Mr. Murder

estrangement which is the primary quality of his existence and joy at the prospect of reclaiming his destiny.
        He desperately longs to be with his father, his mother, to see their dear faces (which have been erased from the tablets of his memory), to embrace them and re-establish the profound bond between him self and the two people to whom he owes his existence. From the movies he has seen, he knows parents can be a curse the maniacal mother who was dead before the opening scene of Psycho, the selfish mother and father who warped poor Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides-but he believes his parents to be of a finer variety, compassionate and true, like Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in It's a Wonderful Life.
        The highway is flanked by dry lakes as white as salt, sudden battlements of red rock, wind-sculpted oceans of sand, scrub, boron flats, distant escarpments of dark stone. Everywhere lies evidence of geological upheavals and lava flows from distant millennia.
        At the town of Red Mountain, the BMW leaves the highway. It stops at a service station to refuel.
        He follows until he is certain of their intention, but passes the service station without stopping. They have guns. He does not. A better moment will be found to kill the impersonator.
        Re-entering Highway 395, he drives north a short distance to Johannesburg, which sits west of the Lava Mountains. He exits again and tanks up the Camry at another service station. He buys crackers, candy bars, and peanuts from the vending machines to sustain him during the long drive ahead.
        Perhaps because Charlotte and Emily had to use the restrooms back at the Red Mountain stop, he is on the highway ahead of the BMW, but that doesn't matter because he no longer needs to follow them. He knows where they are going.
        Mammoth Lakes, California.
        Jim and Alice Stillwater. Who taught him to be an honest man.
        Who can't be blamed if he is able to think like a criminal. To whom he dedicated a novel. Beloved. Cherished. Stolen from him but soon to be reclaimed.
        He is eager to enlist them in his crusade to regain his family and his destiny. Perhaps the false father can deceive his children, and perhaps even Paige can be fooled into accepting the imposter as the real Martin Stillwater. But his parents will recognize their true son, blood of their blood, and will not be misled by the cunning mimicry of that family-stealing fraud.
        Since turning onto Highway 395, where traffic is light, the BMW had maintained a steady sixty to sixty-five miles an hour, though the road made greater speed possible in many areas. Now, he pushes the Camry north at seventy-five and eighty. He should be able to reach Mammoth Lakes between two o'clock and two-fifteen, half an hour to forty-five minutes ahead of the imposter, which will give him time to alert his mother and father to the evil intentions of the creature that masquerades as their son.
        The highway angles northwest across Indian Wells Valley, with the El Paso Mountains to the south. Mile by mile, his heart swells with emotion at the prospect of being reunited with his mom and dad, from whom he has been cruelly separated. He aches with the need to embrace them and bask in their love, their unquestioning love, their undying and perfect love.
        The Bell JetRanger executive helicopter that conveyed Oslett and Clocker to Mammoth Lakes belonged to a motion-picture studio that was a Network affiliate. With black calfskin seats, brass fixtures, and cabin walls plushly upholstered in emerald-green lizard skin, the ambiance was even more luxurious than in the passenger compartment of the Lear. The chopper also offered a more entertaining collection of reading matter than had been available in the jet, including that day's editions of The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety plus the most recent issues of Premier, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Forbes, Fortune, GQ, Spy, The Ecological Watch Society Journal, and Bon Appetit.
        To occupy his time during the flight, Clocker produced another Star Trek novel, which he had purchased in the gift shop at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel before they checked out. Oslett was convinced that the spread of such fantastical literature into the tastefully appointed and elegantly managed shops of a five-star resort-formerly the kind of place that catered to the cultured and powerful, not merely the rich-was as alarming a sign of