by Tom Savage
Ivan closed his eyes and sagged back in his chair, thinking of his own role in Seth Carlin’s mad game. When he opened his eyes again, he saw that O’Hara was studying him intently. Then the former agent took a breath and changed his tone completely. He got down to business.
“I asked you here today because I thought you’d want to be in on this.”
Ivan watched him. “In on what?”
In answer, O’Hara pointed over at the woman and the recorder. “I’ve got some circumstantial proof, but I don’t have any real evidence. So I’m doing to him what he did to Matthew Farmer. I’m playing with him. Tracy is helping, because he likes her, and he doesn’t seem to have any other friends.”
“He doesn’t,” Ivan agreed.
“We’ll have to get him to talk. I think he wants to talk. Maybe he’ll tell Tracy something, in time.”
Ivan stared. “Why would he want to talk about it?”
O’Hara shrugged. “Same reason he came up with the scavenger hunt. Same reason he’s writing a book about it. Hell, the same reason he killed his family in the first place, using the Family Man pattern. He loves games. Part of him wants us all to think Matthew Farmer was the one and only Family Man—but part of him wants us all to know just how clever he is.”
Ivan thought about it. It made sense, he supposed, as much as it would ever make sense. He leaned forward.
“What can I do to help you?” he asked.
“Well,” O’Hara said, “your part in this is probably the toughest. I want you to go on just as you are with him. He mustn’t suspect anything. You have to stay with him, help him, do whatever you did before you came here tonight. Do you think you can do that, Ivan?”
Ivan nodded. For Anna, he could do anything. Even this. But only on one condition.
“He’s mine,” he said.
O’Hara shook his head. “No.”
“You overlooked my doing Farmer. You can overlook this, too.”
“No,” O’Hara said again. “We’re not going to kill him.”
“You’re not,” Ivan said. “I am. He’s mine.”
Ronald O’Hara regarded him in silence for a long moment. Ivan waited for his reply. The woman across the table continued to record the remote conversation.
At last, O’Hara sighed. “We’ll see.”
That was good enough for Ivan. “So what now?”
O’Hara leaned back and reached for his beer.
“We wait,” he said.
NEW GAME
TOM SAVAGE is the author of four suspense novels: Precipice, Valentine, The Inheritance, and Scavenger. He wrote two detective novels under the name T. J. Phillips, Dance of the Mongoose and Woman in the Dark. His short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and anthologies edited by Lawrence Block, Harlan Coben, and Michael Connelly. His bestselling novel, Valentine, was made into a Warner Bros. film. Raised in the Virgin Islands, he lives in New York City, where he worked for many years at Murder Ink, the world’s first mystery bookstore. www.tomsavagebooks.com.