Dangerous Games (44 page)
Authors: Michael Prescott
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural, #Thrillers, #Crime, #Suspense, #Contemporary Women, #Science Fiction, #Space Opera
“Sure I was.”
“Not in the tunnels. If you had been, he would’ve gotten the drop on you. And don’t tell me it was just luck.”
Tess thought of the phone call that had saved her life. “No,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t luck.”
They rode into the midday glare. Crandall flipped down the visor to shield his eyes. “Hear the forecast?” he asked. “No more storms. Sunshine as far as the eye can see.”
She looked at him. He was so young. “Don’t believe it, Rick. It always rains eventually.”
“All the more reason to enjoy the blue skies while they last.”
Tess couldn’t argue with that. She turned up the radio and let the music take her home.
Author’s Note
The Los Angeles storm-drain system is every bit as labyrinthine and treacherous as this story indicates, and has been put to good use in many previous thrillers, among them the film noir classic
He Walked By Night
, the great science-fiction movie
Them!
, and Michael Connelly’s outstanding debut novel,
The Black Echo
. Although it’s true that some foolhardy adventure seekers enjoy “infiltrating” storm sewers, this pastime is more than perilous—it can be suicidal, even on days without rain. Don’t try it. The life you save will be your own.
The two protagonists in
Dangerous Games
have appeared separately in two earlier books of mine. Tess McCallum is featured in
Next Victim
, while Abby Sinclair is the focus of
The Shadow Hunter
.
The fragments of Hegel quoted in the story are generally accurate, though sometimes slightly reworded for easier reading. The poem containing the famous line “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” is “Invictus” (1875) by William Ernest Henley. The quotation from the Book of Judges that serves as an epigraph is from the King James Version of the Bible.
I’d like to thank all the people who helped me with
Dangerous Games
, especially: Doug Grad, senior editor at New American Library, who first suggested having a couple of my previous characters team up; copy editor Tiffany Yates, who caught a lot of mistakes; my agent, Jane Dystel of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, who handled the project with her trademark expertise and care; and Miriam Goderich, also of DGLM, who offered helpful comments and counsel.
As always, readers are invited to visit my Web site at www.michaelprescott.net, where you’ll find information on my other books, as well as interviews, essays, deleted material from some of my earlier titles, and an e-mail address if you’d like to contact me.
