“No word yet from the FBI as to how these cases are connected, but it’s believed that the FBI is as baffled as the Lyndon police over the possible relationships among Lowell and Landry and this latest victim, Connolly, and what, if any, is the connection among those three and Reverend Prescott’s Valley of the Angels. In a related story, Prescott’s compound was the scene of a dawn raid by FBI agents this morning, and for more on that, we go to our affiliate in Wyoming. . . .”
Vince was filled with a perverse pleasure to hear that the FBI was stymied. Not that he had it figured out yet, but what the fuck, they cared. He didn’t. Not really.
The taped interviews continued, and Vince found himself grinning broadly when Miranda Cahill come to the mike, her face filling the screen.
Her hair was tousled and she wore no makeup, but even so, she was some looker.
Vince realized he was almost relieved to see that Archer hadn’t killed her. It would have been a waste. She was probably the most beautiful woman who’d ever spoken to him, and Vince took a twisted sort of pride in that, and in the fact that she’d managed to dodge the bullet, so to speak. That she’d outplayed him in the game.
He couldn’t begrudge her her life. Especially when she filled out that shirt the way she did . . .
Nah, he wasn’t sorry that Archer hadn’t been able to get to her. He had even started to grow a little fond of her, in an odd sort of way. She was all right, that Cahill.
He stared into space, thinking about the morning he’d met the other two. A chance meeting, and an unholy alliance had been forged. Men with murder in their hearts and revenge on their minds, playing a game. Pretending to play a game. It was only supposed to be a game.
And then Curtis Channing had decided to play for real.
That Curt, he’d been a real card, all right.
Somehow, Vince hadn’t been at all surprised to find out that the man was a serial killer. He’d read in the paper last week the cops were still trying to add up the body count.
Who woulda thought that?
And Archer, from all he’d heard over the past few days, was just some dumb-shit kid who’d liked to talk big. Well, he’d talked himself right into one hell of a mess, hadn’t he?
One hell of a big mess. And if memory served, the whole game, this whole hit list thing, had been Archer’s idea in the first place. It had been a game no one had won.
Well, that’s not quite true, he smiled wryly, at least I’m alive. More than Channing or Archer could say, right?
Guess that makes me the winner after all. Last man standing, and all that.
It was one hell of a story, though. And wouldn’t it make one hell of a book?
Shit, he nodded to himself, this would be a blockbuster. It has bestseller written all over it. All he needed was someone to work with him. Collaborate, that’s what they called it. Someone who’d know how to put the words together to make them sound good.
Suddenly the thoughts began to gather and swirl around and around in his head.
Oh, but it was brilliant. Perfect.
By the time he got back to his cell, he was in need of a pen and paper, quickly, before he forgot what he wanted to say.
Using his best Palmer method handwriting, he began:
Dear Miss Landry:
Please accept my condolences—he paused, then erased and started again—my most heartfelt condolences on the loss of your father. . . .
By Mariah Stewart
Published by The Random House Publishing Group:
DEAD EVEN
DEAD CERTAIN
DEAD WRONG
UNTIL DARK
THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by Marti Robb
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com
eISBN: 978-0-345-47860-3
v3.0
Dead Even Page 29
