Sylvie was awakened abruptly that morning by a ringing doorbell, and opened the door to a pair of police officers. Since this was only four hours after Darren had been killed, the visit ended forever any suspicion that she’d had any direct role in his death: No flight from the East Coast could have brought her home that quickly.
Even so, when Paul paid his respects before the funeral, he told her that they must not call, write letters, or meet each other again for three months because police often kept family members of murder victims under surveillance. Ninety-one days later, they met, apparently by chance, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago. They returned to Los Angeles on different days, Sylvie started going to the dance class again, and Sylvie and Paul had a period of simulated courtship.
Sylvie watched Paul driving the streets of Las Vegas, and felt a light-headed tingle of excitement about him. There was nothing in the world as erotic as being with a man who had killed her husband to take her. The breathless feeling was still there after fifteen years. But as she watched, she could see his face was changing, taking on a new expression. “What is it?”
“Look.”
She looked ahead. As she did, the big red-striped shape of a Southwest Airlines jet glided over them and onto a distant runway. “Is he at the airport?”
“His car is at the airport. I think he turned it in.”
“Then how are we going to find out where he went?”
PAUL WALKED CAREFULLY along the side of Ann Delatorre’s house in the darkness, keeping his shoes from making any noise. There were no security-company signs on the lawn, no stickers, and no keypads visible through the windows, and he wasn’t surprised. People on the run didn’t want any conversations with the police officers who responded to false alarms, or even minor burglaries. They wanted everything quiet and undisturbed. He liked that. What he didn’t like was that many of them made up for it by arming themselves.
Paul peered around the corner of the house and saw Sylvie waiting outside the back door. In the darkness behind the house he could just see that her right hand was down at the side of her body, and he knew she was holding the pistol beside her thigh, where it would not be seen if a light came on. She had screwed the silencers on the threaded muzzles of the two .38 revolvers. Paul liked to use the lower-caliber, low-velocity cartridges for jobs like this. If Ann Delatorre could be intimidated by a gun, a .38 with a silencer on it would scare her as much as a .44 magnum, and if she couldn’t, then it would be big enough to kill her.
Sylvie gave Paul a silent wave, and Paul moved back toward the front of the house. He was searching for the room where Ann Delatorre slept. He had looked in at two dark bedrooms, and seen only the smooth, tight bedspreads and undented pillows on the beds. At last he found what he had been looking for. The third bedroom had its blinds closed, but he was able to put his eye to the corner and make out the shape of a sleeping person on the bed.
He stood still for a few seconds and listened. The night was quiet out here in the suburbs. He knew that Route 215 swung through Henderson, but it was too distant for him to hear the cars. He went around the house to a spare bedroom where the door was closed. Any incidental sounds he made getting in would be less likely to reach Ann Delatorre’s ears from there.
Paul used a glass cutter to etch a small half-circle in the windowpane just at the latch. He ran a strip of duct tape across the semicircle, then put on his leather gloves and pounded it once with his hand. There was only a dull thump and a click as the semicircle of glass was punched inward and held by the tape. He peeled back the tape carefully and brought the small piece of glass with it, then reached inside, unlocked the latch, and slid the window open six inches.
He put his head to the opening and listened. When he heard nothing but the hum of the air conditioner, he lifted the window all the way, and climbed inside. Then he crouched on the floor for a few seconds, letting his eyes adjust to the deeper darkness. Paul had killed several people at night while they were asleep in their beds, and he had come to enjoy it. He moved quietly to the door, stood still for a few seconds, then turned the knob and pulled the door inward.
The sudden bang made him jump in alarm, and the muzzle-flash blinded him. He had leaped to the side instinctively, so he was behind the wall again, and he squatted there. He heard footsteps dash out of the bedroom across the hall, already past him and around the corner before he was able to get his gun out of his jacket.
Paul leaned around the doorway and fired, but he knew that the shot was at least a whole second late. It was just a way to fight his paralysis and do something. He ran down the hallway, knowing that if she were waiting to shoot him, the place she would aim was at the corner. He ran past it into another doorway and aimed up the next hall. All he saw was an open door, and the night beyond.
She had made it outside. He dashed to the back door and heard Sylvie’s voice rasp, “Drop it at your feet. Now turn around and go back inside.”
The woman’s shape appeared in the doorway, and then Paul could see Sylvie’s taller silhouette. She stepped in and closed the door, and Paul turned on the light.
The woman was black. She was barefoot, wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt that said UNLV. Paul stared at her. “Who are you?”
“My name is Ann Delatorre.”
“Where is Wendy Harper?”
“Who’s Wendy Harper?”
Paul lunged forward and punched her in the ribs with his free hand. He suspected that he had broken a couple of them, because when she tried to straighten, the pain overpowered her for a moment.
Paul grasped a handful of her hair and shook her, then wrenched it to the side so her head hit the wall. “You know her. Say it.”
“I know her.”
He held her hair and jerked her head up so she had to look at him. “If you tell us where she is, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars. You can get on a plane and take a vacation, then come back and nobody will know how we found out. You’ll never see us again.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
Paul swung her head against the wall again, harder this time. It hit, then she slid and collapsed onto the floor. He waited a few seconds until she seemed to regain consciousness, then kicked her.
Sylvie began to worry. The woman on the floor was getting hurt, maybe incapacitated, but she didn’t seem to be afraid. Sylvie whispered, “Don’t kill her, or she can’t tell us.”
He said, “Miss Delatorre. Can you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“Then think for a minute. I want something small and simple. I’ll pay you money for it. If you don’t tell me, I’ll inflict suffering. Don’t answer now, automatically. Just listen and think.” He turned to Sylvie. “Go to the kitchen and bring me back a butcher knife.”
Sylvie walked into the kitchen. She didn’t want to turn on another light, but she didn’t see any knives on the counter, so she’d have to look in some drawers. She heard a growling cry—not of pain, but anger and hatred. She pivoted and ran back to the hallway.