Riptide

what the stalker said to you this time while we all repair
    the door."
    "You're good," Savich said some thirty minutes later to Adam.
    "You said there was no trail and there isn't."
    Adam grunted. "Let's go out a bit farther. Maybe we'll see some
    tire tracks."
    "No way," Sherlock said. "The stalker is a pro, which means that
    he isn't really a stalker. That's just a cover. A misdirection."
    Savich nodded. "I agree. He isn't a stalker."
    Becca said, "What do you mean, exactly?"
    Adam said, as he slowly lifted leaves some ten feet away, "It
    doesn't make sense, Becca. Usually stalkers are sick guys who, for

whatever strange reason, latch on to someone. It's an obsession.
    They're not pros. This guy's a pro. This was well thought out."
    And Savich thought: Krimakov is alive, then it's a terror campaign,
    and Beaa's just the means to the end. Thomas Matlock is right to be afraid. And the ending Krimakov planned wasn't good for either father or
    daughter.
    Becca was shaking her head. "But he sounds nuts whenever he's
    called me. He called a couple of hours ago. He said much of the
    same things. He sounded all sorts of excited, very pleased with
    himself, like he couldn't wait. I know he's toying with me, getting
    a real kick out of my fear, my anger, my helplessness." She stopped
    a moment, looked at Adam, and added, "The thing is, I can't help
    but feel that inside, he's just dead."
    Sherlock said,"Maybe he's dead on the inside,but it's the outside
    we've got to worry about. On thing we know for sure is that he's
    clever; he knows what he needs to do and he does it. He found
    you, didn't he? Now, could we go back to the house and Becca can
    tell us everything? You said he called you again. Tell us exactly what
    he said. Then we can put all our brainpower together and solve this
    mess."
    "Another thing," Savich said as he brushed his black slacks off, "I
    don't want us out in the open like this. It isn't smart."
    And Sherlock, her brilliant red hair shining brightly in the fading
    afternoon light, led them back to Jacob Marley's house.
    They found caulk, an electric sander that worked, and some
    wood stain in the basement, on some shelves near the hole in the
    brick wall.
    They took the front door off its hinges and brought it inside.
    While Savich sanded it down and Adam caulked in the bullet
    holes, Becca and Sherlock kept watch, their guns in their hands,

watchful. Very soon, Sherlock had Becca talking and talking.
    ". . . and when he called me just a while ago, he said the same sorts
    of things, like I would contact the governor as soon as he was well
    enough again and have him come to me."
    "You know," Adam said, "he doesn't believe you've slept with
    the governor. It is just part of a script. He needed something so that
    he could claim you needed punishment."
    "You're right," Sherlock said, giving Adam his first look of approval,
    for which he didn't know whether to be pleased or snarl.
    "Yes, you're perfectly right. Go ahead, Becca, what else did he say?"
    "When I asked him about Dick McCallum, he wouldn't admit
    that he killed him, but I know that he did. He said I'd gotten all
    pissy, that I'd gotten too confident, that he was coming for me
    soon. I tell you, when I hung up, I was ready to throw in the towel.
    He calls himself my boyfriend. It's beyond creepy."
    "Yeah," Adam said, raising his head to look at her, "she was ready
    to throw in the towel for about three minutes." Then he said
    toward Savich, "Then she put her Coonan in her pocket and went
    out into the woods. Why'd you go out there, Becca? It wasn't real
    smart, you know."
    She looked inward for a moment, all of them saw it--and the
    sanding and caulking stopped. Not one of them was surprised
    when she shrugged. "I don't know, really. I just wanted to go there,
    alone, and sit under the sunlight against that tree. Jacob Marley's
    house was getting to me. There are ghosts here, the air is filled with
    remnants of the people who lived here, residue, maybe, not all of it
    good."
    "Before I finally found her, I nearly croaked," Adam said, realizing
    he was grinning at Savich. Well, hell, why not? He was here and
    he did seem competent, at least so far. Maybe he'd still fall flat on
    his face.

"Listen, I've got to contact my men," Adam said. "The stalker--
    or whatever he is--is here. He tried to kill us, or maybe he was just
    after me--that's more likely. We've got to close this town down.
    And we need to finish with this damned door before he just