“I’m sorry,” Coltrane said.
“Not as much as I am.” Jennifer wiped away another tear and stepped outside. It took her two tries to tell him, “As soon as the special edition of the magazine is ready, you’ll get the first copy. They really are great photographs, Mitch.” Her voice broke. “Regardless of everything that’s happened, I’m proud that I was in your life when you took them.”
Coltrane’s throat felt squeezed.
Lingering in the open doorway, he watched her walk to the curb and get into her car. As on the previous night, she didn’t look back when she drove away. Only after her headlights started to climb the hill away from his house did he move to step back into the house.
But he stopped himself, noticing her headlights pass a car parked near the murky crest.
10
I T WAS HARD TO TELL IN THE NIGHT AND AT A DISTANCE , but the vehicle might have been an Explorer, the kind of car Nolan drove. Someone was behind the steering wheel, looking in Coltrane’s direction. Jennifer’s headlights disappeared over the hill. The car became barely visible.
Nolan? Coltrane’s stomach muscles were still sore from where he had been punched. Angry, he wanted to storm up the hill and find out if that was Nolan watching the house. But his fury was displaced by a despondency about Jennifer that made him too weary for a confrontation. He wished that there had been another way. He had never wanted to hurt her. I bet that’s something else Jennifer would have been annoyed to hear me tell her, he thought. He stepped back into the house and locked the door. If it was Nolan out there, he was going to have a long, wasted night.
Mouth dry, Coltrane glanced at his watch, realizing that the time was almost midnight. Tash should have been home by now. She should have called by now.
Unless she was waiting to contact Nolan first and Nolan wasn’t home.
Unless that was in fact Nolan in the car out there.
Get back to work, he told himself. It’ll help distract you.
Descending to the darkroom, he shut off the overhead lights, switched on the dim amber safelight, and began making more prints from the negatives he had prepared. Then he remembered the print that he had turned upside down in the washing tray, took it out of the water, and was stunned anew by the beauty of Tash in her diving suit as she emerged from the ocean. Her eyes seemed to look directly into his.
What’s happening to me? he thought. How could someone I’ve known since only yesterday make me feel this way?
He had never believed that love at first sight was possible. But then it hadn’t been at first sight, had it? he reminded himself. He had seen Tash’s face long before he had met her.
He remembered having read about the theory of soul mates—that souls who had been devoted to each other in a former life could never be fulfilled unless they found each other in a later life. Perhaps that explained the irresistible attraction that had overcome him. It was as if he had recognized Rebecca Chance the first time he had seen her photograph. It was as if he had been in love with her in another time and now had the chance to be in love with her again—with Tash.
Whatever you’re feeling, it doesn’t need an explanation, he told himself. You’ll ruin it.
So far he had made prints only for the shots he had taken at the stores in the Beverly Center, Santa Monica, and Westwood. He still had to deal with the images of the crowd near the store in the South Coast Plaza. Uneasy that Tash hadn’t called, beginning to worry that something had happened to her, he forced himself to go to the enlarger and put one of the processed negatives into the negative holder. After determining the correct focus, he put a sheet of eight-by-ten-inch printing paper into the easel, set the timer, and turned on the enlarger lamp, which was positioned above the negative and cast a beam through it, projecting the negative’s image down through a magnifying lens and onto the paper.
If he had been preparing prints that were intended to be displayed, he would have done tests to determine the ideal length of time to expose the light-sensitive paper to the negative’s enlarged image, using trial and error to achieve the perfect density of detail and contrast of lights and darks. But these prints were important only for their information, not their aesthetic appeal. He needed to get them done as soon as possible, so he didn’t care about perfection, only whether the faces in the crowd were clear enough for Tash to be able to recognize any of them.
His experience with developing the previous prints had taught him that twenty seconds was an effective length of time to let the negative’s projected image touch the paper. The instant the timer clicked, the enlarger lamp turned off automatically. He removed the paper and set it where the only illumination that could reach it would be from the dim amber safelight. When he had exposed half a dozen sheets of paper, he took them to the developing tray, set them in the solution, and gently agitated the tray, rotating the sheets, developing them evenly.
The magic happened. Feeling a surge of anticipation, Coltrane studied them, as he had the earlier prints. During his fifteen years as a professional photographer, he had trained himself to have a keen visual memory, so he could easily recall details from earlier prints. But now his surge of anticipation changed to a sinking feeling of disappointment, for he still had not seen any faces that recurred in various locations. His pride made him hope that he wouldn’t have to admit to Tash that his plan had been a failure.
To make matters worse, the six prints in the developing tray had something wrong with them: The faces in the bottom-right corner of each print were overexposed, too dark to be distinguished. The faces in the rest of the area were perfectly acceptable, however. That contrast told him that although twenty seconds of exposure to the enlarger’s light was sufficient for most of the area in these prints, their bottom-right corners needed only fifteen seconds.
The prints weren’t usable. Muttering an expletive, he shoved them into a waste can and returned to the enlarger. He prepared to reexpose sheets of paper to the six negatives. For each one, he again set the timer for twenty seconds. But for this set of prints, when the timer reached fifteen seconds, he slowly waved his right hand between the paper and the negative, preventing the enlarger lamp from projecting onto the bottom-right corner of each print for the final five seconds. The movement of his hand reminded him of a magician’s gesture, an apt comparison because he was, after all, performing darkroom magic. By lessening the exposure time on the lower-right corners, he was able to enhance that area and bring out details.
When the sheets were finally exposed, he set them into the developing tray. But this time when the images came to life, he opened his mouth in shock. The previously indistinct lower-right corners were now vivid. As at the Beverly Center, he had taken these shots from an upper level, aiming down at the crowd. On the first print in the sequence, he found himself staring at a man with a 35-mm camera raised to his face, aiming in the direction of where Tash and her bodyguards approached her store. The camera was a mask, preventing Coltrane from noting the man’s features. The salt-and-pepper hair was an indication of middle age. That and the man’s somewhat-hefty build were the only identifiers.
Feeling as if something sharp was caught in his throat, Coltrane turned to the next print in the sequence and saw that the man had pivoted slightly to the right. His camera remaining at eye level, his finger pressing the shutter button, he was taking a photograph of Tash as she walked along. The new angle of his mostly hidden face revealed a thick neck and the suggestion of a puffy cheek. Coltrane turned to the third print in the series, where the man had pivoted more to the right, continuing to take photographs of Tash. From this angle, Coltrane saw a hint of a jowl. He told himself that he had to be wrong, that his imagination was deceiving him. Hurrying, he flipped through the final three prints in the sequence and saw in stop action the man lower his camera to his chin, to his neck, to his chest, never removing his intense gaze from where Tash was walking. The man’s profiled face was now fully in the open, and Coltrane felt nauseated as he was forced to admit th
at he hadn’t been wrong, that his imagination hadn’t deceived him. The man was Duncan Reynolds.
11
W HEN THE PHONE RANG , Coltrane had trouble getting his muscles to work. Only after two more rings was he able to avert his eyes from the prints and pick up the phone. Concerned that Jennifer might have broken her word and decided to call, he kept his voice neutral, or tried to. The stress of having identified Duncan Reynolds made him hoarse. “Hello.”
“Not very enthusiastic.” Tash sounded mischievous. “I thought you’d be a little more pleased to hear from me.” Her tone was wonderfully sonorous.
“‘ Pleased’ is an understatement.”
“Did I wake you?”
“No. I’ve been working.” Coltrane frowned toward the prints. He continued to strain to adjust to what he had discovered.
“I’m sorry I took so long. I didn’t want to phone you until after I talked to Carl, but I’ve been ringing his number for the past hour and all I get is his answering machine.”
“That’s because he’s probably in a car up the street from me, watching my house.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Someone’s in a car up the street. It looks like the kind he drives.”
“Jesus,” Tash said. “I guess we were right to have me go home instead of to your place.”
“Maybe not. This time, he wouldn’t be catching me by surprise. Maybe I should go out there and—”
“No, there doesn’t have to be more trouble,” Tash said. “I think I can get him to calm down. I just need a chance to talk to him and make him understand that he got the wrong idea.”
“That’s something I’d like to understand, too,” Coltrane said. “What wrong idea are you talking about?”
“I promised to tell you, and I’m going to.”
“Then how about now?”
“No. Not like this. Not over the phone. I need to see your eyes. I need to make sure that you understand.”
“It’s that bad?”
“There’s nothing bad at all. But this is going to take awhile, and I remembered what you said about not using the cellular phone. Lyle and the state trooper are still with me. I had them drive me to a pay phone at a gas station on the Pacific Coast Highway. I’m not exactly where I can talk about this.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. That’s another reason I’m calling. Do you have anything you can’t get away from for the next few days?”
“Only from seeing you.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “That gave me shivers.”
“The good kind, I hope.”
“In the right places. Can you meet me tomorrow morning at LAX?”
“LAX?” he asked in surprise.
“At the Delta counter? Nine-fifteen? That ought to give us enough time to buy our tickets and catch a ten-ten flight.”
“To where?”
“Acapulco. The estate I inherited. I can’t bear looking over my shoulder any longer. I want to get away to where no one knows who we are. Where no one can bother us—not Carl, not the creep who’s after me, nobody. Where it’s just the two of us. Where we can talk and swim and lie on the beach.”
“Sounds good.”
“Do other things.”
“Sounds better.”
“You’ll go?”
“Twist my arm.”
Tash laughed.
“I like it when you laugh,” Coltrane said.
“The only time I laugh is when you make me. Maybe in Mexico I’ll do more of it.”
“Delta. Nine-fifteen. I’ll bring the photographs I developed. I think I found something.”
“What?” Tash asked quickly.
“I’m still not sure what it means. A face. I’m curious if you’ll recognize it.”
“You think you found him?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s the best news.”
“I might be mistaken.”
“No. I’ve got a good feeling.”
12
C OLTRANE TURNED OFF ALL THE LIGHTS IN THE HOUSE . Taking care that he couldn’t be seen, he peered past the blinds in his living room and surveyed the darkness outside. On the hill, a streetlight cast a glow, illuminating the upper part of the slope. The car was gone.
He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or more troubled.
ELEVEN
1
T HE MOMENT THE D ELTA A IRLINES 757 LIFTED OFF , its engines roaring, Tash said, “Let me see the photographs.”
But when Coltrane tried to lean forward to pick up the carrying case in the storage compartment under his feet, his seat belt prevented him. He started to unbuckle it, then thought better as the jet continued its steep climb. From his right-hand window seat, he noticed that they were passing above the yachts and sailboats at Marina del Rey. He had a painful mental image of Jennifer’s condominium down there. Saturday morning, she might be sitting on her balcony, drinking coffee, perhaps looking up at the jet flying over.
“I’d better wait until we level off,” he said.
“I could barely sleep for worrying that I wouldn’t be able to identify the face you’re suspicious about.”
“Identifying the face isn’t the problem. I already know who he is. The question is, will he look familiar to you?”
“You know who he is?”
“It came as a big surprise. In the photographs, there’s a man taking photographs of you. Randolph Packard’s assistant, Duncan Reynolds. Does that name mean anything to you?”
“No.” Confused, Tash searched her memory. “I don’t understand. What does Packard’s assistant have to do with me? Why would he single me out if I don’t know him?”
“Maybe you’ll soon have an answer.”
Glancing out the window again, Coltrane saw the gleam of sails on the wave-scudded ocean. Then the jet banked inland, heading south over the smog-shrouded L.A. basin. To the right, in the distance, he saw the tiny outline of Santa Catalina Island and was reminded that Packard’s mother and father had died in a sailing accident near there. Packard, then sixteen, had been the only survivor. According to his biographies, the family had just returned from a voyage to Mexico. Had they been to Acapulco, just as he and Tash were going there?
“The pilot isn’t climbing so steeply now,” Tash said.
His thoughts interrupted, Coltrane turned from the window and looked at her. Again, he was struck by her beauty. She had dressed casually: deck shoes, khaki pants, a yellow cotton pullover, and a linen jacket, it too khaki, the cuffs folded up. A turquoise necklace. Hardly any makeup, only subtle eyeliner that echoed something in the turquoise, and a touch of peach lipstick. But for all her casual appearance, she looked stunning.
“Yes.” He unbuckled his seat belt, leaned forward, and picked up the black case. When he opened it and handed her some of the photographs, he had never seen a more intense expression on anyone’s face.
“Which one?” Tash asked.
“I don’t want to prejudice you. I’m going to start with the first exposure I made. We’ll go through the locations in the order you visited them, starting with the Beverly Center.”
As Tash examined each one, she pursed her lips in concentration. “I don’t see anybody I recognize.”
“Here’s the next set.”
Again, Tash concentrated. “Nobody I recognize here, either.”
“No repeated faces?”
“None.”
She went through the third set with the same result. “There’s too much to pay attention to. I’m worried that I’m missing something.”
“Keep trying. Here’s the fourth set. We’re almost finished.”
Coltrane had put the photographs that troubled him into the middle, where they wouldn’t be conspicuous.
“Nope. Nothing on this one, either. And not on this one. And . . .” Words catching in her throat, Tash raised the next photograph, then went back to the three previous ones. Tensing, she looked at several of the next ones. “Him. The one with th
e camera.”
“I shouldn’t have mentioned the camera. It prejudiced you.”
“No. In fact, I went right by it. Your eyes for this are better than mine. But this man . . .” She tapped a face. “This man I recognize. He was with the attorney who came to my house and told me that Randolph Packard had included me in his will.”
Coltrane stared.
“But the name he used wasn’t Duncan Reynolds. It was William Butler. He said he worked for the attorney. What’s going on? Why did he lie to me?”
“Maybe he didn’t want you to know his connection with Packard. Obviously, if you knew who he was, you’d have asked him all kinds of questions about why Packard included you in his will.”
“Questions he didn’t want to answer.”
“It’s a reasonable guess.”
“But why wouldn’t he have wanted to answer my questions?” Tash’s voice had become so strong with anxiety that an expensively dressed couple in the adjacent row frowned at her. She leaned close to Coltrane and lowered her voice. “Why is he doing this to me?”
“I told you I did a photo assignment for the LAPD Threat Management Unit,” Coltrane said.
“Yes.”
“It taught me a lot. People think that stalkers are either rejected husbands and boyfriends, or fans obsessed with celebrities and politicians. But there are other categories. I found out some stalkers have only a casual relationship with their victims. A checkout kid at a supermarket becomes obsessed with a beautiful woman who shops there. He stands close to her while she pays by check, and he gets a look at her name and address. He starts driving by her house. When that doesn’t satisfy him, he watches the house at night. Then that’s not enough, and he follows her. He phones the house, hoping to hear her voice. He sends her flowers and notes. He takes surreptitious photographs of her. He wants desperately to have a relationship with her, but he knows that’s impossible, and as his frustration mounts, he gets angry. Finally he decides to punish her for being too good for him, so he gets a can of gasoline or a knife or a gun and . . .”
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