“Well, you’re going to have to talk to me about him sometime.”

“I will. Soon. I promise.”

“Could he be your stalker?”

“Carl? No. He can’t be. I didn’t meet him until a week after I started getting the letters and phone calls. He didn’t know me until then. He couldn’t have started this.”

“Then maybe he’s continuing it, making himself indispensable. Maybe he’s the one who bugged your house and started the fire last night. No.” Coltrane immediately corrected himself. “If Nolan did those things, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to come at me and risk drawing suspicion. But if he isn’t your stalker and he didn’t plant the microphones, how did he know I was going to be at the Beverly Center?”

“Walt told him.”

“Walt?”

“After you dropped me off at the sheriff’s station, Carl phoned and asked to be brought up-to-date. Walt explained the plan we were trying. There’s nothing mysterious about how Carl knew where you’d be. It’s not like he had to be listening to the microphone in my living room.”

“I was sure…” Head pounding, Coltrane couldn’t resist going back to the same insistent question. “Why does he think I’m interfering with something you have going with him?”

“Please.” Tash sounded self-conscious. “There are people here. We have to meet so I can explain. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not sure what I’m thinking.”

“It’s innocent. You’re going to have to take my word until we see each other.”

“When? You won’t be done at the South Coast Plaza until maybe eight o’clock. That means you won’t get home until around eleven. I need to develop the photographs so you can study them and see if you recognize anybody. That’s going to take until… Why don’t you save time and come to my house?”

“Love to.”

“Your bodyguards can leave you there and-”

“Hold it. Does Carl know where you live?”

“Yes.” Coltrane remembered Nolan’s long wait at Packard’s house while he himself had gone to the Maynard ranch instead of leading Ilkovic to the trap that Nolan had prepared.

“He might watch your house in case I show up,” Tash said. “I don’t want any more trouble because of me.”

“I can deal with-”

“It’s my problem,” Tash insisted. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll phone him as soon as I get home tonight. I’ll settle this. Believe me, he won’t bother you again.”

“When you finish talking to him, phone me. I want to know what this is all about.”

“I promise. You’ll understand everything.” Tash hesitated. “I can’t wait to see you.”

Frustrated, Coltrane listened to the click as she hung up. Slowly, he replaced the receiver. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. Tash and her escorts would soon be coming out of the shop. He had to be ready to photograph the crowd as she appeared and walked toward the parking lot. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.

7

PREOCCUPIED, he worked in Packard’s darkroom, filling the time until Tash would phone him. Having purchased the necessary equipment and chemicals on his way back from the South Coast Plaza, he processed the negatives that he had taken at the clothing boutiques. The next step, that of making eight-by-ten enlargements, would be not only time-consuming but tedious. These were snapshots, after all, not composed artistic images. There wasn’t any creative challenge in developing them or stimulation in debating how to manipulate and crop them for the maximum aesthetic impact. Just get the job done, he told himself.

In this case, a one-hour photo-processing company would probably have done as well, but following Randolph Packard’s example, Coltrane had never used a photo-processing company in his career. Besides, there was always the chance that the film he surrendered would be lost or damaged somehow, and he was too impatient to see the results of today’s effort to take that risk, not to mention be forced to have Tash go through today’s dangerous charade for a second time.

His thought about Packard made him imagine the countless times that Packard had come into this darkroom and done what Coltrane was now doing, transferring prints from the developing tray to a tray filled with chemicals that stopped the development process. He gently agitated the stopping solution, careful to rotate the prints from top to bottom to make sure that the stopping chemicals touched them evenly. Then he shifted the prints to a tray filled with chemicals that fixed the image on the paper, making it permanent. He repeated the process of agitation and rotation, finally placing the prints in a tray filled with slowly running water that would wash the chemicals from them.

He imagined Packard standing in this same spot, lovingly developing the photographs that he had taken of Rebecca Chance. Indeed, he could almost sense Packard within him as he gave in to the irresistible urge to make prints from a different negative entirely, from the film that had been in the camera that he had taken to Tash’s house the previous day. Had Packard felt what he now felt as he made an enlargement and carried the eight-by-ten-inch photographic paper to the developing tray, holding his breath as he gently agitated the solution? Had Packard exhaled as Rebecca Chance’s features appeared before him, just as Tash’s identical features now came to life before Coltrane?

The alluring posture of the two women as they emerged from the ocean was identical. True, Tash wore a formfitting diver’s suit, whereas Rebecca Chance had a more revealing wet, clinging bathing suit. But for all that, they were the same, just as Coltrane felt eerily that he and Packard were the same. Both loving the same woman. Making love to the same woman – in the same bed.

The phone rang, its jangle startling. Despite his anticipation, Coltrane had become so absorbed in Tash’s image that he had stopped thinking about when she would call. He jerked his head toward the phone that he had brought from the kitchen and plugged into a jack in the darkroom. As much as he wanted to grab it, he couldn’t bear letting Tash’s image be ruined by keeping it too long in the chemicals. Quickly, he removed it from the fixing solution, shook fluid off it, and set the print in the washing tray.

By then, the phone had rung two more times. In a rush, he picked it up.

“I’ve been waiting for your call. How did it go?” he asked.

The person on the other end didn’t answer right away. The voice was faint. “Somehow I suspect I’m not the one whose call you’ve been waiting for.”

“… Jennifer?”

“I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.”

Coltrane felt a weight in his stomach. “How are you?”

She swallowed, as if trying to suppress emotion. “How do you think?”

“I meant to phone you today.”

“But you didn’t,” Jennifer said.

“I couldn’t. Something interfered.”

“I can imagine.”

“I wanted to explain about the misunderstanding last night.”

“Oh?” Jennifer’s voice was strained. “What misunderstanding is that?”

“Why I was with Tash instead of with you at your parents’ house.”

“I’m not sure there was a misunderstanding. I think I understood very well.”

“We have to talk.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Jennifer…”

“Get it over with. Talk.”

“I…”

“Or maybe this isn’t a good time. Maybe I’m interrupting something.”

“No. I’m alone.”

“Then why don’t you let me in? I’m using a car phone. I’m outside your house.”