Mr. Murder

dimmer switch-a rheostat-he should be able to adjust downward the amperage of the current in the circuit, making the contact more subtle than it has been to date. After all, by using a rheostatic switch, the light of a chandelier can be reduced smoothly by degrees until there is barely a visible glow. Likewise, imagining the psychic switch as another rheostat, he might be able to open the connection at such a low amperage that he can track the false father without that adversary being alerted to the fact he's being sought.
        Stopping at a red traffic light in the heart of Mission Viejo, he imagines a dial-type dimmer switch with a three-hundred-sixty-degree brightness range. He turns it only ninety degrees, and at once feels the pull of the false father, slightly farther east and now some what to the north.
        Outside of the bank, halfway to the BMW, Marty suddenly felt another wave of pressure and behind it, the crushing Juggernaut of his dreams.
        The sensation was not as strong as the experiences in the bank, but it caught him in mid-step and threw him off balance. He staggered, stumbled, and fell. The two manila envelopes full of cash flew out of his hands and slid across the blacktop.
        Charlotte and Emily scampered after the envelopes, and Paige helped Marty to his feet.
        As the wave passed and Marty stood shakily, he said, "Here, take my keys, you better drive. He's hunting me. He's coming."
        She looked around the bank lot in panic.
        Marty said, "No, he's not here yet. It's like before. This sense of being in the path of something very powerful and fast. shaken again by contact with The Other. Although the impact of the probe was less disturbing than ever before, he took no solace from the diminishment of its power.
        "Get us the hell out of here," he urged Paige, as he retrieved the loaded Beretta from under the seat.
        Paige started the engine, and Marty turned to the kids. They were buckling their seatbelts.
        As Paige slammed the BMW into reverse and backed out of the parking space, the girls met Marty's eyes. They were scared.
        He had too much respect for their perceptiveness to lie to them.
        Rather than pretend everything was going to be all right, he said, "Hang on. Your Mom's gonna try to drive like I do."
        Popping the car out of reverse, Paige asked, "Where's he coming from?"
        "I don't know. Just don't go out the same way we came in. I feel uneasy about that. Use the other street."
        Two blocks. Maybe not that far.
        Driving slowly. Scanning the street ahead, left and right.
        Looking for them.
        A car horn toots behind him. The driver is impatient.
        Slow, slow, squinting left and right, checking people on the sidewalks as well as in passing cars.
        The horn behind him. He gestures obscenely, which seems to spook the guy into silence.
        Slow, slow.
        No sight of them.
        Try the mental rheostat again. A sixty-degree turn this time.
        Still a strong contact, an urgent and irresistible pull.
        Ahead. On the left. Shopping center.
        As Marty got into the front passenger seat and shut the door, holding the envelopes of cash that the kids had retrieved for him, he was He is drawn to the bank rather than the shopping center itself, and he parks near the east entrance.
        As he switches the engine off, he hears a brief shriek of tires.
        From the corner of his eye, he is aware of a car driving away fast from the south end of the building. Turning, he sees a white BMW eighty to a hundred feet away. It streaks toward the shopping center, past him in a flash.
        He catches sight of only a portion of the driver's face-one cheekbone, jaw line, curve of chin. And a shimmer of golden hair.
        Sometimes it's possible to identify a favorite song by only three notes, because the melody has left an indelible impression on the mind.
        Likewise, from that partial profile, glimpsed in a flicker of shadow and light, in a blur of motion, he recognizes his precious wife.
        Unknown people have eradicated his memories of her, but the photograph he discovered yesterday is imprinted on his heart.
        He whispers, "Paige."
        He starts the Camry, backs out of the parking space, and turns toward the shopping center.
        Acres of blacktop are empty at that early hour, for only the supermarket,