the riot, when she wanted me to save her from the violence of the mob, she took the face she had always shown to me: Andrea's."
" I didn't kill your sister, Ms. Morgenstern. I'll plead guilty to thinking of her as my fantasy lover, but that's all."
"Your sister was an ideal for me. I wouldn't have harmed her at all. I couldn't."
It can't be.
Sara remembered all the strange links she'd found in the months after she'd first seen the videotape of Succubus's death. Sara had thought that she'd escaped the cloying Andrea worship of her parents, that she'd left her murdered sister behind her for the rest of her life. Succubus's face had shattered all that. Even after she'd shakily written the article that would eventually win her the Pulitzer, she'd thought it had been a mistake, a cruel trick of fate. But Hartmann had been there. She'd known all along that the Senator was from Ohio. She discovered later that not only was he from Cincinnati, but he'd lived nearby, been a classmate of Andrea's. She'd done more research, suddenly suspicious. Mysterious deaths and violent acts seemed to plague Hartmann: in law school, as a New York City councilman, as mayor, as senator. None of them were ever Hartmann's fault. There was always someone else, someone with motive and desire. But still ...
She dug further. She found that five-year-old Hartmann and his parents had been on vacation in New York the day Jetboy died and the virus was loosed on the unsuspecting world. They'd been among the lucky ones. None of them had ever shown any signs of having been infected. Still, if Hartmann were a hidden ace, "up the sleeve" in the vernacular...
It was circumstantial. It was flimsy. Her reporter's instinct had screamed "Objectivity!" at her emotions. That hadn't stopped her from hating him. There was always that gut feeling, the certainty that he was the one. Not Roger Pellman, not the others who had been convicted, but Hartmann. For the last nine years or more she'd believed that. Yet Hartmann didn't seem dangerous or malign now. He stood there patiently-a plain face, a high forehead threatening to recede and sweating from the fierce sun, a body soft around the waist from years of sitting behind administrative desks. He let her stare, let her search his gaze unflinchingly. Sara found that she couldn't imagine him killing or hurting. A person who enjoyed pain in the way she'd imagined would show it somewhere: in his body language, his eyes, his voice. There was none of it in Hartmann. He had a presence, yes, a charisma, but he didn't feel dangerous--
Would he have told you about Succubus if he hadn't cared? Would a murderer have opened himself that far to
someone he didn't know, a hostile reporter? Doesn't violence follow everyone through life? Give him that much credit. "I... I have to think about this," she said.
"That's all I ask," he answered softly. He took a deep breath, looking around the sun-baked ruins. "I should get back to the others before everyone starts talking, I suppose. The way Downs is snooping around me, he'll have all sorts of rumors started." He smiled sadly.
Hartmann moved toward the temple stairs. Sara watched him, frowning at the contradictory thoughts swirling inside her. As the senator passed her, he stopped.
His hand touched her shoulder.
His touch was gentle, warm, and his face was full of sympathy. "I put Andrea's face on Succubus and I'm sorry that caused you anguish. It's also plagued me." His hand dropped; her shoulder was cool where he'd been. He glanced at the serpent's heads to either side. "Pellman killed Andrea. No one else. I'm just a person accidentally caught up in your story. I think we'd make better friends than enemies."
He seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if waiting for a reply. Sara was looking out to the pyramid, not trusting herself to say anything. All the conflicting emotions that were Andrea surged in her: outrage, an aching loss, bitterness, a thousand others. Sara kept her gaze averted from Hartmann, not wanting him to see.
When she was sure he was gone, she sank down, sitting with her back against a serpent column. Her head on her knees, she let the tears come.
At the bottom of the steps Gregg looked upward at the temple. A grim satisfaction filled him. Toward the end he had felt Sara's hatred dissipate like fog in sunlight, leaving behind only a faint trace of its presence.