Death's Excellent Vacation - By Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner Page 0,65

resist. Me, on the verge of safe and sound. To bring you to me. Because you put my face everywhere, I couldn’t come to you to stop you. I couldn’t get near a boat or a plane or anything else. I needed you to come to me so we could have our chat.” He crossed his arms. “I need you to shut up about me, Nora.”

“I can . . . now that you’re found.” She nearly felt giddy. That little bitch Molly would be gone. The Kirks would see that she’d only meant the best. And having broken this case open, having personally brought their son home, she would be the undisputed queen of cable news.

“I’m not found. It’s time for the world to forget about me. Move on to the next tragedy.”

“But I don’t understand.”

Jason smiled; there was something wrong with two of his teeth. Small, pointed, in the lush curve of his mouth.

Nora said, “Oh.”

“The woman who made me—she left me. She didn’t like the sudden attention. She came to Sint Pieter to feed. She liked me so she left me . . . like she is. Not just dead. But you put my picture everywhere, you talked about me nonstop, I had to hide in the hills, far away. Live on rats, stray cats, rabbits. It doesn’t quite do, Nora. I’ve nearly starved to death because of you. I want to go where there are beautiful young things pulsing with life. Las Vegas. London. New York. Which means you have to let me go.”

Nora’s mouth worked. This was an even better story. This would change human history. Agree to whatever he wanted but get a photo, get his voice on tape. Her own camera was on the desk. Her gaze flicked to it. “Sure. Okay. Whatever you want. I’ll stop. I’ll never talk about you again.”

Jason said, “Let’s have everyone talk about you for a change.”

“TONIGHT, on The Molly Belisle Show—the one-month anniversary of the death of Nora Dare.” Molly gave her best steely-gazed look to the camera. “Nora Dare plunged to her death from her hotel suite in Sint Pieter while pursuing answers in a missing-person case. Now she is the story. Was it suicide, driven by an insane need to keep covering a story? Was she murdered by an islander who blamed her for the drop in tourism? Where are the police in their investigation—and are they dragging their feet to find the killer of a brave journalist? Stay tuned!” The music boomed; the opening credits showed Molly standing before her logo with a confident head tilt.

In Las Vegas, the hunter that was once Jason Kirk clicked off the television with a smile and headed down to the casino. He’d managed to stow onto a boat from Willemstadt to Panama, drink a bit from the crew without drawing attention, and hunt his way quietly up to America. His picture wasn’t on the news anymore, and now he had dark hair. Life—or afterlife, to be exact—was good. People never looked at him too closely, unless he was looking hard at them, and then they forgot. Or they died.

In Marysville, Sint Pieter, Annie Van Dorn watched her television and fought a little shudder. That Dare woman had been crazy. She rubbed at the little raw patch on her throat that had taken forever to heal. She was tired but not as exhausted as she used to be, and she no longer saw beckoning backyard shadows that both frightened and thrilled her.

In Los Angeles, Hope Kirk got up from the couch and thumbed off the television. She opened a beer—Jason’s favorite brand—and went to his room, sat on his bed, drank half her beer. She stared at the frat party photos and the track awards and the science fair ribbons, the remnants of her lost boy’s life. She felt drained of tears. She finished the beer and went to her own bed. Gary was already asleep. She curled close to her husband and wondered if she would dream of Jason tonight. Her night-mares, where he pleaded for her help to escape a trap, had vanished the night Nora Dare died. Hope didn’t dream of Jason anymore, and she could not decide if that was comfort or curse.

Seeing Is Believing

L. A. BANKS

L. A. Banks, recipient of the 2008 Essence Storyteller of the Year Award, has written more than thirty- five novels and twelve novellas in multiple genres under various pseudonyms. She mysteriously shape-shifts between the genres of romance, women’s