Programmed for Peril

light switch?”
    He draped his hands loosely over her shoulders. “You should have told me—”
    “No! I gave you enough of an idea about what Carson was like. That was as much as concerned you. I had no reason to want to degrade myself by completely describing him.”
    He shook his head. “You described him. Not you with him.”
    She groaned inwardly. Oh, yes, there was truth there. She was trembling. She wouldn’t break down! She wouldn’t give Devil Carson the satisfaction. She went over and plugged in the VCR, put it and the TV back in place. She removed the tape. She looked back at Foster, who stood unmoving, glasses back on his face. “You have a lot to think about, then.” She forced herself to go on. “To decide whether or not Carson is going to have his way about the wedding.” She would not crawl!
    Foster nodded. “Yes, the wedding. I have to ponder....” She left him standing in light streaming through the wide window. His glasses masked his eyes like golden coins as he turned to witness her departure.
    On the way home she should have used her cellular phone to check in with Michelle. Something could have come up at PC-Pros. But she didn’t. She was paralyzed by the possibility that Foster, in his slow, methodical way, might well be dismantling the foundation of his commitment to her. When he finished, September fifteenth might prove to be no more eventful than the common mill run of her days. In a swift, grim vision she saw the two of them estranged, and Lois Smith-Patton enfolding him at last in the weighted cape of her love. Trish’s innards twisted. Her eyes burned with the beginnings of tears. No! She would not cry. She would do something to help herself.
    She absolutely had to stop Carson!
    She phoned Jerry Morris at police headquarters. She told him about the tape, though not about its contents.
    “Oh, great. Maybe that’s a break. Bring it over. We’ll have the print people go over it.”
    “Oh! I—I couldn’t do that.”
    “Why not?”
    “Have you found out anything at all about where Carson is?”
    “Negative.”
    “Jerry, are you even trying?”
    “Very much so. Why don’t you want us to see the tape?”
    “Personal reasons!” She hung up. Why had she thought the police would be able to help her? Jerry had warned her about Sarkman’s preference for murder cases and the limits to what he could manage alone. That left Nicholas and Dino, both of whom wanted to work on her behalf. She phoned Nicholas’s office. He answered. She told him who Dino was and that he was expecting his call. She left it up to the two of them as to just how to go ahead. The bald man’s soft voice drifted off into a technical current concerning electronic locks where she sensed he was far more comfortable. She cut him off.
    “Find him,” she said. “Find Carson Thomas!”
     

17
     
    THIS DINO PERSON DIDN’T LIKE JAZZ. BARBARIAN! Philistine! No sooner had he swung his muscled self into Nicholas’s new van than his hoarse voice rose in protest: “Cut the honk and squeak, paisan! Put on some country!”
    “That’s a tape,” Nicholas said.
    “Kill it like a snake.” Dino settled himself in the passenger seat and looked around. “This is quite a piece of tin you got here, worm neck. Smells brand new.”
    “It is.” It had taken tens of thousands of dollars to replace his torched old van and most of its electronic equipment. He had kept Dolly Hummer on the phone in the water tank for a day and a half straight ordering devices from across the country, air expressing everything. She who had rarely been asked to do anything but show up from time to time turned amazed bloodshot eyes on her now-tyrannical boss. He fed her pastrami sandwiches and begrudged every minute she spent in the ladies’ room in the gas station down the road.
    He labored like an animal to install his purchases and to recreate the machines of his own design that he would need to help his White Queen. The tips of his long white hands carried red twists and lines, nicks and cuts from handling obstinate hardware. When fatigue hung like sash weights from his neck he caught a quick nap and started work again. I labor for my love, he told himself. My white-suited, black-haired, sweet-voiced, honey-thighed, untouchable beauty! Trish My Wish!
    “So, are you loaded with bucks, paisan?”
    Nicholas shrugged.
    “You don’t say much, do you?”
    Nicholas thought his companion more than reached a conversational balance with