Mortal Fear

“And Erin? Problems with her husband?”

“Same story. Skip it.” I get up from the stool and roll my swivel chair opposite him.

“The last time I saw her was in New York,” he says as I sit down.

“You saw Erin?”

“Yeah. This was years ago. She looked seriously medicated.”

“She finally kicked that.”

He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “She got kids now?”

“One.”

His gaze is too direct for me to dissemble on that subject, so I push him straight to our mutual problem. “What do you think about Lenz’s plan?”

“I think it might work.”

“Really?”

“The logic is sound. There wasn’t a word about it in any of the FBI or police computers. Not even on Baxter’s personal e-mail. If they’re keeping it that secret, Baxter must think Lenz is devious enough to pull it off.”

“He may, but I don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not that easy to pretend to be a sex other than the one you are. Especially for a man to pretend to be a woman. I see people try it all the time, and I can always tell. Can’t you?”

Miles runs a finger down his aquiline nose. “Sometimes. But if I couldn’t tell-and I couldn’t peek at the master client list-how would I know I was being fooled?”

“Granted. But what about the trip-up questions like ‘What does a speculum look like?’ Or ‘What brand of feminine protection do you use and why?’ ”

“Lenz is a doctor. He can handle that stuff.”

“Maybe. But when someone starts writing their innermost thoughts to you-live, on computer-you begin to form an emotional picture of who they are. And when something rings false, you get a little twinge somewhere, like hearing a dissonant voice in a choir.”

Miles laughs softly. “Harper, you’re more perceptive than almost anyone I know. But even you can be fooled.”

His tone stops me; he is not speaking in theoretical terms. “What do you mean?”

“People are fooled about sexual identity every day on EROS, and I can prove it to you.”

“How?”

“You won’t like it.”

Spider legs of apprehension creep along my shoulders. “Why?”

“It involves someone you care about.”

“What are you telling me, Miles?”

“Eleanor Rigby.”

I am utterly still. “No way she’s a man. I know who she is. She’s Eleanor Caine Markham, a mystery writer.”

An odd smile narrows his lips. “Who also works as a body double in Hollywood? And has a crippled sister in a wheelchair who resents her personal life?”

I am too stunned to respond immediately. Miles’s invasion of my privacy is momentarily forgotten as I try to guess what shocking revelation he is about to drop on me.

“Harper,” he says, his tone like that of a teacher urging a child toward the answer to a simple question. “Eleanor Rigby is the sister in the wheelchair.”

This statement hits me with physical force, as though my parents had sat me down and told me I was adopted.

“You never considered that?” he asks gently. “A woman with the brains to be a successful mystery writer also has a body that major directors pay to put on film? Possible, but not likely.”

It seems so obvious now. But sixty seconds ago I had no clue. “It just-everything she said seemed so heartfelt.”

“It was. Each part of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ is based in objective and emotional truth. She just shuffled the parts on you, mixed the roles. She lives vicariously, through her novels and through talking to people like you on EROS. You’re her sex life, Harper. You truly are her lover, maybe the greatest of her life. Sad, isn’t it?”

A shapeless flood of anger courses through me, and for lack of a better target I direct it at Miles. “Who gave you the right to go prowling through my life, goddamn it? You’re the one who doesn’t have a life.”

“We’re all voyeurs,” he says in a neutral tone. “It’s the new American pastime. Pretty pathetic, I guess, but that’s where we are.”

“That’s a cop-out, Miles.”

“Maybe. If you want to know the truth, I checked out Eleanor because I saw you getting tight with her. Maybe even risking your marriage, if Drewe happened to see the stuff you two were writing. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t some basket case. You know, the kind that shows up and starts boiling rabbits on your stove.”

“How can I ever thank you.” Though I am spitting sarcasm, my inner voice tells me that Miles does care what happens to me. But still I feel the urge to strike back. Before I know it, I am asking him the one question I have spared him up until now.

“Miles,” I say in my father’s voice, “are you involved in these murders in any way?”

He blinks in surprise.

“In any way.”

He looks away, then back at me. “Anything else you want to ask while you’re at it? Am I queer? You’ve been wondering that too, haven’t you?”

“You’re avoiding my question. That scares me.”

“Fuck no! I am not now nor have I ever been a corpse-fucking killer, okay? Good enough?”

I watch him impassively.

“I can’t believe you asked me that.”

I feel the peculiarly human satisfaction of knowing I have made him as angry as I am. “You’d better get used to it. I’m on your side, and I had to ask. What do you think the FBI will think?”

“Hey, I know what they think. That’s why I have to catch this asshole.”

I slowly roll my chair forward and back with my feet. “I agree. Do you have a plan?”

“You think I came back to this cultural wasteland for the sights? Of course I have a plan.”

My pulse quickens. “What is it? You’ve got a way to trace his phone connections?”

He shakes his head. “I might be able to, if I had the help of AT amp;T and the major cellular companies. But I don’t, do I?”

“So?”

He slides off the bed and stands, his uncovered crewcut a mere shadow against his scalp. He runs a hand through it like a man feeling the stump of an amputated limb, then begins pacing out invisible patterns on the floor.

“This is what will happen,” he says. “For a while, Brahma will communicate just as he has, in live-chat mode. How long depends on the telephone tricks he has up his sleeve. It’s not easy to avoid being traced these days. Once they get close to him, he can keep using live-chat mode by switching between authorized accounts to which he has the passwords. According to you, he’s already done this once, talking to Lenz. But if the FBI techs are smart-and that’s open to question-there’s a way to track those legitimate accounts.”

Miles has paused, so I oblige him with a “How?”

“You gave Lenz some transcripts of some of Brahma’s dialogues with his victims, right? Using those, the FBI should be able to build a search engine that will sift through EROS for his most common prose patterns. It will take less and less time for them to begin their traces.”

“And?”

“Eventually Brahma will switch from live chat to e-mail.”

“Does that help us?”