The Vanished - [Nameless Detective 02]

by Bill Pronzini

  Doug Rosmond

  I lowered the pages and put my head in my hands. Take care of her, love her .. . Oh, God, love and hate and death, why can’t it be simple, why can’t it be uncomplicated, why can’t love triumph and goodness triumph and there be no death and no pain? Two women sitting back there in San Francisco, waiting, waiting, and I have to tell them that the two men closest to them are dead, dead of love, dead of hate, dead of this goddamn frigging unyielding world, and how am I going to tell them, Elaine and Cheryl—Cheryl, take care of her, love her ...

  Siren sounds. I raise my head, and a powder-blue police car comes hurtling into the Redwood Lodge, rocks to a stop. Two uniformed cops come out, one of them the blond guy I spoke with the day before, running with drawn guns in their hands. I get to my feet, still clutching the papers, and go to meet them on trembling legs.

  What am I going to say to Cheryl?

  What am I going to say?