"I don't know where Victor is." And this was true. She had been unable to reach him tonight.

"What a pity." He pulled a small silver penknife from his pocket and opened the blade. The honed metal edge gleamed bright. "You can split hairs with this thing – razor sharp." Zachary smiled in mock chagrin. "Oh, I lied about not having a weapon."

Removing the telephone from her lap, he set it on the floor. "Fine, don't call Victor. I'll just have to make do with you." He rose to his feet and backed away from her. "More fun this way. Make me chase you around a bit. Up you go." With a lifting gesture of the small knife, he urged her to rise. "How fast can a hunchback run?"

Crazy Bitch sat behind Ian Zachary's console, leaning into a stationary microphone and saying, "They're coming, boys and girls." She had cut off the pretaped interview to give the fans a moment-by-moment account of an unknown invader drilling out the lock on the studio door. "Is it the cops? Is it the Reaper? Stay tuned." She laughed too loud, creating an electronic feedback squeal that drowned out the sound of the drill. Hysteria was toned down to mere giggles. "Yeah, like you're gonna turn me off before that door opens. Oh, here they come."

There was an unintentional moment of high drama in the silence that followed. The door swung open, and Crazy Bitch had lost her voice, unable to adequately describe the scene before her eyes when tall Mallory strode into the room, wielding a wicked-looking drill and carrying the shield of a medieval knight. The blonde was moving forward with grim resolve.

Could this woman be any more pissed off?

Crazy Bitch thought not.

Ian Zachary could not yet bear to part with his audience, or this was Johanna's thought as she watched the small blade dip and rise to punctuate his words.

"You have no alibi for any of the jury murders," he said. "I was very careful about that. Curse of the grotesque. Poor baby, you spent all your evenings alone. And then there was Timothy Kidd, murdered in your reception room. Now Bunny's crime scene was a piece of luck. I was counting on the neighbors to lead the police back to you. I never expected you to be there when they found the body."

Zachary turned away from her, thinking so little of her ability to fight back. After plumping up the couch pillows, he sat down and stretched out his legs on the coffee table. "Standing trial for murder isn't the worst that could – "

A knock on the door was followed by Riker's voice yelling, "Jo, it's me! Open up! I know you've got my gun!"

Zachary, vaguely amused, pulled the revolver from his pocket. "This is his. You stole a cop's gun?" He inclined his head in the manner of a complimentary bow. "You're an interesting woman, Dr. Apollo." He waved the revolver in the direction of the door. "Let him in."

Johanna smiled, and he didn't like that. "You're afraid of Riker," she said. "You're the one with the gun, but you'd never open that door yourself. You don't want to get that close to him."

The knocking was constant now and louder.

"You were hoping he'd just get tired and go away?" Zachary crooked one finger around the base of a ceramic table lamp. "I think this might get his attention."

The lamp toppled to the floor, smashing to pieces. Riker's knocking escalated to the bang of a closed fist, and he yelled, "Jo!"

Zachary took aim at the door. "I can drop him from here if you like. Let him in, or I'll shoot him right now."

"It's a big gun," said Johanna. "Powerful." She stood up and moved between the door and the couch, blocking his aim. Behind her back, she could hear the savage kicks to the wood, but the dead bolt lock was holding. "You could get both of us with one bullet – if you're lucky. But you won't risk a shot through a closed door – not you, the pathological planner. What if you miss Riker? What happens to all that careful scheming? Improvisation is not your forte."

"It's a moot point, Doctor. Look at what he's doing to that door." She turned to see the wood splintering on one side of the lock. The frame was cracking, yielding, and there was only time to open the bottom drawer of the armoire before the door banged inward and Riker crashed into the room. He had one instant to register the weapon in the other man's hand, and then Johanna made a mighty swing to bring the wine bottle across the back of his skull. Riker dropped like a stone.

Crazy Bitch played the tape for a commercial break during the police-enforced interlude. Her eyes were trained on Mallory, who was evidently not Zack's own private cop.

One of the uniformed officers carried the drill into the hall and knelt down before the lock on the producer's door. Inside the studio, the two police in street clothes stood before the booth's window, admiring the sheet spread across it. Far from the effect of a cartoon ghost, the black slashes that stood for eyes were eerie. The thick glass was scratched but intact, and the remnants of a broken chair lay on the floor below.

Detective Mallory walked toward the console, intractable as a slow train wreck in the making. She wanted an explanation – right now.

"Zack did it," said Crazy Bitch, so easily prompted by a vision of Mallory's footprint on her face. "He left before the show started." She affected a deep frown as she turned to the producer's booth. "At least I think Zack's gone."

Was she overdoing this? Yes, she must be, for the blonde had one hand on her hip, and, in the other hand, the drill was slowly swinging like a pendulum.

"I've been playing pretaped interviews. You can't have dead airtime. I could lose my job for that. So how do you like the show so far?"

The drill crashed to the floor. The blond police braced both hands on the top of the console, leaning forward to communicate that Crazy Bitch should not to try her patience for one more minute.

Lieutenant Coffey interceded, calling out, "Hey, kid, what happened here?"

"I'm pretty sure Zack wanted to kill Needleman."

"The producer?" Coffey turned to face the draped window. "Is he in there now?"

"Who knows? Well, Needleman's door is always locked," said Crazy Bitch, "so Zack tried to break through bulletproof glass. And that was really nuts. He even knows the glass is unbreakable, but there he is, red in the face, banging that chair against the window. Then he racked up a few hours of old canned interviews and ran out the door. But I really liked the tape he made tonight. So, after he left, I changed the – "

"Shut up," said Detective Mallory.

The lieutenant was more polite, but just barely. "When Zachary left, was he carrying a weapon?"

"No, not that I could see, but I wouldn't take chances if I were you. I mean look at what he did to that chair." She stared at the sheet covering the producer's window. "Zack might be in there. If you kill him, can I still finish the show?"

Ian Zachary stood over the inanimate body of Riker. "Well, that solves the immediate problem. Is he dead?"

"I'm a doctor." Johanna, knelt on the floor, checking life signs and finding them strong. "I know how to place my shots." The blow had split the skin of Riker's scalp, and his blood was on her right hand.

Zachary leaned into the hallway. "I love this town. All these people behind their closed doors. They don't want to get involved. Ah, New Yorkers."

"They probably didn't hear anything. The walls are very thick – just like Riker's place. I know what you did to him, and that was a mistake. He had no idea you were the Reaper."

"Oh, the blanks? Yes, I suppose it was a pointless plan – but great fun. He actually fainted."

Johanna shook her head. "He scared you, didn't he? Riker caught you by surprise that night, but you'd never go up against him with a knife. So you picked up the first weapon that came to hand, Mac's gun – Mac's bullets. No, that wasn't planning, Zachary. That was just another mistake."