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Noe die?

Frank wheeled around another corner, nearly clipping a black BMW that was parked too close to the intersection The tires squealed, and the sedan shiht around here somewhere"

Tony squinted at the shadowy houses that were only partly illuminated by the streetla

It was a large neo-Spanish house set well back from the street on a spacious lot Red tile roof

Creae lamps, one on each side of the front door

Frank parked in the circular driveway

They got out of the unmarked sedan

Tony reached under his jacket and slipped the service revolver out of his shoulder holster

After Hilary had finished crying at her desk in the study, she had decided, in a daze, to go upstairs and make herself presentable before she reported the assault to the police Her hair had been in complete disarray, her dress torn, her pantyhose shredded and hanging froles She didn’t kno quickly the reporters would arrive once the word had gotten out on the police radio, but she had no doubt that they would show up sooner or later

She was so written two hit fil received an Acadeo for her Arizona Shifty Pete screenplay She treasured her privacy and preferred to avoid the press if at all possible, but she knew that she would have little choice but to make a statement and answer a few questions about what had happened to her this night It was the wrong kind of publicity It was e the victih it should make her an object of sympathy and concern, it actually wouldto be pushed around She had successfully defended herself against Frye, but that would not lare of the television lights and in the flat gray newspaper photos, she would look weak The merciless American public would wonder why she had let Frye into her house They would speculate that she had been raped and that her story of fending him off was just a coverup

Some of them would be certain that she had invited him in and had asked to be raped Most of the syh withshe could control was her appearance when the newsraphed in the pitiable, dissheveled state in which Bruno Frye had left her

As she washed her face and coed into a silk robe that belted at the waist, she was not aware that these actions would dae her credibility with the police, later She didn’t realize that, inherself up as a target for at least one police a liar

Although she thought she was in coain as she finished changing clothes Her legs turned to jelly, and she was forced to lean against the closet door for a es crowded her mind, vivid flashes of unsu at her with a knife, grinning like a death’s head, but then he changed, melted into another shape, another identity, and he became her father, Earl Thory, cursing, taking swipes at her with his big hard hands She shook her head and drew deep breaths and, with an effort, banished the vision

But she could not stop shaking

She ie noises in another rooining it, but another part was sure that she could hear Frye returning for her

By the time she ran to the phone and dialed the police, she was in no condition to give the calm and reasoned report she had planned The events of the past hour had affected her farfro up the receiver, she felt better, just knowing help was on the way As she went downstairs, she said aloud, "Stay calh Tough as nails You aren’t scared Not ever Everything will be okay" It was the sahts in that Chicago apartun to get a grip on herself

She was standing in the foyer, staring out the narrow leadedbeside the door, when a car stopped in the driveway Two h they had not co, she knew they were the police, and she unlocked the door, opened it

The first man onto the front stoop was powerfully built, blond, blue-eyed, and had the hard no-nonsense voice of a cop He had a gun in his right hand "Police Who’re you?"

"Thomas," she said "Hilary Thomas I’m the one who called"

"This your house?"

"Yes There was a man--"

A second detective, taller and darker than the first, appeared out of the night and interrupted her before she could finish the sentence "Is he on the premises?"

"What?"

"Is the one"

"Which way did he go?" the blond man asked

"Out this door"

"Did he have a car?"

"I don’t know"

"Was he armed?"

"No I mean, yes"

"Which is it?"

"He had a knife But not now"

"Which way did he run when he left the house?"

"I don’t knoas upstairs I--"

"How long ago did he leave?" the tall dark one asked

"Maybe fifteen, ed a look that she did not understand but which she knew, i to call it in?" the blond asked

He was slightly hostile

She felt she was losing soe that she could not identify

"At first I wasconfused," she said "Hysterical I needed a few ether"

"Twenty minutes?"

"Maybe it was only fifteen"

Both detectives put away their revolvers

"We’ll need a description," the dark one said

"I can give you better than that," she said as she stepped aside to let theive you a name"

"A name?"

"His name I know him," she said "The ave each other that look again She thought: What have I done wrong?

Hilary Thomas was one of the most beautiful women Tony had ever seen She appeared to have a few drops of Indian blood Her hair was long and thick, darker than his own, a glossy raven-black Her eyes were dark, too, the whites as clear as pasteurized creaht ely the result of carefully measured ti, that was balanced by the size of her eyes (enormous) and by the perfect shape of her patrician nose, and by the almost obscene fullness of her lips Hers was an erotic face, but an intelligent and kind face as well, the face of a woreat tenderness and compassion There was also pain in that countenance, especially in those fascinating eyes, the kind of pain that cae; and Tony expected that it was not ht; so time

She sat on one end of the brushed corduroy sofa in the book-lined study, and Tony sat on the other end They were alone

Frank was in the kitchen, talking on the phone to a desk man at headquarters

Upstairs, two unifor bullets out of the walls

There was not a fingerprintto the coloves

"What’s he doing now?" Hilary Tho headquarters and asking soet in touch with the sheriff’s office up there in Napa County, where Frye lives"