Strangers

secret is buried.
        In addition to the letter's lack of signature and return address, the postmark on the plain white envelope was double-struck and badly smeared, so he could not determine whether it had been mailed in Laguna Beach or from another city.
        After he paid for his breakfast and left The Cottage, he sat in his car, the copy of Twilight in Babylon forgotten on the seat beside him, and read the note half a dozen times. It made him so nervous that he withdrew a pair of Valiums from his jacket pocket and almost took one without water. But as he put the tablet to his lips, he hesitated. To explore all the ramifications of the note, he would need a clear mind. For the first time in weeks, he denied himself chemical escape from his anxieties; he returned the Valium to his pocket.
        He drove to South Coast Plaza, a huge shopping mall in Costa Mesa, to buy some last-minute Christmas gifts. In each store he visited, while he waited for the clerks to gift-wrap his purchases, he took the curious message from his pocket and read it again and again.
        For a while Dom had wondered if the note had come from Parker, if perhaps the artist had sent it to jolt him and intrigue him and propel him out of his drug-induced haze. Parker might be capable of such highly theatrical, amateur psychotherapy. But finally Dom dismissed that idea. Machiavellian maneuvers were simply not aspects of the painter's personality. He was, in fact, almost excessively forthright.
        Parker was not the author of the note, but he was certain to have some original speculations about who might be behind it. Together, they might be able to decide just how the arrival of this letter changed things and how they ought to proceed.
        Later, back in Laguna, when Dom was within a block of Parker's house, he was suddenly shaken by a previously unconsidered, profoundly troubling possibility. This new idea was so disconcerting that he pulled the Firebird to the curb and stopped. He got the note from his pocket, read it again, fingered the paper. He felt cold inside. He looked into the reflection of his own eyes in the rearview mirror, and he did not like what he saw.
        Could he have written the note himself?
        He could have composed it on the Displaywriter while asleep. But it was outlandish to suppose he'd dressed, gone to the mailbox, deposited the note, returned home, and changed into pajamas again without waking up. Impossible. Wasn't it? If he had done such a thing, his mental imbalance was worse than he had thought.
        His hands were clammy. He blotted them on his trousers.
        Only three people in the world were aware of his sleepwalking: himself, Parker Faine, and Dr. Cobletz. He had already eliminated Parker. Dr. Cobletz had certainly not sent the note. So if Dom himself had not sent it - who had?
        When he pulled away from the curb at last, he did not continue to Parker's house but headed home instead.
        Ten minutes later, in his study, he took the by-now rumpled note from his pocket. He typed those two sentences, which appeared on the Displaywriter's dark screen in glowing green letters. Then he switched on the printer and instructed the computer to produce a hard copy of the document. He watched as it hammered out those twenty-three words.
        The Displaywriter came with two printwheels in two typefaces. He had bought two more to provide options for different tasks. Now, Dom used the three additional printwheels to produce a total of four copies of the note, and with a pencil he labeled each according to the style of type used for it: PRESTIGE ELITE, ARTISAN 10, COURIER 10, LETTER GOTHIC.
        He smoothed out the original rumpled note and placed each of the copies beside it for comparison. He hoped to eliminate all four type styles that he possessed, disproving the theory that he had sent the note to himself. But the Courier 10 appeared to be a perfect match.
        That did not conclusively prove he'd written the note. In offices and homes all over the country, there must be millions of printwheels and printer elements in the Courier face.
        He compared the paper of the original note to that of the copy he had made. They were both twenty-pound, 8 1/2 x 11", standard products sold under a dozen labels in thousands of stores in all fifty states. Neither sheet was of sufficient quality to contain fibers. Dom held them up to the light and saw that neither