Aces Abroad

"You can't believe that," he said. "Roger Pellman killed her. There was no question at all about that. The poor retarded kid…" Hartma

Hartma

Sara stared, bewildered, at Hartma

It can't be. The insistent denial pounded in her head. Yet she looked at Hartma

"Succubus," she said, and found her throat dry. She licked her lips. "You were there, and she had Andrea's face." Hartma

In that instant Sara knew what he was going to say. She had already begun to shake her head in denial.

"For me, quite often," Hartma

" I didn't kill your sister, Ms. Morgenstern. I'll plead guilty to thinking of her as my fantasy lover, but that's all."

"Your sister was an ideal for me. I wouldn't have harmed her at all. I couldn't."

It can't be.

Sara remembered all the strange links she'd found in the months after she'd first seen the videotape of Succubus's death. Sara had thought that she'd escaped the cloying Andrea worship of her parents, that she'd left her murdered sister behind her for the rest of her life. Succubus's face had shattered all that. Even after she'd shakily written the article that would eventually win her the Pulitzer, she'd thought it had been a mistake, a cruel trick of fate. But Hartma

She dug further. She found that five-year-old Hartma

It was circumstantial. It was flimsy. Her reporter's instinct had screamed "Objectivity!" at her emotions. That hadn't stopped her from hating him. There was always that gut feeling, the certainty that he was the one. Not Roger Pellman, not the others who had been convicted, but Hartma

Would he have told you about Succubus if he hadn't cared? Would a murderer have opened himself that far to someone he didn't know, a hostile reporter? Doesn't violence follow everyone through life? Give him that much credit. "I… I have to think about this," she said.

"That's all I ask," he answered softly. He took a deep breath, looking around the sun-baked ruins. "I should get back to the others before everyone starts talking, I suppose. The way Downs is snooping around me, he'll have all sorts of rumors started." He smiled sadly.

Hartma

His hand touched her shoulder.

His touch was gentle, warm, and his face was full of sympathy. "I put Andrea's face on Succubus and I'm sorry that caused you anguish. It's also plagued me." His hand dropped; her shoulder was cool where he'd been. He glanced at the serpent's heads to either side. "Pellman killed Andrea. No one else. I'm just a person accidentally caught up in your story. I think we'd make better friends than enemies."

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if waiting for a reply. Sara was looking out to the pyramid, not trusting herself to say anything. All the conflicting emotions that were Andrea surged in her: outrage, an aching loss, bitterness, a thousand others. Sara kept her gaze averted from Hartma

When she was sure he was gone, she sank down, sitting with her back against a serpent column. Her head on her knees, she let the tears come.

At the bottom of the steps Gregg looked upward at the temple. A grim satisfaction filled him. Toward the end he had felt Sara's hatred dissipate like fog in sunlight, leaving behind only a faint trace of its presence. I did it without you, he said to the power inside him. Her hatred flung you away, but it didn't matter. She's Succubus, she's Andrea; I'll make her come to me by myself. She's mine. I don't need you to force her to me.

Puppetman was silent.