TheRapist (24 page)

Very slightly, almost as dismissive as a hush in the moonlight, somewhere deep beneath the terrace, the house on the hill, inside the hill itself, the earth murmured.

Richter’s needle repositioned itself, twinned with a move strangely concurrent with strange, new stirrings inside of Devon.

*

Devon

Hours later,
the house locked and bolted
in the soft, mild heat of the night,
a taxi dropped off
a
passenger at LAX. Carrying no more than a large black Prada bag, Devon
reached for her Blackberry
and punched out an e mail to Dorothy. It read: Taking a year out to work on subject matter for my next book, possibly a thriller. Will be unreachable. Temporarily.

Devon
had yet to find out the
pieces of this puzzle that remained unfinished.

Mary was somewhere out there.

Adrian’s disappearance needed an explanation.

Manny had left life on earth.

Some
things
she knew,
others
she didn’t. Not yet.

All it would take was time.

Devon lingered in the terminal at LAX, her topaz eyes glinting as she examined the departures boa
rd, contemplating her next move.

*****