Mr. Murder Read Free Page B

way.
        Later, on the way home from Islands, when Daddy got a lead foot, Mom said, "Marty, this isn't the Indianapolis Five Hundred."
        "You think this is fast?" Daddy asked, as if astonished. "This isn't fast."
        "Even the caped crusader himself can't get the Batmobile up to speeds like this."
        "I'm thirty-three, never had an accident. Spotless record. No tickets.
        Never been stopped by a cop."
        "Because they can't catch you," Mom said.
        "Exactly."
        In the back seat, Charlotte and Emily grinned at each other.
        For as long as Charlotte could remember, her parents had been having jokey conversations about his driving, though her mother was serious about wanting him to go slower..
        "I've never even had a parking ticket," Daddy said.
        "Well, of course, it's not easy to get a parking ticket when the speedometer needle is always pegged out."
        In the past their back-and-forth had always been good-humored.
        But now, he suddenly spoke sharply to Mom, "For God's sake, Paige, I'm a good driver, this is a safe car, I spent more money on it than I should have precisely because it's one of the safest cars on the road, so will you just give this a rest?"
        "Sure. Sorry," Mom said.
        Charlotte looked at her sister. Em was wide-eyed with disbelief.
        Daddy was not Daddy. Something was wrong. Big-Time wrong.
        They had gone only a block before he slowed down and glanced at Mom and said, "Sorry."
        "No, you were right, I'm too much of a worrier about some things," Mom told him.
        They smiled at each other. It was all right. They weren't going to get divorced like those people they'd been talking about at dinner.
        Charlotte couldn't recall them ever being angry with each other for longer than a few minutes.
        However, she was still worried. Maybe she should check around the house and outside behind the garage to see if she could find a giant empty seed pod from outer space.
        Like a shark cruising cold currents in a night sea, the killer drives.
        This is his first time in Kansas City, but he knows the streets. Total mastery of the layout is part of his preparation for every assignment, in case he becomes the subject of a police pursuit and needs to make a hasty escape under pressure.
        Curiously, he has no recollection of having seen-let alone studied-a map, and he can't imagine from where this highly detailed information was acquired. But he doesn't like to consider the holes in his memory because thinking about them opens the door on a black abyss that terrifies him.
        So he just leaves.
        Usually he likes to drive. Having a powerful and responsive machine at his command gives him a sense of control and purpose.
        But once in a while, as happens now, the motion of the car and the sights of a strange city-regardless of how familiar he may be with the layout of its streets-make him feel small, alone, adrift. His heart begins to beat fast. His palms are suddenly so damp, the steering wheel slips through them.
        Then, as he brakes at a traffic light, he looks at the car in the lane beside him and sees a family revealed by the street lamps. The father is driving. The mother sits in the passenger seat, an attractive woman.
        A boy of about ten and a girl of six or seven are in the back seat.
        On their way home from a night out. Maybe a movie. Talking, laughing, parents and children together, sharing.
        In his deteriorating condition, that sight is a merciless hammer blow, and he makes a thin wordless sound of anguish.
        He pulls off the street, into the parking lot of an Italian restaurant.
        Slumps in his seat. Breathes in quick shallow gasps.
        The emptiness. He dreads the emptiness.
        And now it is upon him.
        He feels as if he is a hollow man, made of the thinnest blown glass, fragile,