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  “I don’t need light to recognize your voice! Why the hell didn’t you come to the front door?” Austin said, jerking his hand away and masking his surprise behind contempt. “I left it open for you.”

  “Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to kill you?”

  “You blew your chance five years ago. Where’s the money?”

  “You’re like a vampire, you bleed people dry.”

  “Shut up and hand over the money.”

  The shadow at the curtains raised its hand and Tony saw the gun. “Don’t be a fool! If you kill me now, they’ll figure out it was you in twenty-four hours.”

  “No! They won’t. Zack Benedict is on the loose, he’s on a rampage, haven’t you heard?” The laugh was chillingly shrill. “He’s making threatening phone calls. People think I got one, too. I made sure they do. They’ll think he killed you. I waited such a long time for this moment—” The gun lifted, aimed, adjusted . . .

  “Don’t be crazy! If you kill me, they’ll tr—”

  The explosion from the barrel of the gun blew a small hole in Tony Austin’s chest near his collar bone, but the fact that the hollow point shell had missed his heart didn’t matter. On impact, it fragmented throughout his entire chest cavity, killing him instantly.

  59

  IT’S WONDERFUL OF YOU TO have all of us over for dinner like this,” Mrs. Mathison told Julie as she stood up to help her clear the table. “We shouldn’t wait for special occasions, the way we often do,” she added.

  Julie picked up four glasses and smiled at her mother. It was a very special occasion—the last night she would ever spend with them, because she was leaving to join Zack in the morning.

  “Are you sure you don’t want Carl and me to stay and help put the dining room back to order?” Sara asked as Carl helped her into her coat. “Carl needs to work up a bid for the recreation center, but that could wait for another half hour.”

  “No, it can’t,” Julie said, walking quickly into the living room and giving Sara and then Carl a hug. She held them both longer than necessary, and she added a kiss to their cheeks. Because this was good-bye. “Take care of each other,” she whispered to them both.

  “We only live a mile and a half from here,” Carl pointed out drily. Julie watched them walk down the sidewalk, memorizing the moment, then she closed the door. Ted and her father had settled down in the living room to watch the news and Katherine was helping clear the table.

  “Sara is such a sweet girl,” Mrs. Mathison said when she was alone with Julie in the kitchen. “She and Carl are so good together, so happy.” Glancing over her shoulder into the dining room where Katherine was gathering plates, she whispered, “I think Ted and Katherine have found each other again, don’t you? Katherine was so young before, but she’s settled down and matured, and Ted loved her so much. He never got over her.”

  Julie smiled somberly as she stacked the dinner plates Katherine was carrying from the dining room into the dishwasher. “Don’t get your hopes up too far. I invited Katherine tonight, Ted didn’t. He’s still seeing Grace Halvers—fighting whatever he feels for Katherine probably.”

  “Julie, is something wrong? You seem strange tonight. Preoccupied.”

  Picking up the dishcloth, Julie fixed a bright, attentive look on her face and began wiping off the sink. “Why do you say that?’

  “For one thing, the water is still running, the dishes aren’t done, and you’re trying to wipe the counters. You were always a neat girl, Julie,” she teased as Julie hastily tossed the dishcloth aside and returned to her earlier task, “but that’s carrying things a little too far. You’re still thinking about Zachary Benedict, aren’t you?”

  It was a golden opportunity to prepare her mother for what she was going to read in Julie’s letter and she decided to take advantage of it. “What would you say if I told you I fell in love with him in Colorado?”

  “I’d say that’s a very pointless, painful, foolish thing for you to believe.”

  “And what if I can’t help it?”

  “I recommend tincture of time, honey. That cures everything. You only knew him for a week, after all. Why don’t you fall in love with Paul Richardson instead,” she said half-seriously. “He has a good job, and he’s crazy about you—even your father noticed.”

  Realizing the conversation about Paul and the mundane chore of doing dishes were both wastes of what precious time was left with her family, Julie tossed down her dishcloth. “Let’s go into the living room,” she said, hustling her mother out of the kitchen. “I’ll finish the dishes later.” Raising her voice, she called, “Does anyone want anything from the kitchen?”

  “Yes,” Ted called in answer. “Coffee.”

  Katherine, who had just come in to help at the sink, reached for cups and saucers, but Julie shook her head. “Go and spend some time with Ted. I’ll come back for the coffee when it’s ready.”

  Julie was partway into the living room, carrying a tray of cups, when she heard her father hiss, “Ted, turn the television set off, Julie doesn’t need to hear that!”

  “I don’t need to hear what?” Julie asked, stopping in cold dread as Ted dived for the television set. “Leave it on, Ted,” she warned sharply, knowing instinctively it was something about Zack. “They’ve got Zack, don’t they,” she said, shaking so violently the cups on her tray rattled. “Answer me,” she cried, looking at four appalled faces.

  “They didn’t get him,” Ted fired sarcastically, “he’s gotten himself another victim!” As he spoke, the television commercial ended and Julie saw a stretcher being taken out of a house, the body covered in a white sheet, while the newscaster’s voice seemed to loom in the room: “Repeating the news of the hour, Tony Austin, who starred with Zachary Benedict and Rachel Evans in Destiny, was found dead in his Los Angeles house today from a fatal gunshot wound in the chest. Preliminary reports indicate that the bullet was a hollow point shell, similar to the one that killed Zachary Benedict’s wife, Rachel Evans. The coroner has tentatively fixed the time of death at approximately ten o’clock last night. Orange County police officials have confirmed that Austin reportedly received a threatening phone call last night from Zachary Benedict and that Benedict was allegedly seen in the area earlier last evening. Other members of Destiny’s cast and crew who also received threatening calls from Benedict have been warned to exercise extreme caution—”

  The rest of his words were drowned out by the crash of breaking china as Julie dropped the tray and covered her face with her hands, trying to blot out the memory of the white-shrouded body being put into an ambulance and the recollection of Zack’s cold voice:

  “Leave Austin to me. There are other ways to handle him.”

  “Julie!” Voices rushed at her and hands reached for her, but she stepped back, staring blindly from her mother and Katherine who were bending to pick up the broken china to her father and Ted, who were standing near her now, watching her in alarmed consternation. “Please!” she choked. “I need to be alone now. Dad,” she said, reining in her hysteria so tightly that her voice was constricted, “please take Mother home. She shouldn’t get upset over me. It’s not good for her blood pressure.”

  She turned and walked into her bedroom, closed the door behind her, and sat down in the dark. Somewhere in the house she heard the telephone begin to ring, but it was Mrs. Stanhope’s voice that was screaming in her mind:

  “Zachary killed his own brother, and he killed his wife. In his movies, he played men who murdered needlessly and then escaped the consequences because they were ‘heroes.’ . . . He can no longer separate reality from fantasy . . . . Zachary is insane.

  “If he had gotten help, Rachel Evans would not be lying in her grave . . . . For your own sake, turn him in. Otherwise, there will be another victim someday, and you will live the rest of your life carrying the same burden of guilt that I must bear . . . .”

  Tony Austin’s famous, charismatic face swam before Julie’s eyes, his smile endearing and