Jimmy Newberg, the goddamn computer freak, the doper, had said that he had inside information about William Croyton—thanks to a programmer who’d been fired six months earlier. He’d managed to find out Croyton’s alarm code and had a key to the back door (though Pell now knew where he’d gotten those—from Rebecca, of course). Jimmy’d said too that the eccentric Croyton kept huge amounts of cash in the house.
Pell would never rob a bank or check-cashing operation, nothing big. But, still, he needed money to expand the Family and to move to his mountaintop. And here was a chance for a once-in-a-lifetime break-in. No one was going to be home, Jimmy said, so there’d be no risk of injuries. They’d walk away with a hundred thousand dollars, and Croyton would make a routine call to the police and the insurance company, then forget the matter.
Just what Kathryn Dance had figured.
The two men had snuck through the backyard and made their way to the house through the sumptuous landscaping. Pell had seen the lights on, but Jimmy told him they were on a timer for security. They slipped into the house through a side utility door.
But something wasn’t right. The alarm was off. Pell turned to Jimmy to tell him that somebody must be home after all, but the young man was already hurrying into the kitchen.
Walking right up to the middle-aged woman cooking dinner, her back to him. No! Pell remembered thinking in shock. What was he doing?
Murdering her, it turned out.
Using a paper towel, Jimmy pulled a steak knife from his pocket—one from the Family’s house, with Pell’s fingerprints on it, he realized—and, gripping the woman around the mouth, stabbed her deeply.
She slumped to the floor.
Enraged, Pell whispered, “What the hell are you doing?”
Newberg turned and hesitated, but his face was telegraphing what was coming. When he lunged, Pell was already leaping aside. He just managed to dodge the vicious blade. Pell swept up a frying pan, smashed it into Newberg’s head. He crashed to the floor, and, with a butcher knife from the counter, Pell killed him.
A moment later William Croyton hurried into the kitchen, hearing the noise of the struggle. His two older children were behind him, screaming as they stared at their mother’s body. Pell pulled his gun out and forced the hysterical family into the pantry. He finally calmed Croyton down enough to ask about the money, which the businessman said was in the desk in the ground-floor office.
Daniel Pell had found himself looking at the sobbing, terrified family as if he were looking at weeds in a garden or crows or insects. He’d had no intention of killing anyone that night, but to stay in control of his life he had no choice. In two minutes they were all dead; he used the knife so the neighbors would hear no gunshots.
Pell had then wiped what fingerprints he could, taken Jimmy’s steak knife and all his ID, then run to the office, where he found, to his shock, that, yes, there was money in the desk, but only a thousand dollars.
A fast search of the master bedroom downstairs revealed only pocket change and costume jewelry. He never even got upstairs, where that little girl was in bed, asleep. (He was now glad she’d been up there; ironically, if he’d killed her then, he never would’ve learned about Rebecca’s betrayal.) And, yes, to the sound track ofJeopardy! he’d run back to the kitchen, where he pocketed the dead man’s wallet and his wife’s diamond cocktail ring.
Then outside, to his car. And only a mile later he was pulled over by the police.
Rebecca…
Thinking back to meeting her for the first time—the “coincidental” meeting that she’d apparently engineered near the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.
Pell remembered how much he loved the boardwalk, all the rides. Amusement parks fascinated him, people giving up complete control to somebody else—either risking harm on the roller coasters and parachute drops or becoming mindless laboratory rats on rides like the boardwalk’s famous hundred-year-old Looff carousel, round and round….
Remembered too Rebecca eight years ago, near that very same merry-go-round, gesturing him over.
“Hey, how’d you like me to do your portrait?”
“I guess. How much?”
“You’ll be able to afford it. Take a seat.”
And then after five minutes, with only the basic features of his face sketched in, she’d lowered the charcoal stick, looked him over and asked, challenging, if there was someplace private to go. They’d walked to the van, Linda Whitfield watching them with a solemn, jealous face. Pell hardly noticed her.
And a few minutes later, after kissing frantically, his hands all over her, she’d eased back.
“Wait…”
What? he’d wondered. Clap, AIDS?
Breathless, she’d said, “I…have to say something.” She’d paused, looking down.
“Go on.”
“You might not like this, and if not, okay, we’ll just call it quits and you get a picture for free. But I feel this connection with you, even after just a little while, and I’ve got to say…”
“Tell me.”
“When it comes to sex, I don’t really enjoy it…unless you hurt me. I mean,really hurt me. A lot of men don’t like that. And it’s okay…”
His response was to roll her over on her taut little belly.
And pull off his belt.
He gave a grim laugh now. It was all bullshit, he realized. Somehow in that ten minutes on the beach and five minutes in the van she’d tipped to his fantasy and played it for all it was worth.
Svengali and Trilby…
He now continued driving until his right arm began to throb with pain from Rebecca’s knife slash at Nagle’s house. He pulled over, opened his shirt and looked at it. Not terrible—the bleeding was slowing.
But, damn, it hurt.
Nothing like the slash of her betrayal, though.
He was at the edge of the quiet portion of town and would have to continue through populated areas, where the police would be looking for him everywhere.
He made a U-turn and drove through the streets until he found an Infiniti, pausing at a stoplight ahead of him. Only one person inside. No other cars were around. Pell slowed but didn’t hit the brakes until he was right on top of the luxury car. The bumpers tapped with a resonant thud. The Infiniti rolled forward a few feet. The driver glared in his rearview mirror and got out.