The Face

misted mirror might trick into a ghostly human shape.
        So he closed his eyes. Opened them. Still the shape.
        He could hear only his heart now, only his heart, not fast, but faster, [106] sledgehammer heavy, pounding and pounding, slamming blood to his brain to flush out unreason.
        Of course his imagination had given meaning to a meaningless blur in a mirror, in the same way that he might have found men and dragons and all kinds of fanciful creatures among the clouds in a summer sky. Imagination. Of course.
        But then this man, this dragon, whatever-it moved in the mirror. Not much: a little, enough to make Ethan’s sledgehammer heart stutter between blows.
        Maybe the movement also was imaginary.
        Hesitantly he approached the mirror. He didn’t step directly in front of the phantom form, for in spite of the strong rush of blood that ought to have clarified his thinking, Ethan suffered from the superstitious conviction that something terrible would happen to him if his reflection were to overlay the ghostly shape.
        Surely the movement of the misted apparition had been imaginary, but if it had been, then he imagined it again. The figure seemed to be motioning for him to come forward, closer.
        Ethan would not have admitted to Hazard Yancy or to any other cop from the old days, perhaps not even to Hannah if she were alive, that when he put his hand to the mirror, he half expected to feel not wet glass, but the hand of another, making contact from a cold and forbidding Elsewhere.
        He swabbed away an arc of mist, leaving a glimmering smear of water.
        Even as Ethan’s hand moved, so did the phantom in the mirror, sliding away from the cleansing swipe. Cunningly elusive, it remained behind the shielding condensation-and moved directly in front of him.
        With the exception of his face, Ethan’s vague reflection in the misted glass had been dark because his clothes were dark, his hair. The steam-frosted shape now before him rose as pale as moonlight and moth wings, impossibly supplanting his own image.
        [107] Fear knocked on his heart, but he wouldn’t let it in, as when he’d been a cop under fire and dared not panic.
        Anyway, he felt as though he were half in a trance, accepting the impossible here as he might easily accept it in a dream.
        The apparition leaned toward him, as if trying to discern his nature from the far side of the silvered glass, in much the same way that he himself leaned forward to study it.
        Raising his hand once more, Ethan tentatively wiped away a narrow swath of mist, fully expecting that when he came eye to eye with his reflection, the eyes would not be his, but gray like Dunny Whistler’s eyes.
        Again the mystery in the mirror moved, quicker than Ethan’s hand, remaining blurred behind the frosting of condensation.
        Only when breath exploded from Ethan did he realize that he had been holding it.
        On the inhale, he heard a crash in a far room of the apartment, the brittle music of shattering glass.

CHAPTER 15
        
        ETHAN HAD TOLD PALOMAR LABORATORIES to analyze his blood for traces of illicit chemicals, in case he’d been drugged without his knowledge. During the events at Reynerd’s apartment house, he had almost seemed to be in an altered state of consciousness.
        Now, leaving the steamy bathroom, he felt no less disoriented than when, after being gut shot, he had found himself behind the wheel of the Expedition once more, unharmed.
        Whatever had happened-or had only seemed to happen-at the mirror, he no longer entirely trusted his senses. As a consequence, he proceeded with greater caution than before, assuming that yet again things might not be as they appeared to be.
        He passed through rooms he’d already searched and then into new territory, arriving at last in the kitchen. Shattered glass sparkled on the breakfast table and littered the floor.
        Also on the floor lay the silver picture frame missing from the desk in the study. The photo of Hannah had been stripped out of it.
        Whoever had taken the picture had been in too great a hurry to release the four fasteners on the back of the frame, and had instead smashed the glass.
        [109] The rear door of the apartment stood open.
        Beyond lay a wide hall that served the back of both penthouse units. At the nearer end, an exit sign marked a