Fear Nothing

my shoulder. Abruptly I realized that my finger had tightened on the trigger and that I was in danger of unintentionally squeezing off a shot, though I had not yet fully adjusted my position to bring the muzzle toward Stevenson. With considerable effort, I managed to ease off the trigger.
        “What made you like this?” I asked.
        As he turned his head to me, the transient luminosity shimmered through his eyes again. His gaze, when the eyeshine passed, was dark and murderous. “A little delivery boy,” he said cryptically. “Just a little delivery boy that wouldn't die.”
        “Why tell me about these dreams, about what you're going to do to some girl?”
        “Because, you damn freak, I've got to give you an ultimatum, and I want you to understand how serious it is, how dangerous I am, how little I have to lose and how much I'll enjoy gutting you if it comes to that. There's others who won't touch you-”
        “Because of who my mother was.”
        'So you know that much already?”
        “But I don't know what it means. Who was my mother in all this? Instead of answering, Stevenson said, “There's others who won't touch you and who don't want me to touch you, either. But if I have to, I will. You keep pushing your nose into this, and I'll smash your skull open, scoop your brain out, and toss it in the bay for fish food. Think I won't?”
        “I believe you,” I said sincerely.
        “With the book you wrote being a best-seller, you can maybe get certain media types to listen to you. If you make any calls trying to stir up trouble, I'll get my hands on that deejay bitch first. I'll turn her inside out in more ways than one.”
        His reference to Sasha infuriated me, but it also scared me so effectively that I held my silence.
        Now it was clear that Roosevelt Frost's warning had indeed been only advice. This was the threat that Roosevelt, claiming to speak for the cat, had warned me to expect.
        The pallor was gone from Stevenson's face, and he was flushed with color-as though, the moment that he had decided to surrender to his psychotic desires, the cold and empty spaces within him had been filled with fire.
        He reached to the dashboard controls and he switched off the car heater.
        Nothing was surer than that he would abduct a little girl before the next sunset.
        I found the confidence to push for answers only because I had shifted sufficiently in my seat to bring the pocketed pistol to bear on him. “Where's my father's body?”
        “At Fort Wyvern. There has to be an autopsy.”
        “Why?”
        “You don't need to know. But to put an end to this stupid little crusade of yours, I'll at least tell you it was cancer that killed him. Cancer of a kind. There's no one for you to get even with, the way you were talking to Angela Ferryman.”
        “Why should I believe you?”
        “Because I could kill you as easily as give you an answer-so why would I lie?”
        “What's happening in Moonlight Bay?”
        The chief cracked a grin the likes of which had seldom been seen beyond the walls of an asylum. As if the prospect of catastrophe were nourishment to him, he sat up straighter and appeared to fatten as he said, “This whole town's on a roller coaster straight to Hell, and it's going to be an incredible ride.”
        “That's no answer.”
        “It's all you'll get.”
        “Who killed my mother?”
        “It was an accident.”
        “I thought so until tonight.”
        His wicked grin, thin as a razor slash, became a wider wound. “All right. One more thing if you insist. Your mother was killed, like you suspect.”
        My heart rolled, as heavy as a stone wheel. “Who killed her?”
        “She did. She killed herself. Suicide. Cranked that Saturn of hers all the way up to a hundred and ran it head-on into the bridge abutment. There wasn't any mechanical failure. The accelerator didn't stick. That was all a cover story we concocted.”
        “You lying son of a bitch.”
        Slowly, slowly, Stevenson licked his lips, as if he found his smile to be sweet. “No lie, Snow. And you know what? If I'd known two years ago what was going to happen to me, how much everything was going to change, I'd have killed your old lady myself. Killed her because of the part she played in this. I'd have taken her somewhere, cut her heart out, filled the hole in her chest with salt, burned