cards, phone calls and gifts, and surprise knocks on the door at all hours of the day and night. And it could end with a gun. Anne struggled to compose herself. “As long as Kevin Satorno is at large, Beth Dietz’s life is in danger. The question is, what do we do about it?”
“We tell the police,” Judy answered. “No question.”
“We also tell Beth Dietz,” Mary added. “No question.”
Anne held up a hand like a traffic cop. “Correction. We make sure the cops tell Beth, and I’ll tell Matt, too. I still play dead until Tuesday. We don’t need Kevin enraged right now, for my sake or for Beth’s.”
“Agreed,” Judy said, and Mary was shaking her head.
“This is strange. We’re going to save Beth Dietz’s life, and she’s suing our client. The line between good and evil is shifting.”
“Yeah, it’s funny,” Anne said, though she knew it was just the random part, from her fake-jogging. “As relieved as I am that Kevin may be letting me go, I still wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemy.”
Judy smiled. “You know what that makes you, Murph?”
“A fool?” Anne guessed.
“A hooker with a heart of gold,” Mary answered, and they all laughed.
Minutes later, the lawyers had closed the door to Kevin’s motel room and were scuffing down the corridor and piling into the elevator. Mary flipped open her cell phone, as they’d agreed, and pressed in the office number. “Bennie, guess what?” she said. “We found Kevin’s apartment. He’s at the Daytimer Motel in Pennsauken under the name Ken Reseda.”
The elevator was so tiny, Anne could hear Bennie yelling, “HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL THAT? YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE TAKING CARE OF MURPHY! WHERE IS SHE?”
Mary cringed. “We’re all together, and it’s kind of a long story. We called you as soon as we were sure it was him. We think he started stalking Beth Dietz. You wanna call the cops or should we?”
The elevator opened onto the first floor as Bennie shouted, “WHERE ARE YOU, DiNUNZIO? TELL ME YOU’RE NOT IN JERSEY!”
“Me? Where am I?” Mary tottered past the reception desk. “Uh, at a car wash?”
Judy burst helpfully into car-wash noises. “
“Why you leavin’? Reseda ain’t back yet.”
“He’s a superfreak,” Anne answered, and wiggled out the door behind the others. She would have asked the clerk not to tell Kevin they’d been there, but he’d be arrested as soon as he hit the lobby.
She finally had him.
23
There was almost no traffic heading into the city, and the Beetle zoomed up the steep slope of the Ben Franklin Bridge, carrying three happy hookers. Wind blew off the Delaware River, setting everyone’s moussed hair flying, and Anne felt almost high as they sped to the top of the bridge.
They had done it. They had found Kevin. He would be arrested, tried, and imprisoned for good. The nightmare would finally be over for her, and for Beth Dietz, who didn’t even know it had started. For Willa, there would be mourning and justice. Tomorrow would be Monday, the Fourth of July. There would be fireworks and ketchup bottles that burped. And Anne was beginning a love affair; one that felt like the real deal, as they said in Philadelphia. She smiled inwardly, with only one regret. “I wish we could have stayed and seen him get arrested.”
Mary’s hair blew crazily around. “Me, too, but Bennie wanted us out, pronto. It wasn’t safe for us to stay. She called the cops on the other line and they’re on their way. And we have to be back at the office, for you to meet with Gil. We’re already late.”
“Also we could have gotten arrested for indecent exposure,” Judy added. As she drove, she wiped off her
