The Shadow Man Read Online Free

few inches to one side on the desk; suitcase at a slightly different angle on the chair; clothes hanging in the closet where I’d left them, but not quite the way they were on the hangers.”
    “That could be either imagination or maid service,” Andrews said.
    “The maid had already been there that morning. And there’s more. Yesterday the waitress at the restaurant where I usually ate supper told me someone had been in earlier asking for me. She described Martin Karpp.”
    “Generally or specifically?”
    “Generally,” Larsen conceded.
    “What does Karpp say about all this?”
    “I haven’t seen him since I talked to the waitress, but I’m sure his reaction would be much as it was when I asked him about the Paul Liggett message. He wasn’t at all surprised that Liggett was active outside the asylum walls. You must remember, to Karpp, Liggett is a separate entity with his own life.”
    That thought somewhat boggled Andrews’ mind. “But the trial made Karpp fully aware of his various personalities.”
    “Karpp is, to say the least, ambiguous about that. He’s an ambiguity in a lot of respects. How much of it is feigned—if any—is difficult to perceive.”
    Andrews clasped his hands behind his head, leaned farther back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. There were no answers written on the finely cracked pale plaster; there hadn’t been any yet. The swivel chair squealed gratingly as he lowered his gaze and sat forward to rest his elbows on the desk.
    “What are you trying to tell me, Dana?” he asked softly. “That one of Karpp’s personalities is moving around in flesh and blood form outside the asylum walls and threatening you?”
    “I don’t know,” Larsen said. He nervously adjusted his glasses with a tap of his forefinger at the bridge of his nose. “That’s what bothers me. I’m a practical man, a scientist. This seems to go beyond the realm of logical theory, both in what’s been happening and in my primal, dominantly emotional reaction to it. That’s why I’m concerned, why I’m here.”
    “What can I do?”
    “You can make sure there’s no possible way Karpp could be slipping out of that asylum.”
    “Slipping out? My God, Dana, it’s a maximum-security federal institution!”
    “That’s what they say there, Jerry. And I’ll admit security’s tight. But it isn’t like a genuine federal prison.”
    Andrews tapped a pencil on his desk pad, staring at the faint series of dots the point was leaving. “Do you really think Karpp could be getting out?”
    “No.”
    “But you might be wrong.”
    Larsen nodded. “It’s a world full of variables. And right now I don’t know what else to do about the situation.” He shifted his weight in his chair, crossing his legs to reveal a pattern of creases from when he’d sat during his flight and through time circling Dulles International. “I thought you ought to know about the matter, unexplainable as it is.”
    “I’m glad you came,” Andrews told him, meaning it.
    “I’m not a man who believes in premonitions, not without provable basis, but I have a bad feeling about this.”
    “I can see that. I’ll look into it, Dana, I really will.”
    Larsen stood, rubbed his hands together as if he were unexpectedly cold. “I know you’re busy—”
    “The hell with that,” Andrews said. “Lunch is open.”
    “Thanks,” Larsen said, “but I’ve got a flight out at twelve twenty. I made it a turnabout trip so I could get back as soon as possible.”
    “You’re going back? To the asylum?”
    “Just for a few more days. I have to finish up. Then I’ll go to New York and organize what I’ve got.”
    Andrews didn’t know exactly what to say. He still wasn’t sure in what light he should view Larsen’s visit. “I’d be careful—feeling the way you do.”
    “There’s probably nothing to be careful of,” Larsen said, but his smile was stiff. “Talking to you has made me feel easier.”
    “But not foolish, I