Someone must have seem him climb the fence. Did it matter? He knew who he was now. He was a television writer, and this was his house, and Laney was his wife, and he may as well face things, deal with the police. There would doubtless be consequences for running from them, but he could explain . . .

What? You still don’t know why they’re after you.

Maybe Laney, petrified with worry, had called the police, and they had tracked him . . . no. The cop in Maine had his gun out. Hell, he shot at me. This was no missing person case. They were after him. They thought he’d done something, something terrible.

The bell sounded again, longer this time, the cop losing patience. Decision time. Think carefully.

Well, he’d already run from the police once. How much worse would it really make it to run twice? And there was so much he still needed to know. Things he couldn’t find out from a jail cell.

Besides. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

Daniel tore open drawers. Pens, notebooks, a Slinky, a digital camera, rubber bands, stamps, DVD-Rs. The bottom drawer was

file folders neatly tabbed: RANDOM IDEAS, DIALOGUE, REJECTIONS, MEM

_{BERSHIPS, SHORT STORIES}. A gold mine, but too much of it. He flipped to the back, where the tabs were more prosaic: UTILITIES, DR., CAR

STUFF, RECEIPTS, BANK STATEMENTS.

What are you looking for, a folder marked, “In case of sudden amnesia”? How much of your life would be in a file cabinet?

“Mr. Hayes, this is Detective Waters. We know you’re there. Open the gate.” An intercom somewhere. There must be a button on the call box that let you speak. This was Malibu, home to the wealthy and liberal, and Waters would want to avoid a scene. But that didn’t mean his patience was infinite. They’d climb the fence soon.

The laptop! It would have his e-mail, scripts, calendar, contacts. It probably held more clues than anything else in the house. Daniel yanked the power cord from the wall and wrapped it around the computer.

Time to go. The cops were at the front, so the back seemed like his best option. He was halfway down the steps when he thought of one more thing. He froze, cursed. The odds that the house was being surrounded went up second by second. The smart move was to get out right now, to just sprint out the back door—

“Mr. Hayes,” the detective’s voice echoing closer now; the speaker must be downstairs. “I know you’re scared, but running from us is the wrong thing to do. Open the gate.”

Daniel turned, raced up the stairs, swung into the master bedroom. Hustled past the bed, into the bathroom, and grabbed the lemon moisturizer, the one that had brought Laney to him so powerfully.

Now he could leave.

The bathroom window was in the back of the house, facing the yard with the avocado tree. He could see the street beyond, but no sign of a cop car. He had the window half-open when he heard banging on the front door.

“Police! Open up!”

He was pleased that he didn’t panic, didn’t freeze. Just forced the window the rest of the way, then unlatched the screen and yanked it aside. Leaf-carved sunlight spilled across his hands. The avocado tree was densely branched, most of them small, none of them easily reachable. Clusters of dark fruit swung, and he remembered that when they fell the backyard smelled like a Mexican restaurant.

Daniel jerked a bath towel from a hook and wrapped it around the computer, then leaned out the window to drop it to the grass. It landed with a thump, and he winced, partly for the computer and partly for himself, then tossed the moisturizer, put one foot on the ledge, and ducked through the window frame. Behind him he heard the yelling grow suddenly louder, and then pounding footsteps, the horse-hoof sound of men running. Well, this should be fun.

He leapt into the tree.

Vertigo only had him for a moment before he felt the leaves slapping at him, the thin branches whipping his face and hands. He squinted as much as he could, kept his arms out and swinging. The air that rushed by was cool and sweet. He could smell the ocean, taste the bitter leaves. Then his hand hit something, and he grabbed, got it, slowed himself, lost it. Tilted back, arms wobbling and flinging wild, panic hitting as his forward vector gave way to gravity, and down he fell, ripping through in a maelstrom of green leaves and blue sky and blinding sun. The ground met him hard, right on his ass.

The suddenness of the pain, the sheer physicality of it brought tears to his eyes, little kid tears for a little kid injury, but he didn’t have time. He snatched up the computer and the moisturizer and limped along the wall of the house, ducking beneath the windows.

As he hauled himself over the fence, he could hear the cops inside the house, yelling to one another that a room was clear. His breath was shallow and his heart was racing and pain ran up and down his spine in pulses as he snuck away from his own home like a thief.

For all that, he wanted to laugh, wanted to yell and dance. Through the looking glass? Down the rabbit hole?

Oh, hell yes.

“W

hat are we doing today?” The woman—she’d said her name was Sherri—hid bad skin under a thick layer of makeup.

Her hair was elaborately fried.

“I want a change.” Daniel met her eyes in the mirror. “Big or little?”

“Go nuts.”

The stylist smiled and led him to the shampoo bowl. After he’d made it back to his car, the urge to go through the laptop right there had been damn near irresistible. But the police would be after him, and he had to deal with that.

Apparently you’re a writer. Television, but still. Used to figuring out the intricacies of plot, of anticipating your characters’ next moves. So what would your move be if you were making this up?

Which was how he’d ended up in this hair salon in Santa Monica, sitting still for damn near two hours. Thinking, I’m married. My name is Daniel Hayes and I’m a successful writer married to a gorgeous actress and we’re in love and have a house in Malibu and a perfect life.

And: If that’s true, why are the police chasing you from one end of the country to the other? Why did you try to kill yourself in Maine? Why on the beach where you got married? Where’s your wedding ring? Hell, where’s your wife?

Meanwhile, Sherri went at his hair like it had stolen her parking spot. She scissored and razor-cut and twisted foils and dabbed coloring. Under her ministrations, his affable, longish brown hair vanished, replaced by a rakish faux-hawk, sandy with blond highlights, gelled and twisted and pointed different directions. He didn’t look like a movie star, but his hair sure did.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t recognize myself.”

“That was the point, right?”

Down the block the smell of tomato sauce from a restaurant