Lisl's words echoed his thoughts.
"What's going on, Will?"
"I don't know, Lisl. But I'm pretty sure of one thing: Rafe Losmara is not who he says he is."
"You mean he's an impostor? That's impossible! You can't get into a graduate program at Darnell without high GRE's and some pretty impressive letters of recommendation."
"You said he's a whiz with computers, didn't you? These big state universities have twenty to forty thousand students enrolled at a time. They use computers to keep track of them. I don't know how he did it. He might have used a phony transcript to transfer in as a senior, attended a few key classes and wowed a few key faculty members, got into the computer and created an impressive academic record, and he was set: In the space of nine months—one academic year-—he's created a completely bogus identity with a three-point-nine grade point and glowing letters of recommendation."
"But this is all supposition," Lisl said. "You've got no proof!"
"True. But I know it in my gut. Because I know someone else who was fooled by a scam very much like this one."
"Who?"
"Me."
"Will, you're talking crazy. Why would he go to all this trouble to create a false identity? And what's this anagram business in that message?"
"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."
"So am I!" She picked up her bag and turned toward the door. "I'm going over to Rafe's right now and—"
"What about Ev?"
She stopped. Her shoulders slumped.
"Oh, God… Ev. How could I forget about Ev?" She turned her tortured face to him. "What's the matter with me?"
"You're being torn into little pieces, that's what's the matter." Bill rose and put an arm around her shoulders. "We'll straighten out the rest of it soon. But first we've got to find Everett Sanders. Right?"
She nodded without looking at him. "Right."
"Okay. Here's my idea. You start at the north end of Conway Street, I'll start at the south. We'll check every bar along the way and meet somewhere in the middle. If we haven't found him by then, we'll start moving in other directions." He gave her shoulders one final squeeze. "Don't worry. Together we'll find him."
He walked her out to her car and saw her off on her way to Conway Street. As he hurried to his own car, he congratulated himself on becoming such a smooth liar. For he had no intention of looking for Everett Sanders now. Later, yes. But right now he was heading for Parkview Condos.
As he drove, Bill began to sweat. A rank fear-sweat. It poured out of him. He was heading for a showdown with a man who was linked to the woman who'd called herself Sara Lom, the woman Bill had thought he'd never find, the woman who'd mutilated Danny Gordon and left him for Bill to find.
But she'd done more than mutilate the child. She'd left him alive yet placed him beyond the reach of any medical science known to man.
And that was what terrified Bill now, what made the darkness seem to press against the windows of his car. He was heading toward the unknown. Sara and Rafe—or whoever they really were—were linked to something hideous, something unnatural, maybe supernatural. He could almost believe they were linked to Satan himself—but he didn't believe in Satan. He'd found it difficult to believe in much of anything anymore. But if inhuman evil could be embodied in one being, that being was the woman he'd known as Sara. And by blood or something else, Rafe was related to her.
But he couldn't allow himself to be afraid. He couldn't hesitate for an instant in his confrontation with Rafe. He wished he had a gun—something to cow Rafe into telling him what he wanted to know. But he'd have to do it all on his own. And for that he'd need ice in his nerves and fire in his blood.
So he thought about Christmas Eve five years ago and what Sara did to Danny, and about the agonies Danny had suffered during the ensuing week.
And very soon the fear was gone. By the time he screeched to a halt before Rafe's condo it had been replaced by a blistering rage.
The Maserati was in the driveway; the big living-room windows were lit. No hesitation, no second thoughts. Bill raced up the steps, didn't knock, slammed against the door, and burst in.
"Losmara! Where are you, Losmara?"
"Right here," said a calm, soft voice from the right.
Bill found Rafe sitting on the white sofa in his white living room. He was dressed in the white slacks and soft white shirt he'd worn at the Christmas party. Bill stood over him and pointed a finger in his face.
"Who the hell are you?"
Rafe didn't even flinch. His legs were crossed, his arms were folded across his chest. He looked Bill straight in the eyes and spoke calmly.
"You know very well who I am."
"No. You're a phony. You and your sister. Both sickos playing sicko games. But it's going to stop. And you're going to tell me how I can find your sister."
"I have no sister. I'm an only child."
Bill felt the fury surging higher within him. He wanted to take Rafe's throat in his hands and rattle him like a rag doll. And maybe he would. But not yet. Not yet.
"Cut the shit. Whatever the game was, it's up. I've found you out. 'Losmara'… 'Sara Lorn'—they're word games. You're not pulling something here with Lisl like your sister pulled with Danny and me back in New York. I'm stopping it here and now."
"Whatever are you talking about?" Still no sign of alarm, no emotion at all. He hadn't even asked Bill to leave. "And what do you believe I'm 'pulling' with Lisl?"
"You're destroying her, corrupting everything that's good and decent in her."
A smile. "I'm destroying nothing, corrupting nothing. I've done nothing to Lisl. I've merely offered options. Any choices she's made are wholly her own."
"Sure. I've heard your options: something bad or something worse."
Rafe shrugged. "That's a matter of opinion. But you forget there was always the option of choosing neither. I've never forced a thing on Lisl."
"You were dealing from a loaded deck!"
"I have no intention of wasting my time debating with you. But let me point out that one inescapable fact remains: Everything Lisl's done'has been of her own free will. I pointed out certain paths to Her, but it was she who chose to set out upon them. Never once did I threaten her—with anything. I did not make her choices; she did. The responsibility for anything she's done lies with her."
Bill's rage was nearing critical mass.
"She was vulnerable! You took advantage of her weaknesses, knocked down her defenses, twisted her up in knots. Then you put that vial of alcohol in her hand in Everett Sanders's apartment.
That was like giving her a loaded gun."
"But she's an adult, not a child. And she knew what she was doing when she pulled the trigger. Your outrage is misdirected, my friend. You should be shouting at Lisl."
That did it. Bill grabbed the front of Rafe's shirt and yanked him out of the chair.
"I'm not your friend! Now I want some answers and I want them now't"
The phone began to ring. That long, protracted ring. The sound so startled Bill that he released Rafe's shirt.
Immediately Rafe stepped over to the phone and lifted the receiver. He listened for a second, then turned and extended it toward Bill.
"It's for you, Father Ryan."
Bill stumbled back. Danny Gordon's pleas echoed faintly from the receiver.
"Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease!…"
But breaking through the horror was the realization that Rafe had called him Father Ryan.