Programmed for Peril

her with no suspects. She made a discovery.
    She was more afraid now.
    Lois and Rocco were knowns—no matter how threatening. Now menace sprang from a dark, alien wellhead. Why did anyone care whether or not she married Foster Palmer? A draft from the air-conditioning duct chilled her. She wrapped her arms around herself and bowed her head. What other shocks were being prepared for her? And who was doing it? Who?
    She had promised Melody and Pamela Beestock a Pizza Hut dinner that evening. That and a cruise through the Parkland Mall kept them out until nearly nine. They tumbled tiredly back home. She scooted Melody into her pajamas.
    “Brush out my hair tonight, Mom?” Melody said.
    They conducted their child-devised ritual. Melody lay facedown on the bed with her head over the side of the mattress. Trish knelt beside her with the big hairbrush. First she freed the pigtail, saving the rubber bands. She removed the bow Melody chose afresh daily from the selection in her heaped shoe box. With careful fingers she unraveled the triple strand, marveling once again at the hair’s red luster and heavy body. Then she began cautiously with the brush. Her child, for all her resiliency, was quick to howl at tugged tangles. Once loosened and spread, the hair was ready for long brush sweeps. “Brushyou... brushyou... brushyou...” Trish cooed with every stroke. Better than milk and cookies for getting Melody in that bedtime mood. She was asleep even before Mom could get her under the covers.
    She tidied up the room, lifted whistles and flutes to their places, stacked the music. She turned and looked down at her child. She heard the light exhalations of her breathing. Trish’s love rushed out like part of her soul. My child, my heart, my delight! Melody! By far the sweetest theme in the symphony of her life. How could she have allowed the girl to slip down in her priorities—even for a week—no matter her personal problems? She felt guilt, the single parent’s bosom companion. She shouldn’t be too hard on herself. Melody had Grandma and Janine. Not to mention frequent days at the Beestocks’ pool under Mother Jill’s practiced eye. Plenty of care and attention all through there, for sure. Then there were Trish’s additional summer plans for the girl. At the moment unexpected events had put them on hold. But hopefully...
    She remembered she hadn’t read today’s mail. She dug it out of the soup tureen where Janine was in the habit of stashing it. “You have already won one million dollars!”
    “Victims of last year’s hurricane are still starving!” Two «Us, three flyers, and a 6 x 8 manila envelope. The only Piece of real mail, she thought.
    She sat on the love seat, slipped a letter opener under the sticky flap, and tore it open. She slid the glossy color photograph onto her lap. She leapt up with a shriek, gapping the photo away as though it were a loathsome bug. It looped down to the floor and fell emulsion side up. Three aces looked at her.
    Oh, she knew them well!
    Only with a strong effort of will did she pick up the photograph. There they were again: she, Carson Thomas, and toddler Melody. All grinned like maniacs on that sunny Sunday four-odd years ago. And in the right-hand comer
    Carson’s bold hand: Trish, Carson, and Melody — together forever!
    His brother had taken it on a Malibu beach and brought it back with other prints from the one-hour processor. Carson had scrawled the message as Trish looked on. His green eyes rose to meet her glance, burned in to seize command, as always. “Nothing will ever separate us!” he said.
    Trish flung down the photo and groaned, softly at first, Then control slipped slowly away. Her groan rose in frequency till it became a harsh squeal, a nasty sound that tore loose as painfully as flesh from her taut throat. Melody! She musn’t wake Melody!
    This couldn’t be!
    She had thought it all over, buried, gone, all her tracks doubly covered by her deceptions and the shifting sands of more than three years. It could not be! She gasped for breath. How suddenly sweat poured from her!
    With a grunt she snatched up the discarded envelope. “No!”
    It was postmarked within the city!
    She dug her fingers into her hair, clenched the black mop, and tore at it. “Ahhhhhhh!” The world spun free of moorings. A red rush roared in from Regulus and took her along for the ride....
     

11
     
    SHE REVIVED ON THE FLOOR, TORSO ON THE SCATTER rug. Before she even sat up to