Dead Aim by Thomas Perry Page B

acknowledgment, but he seemed not to have necessarily agreed. He remained silent as he pulled back onto the residential street and turned in the direction of the highway back to their hotel.
    “Well, what do you think?” Lydia asked. “This might be a good place to quit.”
    Mallon looked surprised. “Why do you say that?”
    “You tried to save a girl. You wanted to know why she wasn’t willing to be saved. Now you know: her boyfriend was killed, she felt depressed, and she never got over it.”
    Mallon seemed to be comparing the assertion with some interior standard. “I’m not ready to quit. I don’t think I know enough yet.”
    Lydia considered. “You don’t think the sister told us the truth?”
    “Well,” said Mallon, “I think what she told us was true. I don’t imagine for a second that she told us everything she knew to be true, and I think she suspects still more that she isn’t sure is true, but may be. All of it together doesn’t seem to be enough.”
    “Has it occurred to you that some things can’t be known so completely and in such detail that there are no mysteries left?”
    “Sure,” Mallon said. “But I don’t think we’ve reached the end. We’ve just got one person’s reaction, with one point of view.”
    Lydia said, “Let’s look at it from another point of view, then: yours. We’ve just listened to her only relative. What did you hear that makes you curious? You tell me what to look at next.”
    “The relationship with Mark Romano.”
    “Fine,” said Lydia. “That’s L.A. We can be on a plane back to L.A. in an hour or two. We’ll find out what we can about Romano, and see where that leaves us.”
    The flight back to Los Angeles seemed longer to Mallon than the flight to Pittsburgh. This plane seemed to be smaller than the last, andLydia had said little since the conversation in the car. Mallon opened the subject again. “I know I’m being self-indulgent.”
    “If you know, then why are you doing it?”
    “I think it’s because I realized that for the first time in my life I actually could. I’ve seen things happen to other people, had things happen to me. I don’t think I ever really understood why most of them happened. This one I saw coming. I knew what she was trying to do, but I still didn’t understand what she was thinking, why she was doing it. I don’t, even now. This seems to me to be a chance to find out one thing that matters.”
    “I’ve known since the beginning that this isn’t just about her,” said Lydia. “When you first realized what she was doing, you felt as though you were reliving your sister’s last day, when you talked to her and couldn’t save her. You were trying to make sure that this time it came out right—that you said the right things, did the right things, and made it not happen.”
    “Maybe I was,” Mallon said. “It didn’t work. All that’s left now is knowing.”
    “What you want isn’t possible to get in one lifetime. It’s omniscience. That’s why people read books. Maybe you could take a night class or something.”
    “Night class,” said Mallon. “That’s where she met him.” He was silent for a time. “What do you think of him?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing?”
    “I heard what Sarah Carlson said. So far the only person who ever laid eyes on him seems to have thought he was a prince. I need to find out more facts before I start having an opinion of my own.”
    Lydia and Mallon rented a car at Los Angeles International Airport and drove it to the Hotel Bel-Air, then checked in. Lydia said, “I’m going to go to my room and see what I can get on the Internet. I’ll call you later for dinner.” Mallon followed a bellman to his bungalow. He unpacked his single bag, showered, changed, and went out.
    Los Angeles was more crowded and intimidating than he remembered it. He knew that was a sign that age was advancing rapidly, making him not timid exactly, but prickly and unwilling to be inconvenienced.