Mr. Murder

seconds?
        Another wave hit him.
        Cruising a wide boulevard. Morning sun flaring off the chrome of passing cars. Phil Collins on the radio, singing about betrayal.
        Sympathizing with Collins, he again imagines magnetism. Click.
        Contact. He feels an irresistible pull farther east and south, so he is still heading in the right direction.
        He breaks contact seconds after establishing it, hoping to get another fix on the false father without revealing himself. But even during that brief linkage, the enemy senses the intrusion.
        Though the second wave was of shorter duration than the first, it was no less powerful. Marty felt as if he had been hit in the chest with a hammer.
        With Mrs. Higgens, the teller returned to the window. She had loose cash and banded packets of both hundred- and twenty-dollar bills. It amounted to two stacks of approximately three inches each.
        The teller started to count out the seventy thousand.
        "That's all right," Marty said. "Just put it in a couple of manila envelopes."
        Surprised, Mrs. Higgens said, "Oh, but Mr. Stillwater, you've signed the withdrawal order, we ought to count it in front of you."
        "No, I'm sure you've already counted correctly."
        "But bank procedure-"
        "I trust you, Mrs. Higgens."
        "Well, thank you, but I really think-"
        "Please." Merely by remaining seated at the room-service table while Drew Oslett stood impatiently beside it, Waxhill exerted control. Oslett disliked him and grudgingly admired him simultaneously.
        "It's almost certain," Waxhill said, "that the wife and children saw Alfie in that second incident last night. They know very little about what's going on, but if they know Stillwater was telling the truth when he talked about a look-alike, then they know too much."
        "I said, no problem," Oslett reminded him impatiently.
        Waxhill nodded. "Yes, all right, but the home office wants it done in a certain way."
        Sighing, Oslett gave up and sat down. "Which is?"
        "Make it look as if Stillwater went off the deep end."
        "Murder-suicide?"
        "Yes, but not just any murder-suicide. The home office would be pleased if it could be made to appear as if Stillwater was acting out a particular psychopathic delusion. "Whatever."
        "The wife must be shot in each breast and in the mouth."
        "And the daughters?"
        "First, make them undress. Tie their wrists behind them. Tie their ankles together. Nice and tight. There's a particular brand of braided wire we'd like you to use. It'll be provided. Then shoot each girl twice.
        Once in her… private parts, then between the eyes. Stillwater must appear to have shot himself once through the roof of his mouth.
        Will you remember all of that?"
        "Of course."
        "It's important that you do everything precisely that way, no deviations from the script."
        "What's the story we're trying to tell?" Oslett asked.
        "Didn't you read the article in People?"
        "Not all the way through," Oslett admitted. "Stillwater seemed like such a jerk-and a boring jerk, at that."
        Waxhill said, "A few years ago, in Maryland, a man killed his wife and two daughters in exactly this fashion. He was a pillar of the community, so it shocked everybody. Tragic story. Everyone was left wondering why. It seemed so meaningless, so out of character. Still water was intrigued by the crime and considered writing a novel based on it, to explore the possible motivation behind it. But after he'd done a lot of research, he dropped the project. In People, he says it just depressed him too much. Says that fiction, his kind of fiction, needs to make sense of things, bring order to chaos, but he just couldn't find any meaning in what happened in Maryland."
        Oslett sat in silence for a moment, trying to hate Waxhill but finding that his dislike for the man was fading rapidly. "I must say… this is very nice."
        Waxhill smiled almost shyly and shrugged.
        "This was your idea?" Oslett asked.
        "Mine, yes. I proposed it to the home office, and they went for it right away."
        "It's ingenious," Oslett said with genuine admiration.
        "Thank you."
        "Very neat. Martin Stillwater kills his family the same way the guy did in Maryland, and it looks as if the real reason he couldn't write a novel