The man behind the mask did not move.

He did not step forward. He simply stared at her.

Susan pushed herself back into a corner, feebly holding a hand in front of her face. She thought she could no longer breathe.

Again, he did nothing. He just eyed her, as if memorizing her face, her clothes, the look of panic in her eyes. Then he whispered, “Now I know you.”

And then, just as abruptly, the elevator doors slowly crept shut.

There was no urgency this time, when I called her. She seemed curiously blank, as if she had already played out my questions and her answers in her mind, and as if I was following a script.

“I’m not sure that I understand Michael O’Connell’s behavior. I think I’m getting a feel for him, and then…”

“He does something you find unexpected?”

“Yes. The dead flowers, there’s an obvious message, but…”

“Sometimes isn’t what frightens us most deeply not something unknown, but something understood and anticipated?”

This was true. She paused, then picked up again.

“So, Michael didn’t precisely behave as you might immediately imagine. You don’t see the value in instilling fear?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“To be utterly, completely helpless and filled to overflow with terror one instant, and then, in a flash, to have it seemingly disappear.”

“How can I be sure that it even was Michael O’Connell?” I demanded.

“You cannot. But if the man in the ski mask in the parking garage truly had rape or robbery on his mind, then wouldn’t he have attempted one of those things? The circumstances were perfect for either of those crimes. But someone with a different agenda behaves unusually and unpredictably.”

When I was slow to respond, she hesitated, as if considering her words.

“Perhaps you should look not only to what happened, but also to the impact of what happened.”

“Okay. But steer me in the right direction.”

“Susan Fletcher was a capable, determined young woman. She was savvy, cautious, expert in many things. But she was deeply wounded by her fear. Being scared that profoundly can do that. Terror is one thing. The residue of terror is just as crippling. That moment in the elevator made her feel vulnerable. Powerless. And in that way, any potential assistance she might have rendered Ashley in the days to follow was effectively removed.”

“I think I see…”

“A person with the skills and determination that might have put her in the forefront of helping Ashley was instantly relegated to the periphery. Simple. Effective. Horrifying.”

“Yes…”

“What was really happening, though?” she suddenly asked me. “What was far worse? What was far more terrifying than anything he’d done up to that point?”

I thought for an instant, before replying, “Michael O’Connell was learning.”

She remained silent. I could picture her gripping the telephone with one hand, reaching out with the other to steady herself. Her knuckles would be white as she fought against something I didn’t yet understand. When she finally did respond, it was almost whispered, as if the words took great effort on her part to speak. “Yes. That’s right. He was learning. But you still don’t know what happened to Susan next.”

Scott didn’t hear from Susan Fletcher for forty-eight hours, but when he did, he almost wished he hadn’t.He had busied himself the way all academics do, going over his upcoming spring-semester syllabus, designing the structure of several lectures, catching up on some correspondence from various historical societies and inquiry groups. And, in actuality, he hadn’t expected a rapid response from Susan Fletcher. He knew he had put her in an awkward position, and a part of him half-expected a blistering phone call from Ashley, along the Why are you butting into my private business? line, and he didn’t really have much of an answer for that question.

So he let the hours pass without allowing himself to feel overly anxious. There was no profit in being nervous, he told himself, when he caught his eyes wandering toward the black telephone waiting silently on the edge of his desk.

When it finally did ring, he was startled. At first, he did not recognize Susan Fletcher’s voice.

“Professor Freeman?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Susan…Susan Fletcher. You called me the other day…about Ashley.”

“Of course, Susan, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to call back so soon.”

This was untrue, of course. He’d hoped she would be prompt.

She hesitated, and Scott heard a catch in her throat. “Is something wrong?” he asked, his own voice betraying him slightly.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I can’t be sure.”

“What about Ashley?” Scott blurted out, then immediately regretted switching the focus away from the troubled tones he heard in Susan’s voice.

“She’s okay,” Susan said slowly. “At least, she seems to be okay, but she does have a problem with some guy, like you suspected. At least, I think she does. She didn’t really want to talk about it.”

Each word came timorously, almost as if she thought someone was listening in.

“You sound uncertain,” Scott said.

“I’ve had a difficult couple of days. Since I saw Ashley. In fact, that was the last good thing. Seeing her.”

“But what happened?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. Everything. I can’t tell.”

“I’m confused. What do you mean?”

“I had an accident.”

“Oh my goodness,” Scott said. “That’s terrible. Are you okay?”

“Yes. Just shaken up. My car is pretty messed up. But no broken bones. Maybe a little concussion. I’ve got a great big welt across my chest and it feels like my ribs were bruised. But other than being sore and disoriented, I’m okay, I guess.”

“But what…”

“The right front tire flew off. I was doing close to seventy…no, maybe a little more, close to eighty, and the front tire came detached. I was really lucky, though, because I felt the car start to swerve, and the front end started to shimmy, and so I pounded on the brakes. I was decelerating fast when it actually came off. Then I lost control.”

“My God…”

“Everything was spinning around, and there was all this noise. It was like someone was screaming in my ear, and I could feel this hyperalertness because I knew I couldn’t do anything about what was happening. But I was really lucky. I hit those collapsible barrier things, you know, the big, yellow barrel types that are filled with sand to cushion the impact.”

“The wheel came off?”

“Yeah. That’s what the trooper told me. They found it a quarter mile back down the road.”

“I’ve never heard of that before.”

“Yeah. Neither had the trooper. Nearly new car, too.”

Scott paused, and there was a small silence.

“Do you think…” He stopped.

“I don’t know what to think. One minute I was flying down the highway, the next…”

Again he was silent, and after a moment Susan spoke softly.

“I was going so fast because I was scared.”

This word caused Scott to listen. He remained quiet throughout Susan Fletcher’s recital of the evening with Ashley. He asked no questions, not even when he heard the name Michael O’Creep, which was the best that she could recall. Things were jumbled in Susan’s memory, and more than once he could hear frustration in her voice, as she struggled to get details right. He guessed this was the result of her mild concussion. She was apologetic, but this, Scott thought, was unnecessary.

She did not know if anything that had happened to her related in any way to Ashley. All she knew was she went to see her and then things that terrified her had taken place just as soon as she’d hugged her friend good-bye. She was fortunate to be alive.

“Do you think that this guy that Ashley’s involved with had anything to do with what took place?” Scott asked, unwilling to believe in a connection, just filled with a nervousness that he couldn’t quite describe.