Free Fear itself: a novel by Jonathan Lewis Nasaw Page B

(obtained after Missy’s heart attack) from the mirror post so he wouldn’t get any tickets that might be used as evidence against him, then locked up the car and set off at an unhurried pace through the quaint streets of Carmel-by-the-Sea; just another tourist, dressed in black, with a shopping bag over his arm.
    As he strolled, Simon went over the layout of Dorie’s house in his mind. Two bedrooms upstairs. Living room, first floor front; kitchen back left, studio back right. Look for the lighted room—the frugal Ms. Bell never left a bulb burning in an empty one. Easiest access would be through the studio door on the right side of the house—he’d noticed the broken lock on his previous visit.
    Almost there. One more steep uphill block. Simon pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head as he turned the corner. Second house in. Casual glance to the right as he strolled by. Housefront dark, curtains drawn in the living room, blinds drawn in the front bedroom, her bedroom.
    He cut across the lawn, sauntered around the side of the house as if he belonged there. The kitchen lights were on; Simon raised himself up on his tiptoes and peered over the high windowsill. Dorie was there, all right, but she wasn’t alone. Big bald guy in a brown beret and baby blue Pebble Beach sweatshirt sitting across the kitchen table from her—if the man had chosen that moment to look up, their eyes would have met.
    Simon ducked back down, squatting behind the ceanothus bush below the kitchen window. His heart was racing, and his stomach felt the way it had back in his high-risk, rock-climbing, Harley-riding, skydiving days, when he’d sought out physical danger as an antidote to the blind rat and learned that the effects of adrenaline, like those of drugs, were only temporary; the rat inevitably returned, ten times hungrier than before.
    If he’d had a gun, of course, he could have solved the problem with two shots and been back in Berkeley by midnight, but he’d thrown away his short-barreled .38 in horror six weeks earlier after coming within a whisker of using it to end a particularly virulent siege by the rat. Only the knowledge that Missy still needed him had kept him from putting a bullet through his brain; it wasn’t until he found himself kneeling by her bedside as she slept, trying to work up the courage to kill her first, that he’d come to his senses.
    So: no gun. He’d have to wait the bald guy out, hope he left soon. If so, the game was on. If not—and it was entirely possible that Dorie was sleeping with the guy, she’d all but thrown herself at Simon back in June—Simon would have to wait until they were asleep, then bash and run, which was not his style at all.
    But then again, being on the wrong end of a lethal injection wasn’t exactly his style either.

6

    A cozy kitchen, a fresh-brewed pot of red Typhoo tea that contained enough caffeine to give a meth freak the jitters, good conversation with a fine-looking woman—there are worse ways to spend an evening, thought Pender.
    “Why masks?” was his first question.
    Dorie shrugged. “Quien sabe? I’ve been hypnotized, I’ve been regressed, I’ve had my past lives done—yeah, I know, welcome to California—and I still don’t have any idea. Ask a dozen shrinks, you get a dozen different stories. One says change or loss is the trigger, another one says trauma, another says there doesn’t have to be any trigger. Some say genetics, some say brain chemistry. There’s some evidence for that—phobics have greater blood flow on the right side of the brain, and an overactive amygdala.”
    “What do you think? What does your gut tell you?”
    “That it doesn’t matter why. Origin: irrelevant. All that matters is that I know that if I see a mask, I’m going to have these terrible feelings. I’m going to feel like I’ve slipped into a nightmare, like anything that’s possible in a nightmare is possible now. My heart will start pounding; I’ll get