Dead Famous by Carol O'Connell

Author:Carol O'Connell [O'Connell, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

KEY IN HAND, CHARLES STOOD IN THE OPEN doorway to the reception area. For the third time in as many days, he was startled to see his new tenant, the former hermit. Or, rather, he saw Riker’s back as the man walked down the hall toward the rear offices of Butler and Company—while Mallory, another unexpected sight at this early morning hour, was making a hasty retreat, heading toward the front door with uncommon speed and ignoring the fact that Charles was barring her way.

“Just a moment,” he said, calling her attention to himself, the immovable object in her path, and it annoyed her that he would not step aside. Oh, how unfortunate. “I gather that Riker hasn’t seen your recent additions to the wall.”

“No,” she said, still advancing on him.

Ah well, that would explain so much: her agitation, her strong desire to get the hell out of here. She never lost momentum, fully expecting him to get out of her way before they collided, but he had seen her do this trick too many times, and he stood his ground. Now he was looking down at her upturned face, such a lovely face, but definitely not a happy one.

“So Riker surprised you,” he said. “You know he’s going to have some questions about what you’ve done.”

Mallory took the long way round him. Closing the door behind her, she said, “You can fill in for me.”

Right.

Resigning himself to damage control, Charles walked down the hallway and paused by the open door to his business partner’s private office. Riker was scanning the half of the cork wall that was all Mallory’s work, a neat square composed of photographs all perfectly aligned and alternating with sheets of text. The overall effect was somewhat like a chessboard. Among the upper rows were candid shots of jurors who were still alive when captured by their photographers. Pinned alongside them were e-mails and letters from Ian Zachary’s fans. In the lower region were pictures with the same faces, eyes closed this time, and the predominant color of their photographs was blood red. These were the postmortem portraits of people lying on morgue dissection tables. Previously, the only corpse pictured on the wall had been the murdered FBI agent, Timothy Kidd, Riker’s own contribution from the suitcase of Dr. Apollo.

“’Morning,” said Charles, trying to put a good face on what was already shaping up to be a bad day. He noted the man’s paleness and ill-concealed anger. Well, this was no improvement in Riker’s condition. Mallory’s game plan had a nasty glitch.

“Where did she get all the photographs?”

“Most of them came from Ian Zachary’s computer,” said Charles. “Mallory hijacked it. Apparently, Zachary’s fans are not above stealing things like morgue records to make him happy. And, of course, to win prizes.”

The detective concentrated on the last row. Here were all the portraits of a surviving juror, Dr. Johanna Apollo. She was the only one on the wall to be represented from every angle. In the final

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