LITMIR.BIZ

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artist.”

      “I’m only speaking from the heart.”

      “Well, sweetie, if you’re going to do more of that this evening, bring a shovel. I don’t have one.”

      She hung up, and before Ryan could lower the handset from his ear, he heard what might have been a brief, stifled laugh.

      Although Sam had disconnected, the dial tone did not return. Ryan listened to the faint hollow hiss of an open line.

      “Who’s there?” he asked.

      No one answered.

      The house phone was a digital hybrid system with ten lines, plus intercom and doorbell functions. None of the phone lines was shared, and no other phones in the house could eavesdrop on a line that was in use.

      He waited for another telltale sound, like guarded breathing or a background noise in the room where the listener sat, but he was not rewarded. He had nothing more than an impression of someone out there in the ether, a hostile presence that might or might not be real.

      At last he returned the handset to the cradle.

      By four o’clock Friday afternoon, sooner than promised, Wilson Mott provided by e-mail a background report on Samantha’s mother.

      As soon as Ryan had a printout, he sent the e-mail to trash, and at once deleted it from trash to ensure no one could retrieve it. He sat on a lounge chair by the pool to read Mott’s findings.

      Rebecca Lorraine Reach, fifty-six, lived in a Las Vegas apartment complex called the Oasis. She was employed as a blackjack dealer at one of the classier casinos.

      By means most likely questionable, Mott had obtained the current photo of Rebecca on file with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. She looked no older than forty—and remarkably like her daughter.

      She owned a white Ford Explorer. Her driving record was clean.

      She had never been a party to a criminal or civil action in Nevada. Her credit report indicated a responsible borrowing history.

      According to a neighbor, Amy Crocker, Rebecca rarely socialized with other tenants at the Oasis, had a “my-poop-don’t-smell attitude,” never spoke of having a daughter, either dead or alive, and was in a romantic relationship with a man named Spencer Barghest.

      Mott reported that Barghest had been indicted twice for murder, in Texas, and twice had been judged innocent. As a noted right-to-die activist, he had been present at scores of assisted suicides. There was reason to believe that some of those whom he had assisted were not terminally—or even chronically—ill, and that the signatures on their requests for surcease from suffering were forged.

      Ryan had no idea how an assisted suicide was effectuated. Maybe Barghest supplied an overdose of sedatives, which would be a painless poison but a kind of poison nonetheless.

      Mott’s report included a photo of Spencer Barghest. He had an ideal face for a stand-up comic: agreeable but rubbery features, a knowing yet ingratiating grin, and a shock of white hair cut in a punkish bristle that looked amusing on a fiftysomething guy.

      Because he might be critically ill, Ryan was troubled to find only three degrees of separation between himself and a man who would be pleased to grant him eternal peace whether he wanted it or not.

      This, however, did not confirm his intuitive sense that Sam’s mother—and perhaps Samantha herself—was linked to his sudden health problems.

      Life was often marked by synchronicities, surprising connections that seemed to be meaningful. But coincidence was only coincidence.

      Barghest might be a nasty piece of work, but there was nothing sinister in his relationship with Rebecca, nothing relating to Ryan.

      In his current state of mind, he had to guard against a tendency toward paranoia. Such a regrettable inclination had already led him to order Mott’s report on Samantha’s mother.

      Rebecca had turned out to be an ordinary person leading an unremarkable existence. Ryan’s suspicion had been irrational.

      Now that he thought about it, the presence of Spencer Barghest in Rebecca Reach’s life was not surprising. It didn’t even qualify as a coincidence, let alone a suspicious one.

      Six years ago, she had made the difficult decision to remove a feeding tube from her brain-damaged daughter. A weight of guilt might have settled on her—especially when Samantha strenuously disagreed with her decision.

      To assuage the guilt, Rebecca might have pored through right-to-die literature, seeking philosophical justification for what she had done. She might even have joined an activist organization, and at one of its meetings might have encountered Spencer Barghest.

      Because Samantha had been estranged from her mother since Teresa’s death, she probably didn’t even know that Barghest and Rebecca were an item.

      Ashamed that he had entertained any doubts about Sam, Ryan got up from the poolside lounge chair and returned to his study.

      He sat at his desk and switched on the paper shredder. For a long moment, he listened to its motor purring, its blades scissoring.

      Finally he switched off the shredder. He put the report in a wall safe behind a sliding panel in the back of a built-in cabinet.

      Fear had gotten its teeth so firmly into him that he could not easily pry it loose.

       TWELVE

      Over the years, the immense pepper tree had conformed around the second-story deck. Consequently, the feeling of being in a tree house was even greater here than when you looked out of the apartment windows.

      Samantha had draped a red-checkered cloth over the patio table and had set out white dishes, flatware, and a red bowl of white roses.

      Filtered through the tree, late golden sunlight showered her with a wealth of bright coins as she poured for Ryan a Cabernet Sauvignon that was beyond her budget, while he lied to her about the reason for the bandage on his neck.

      Following a crimson sunset and purple twilight, she lit red candles in clear cups and served dinner as the stars came out, with a Connie Dover CD of Celtic music turned low.

      Having allowed fear to raise doubts about Sam, having ordered a background report on her mother, Ryan initially expected to feel awkward in her company. In a sense, he had betrayed her trust.

      He was at once, however, at ease with her. Her singular beauty did more to improve his mood than did the wine, and a dinner superbly prepared was less nourishing than the faultless golden smoothness of her skin.

      After dinner, after they stacked the dishes in the sink, and over the last of the wine, she said, “Let’s go to bed, Winky.”

      Suddenly Ryan was concerned that impotence might prove to be a symptom of his illness. He need not have worried.

      In bed, in motion, he wondered briefly if lovemaking would stress his heart and trigger a seizure. He survived.

      Cuddling afterward, his arm around Samantha and her head upon his chest, he said, “I’m such an idiot.”

      She sighed. “Surely you didn’t just arrive at this realization.”

      “No. The thought has occurred to me before.”

      “So what happened recently to remind you?”

      If he confessed his absurd suspicions, he would be forced to disclose his health concerns. He did not want to worry her until he had Dr. Gupta’s report and knew the full extent of his problem.

      Instead, he said, “I threw out those sandals.”

      “The pair recycled from old tires?”

      “I

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