Riptide

help me?"
    He shook his head. "For the time being I'm not at liberty to tell
    you that. But someone wants me to clean up this mess you've gotten
    yourself into."
    "I didn't do anything at all. It was that demented man stalking
    me who's responsible. Oh, maybe like the cops in New York and
    Albany, you don't believe me, either?"
    "I believe you. Would you like to know why the cops in New

York and Albany didn't believe you? Thought you were a screwed-up
    fruitcake?"
    She nearly fell out of her chair. "I don't believe this. You know
    something the cops don't? They thought I was crazy or malicious
    or infatuated with the governor. Come on, what do you know?"
    "They believed you were a fake because someone close to the
    governor told them that it was all a sick sexual fantasy. When the
    cops called from New York, that's what the Albany police told
    them. However, the threat to the governor was quite real, no question
    about that, since someone shot him. They had to refocus,
    think things over again."
    "Who in the governor's office said that about me? Don't you
    dare just sit there staring at me. Damn you, I deserve to know who
    betrayed me."
    "Of course you do. I'm sorry, Becca. It was Dick McCallum, the
    governor's senior aide."
    She nearly fell over in shock. "Oh, no, not Dick McCallum. Oh,
    no, it doesn't make any sense. Not Dick." She looked stricken and
    he was sorry for it.
    She was shaking her head at him, not wanting to believe him but
    afraid not to. "But why? Dick has never said anything mean to me
    or acted like he had it in for me. He never asked me out, so there
    wouldn't be any sort of rejection involved. I didn't threaten him in
    any way. I was sure he liked me. I wrote most of the governors
    speeches, for God's sake. I didn't head up strategy sessions or conduct
    policy meetings or have anything to do with spin or scheduling
    or anything that would be in his bailiwick. Why would he
    do it?"
    "That I don't know yet. But to be realistic about it, it will probably
    come down to money. Someone paid him a lot of money to
    do it. Now, one of the cops in Albany told me he'd come to them,

supposedly feeling all sorts of guilty, but swearing he had no choice
    because he was afraid you'd go after the governor. I promise you I
    will find out why he did it. He's got to be the key to this." Actually,
    he thought, Thomas Matlock was going over everything in
    McCallum's background, including where he got the small knife
    tattoo on the back of his right shoulder blade.
    She said slowly, thinking aloud really, "If Dick McCallum said
    those things about me, then he must know about the stalker, maybe
    even who he is and why he picked me to terrorize. Maybe Dick
    even knows who is trying to kill the governor."
    "Yes, all of that is possible. We'll see."
    "Do you mean 'we' as in you and me?"
    "No."
    "Let me call the cops again. I'll tell them I know about what
    Dick McCallum told them. I can tell them he's lying. Won't they
    have to question him more thoroughly?"
    "No, Becca, it's too late. I'm really sorry about this."
    "What do you mean, it's too late? I know I can get ahold of Detective
    Morales."
    "We'll have to go another route to find out why Dick McCallum
    did "what he did, and who probably paid him a whole lot of
    money to do it."
    She became very still. She shook her head. He said very gently,
    "I'm sorry, Becca, but someone ran Dick McCallum down in front
    of his apartment building in Albany. He's dead."
    There -wasn't a single thought in her mind just numbing horror.
    "They think you could be involved. Everyone's gone nuts. Actually,
    they were nuts the moment the governor was shot. No one
    could believe the distance on that shot. Now they're very serious
    about finding you and finding out what you know, if you're in

volved in any way. I planted information for them to find and got
    them off on a wrong track, so you're safe for a while."
    He sat back in his chair and cradled his head against his arms. He
    gave her a big fat smile. "They're not going to find you anytime
    soon, trust me on that."

Chapter 11

    He could only stare at him. "All right, you're the greatest. Now,
    tell me how you fooled them."
    "Thank you. Actually, I had nearly everything in place before
    Dick McCallum was killed. To be very precise, I did it right after
    the governor was shot. I had to shut the spigot off before they had
    the chance to really turn it on.
    "They immediately mounted quite a manhunt. FBI offices all
    over the country are