Amber Morn (36 page)

“Pshhh.” His lips curled.

Slowly, with defiance Darell raised his chin.

He focused through the glass once more. At least the gnarled trees on his property still looked formidable, their branches scratching windows in the wind. And his mansion looked just as severe from afar, with its black shutters and multiple wings and gables. From the outside looking in, people would never guess…

Darell turned, glared across the room at the phone near his computer. On impulse he clomped over to it, picked up the receiver. His thick forefinger hovered over the keys.

What was the number? The one he’d dialed countless times, year after year.

He lowered himself to the edge of his chair, flipped through his Rolodex.
There.

Malcolm Featherling, agent to the country’s top writers, answered his private line on the third ring. Clipped tone, terse greeting. Malcolm was always pushed for time.

“Hello, Malcolm. Just checking in to give you an update.” Darell pushed the old confidence into his voice. After all, his agent worked for
him
, not the other way around.

“Well, Darell, nice to hear from you. It
has
been three days.”

Darell blinked. He’d called three days ago? Surely it was at least a month. Maybe two.

He cleared his throat. Sounded phlegmy, like an old man’s. He hated that. “I wrote some today. Almost a page. And another yesterday. You know what they say — write a page a day, and you’ve got a novel in a year.”

He used to write
three
a year. All brilliant.

“That’s good, Darell, good…”

“Maybe I can get that contract back. Just think, Malcolm, fifteen percent of ten million is a lot of dough. I’ll make you rich. Again.”

“You do that, man, you do that. Keep up the good work.”

Darell could hear the disbelief in Malcolm’s response. The agent was patronizing him. HarperCollins had waited eight months after the accident, strung along on Malcolm’s promise that the King of Suspense would be able to write his one hundredth bestseller — the assumed milestone that had landed him on the cover of
Time Magazine
. But a worldwide publishing conglomerate couldn’t wait forever, even for Darell Brooke. Not with half the contract — five million dollars — already paid up front, and doctors advising he may never write again. The deal was cancelled. Darell had been forced to give the money back. Malcolm had to cough up his fifteen percent.

I’ll show you
,
Malcolm. Maybe I’ll even get a new agent
.

“All right. Well, got to get back to my writing. See you, Malcolm.”

Darell clicked off the line.

He sat there staring at the phone in his hand.

Just three days ago he’d called?

With a loud sigh, Darell hung up the receiver. He shifted his legs, focused on the half-empty page on his screen. An emptiness he used to love to fill. Now it mocked him. His killer was still on his feet, frozen. The psychiatrist watched from his chair.

What were they supposed to do next? Where had he been headed with this story?

What
was
the story?

He had to do this. Somehow.

Oh, to regain half the concentration he’d once had. A fourth. A tenth. The thought of spending day after day in this mansion-turned-prison, in this office, unproductive and used up filled him with an emptiness as deep as staring into the face of black eternity. Like Satan and his demons cast from dazzling heaven to the dungeons of hell. Despairing of their loss and hatching vain empires of exacting their revenge on God.

Darell lowered his head. Such melodrama was usually beneath him. But not today. At this moment, steeped in depression, it seemed a worthy comparison.

He straightened and dredged up his self will. Placed his fingers on the keyboard, straining to turn the gears of his mind. One more page, just one. He’d give anything to finish this book. To gain back his reputation, his
life
. Anything.

The gears refused to move.

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