Programmed for Peril

didn’t fully appreciate how upset you were. I’m sorry.” She smiled. He was a good man! “Apology accepted.”
    “Second, I want to help you figure out who has it in for you enough to do these things, Trish. I won’t have our wedding interfered with!”
    She covered his hand with hers. She found his determination touching. When viewed in the light of Carson’s lunatic genius it seemed... quaint. She smiled. “That’s the reason I wanted to talk to you, too. I know who doesn’t want the wedding. I want to tell you about him—and me.”
    The briefest shadow of a frown passed over Foster’s wide brow. “Then it’s someone you know.”
    “Someone I used to know. I left him behind in California—I thought.”
    Had she meant to make a totally clean breast of the saga of Carson and Queen of My Heart? If so, she failed miserably. What escaped her lips was a bowdlerized version of a relationship whose intimacy burst all normal bounds. How could Foster Palmer of West Thorn Point, Princeton, and Lake Country Kennels grasp the essentials of her domination? To explain that required her to analyze the intricate escapement of her mind’s watch movement that had allowed her to play her role with such disgusting enthusiasm. She was dismayed to find she couldn’t confess. Instead she hid the open cesspool with verbal lilies.
    “So this Carson Thomas was your husband?” Foster asked.
    “No, that was another man. Ron. He was killed in an auto accident.” Oh, Lord, she was buying into her mother’s deceptions! She had never been within twenty feet of an altar.
    “Ron, then, was Melody’s father.”
    “Yes.” At least that was true.
    “I see.” She couldn’t read his thin smile. “You were rather... a busy woman in California, I see.”
    “I was young and stupid. I didn’t have a monopoly on that.”
    “Let’s order dinner, shall we?”
    She sensed his shift to coolness. It convinced her that she had done the smart thing in soft-pedaling the twisted nature of her relationship with Carson. Nonetheless, she hadn’t begun to touch on his personality. That she absolutely had to do. When the squash soup arrived, she said, “Foster, you have to understand what kind of man Carson is.”
    “I’m sure he puts his pants on one leg at a time.”
    “Don’t underestimate him!” The sudden raw tone of her voice made him put down his spoon. “He’s off the mental scale in two ways. First, he’s an authentic genius. Second, he seems to have gone crazy. When he was sane he never followed the rules written for the rest of us. Now that he’s slipped over the line, God knows what he’s capable of doing-That he’s back in my life again terrifies me. Totally! You can’t imagine how dangerous a man he is.”
    Foster went back to his soup. “I sense some exaggeration here.”
    “None whatever!” Trish’s appetite was gone. She had set herself an impossible task: trying to explain Carson without being honest about her relationship with him. She tried further. “Listen, Foster. Carson Thomas was always a devil-On top of it he’s now a lunatic.” She met his gaze, unblinking. “I talked to a friend on the coast last night. There’s a strong possibility he’s killed seven people!”
    Later Foster insisted that his spoon just happened to slip at that moment. He hadn’t even been startled, let alone frightened. Trish thought differently. If she had ever thought her fiancé a match for Carson, that idea was dashed out like the gobbets of orange that flew from Foster’s bowl to soil the sweeping sheen of his white silk jacket.
    Shortly he said, “It’s quite clear what we must do next, Trish. I’ll speak to Father. He has some ins with the police department.”
    Friday morning at ten Foster led her to the police commissioner’s office. The commissioner was short and tanned, half cop, half politician. He handled introductions. Standing beside the expansive mahogany desk was a handsome graying man wearing a suit tailored skillfully to his burly form. His heavy lips moved into a weak smile as he was identified as Lieutenant Sarkman. No warmth crept into his pale blue eyes as they shook hands.
    With him stood two men. The first was a familiar figure, Lieutenant Stanley of the bomb squad. He announced no real progress on the law firm bombing. Trish much preferred him to Sarkman, even though he chided her gently. “You shoulda told me all this new stuff,” he said.
    The second man was introduced as Detective