Whispers.

"Well, you see, you"ll have to come in and register it if you want it back."

"Get it back?"

"I"ll have to take it with me."

"Are you kidding?"

"It"s the law, Miss Thomas."

"You"re going to leave me alone, unarmed?"

"I don"t think you need to worry about--"

"Who put you up to this?"

"I"m only doing my job."

"Howard put you up to it, didn"t he?"

"Detective Howard did suggest I check the registration. But he didn"t--"

"Jesus!"

"All you have to do is come in, pay the proper fee, fill out a new registration--and we"ll return your pistol."

"What if Frye comes back here tonight?"

"It isn"t very likely, Miss Thomas."

"But what if he does?"

"Call us. We"ve got some patrol cars in the area. We"ll get here--"

"--just in time to phone for a priest and a morgue wagon."

"You"ve got nothing to fear but--"

"--fear itself? Tell me, Officer Farmer, do you have to take a college course in the use of the cliche before you can become a cop?"

"I"m only doing my duty, Miss Thomas."

"Ahhh ... what"s the use."

Farmer had taken the pistol, and Hilary had learned a valuable lesson. The police department was an arm of the government, and you could not rely on the government for anything. If the government couldn"t balance its own budget and refrain from inflating its own currency, if it couldn"t find a way to deal with the rampant corruption within its own offices, if it was even beginning to lose the will and the means to maintain an army and to provide national security, then why should she expect it to stop a single maniac from cutting her down?

She had learned long ago that it was not easy to find someone in whom she could place her faith and trust. Not her parents. Not relatives, every one of whom preferred not to get involved. Not the paper-shuffling social workers to whom she had turned for help when she was a child. Not the police. In fact, she saw now that the only person anyone could trust and rely on was himself.

All right, she thought angrily. Okay. I"ll deal with Bruno Frye myself.

How?

Somehow.

She left the kitchen with the knife in her hand, went to the mirrored wet bar that was tucked into a niche between the living room and the study, and poured a generous measure of Remy Martin into a large crystal snifter. She carried the knife and the brandy upstairs to the guest room, defiantly switching off the lights as she went.

She closed the bedroom door, locked it, and looked for some way to fortify it. A highboy stood against the wall to the left of the door, a heavy dark pine piece taller than she was. It weighed too much to be moved as it was, but she made it manageable by taking out all the drawers and setting them aside. She dragged the big wooden chest across the carpet, pushed it squarely against the door, and replaced the drawers. Unlike many highboys, this one had no legs at all; it rested flat on the floor and had a relatively low center of gravity that made it a formidable obstacle for anyone trying to bull his way into the room.

In the bathroom, she put the knife and the brandy on the floor. She filled the tub with water as hot as she could stand it, stripped, and settled slowly into it, wincing and gasping as she gradually submerged. Ever since she had been pinned beneath Frye on the bedroom floor, ever since she"d felt his hand pawing at her crotch and shredding her pantyhose, she had felt dirty, contaminated. Now, she soaked herself with great pleasure, worked up a thick lilac-scented lather, scrubbed vigorously with a washcloth, pausing occasionally to sip Remy Martin. At last, when she felt thoroughly clean again, she put the bar of soap aside and settled down even farther in the fragrant water. Steam rose over her, and the brandy made steam within her, and the pleasant combination of inner and outer heat forced fine drops of perspiration out of her brow. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the contents of the crystal snifter.

The human body will not run for long without the proper maintenance. The body, after all, is a machine, a marvelous machine made of many kinds of tissues and fluids, chemicals and minerals, a sophisticated a.s.semblage with one heart-engine and a lot of little motors, a lubricating system and an aircooling system, ruled by the computer brain, with drive trains made out of muscles, all constructed upon a clever calcium frame. To function, it needs many things, not the least of which are food, relaxation, and sleep. Hilary had thought she would be unable to sleep after what had happened, that she would spend the night like a cat with its ears up, listening for danger. But she had exerted herself tonight in more ways that one, and although her conscious mind was reluctant to shut down for repairs, her subconscious knew it was necessary and inevitable. By the time she finished the brandy, she was so drowsy that she could hardly keep her eyes open.

She climbed out of the tub, opened the drain, and dried herself on a big fluffy towel as the water gurgled away. She picked up the knife and walked out of the bathroom, leaving the light on, pulling the door halfway shut. She switched off the lights in the main room. Moving languorously in the soft glow and velvet shadows, she put the knife on the nightstand and slid naked into bed.

She felt loose, as if the heat had unscrewed her joints.

She was a bit dizzy, too. The brandy.

She lay with her face toward the door. The barricade was rea.s.suring. It looked very solid. Impenetrable. Bruno Frye wouldn"t get through it, she told herself. Not even with a battering ram. A small army would find it difficult to get through that door. Not even a tank would make it. What about a big old dinosaur? she wondered sleepily. One of those tyrannosaurus rex fellas like in the funny monster pictures. G.o.dzilla. Could G.o.dzilla bash through that door...?

By two o"clock Thursday morning, Hilary was asleep.

At 2:25 Thursday morning, Bruno Frye drove slowly past the Thomas place. The fog was into Westwood now, but it was not as turbid as it was nearer the ocean. He could see the house well enough to observe that there was not even the faintest light beyond any of the front windows.

He drove two blocks, swung the van around, and went by the house again, even slower this time, carefully studying the cars parked along the street. He didn"t think the cops would post a guard for her, but he wasn"t taking any chances. The cars were empty; there was no stakeout.

He put the Dodge between the pair of Volvos two blocks away and walked back to the house through pools of foggy darkness, through pale circles of hazy light from the mist-cloaked streetlamps. As he crossed the lawn, his shoes squished in the dew-damp gra.s.s, a sound that made him aware of how ethereally quiet the night was otherwise.

At the side of the house, he crouched next to a bushy oleander plant and looked back the way he had come. No alarm had been set off. No one was coming after him.

He continued to the rear of the house and climbed over a locked gate. In the back yard, he looked up at the wall of the house and saw a small square of light on the second floor. From the size of it, he supposed it was a bathroom window; the larger panes of gla.s.s to the right of it showed vague traces of light at the edges of the drapes.

She was up there.

He was sure of it.

He could sense her. Smell her.

The b.i.t.c.h.

Waiting to be taken and used.

Waiting to be killed.

Waiting to kill me? he wondered.

He shuddered. He wanted her, had a fierce hardon for her, but he was also afraid of her.

Always before, she had died easily. She had always come back from the dead in a new body, masquerading as a new woman, but she had always died without much of a struggle. Tonight, however, Katherine had been a regular tigress, shockingly strong and clever and fearless. This was a new development, and he did not like it.

Nevertheless, he had to go after her. If he didn"t pursue her from one reincarnation to the next, if he didn"t keep killing her until she finally stayed dead, he would never have any peace.

He did not bother to try opening the kitchen door with the keys he had stolen out of her purse the day she"d been to the winery. She had probably had new locks installed. Even if she hadn"t taken that precaution, he would be unable to get in through the door. Tuesday night, the first time he had attempted to get into the house, she had been at home, and he had discovered that one of the locks would not open with a key if it had been engaged from inside. The upper lock opened without resistance, but the lower one would only release if it had been locked from outside, with a key. He had not gotten into the house on that occasion, had had to come back the next night, Wednesday night, eight hours ago, when she was out to dinner and both of his keys were useable. But now she was in there, and although she might not have had the locks replaced, she had turned those special deadbolts from the inside, effectively barring entrance regardless of the number of keys he possessed.

He moved along to the corner of the house, where a big mullioned window looked into the rose garden. It was divided into a lot of six-inch-square panes of gla.s.s by thin strips of dark, well lacquered wood. The book-lined study lay on the other side. He took a penlight from one pocket, flicked it on, and directed the narrow beam through the window. Squinting, he searched the length of the sill and the less visible horizontal center bar until he located the latch, then turned off the penlight. He had a roll of masking tape, and he began to tear strips trom it, covering the small pane that was nearest the window lock. When the six-inch square was completely masked over, he used his gloved fist to smash through it: one hard blow. The gla.s.s shattered almost soundlessly and did not clatter to the floor, for it stuck onto the tape. He reached inside and unlatched the window, raised it, heaved himself up and across the sill. He barely avoided making a h.e.l.l of a racket when he encountered a small table and nearly fell over it.

Standing in the center of the study, heart pounding, Frye listened for movement in the house, for a sign that she had heard him.

There was only silence.

She was able to rise up from the dead and come back to life in a new ident.i.ty, but that was evidently the limit of her supernatural power. Obviously, she was not all-seeing and all-knowing. He was in her house, but she did not know it yet.

He grinned.

He took the knife from the sheath that was fixed to his belt, held it in his right hand.

With the penlight in his left hand, he quietly prowled through every room on the ground floor. They were all dark and deserted.

Going up the stairs to the second floor, he stayed close to the wall, in case any of the steps creaked. He reached the top without making a sound.

He explored the bedrooms, but he encountered nothing of interest until he approached the last room on the left. He thought he saw light coming under the door, and he switched off his flash. In the pitch-black corridor only a nebulous silvery line marked the threshold of the last room, but it was more marked than any of the others. He went to the door and cautiously tried the k.n.o.b. Locked.

He had found her.

Katherine.

Pretending to be someone named Hilary Thomas.

The b.i.t.c.h. The rotten b.i.t.c.h.

Katherine, Katherine, Katherine....

As the name echoed through his mind, he clenched his fist around the knife and made short jabbing motions at the darkness, as if he were stabbing her.

Stretching out face-down on the floor of the hallway, Frye looked through the inch-high gap at the bottom of the door. A large piece of furniture, perhaps a dresser, was pushed up against the other side of the entrance. A vague indirect light spread across the bedroom from an unseen source on the right, some of it finding its way around the edges of the dresser and under the door.

He was delighted by what little he could see, and a flood of optimism filled him. She had barricaded herself in the room, which meant the hateful b.i.t.c.h was afraid of him. She was afraid of him. Even though she knew how to come back from the grave, she was frightened of dying. Or maybe she knew or sensed that this time she would not be able to return to the living. He was going to be d.a.m.ned thorough when he disposed of the corpse, far more thorough than he had been when he"d disposed of the many other women whose bodies she had inhabited. Cut out her heart. Pound a wooden stake through it. Cut off her head. Fill her mouth with garlic. He also intended to take the head and the heart with him when he left the house; he would bury the pair of grisly trophies in separate and secret graves, in the hallowed ground of two different churchyards, and far away from wherever the body itself might be interred. Apparently, she was aware that he planned to take extraordinary precautions this time, for she was resisting him with a fury and a purpose the likes of which she had never shown before.

She was very quiet in there.

Asleep?

No, he decided. She was too scared to sleep. She was probably sitting up in bed with the pistol in her hands.

He pictured her hiding in there like a mouse seeking refuge from a prowling cat, and he felt strong, powerful, like an elemental force. Hatred boiled blackly within him. He wanted her to squirm and shake with fear as she had made him do for so many years. An almost overpowering urge to scream at her took hold of him; he wanted to shout her name--Katherine, Katherine--and fling curses at her. He kept control of himself only with an effort that brought sweat to his face and tears to his eyes.

He got to his feet and stood silently in the darkness, considering his options. He could throw himself against the door, break through it, and push the obstacle out of the way, but that would surely be suicidal. He wouldn"t get through the fortifications fast enough to surprise her. She would have plenty of time to line up the sights of the gun and put half a dozen bullets into him. The only other thing he could do was wait for her to come out. If he stayed in the hallway and didn"t make a sound all night, the uneventful hours might wear the edges off her watchfulness. By morning, she might get the idea that she was safe and that he wasn"t ever coming back. When she walked out of there, he could seize her and force her back to the bed before she knew what was happening.

Frye crossed the corridor in two steps and sat on the floor with his back against the wall.

In a few minutes, he began to hear rustling sounds in the dark, soft scurrying noises.

Imagination, he told himself. That familiar fear.

But then he felt something creeping up his leg, under his trousers.

It"s not really there, he told himself.

Something slithered under one sleeve and started up his arm, something awful but unidentifiable. And something ran across his shoulder and up his neck, onto his face, something small and deadly. It went for his mouth. He pressed his lips together. It went for his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut. It went for his nostrils, and he brushed frantically at his face, but he couldn"t find it, couldn"t knock it off. No!

He switched on the penlight. He was the only living creature in the hallway. There was nothing moving under his trousers. Nothing under his sleeves. Nothing on his face.

He shuddered.

He left the penlight on.

At nine o"clock Thursday morning, Hilary was awakened by the telephone. There was an extension in the guest room. The bell switch accidentally had been turned all the way up to maximum volume, probably by someone from the housecleaning service that she employed. The strident ringing broke into Hilary"s sleep and made her sit up with a start.

The caller was Wally Topelis. While having breakfast, he had seen the morning paper"s account of the a.s.sault and attempted rape. He was shocked and concerned.

Before she would tell him any more than the newspaper had done, she made him read the article to her. She was relieved to hear that it was short, just a small picture and a few column inches on the sixth page. It was based entirely on the meager information that she and Lieutenant Clemenza had given the reporters last night. There was no mention of Bruno Frye--or of Detective Frank Howard"s conviction that she was a liar. The press had come and gone with perfect timing, just missing the kind of juicy angle that would have put the story at least a few pages closer to page one.

She told Wally all of it, and he was outraged. "That stupid G.o.dd.a.m.ned cop! If he"d made any effort at all to find out about you, what kind of person you are, he"d have known you couldn"t possibly make up a story like that. Look, kid, I"ll take care of this. Don"t worry. I"ll get some action for you."

"How?"

"I"ll call some people."

"Who?"

"How about the chief of police for starters?"

"Oh, sure."

"Hey, he owes me," Wally said. "For the past five years in a row, who was it that organized the annual police benefit show? Who was it that got some of the biggest Hollywood stars to appear for nothing? Who was it got singers and comedians and actors and magicians all free for the police fund?"

"You?"

"d.a.m.n right it was me."

"But what can he do?"

"He can reopen the case."

"When one of his detectives swears it was a hoax?"