Mary, Mary

justifiable homicide. Antonia Schifman? She backed out of a project that Bell was financing himself last year. Apparently
after
she gave him a verbal promise, which seems to mean next to nothing out here. The whole thing fell apart, and he lost a half million in development.”
    I could hear the adrenaline in Page’s voice. He was like a greyhound at the gate. “I’ll bet anything there’s more,” he said. “Bell’s career was headed down the crapper, and he was going to bring everyone down with him.”
    “Keep digging,” I said. “Great work, too. Any more word from LAPD? Jeanne?”
    “A cruiser went by the Bell house. No answer.”
    “Did they go inside?”
    “No. But they were pretty sure nobody was home. The house is under surveillance.”
    “All right. I’ll call when I stop again. Probably out near the airport. Unfortunately, I think I’m stuck here for the night.”
    I didn’t want to spend the night in Vermont, especially now, but it didn’t look as though I had much of a choice. I thought about stopping into the small store at the gas station, buying something awful like chocolate cupcakes, or M&M’s with peanuts, but I mustered all of my willpower against it.
God, I am impressive occasionally.
    I turned toward the rented car and started to walk with my head down against the wind. It was getting nippy up here. A few feet away from the car, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks.
    I had company.
    James Truscott was sitting in the car’s passenger seat.

Chapter 117
    THIS MADE NO SENSE TO ME, not at first anyway. What the hell was Truscott doing here? Obviously, he’d followed me again. But why?
    I was seeing red as I yanked open the car door on his side. My mouth was open to start to yell, but nothing came out, not a word.
    Truscott wasn’t here to cause me any trouble—at least not now. The writer was dead, propped up in the front seat like a statue.
    “Just get in the car,” said a voice from behind me.
    “Don’t cause a scene out here. Because then I’ll have to go in and shoot the nice old biddy who runs the country store, too. I really wouldn’t mind, y’know.”
    I turned and saw Michael Bell.
    Bell appeared haggard and disturbed, and he’d lost a lot of weight since I’d last seen him at his house. He looked like hell, actually. His light-blue eyes were badly bloodshot; with his ragged, bushy beard, he looked like a local woodsman.
    “How long have you been following me?” I asked, trying to engage him if I could, feel him out, gain some kind of leverage.
    “Just get in the car and drive, will you? Don’t talk to me. I see through you.”
    We both got in, Bell in the back, and he pointed out to the road, the direction heading away from the interstate. I started the car and drove where he wanted me to, my mind racing backward and forward. My gun was in the trunk. How could I get to the trunk? Or how could I get inside his head in a hurry?
    “What’s the plan, Michael?”
    “The plan was for you to go back to Washington, and for everyone to go on with their pitiful lives. But that didn’t work out so well, did it? You should thank me for taking out the reporter, no? He begged and sobbed for his life, by the way. Great performance. I believed him. What a wimp he turned out to be.”
    I was surprised he knew I was from D.C., and also about Truscott. But then, he was a watcher, a plotter. There was probably a lot that Bell knew.
    “So what now?” I asked.
    “What do you think? You’re supposed to be the expert, right? So, what happens now?”
    “It doesn’t have to go like this.” I was just talking; saying anything that came into my mind.
    “You gotta be kidding. What other way do you think it can go? Let me hear all of the choices. I can’t wait.”
    Meantime, he had burrowed the barrel of his pistol into my neck. I leaned away, but only so far. I thought it was best if I knew exactly where his gun was. I wondered if he was executing a plan now, or if he was improvising at this point. Mary Smith had been known to do both.
    And this was Mary Smith, wasn’t it? I’d finally met the real killer.
    We drove for a few miles on an unlit secondary highway. “This looks good here,” he said suddenly. “Go that way. Make a left. Do it.”
    I turned off the pavement onto a bumpy dirt road. It sloped upward, winding away into the woods. Eventually, the fir trees closed around the car like a tunnel. I was running out of time, and it didn’t look as if there was