Right now all of those things faded to the background. The important thing was that he not be caught in the middle of it. There had been nothing he could do for Stephenson, and a call to 911 for help could well have forced him into a situation where he would have to identify himself to the police. They would want to know why he was there. Why she had shot herself in front of him on a darkened sidewalk several hundred yards away from her house. Why his rental car was parked just across the street from it.

What if someone, a neighbor maybe, had seen him sitting in the car and then confronting Stephenson when she came home and following her when she ran off down the street? The questions would be nagging and ugly. He had no proof of anything Caroline had said and if he told the truth his story would seem incredible at best and the police would probe deeper. All he needed was for them to begin doubting who he was and look into it. If they did they might well open the door to the past, one that could turn loose the dark forces in the Los Angeles Police Department still hunting him. Men who hated him for what had happened in L.A. those not-so-many years ago and were still trying to track him down and kill him. It meant he had to keep as far away from all this as possible yet still remain close enough to stay on top of it.

In England he had a new name and a new life as a landscape architect. It was a life that he had worked hard to achieve and revolved around the design and planting of beautiful gardens. For all the sentiment he might have had about returning to his roots and his native land, staying here and moving back into a world of fear and violence was the last thing he wanted. But he had no choice. In her own way Caroline had asked him to find out who was responsible for her death and for the deaths of her son and husband and the reason why.