Once we got to Savannah, Georgia, I left the F-150 and its driver in the parking lot of a crowded McDonald’s and proceeded on foot to a bus stop. A mile down the road, I got off the bus and flagged a taxi that took me to the Savannah airport, where I’d left my Cadillac.

The taxi dropped me off near the west end of the airport parking lot. I scanned the cars and searched for the telltale glow of an aura belonging to someone on a stakeout.

The area looked safe. The few people I saw were encapsulated in auras swirling with petty worries. No one cared about me. But I had to assume that my cover was blown and that Goodman knew who I was and what I was up to.

I walked around my Cadillac. A film of dust covered the body and windows. I stood still for a moment and cleared my mind. I held my hands up, fingers raised, at mid-chest level. A faint breeze brushed against my skin, but nothing tingled. My sixth sense didn’t detect any threat.

Didn’t mean I wasn’t in danger. In a previous case, I had an electronic bug planted on me that I had had no idea was there. My car could now have a listening device or a GPS transmitter stuck on it. I got on my hands and knees and inspected the undercarriage. I ran my hand inside the fender wells and the bumpers. Plenty of dead, crusty bugs, but no electronic ones.

As I stood and brushed myself off, I felt disappointed. All this time I’d been looking over my shoulder and priming my muscles for a desperate fight. I could’ve flown back here from Kansas City first-class and spared myself the long drive and a numb butt.

Maybe Goodman and his cronies had no clue about me. Maybe they were so fixed on their plan-whatever it was-that they didn’t bother to notice I was sneaking up on them.

I was done with that. I knew where Goodman should be, and I would go straight to him. No more hide-and-seek. I started my Cadillac, tuned to a satellite radio channel, and cruised directly to the Sapphire Grand Atlantic Resort.

Goodman’s image loomed foremost in my mind. I was sure he had killed Karen Beck and was responsible for me taking a swim in the Missouri River and hiking through the sewers of Kansas City. I rehearsed scenarios, how I would corner him and punish his body.

I passed the first guardhouse entrance. Down the road, orange cones funneled traffic to a security guard beside the second guardhouse. More guards and a phalanx of the Gator utility vehicles waited on the shoulder. Why all this security?

The guard waved me to a halt. He asked if I had a reservation, which I didn’t. He said the hotel was booked up and closed to the public for the weekend. He wouldn’t elaborate and asked that I clear the entrance.

A convoy of white Chevy Suburbans with tinted windows lined up behind me. I couldn’t hypnotize the guard in front of so many witnesses, so I turned around and left.

I stopped up the road and examined the convoy with my naked vampire eyes. Everybody had a red aura with the typical range of emotions. Curiosity. Anticipation. Anxiety. Boredom. Nothing that threatened me.

Why was I turned away and the others let in? What was going on? Feeling not so much frustrated as puzzled, I checked into a multistoried motel off South Forest Beach Drive. I brought in my extra bags from the Cadillac and changed into fresh clothes and put in new contacts.

Despite the heightened security, I was getting back in the Grand Atlantic. However, I couldn’t let myself get complacent about Goodman. Maybe I was tracking all the wrong clues. What if this involved something supernatural that I wasn’t familiar with? What if my pursuers were in plain sight and I didn’t know? Even though I saw no evidence of being followed or spied upon, I remained wary as a cat sneaking through a kennel.

After I inspected my motel room, I sat still in one of the chairs to let my sixth sense magnify the sounds in the motel. A distant toilet flushing. The gentle hum of the ventilation system. The conversations of guests walking down the hall. Nobody made noise like they wanted to kill me.

I got my spare laptop and searched online for a mention of Karen Beck. The Kansas City Star reported that she’d been the victim of an attempted robbery. Her assailant escaped when he ran off the highway to avoid a police roadblock and crashed into the Missouri River. His body hadn’t yet been recovered. No kidding, because here I was. There was no description of the suspect-again, that would be me, though I hadn’t harmed Karen.

Sooner or later I was going to meet Dan Goodman face-to-face. We’d settle the matter of whether he was behind the murders of Gilbert Odin, Marissa Albert, Karen Beck, and quite possibly all those aboard the crashed airliner. And, of course, what was his part in this scheme that threatened the Earth women?

I turned off the laptop, clicked on the TV, and channel surfed. At this time in the afternoon, my choices were soap operas and talk shows. Most of the commercials were for prescription medications. Corporate America had figured out that turning the nation into a herd of hypochondriacs was great for the bottom line.

The present commercial showed a woman standing before a mirror. She looked dowdy and frustrated. An aura magically surrounded her, like a shimmering cocoon. “Luvitmor,” a woman’s soft voice repeated in the voice-over, “from Rizè-Blu.”

The woman stepped clear of the aura (obviously, the creative talent behind this effect had no experience with real auras). She was now beautiful, confident, and very busty.

“Reclaim the real you with Luvitmor, the only nonsurgical breast-enhancement pill guaranteed to increase your bust size.”

Then the disclaimers: occasional headaches, mood swings, muscle soreness, and heightened libido.

Hold on.

Heightened libido? Bigger boobs? Rizè-Blu was going to rake in millions. Make that billions.

Not surprisingly, the next commercial was for another Rizè-Blu product, Olympicin. “Free yourself from the tyranny of the razor.” A woman marched out of a gloomy dungeon and onto the sunlit sidewalk of the big city. Her bare legs glistened like polished bronze from under the hem of her miniskirt.

I switched channels to a talk show bubbling with women’s laughter. Four women, in their early thirties, I guessed, sat on a stage beside their male partners. Each woman was dressed like she was about to step out for the evening: slim gown, high heels, hair done up. And each had enormous breasts that threatened to avalanche over the tops of their gowns. The women described their use of the trifecta of Rizè-Blu’s new cosmetic drugs. NuGrumatex to restore the lushness of their hair. Olympicin as the world’s most effective depilatory. (Close-ups on their legs.) And with the help of a lingering camera shot on their ample cleavages, the women claimed that Luvitmor was the only proven way to enhance a bustline without surgery.

The petite blonde of the group explained that she had been an A-cup; an accompanying photo showed her in a loose and dismally flat halter top. With a shimmy of her shoulders, she demonstrated how proud she was to be the owner of a pair of new FFs.

She and the man beside her shook their clasped hands in the air like they had just finished a race together. “Sex is now more than amazing,” she announced with unbridled perkiness. “It’s spectacular.”

Thanks for sharing. What’s next? Details about the wet spot, aka the winner’s circle?

Forget AIDS, cancer, and the other diseases that ravaged the Third World. Rizè-Blu gave society lusher hair. Smoother skin. Bigger boobs. And, ladies, there’s more: Rizè-Blu can guarantee a libido to match your new bra size.

The elevator on my floor pinged, making a sound as faint as that of a tiny bell. The doors clunked open.