Hemlock Bay

“You mean if I had been close to her, I wouldn’t have seen Timmy, I’d have really seen Tammy?”

“Yes, it sounds reasonable. If she can’t get close enough to you without your seeing her exactly as she is, then she knows she’s at a disadvantage. When you were in the barn in Maryland with her, how far away were you standing from her?”

“Maybe two dozen feet.”

“And she was always just what she was? Tammy Tuttle?”

“Yes. She called the Ghouls, but she didn’t change. When I shot her, I saw the bullet nearly rip her arm from her body. I saw her fall, heard her yells of pain. She remained exactly what she was and who she was.”

Sherlock said, “Then at the airport, she just couldn’t get close enough to you to kill you. And she realized, too, that she couldn’t get too close or you’d see her as she really is and kill her. She’s being really careful after what you did to her at the barn.”

Savich said, “Jimmy Maitland called me at the gym, told me that Jane Bitt in Behavioral Sciences allowed that just maybe it is possible that Tammy is a strong telepath in addition to all her illusion skills. She won’t swear to it, says she doesn’t want to get mocked out, but we should consider it, given the incredible control Tammy was able to exert at the airport.”

Sherlock said, “So maybe she’s got both this talent and skill in creating illusions. I think you were right. Tammy knew that you were setting her up. She also knew that you would bring Marilyn. For whatever reason, she wanted Marilyn back. I’m just hoping that she didn’t want her back to kill her. Maybe she really is fond of Marilyn. Maybe Marilyn feeds her ego, makes her feel powerful because she’s so very malleable and suggestible. Tammy can make Marilyn see, make her believe anything she tells her to believe. Didn’t you tell me that Marilyn firmly believes everything Tammy says?”

“Oh, yes, and it’s genuine, Sherlock. Even under hypnosis, Marilyn was frightened of Tammy and she believed everything she said to Dr. Hicks and to me. She remembered it as fact, for heaven’s sake, so she had to have believed it.”

Savich threw back the covers and jumped to his feet. He grabbed a pair of jeans as an afterthought and pulled them on. “I’m going to do some research on this with MAX.”

He walked back to the bed, gri

“I won’t be gone too long.”

She lay back down in bed, shut off the table lamp, pulled the covers to her chin, and smiled into the darkness when she heard Dillon speaking to MAX down the hall in his study. She heard him laugh.

22

Hemlock Bay, California

There weren’t any caves, not even one indentation in the rock where she could squeeze in and wait them out. Just a beach that went on and on, driftwood piled all over it, and slimy trails of kelp, dangerous when you were ru

But she had a gun. It was small and ugly, but she wasn’t defenseless. From what she knew about guns, which wasn’t much, it was a close-range gun, useless at a distance, but if you got near enough, it could kill a person quite easily.

The temperature dropped as the sun went behind gathering clouds, whirling rain clouds. Any minute now rain would pour down. Would that help her or not? She didn’t know.

Had there been three men? One staying with Simon and the other two after her? Maybe there were just two men and Simon could get away and call for help. They’d been idiots-telling their FBI protectors that since they were just going to the cemetery and they wanted to be private, they’d meet them back in Hemlock Bay.

She stopped, bending over, her hands on her thighs, so tired her breath was catching and she was wheezing with the effort to breathe. She flattened herself in the shadow of the cliff and looked back.

Then, suddenly, she heard one of the men cup his hands around his mouth and shout, “Lily Frasier! We have Simon Russo. Come out now or we will kill him. That is a promise. Then we will call our friends to come at you from the other end of the beach. We will trap you, and you won’t like what will happen to you then.”

The man’s words brought her breath back, straightened her right up. The man’s voice was also thick with an accent-stilted, u

They couldn’t kill Simon. They’d left him alone in the car. If there was a third man watching him, well then, they couldn’t contact him. Unless they had a cell phone. Everybody had a cell phone. Oh, God, please, no. It had to be a bluff, it just had to be.

She slipped once, saw pebbles and small rocks gushing out from the cliff and pounding their way back down to the beach. She held still, then started up again. She was up to the top of the cliff in no time and ru

Hurry, she had to hurry. She hurt, really bad, but she thought of Simon, of his hair curling at his neck, and she knew nothing could happen to him. She wouldn’t let it. Too much loss in her life, she couldn’t bear any more. She came into the back of the cemetery, climbed the wrought-iron fence, and ran down the path toward the visitors’ parking lot.

The horn wasn’t blaring anymore.

Nearly there, she was nearly there. She saw their rental car, but didn’t see Simon. She got to the car. He was stretched out on the front seat, unconscious. Or dead.

She pulled the driver’s side door open. “Simon! Wake up, dammit! Wake up!”

He moaned, struggled to a sitting position. He blinked, finally focusing on her face.

“They’re after us, two men, both with guns. I got away from them but we don’t have much time. Scoot over, we’re getting out of here. I’m going to drive us right to jail and have Lieutenant Dobbs lock us in. It’s the only safe place in the world. No lawyers allowed. Just Lieutenant Dobbs. He can bring our food. We’ll get Dillon and Sherlock out here. They’ll figure this all out, and we can get the hell out of here.”

As she spoke, she managed to shove his feet off the seat and push him toward the passenger door. “It will be all right. You don’t have to do anything, see, I can drive now. Just rest, Simon.”

“No, Lily, no more driving. You’re not going anywhere, not anymore.”

Lily turned slowly at that syrupy voice and stared up at Charlotte Frasier, who was pointing a long-barreled gun at her. “You’ve given us too much trouble. If I hadn’t decided to oversee this myself, you would have escaped yet again. I always believed three times was a charm, and so it is. Get out of the car, Lily. Now.”

Lily wasn’t surprised, not really. Not Elcott, but Charlotte. Then she almost smiled. Charlotte didn’t know she had a gun, too. Would Charlotte take the chance of killing them here, in the cemetery parking lot? She believed all the way to her gut that Charlotte was capable of anything. She was still free, and Mr. Monk had been dead for three days now.

Then she saw the men ru

“Where’s Elcott?” she said, wanting to distract Charlotte, just for an instant. “And that marvelous son of yours? Who loves me so much he’d like nothing more than to bury me? Aren’t they hanging back there, waiting for you to tell them what to do?”