Free With an Extreme Burning by Bill Pronzini Page B

them—”
    “Both? And he just happened to find them? No, Katy must have given them to him for some reason. Or else he took them from her.”
    “Even if that's true, it doesn't have to mean they were lovers. There could be another explanation.”
    “The only one I can think of is a hell of a lot worse.”
    “What …?”
    “That her death wasn't an accident.”
    She stared at him. “What do you— Suicide?”
    “That's the first thing that occurred to me. An affair that had gotten out of hand, guilt, depression … I thought it might be possible.”
    “But now you don't.”
    “Now I don't. There was that private part of her, yes, but I can't make myself believe it was that bleak. She loved life too much to give it up voluntarily. She was full of life. You agree with that, don't you?”
    “Yes.” She made herself take a long, slow breath before she spoke again. “You mean murder, then. You think Katy could have been murdered.”
    “I didn't say that's what I thought. I said it's a possibility that occurred to me. I shouldn't have mentioned it.”
    “Dix, you're scaring me.”
    “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.” He moved over beside her, took her hand. “I think we'd better just drop this before our imaginations run away with us.”
    “Random violence, is that it? Katy being in the wrong place at the wrong time?” She was trying to talk herself out of crediting it, even a little, by dealing with it directly. But the questions served only to open up her fear. “Or … somebody stalking her? The same man who … the man on the phone … if you're right about Katy, then he could be—”
    “No, Cecca.”
    “He could be after us, too. You, me, Amy.”
    “That's what I meant by letting imagination—”
    “But why us? Why would anybody want to hurt us ?”
    “We don't know that anybody does.”
    “Those calls, the things he said—”
    “—Could be nothing more than a sick game. There are all kinds of psychoses. He doesn't have to be violent.”
    “Katy … the earrings …”
    “He knew her, he got them from her—all right. But her death is still an accident as far as we know. The highway patrol, the county sheriff, were satisfied of that; we have to be, too. Dammit, I could kick myself for opening up this can of worms.”
    “What're you saying? Just forget it?”
    “That part of it, yes.”
    Inside her now was a visceral sense of something unseen and terrible lying in wait for her—the kind of nameless terror she'd had as a little girl. Bogeyman in the closet, monster under the stairs. “I don't know if I can,” she said.
    “You have to. We both have to. Wild speculations aren't doing either of us any good.”
    “We can't just sit back and pretend none of this is happening.”
    “I know that. We need to focus on identifying the tormentor, putting a stop to his damn games.”
    “Tormentor,” she said. “That's the right name for him.”
    Dix said, “Options. All right, we can go to the telephone company. They can trace one of his calls if they're set up for it and he stays on the line long enough. But I don't think that would work. He's too smart to fall into that kind of trap. Chances are, he makes his damn calls from a public phone anyway.”
    “The police?”
    “I doubt if there's much they can do without some idea of who he is. We'll have to try to find that out ourselves.”
    “Us? How?”
    “I've got some ideas. Are you willing?”
    “Do I have a choice?”
    “I don't see one for either of us. Except a stopgap measure: have our home phone numbers changed.”
    “What good will that do? He could still call me at the office. Besides, a third of my business calls come to me at home. A realtor can't afford an unlisted number.”
    “I see your point. But I'm still going to have mine changed. If nothing else, it may help narrow the field a little.”
    “I don't understand. Narrow the field?”
    “If he gets hold of the new unlisted number, keeps calling, it'll tell us he's someone