Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

work."
    "Sure. You need anything else, ask for me. Walter." He smiled again as he reminded her of his name. It wasn't a come-on smile. It was a friendly smile, with slightly crooked teeth, the kind you could trust.
    No, that's not true. You can't trust ANY smile. Because every smile has teeth behind it.
    She almost gave him her name then decided against it. "Okay, Walter."
    “You found a church yet?”
    “Pardon me?”
    “Church. It can be hard to settle in to a new place.” He looked at her with inquisitor’s eyes, as if he had a personal stake in her soul. She resented the notion that he saw her as a chance to bank some goodwill and capital in some heavenly coffer.
    “I’m set.” She smiled, the conditioned reflex of people being mindlessly civil to acquaintances. He’d been kind to her and was probably just extending a small-town politeness. She owed him better than a bland brush-off, and her thoughts were already drifting into the dark cracks of the past.
    “Have a good day, Miss Stone.” Walter waved and headed for the Jeep, humming a country-tinged tune. Julia closed the door.
    Now she was alone.
    No, not alone. Inside with the Creep.
    The Creep was always in the house, no matter where she lived.

 
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    The phone bleated in a slaughter of electric sheep.
    She had two phones, one in the living room, one by the bed. Perhaps overkill for a three-room house, but she liked to have one within reach if she couldn’t find the cell. In case of emergencies.
    Julia started down the hall so she could lie on the bed while she chatted, remembering the frozen clock. She couldn't face that right now. She picked up the phone on the coffee table and flopped onto the sofa.
    "Hello?"
    "Hi, Julia." The voice on the end of the line was buoyant and brimming with self-confidence.
    "Mitchell," she said, unsure whether she was glad to hear from him or not.
    "What's going on, honey?"
    She winced at the rote, nearly toneless endearment. "Nothing."
    "Great." There was a pause, the quiet hiss of eight hundred miles.
    "So . . . what's new?" Julia finally asked.
    "The usual."
    That was the trouble with Mitchell. The usual was always new to him. "Working on any interesting cases?"
    "Yeah, come to think of it. I've got a beaut. This woman owns a piece of land, right? Inherited it from her father, been in the family since Reconstruction. Ugly stretch, half swamp and half hill, forty acres. So this developer makes her an offer so he can build a strip mall."
    "Just what Memphis needs," she heard herself saying.
    Mitchell didn't catch her sarcasm. "Exactly. This woman wants to keep it, maybe turn it into an organic garden, or heaven forbid, a natural habitat. Jesus, conservation easements are the tool of the Devil. Well, the Board of Adjustment votes to zone the property for commercial use, claiming the area is—let's see . . . ."
    Julia heard the rustling of papers. Mitchell must be at his office on General Pickett Avenue, the one with the view of Beale Street. From his window, he could watch the tourists and the busking blues musicians clog the sidewalks. Most of the modern Memphis bluesmasters knew only the blues of a bad day at the stock market.
    "Here it is," Mitchell said, his words coming out faster in his excitement. "This is classic. The Board ruled that the property was, quote, 'in an area of urban development of vital interest to the municipality's extraterritorial jurisdiction.' And the property's three miles from the city limits."
    "Poor woman. How can she afford to pay you?" Mitchell billed hourly in the high triple figures.
    He laughed, that silk-tie, champagne-etched laugh that sometimes made her skin crawl. "She can't afford anybody. She's got the ACLU. We're going to feed them their lunch. The developer is picking up my tab to work as a consultant to the city attorneys."
    Of course. Mitchell would be on the side of big business, fat money, legal tender that was more immoral than legal and about as tender as a metal-toed boot. The worst part of it was that his cockiness appealed to her sick, weak nature, an addiction that even distance couldn’t break. He was a Leo, through and through, his lion a voracious predator to her moody Gemini.
    "But enough about me," he said. "How are you?"
    "I'm fine," she said. "Really."
    "Really?"
    Had a note of concern crept into his voice? She gave him the benefit of a doubt. "Yes. The people at the office are really nice. It's refreshing to cover community issues,