Mr. Murder

power if not the identity of his true enemies, who certainly were not limited to the eerie and deranged look-alike who had invaded their home.
        They could not stay at his parents' house. It was too accessible to reporters if the story continued to snowball. It was accessible, as well, to the unknown conspirators behind the look-alike, who had seen to it that a small news item about an assault had gotten major media coverage, painting him as a man of doubtful stability.
        Besides, he didn't want to put his mom and dad at risk by taking shelter with them. In fact, when he managed to get a call through, he was going to insist they immediately pack up their motorhome and get out of Mammoth Lakes for a few weeks, a month, maybe longer.
        While they were traveling, changing campgrounds every night or two, no one could try to get at him through them.
        Since the attempted contact at the bank in Mission Viejo, Marty had been subjected to no more of The Other's probes. He was hopeful that the haste and decisiveness with which they'd fled north had bought them safety. Even clairvoyance or telepathy-or whatever the hell it was-must have its limits. Otherwise, they were not merely up against a fantastic mental power but flat-out magic, while Marty could be driven, by experience, to credit the possibility of psychic ability, he simply could not believe in magic. Having put hundreds of miles between themselves and The Other, they were most likely beyond the range of his questing sixth sense. The mountains, which periodically interfered with the operation of the cellular telephone, might further insulate them from telepathic detection.
        Perhaps it would have been safer to stay away from Mammoth Lakes and hide out in a town to which he had no connections.
        However, he opted for the cabin because even those who might target his parents' house as a possible refuge for him would not be aware of the mountain retreat and would be unlikely to learn of it casually.
        Besides, two of his former high school buddies had been Mammoth County deputy sheriffs for a decade, and the cabin was close to the town in which he had been raised and where he was still well known. As a hometown boy who had never been a hell-raiser in his youth, he could expect to be taken seriously by the authorities and given greater protection if The Other did try to contact him again. n a strange place, however, he would be an outsider and regarded with more suspicion even than Detective Cyrus Lowbock had exhibited.
        Around Mammoth Lakes, if worse came to worst, he would not feel so isolated and alienated as he was certain to be virtually anywhere else.
        "Might be bad weather ahead," Paige said.
        The sky was largely blue to the east, but masses of dark clouds were surging across the peaks and through the passes of the Sierra Nevadas to the west.
        "Better stop at a service station in Bishop," Marty said, "find out if the Highway Patrol's requiring chains to go up into Mammoth."
        Maybe he should have welcomed a heavy snowfall. It would further isolate the cabin and make them less accessible to whatever enemies were hunting them. But he felt only uneasiness at the prospect of a storm.
        If luck was not with them, the moment might come when they needed to get out of Mammoth Lakes in a hurry. Roads* drifted shut by a blizzard could cause a delay long enough to be the death of them.
        Charlotte and Emily wanted to play Look Who's the Monkey Now, a word game Marty had invented a couple of years ago to entertain them on long car trips. They had already played twice since leaving Mission Viejo.
        Paige declined to join them, pleading the need to focus her attention on driving, and Marty ended up being the monkey more frequently than usual because he was distracted by worry.
        The higher reaches of the Sierras disappeared in mist. The clouds blackened steadily, as if the fires of the hidden sun were burning to extinction and leaving only charry ruin in the heavens.
        The motel owners referred to their establishment as a lodge. The buildings were embraced by the boughs of hundred-foot Douglas firs, smaller pines, and tamaracks. The design was studiedly rustic.
        The rooms couldn't compare with those at the Ritz-Carlton, of course, and the interior designer's attempt to call to mind Bavaria with knotty-pine paneling and chunky wood-frame furniture was