Dead Man s Hand Page 0,4

were backing Hartmann. The news cameras panned the Atlanta public parks where they had gathered by the thousands to noisily show the nation their depth of support for the senator.

Brennan watched a few interviews with the joker on the street, then turned down the volume on the television set and turned his attention to the computer screen. He wished .

Hartmann and his joker supporters well, but the day was already getting old and he had his own worries.

His schedule had come up on the screen, and it promised to be a full day. Archer Landscaping was in the middle of two jobs. Brennan was building a hill garden with a tsutai ochi, a miniature waterfall trickling over a bed of emplaced rocks, for a Japanese-American banker who had just moved into the area, and he was also constructing a multiterraced shrubbery with a fish pond for a doctor who lived down the road. Joachim Ortiz, Brennan's foreman, would boss the crew at the doctor's while he took care of the other job. Japanese gardens were his personal specialty.

Brennan leaned back in the chair, still mildly surprised at the contentment he felt as he contemplated the upcoming day. Abandoning death and destruction and returning to the country to nurture life was the best thing he had ever done. He felt cleansed, content, and at peace for the first time in years. Sometimes he felt guilty for setting aside his vendetta against Kien and the Shadow Fist Society, but over the last few months the guilt had been coming less frequently and with less intensity.

He took his copy of Sakuteiki, Tachibana Toshisuna's classic treatise on garden design, from his reference shelf, but before he could look through it to get some ideas for the new job he stopped to stare at the image of a well-remembered woman that filled the television screen. He turned up the volume.

" . . mysterious woman known only as Chrysalis was found dead this morning in the office of her nightclub, the Crystal Palace. The police have so far refused comment, but an ace of spades found on her body has linked the slaying to the mysterious bow-and-arrow vigilante known as Yeoman, who was responsible for at least fifty deaths in 1986 and early 1987."

Brennan was still staring at the screen as Jennifer Maloy walked through the wall, damp from her shower, carrying two cups of tea.

"What's the matter?" she asked when she saw the expression on his face. "What happened?"

Brennan turned to her, the coldness back in his eyes, the hardness back on his face. "Chrysalis is dead."

"Dead?" she echoed, unbelievingly. "Murdered."

"How? By who?" Jennifer asked as she sank down into the chair facing him. She handed him one of the cups. He took it mechanically and put it aside.

"Report didn't say. But her killer tried to frame me by putting an ace of spades on the body."

"Frame you? Why?"

Brennan looked at her for the first time. "I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

"The police-"

"The police think I did it."

"That's insane," Jennifer said. "We haven't been to the city for over a year."

They'd been so busy that it hadn't seemed that long since Brennan had called off his vendetta against the Shadow Fist crime lord named Kien and left New York City with Jennifer. They'd spent some time traveling, some time resting and healing and learning to love one another, then settled down outside of Goshen, a small town just north of New York City. Jennifer had begun writing what she hoped would become the definitive biography of Robert Tomlin. Brennan, weary of dealing in death, wanting to build rather than destroy, had started a landscaping business. He found that he had a genuine talent for horticulture, and Jennifer was happy researching and writing her book. They'd been quite content with their quiet, peaceful, isolated existence.

"Someone set me up," Brennan said in a low voice. "Who?"

He looked at Jennifer. "Kien."

She leaned back, considering it. "Why?"

Brennan shrugged. "Maybe he found out that Chrysalis knew he was head of the Shadow Fists. Maybe he thought that he could get rid of her and me at the same time."

"The police would never find you if we stay here."

"Maybe," Brennan conceded. "But maybe they'll never find Chrysalis's real killer, either."

"We're building something here," Jennifer said. "We can't just let it go."

Let it go. It should be easy, Brennan told himself, to let the past go, to live for the present and the future. But he couldn't. Someone had