Advertising executives Darcy James and Sean Higgins are hunted by the police for a murder they didn’t commit. Running from the police, they hide out at the cabin of Sean Higgins’uncle in northern Michigan.

Meanwhile they are desperately trying to discover the secret of a DVD copy of one of their agency’s automobile commercials that people are being killed over.

They’ve made contact with a TV personality in Traverse City and Sean drives to the TV studio to see if he can discover the secret of the DVD that has cost so many lives.

Higgins left for Traverse City after a late supper.

It occurred to him that the meeting could easily be a trap. Snaring a wanted fugitive would be great publicity for Speilman and the station. Still, the meeting represented their last hope.

Thinner than he appeared on television, Speilman stood almost as tall as Higgins. After a short greeting, the two walked down a narrow corridor and through a steel door into one of the station's small editing suites.

"Best equipment between Detroit and Chicago," Speilman said, motioning toward a bank of monitors, recorders and assorted editing devices.

Speilman sat at the controls, facing three video monitors; Higgins took the seat next to him.

“What are we looking for?” Speilman asked.

"This whole mystery started with an editor who found something on this DVD. The commercial has a bunch of bikini-clad women standing around an Avion on a beach. I want to view it the way he might have."

"How's that?"

"First, with all those babes bouncing around in bikinis, let’s assume he wasn’t viewing the commercial for a good look at the vehicle.”

"You’re saying the headlights that turned him on weren’t on the car?”

“Exactly.”

"Let's try it." Speilman pushed a button on the console and the monitor lit up with the scene of the Avion racing along the sand. As the car slowed to a halt, the bikini-clad women ran to it. Speilman froze the frame on three faces: a blonde and two brunettes.

"You’re on the right track. Let's keep going...this time in slow motion."

Speilman pushed a button and the picture began to move slowly and the scene changed, focusing on another girl, a stunning blonde. Speilman touched a button and the screen froze. "This more like it?"

"Hold on. Did you see anything? Words? Just before this?"

"Let's see." Speilman pushed a button and the scene reversed, frame-by-frame, until...

Both men stared dumbly at the monitor. Speilman had frozen the frame to stop the action completely, but it took both a minute to realize what they saw.

There it was, just as Darcy predicted. Suddenly Higgins understood why Vince Caponi, Darren Cato and Ed Blake had been murdered. Why the people who killed them wouldn't rest until Manny Rodriguez died...and why those same people would most certainly be coming after them.

The two men stared at the screen for a long moment.

Then Higgins reached for the phone on the control panel in front of them.

Chapter 61

The clock on the living room wall told me the eleven o'clock newscast had been over more than an hour. By now Higgins could have examined that DVD fifty times.

Why hadn't he called?

I walked to the kitchen, lit a burner and started to boil some water for tea. Feeling a draft, I noticed the window over the sink open a crack. As I leaned forward to shut it, I sensed movement outside. Someone, something lurked just outside the cabin.

I switched off the overhead kitchen light and peered out into the darkness. Nothing. I turned the light back on.

A knock at the front door startled me.

I switched on the porch light. Peeking through one of three small diamond-shaped glass windows, I saw a middle-aged man bundled in a red and black-checkered hunter's jacket. I wondered if the storm door was locked. I hoped so.

As I pulled the wooden door open, I saw the visitor clearly through the storm door. A stocky man with dark hair and a thick, black mustache completely covering the space between his nose and upper lip, he smiled as he nodded a greeting.

"Hello, Miss..."

"Yes?"

"Hope it's not a bother. Saw your lights on, and my mother...Mrs. Gordon next door? She’s having one of her migraines. I wonder if I could trouble you for some aspirin."

He seemed friendly enough, and I hated the thought of the frail Mrs. Gordon suffering a migraine. I fussed with the latch on the storm door, and finally pushed it open.

"Thanks." The man rubbed his hands together as he entered the cottage. "Sure cools off fast once the sun goes down. I'm Tom Gordon." He offered his hand.

"Mary...Mary Johnson." I found the hand icy cold. If the man recognized me from the television news reports or newspapers, he didn't show it. Regardless, I didn't want to chance giving my real name.

"I'll see if I can find some aspirin." I headed for the bathroom, but the sound of the telephone brought me to a halt.

"You were expecting a call this late?" Gordon asked.

"It's...it's probably my friend. He's in Traverse City."

I could have answered the phone in the kitchen alcove, but instead walked to the back bedroom, out of Gordon's earshot, and lifted the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Darcy, Sean."

"Sean, where...what’s happening?"

"You were right about the DVD."

"What did you find?"

"The stakes are much higher than we ever imagined. Darcy, listen to this: digital discs record action at a rate of thirty frames every second. This disc, the Avion submaster, carries a message every twenty-ninth frame. The message appears so quickly, the conscious mind never sees it. But it gets implanted big time in the subconscious.”

“What message?”

“Two words: VanBuhler and leadership.”

"My god, they’re trying to corrupt the election. No wonder VanBuhler is coming on so fast. We’ve the evidence we need, Sean. Now we’ve got to get it to the right people.”

"We'll leave tomorrow. But for now, I don't want you there alone. With what we know, it's not safe."

"Sean, be serious. Where else can I go?"

"Until I get back, I want you to go over to Mrs. Gordon’s."

"That old lady? You think she's going to protect me?"

"I don't want you in that cottage alone. These people, whoever they are, always seem to be a step ahead."

"Not this time, Sean. Mrs. Gordon's son is here. I’m perfectly safe."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Gordon's son. He’s here with me. He came to get aspirin for his mother."

When Higgins spoke, the words slid down my spine like a sliver of ice, leaving me chilled to the core.

"Darcy, Mrs. Gordon doesn't have a son; or a daughter. She and her husband were childless."

Next month: The plot deepens as Sean at last discovers the secret of the DVD. Meanwhile, as third party presidential candidate Niles Van Buhler continues to climb in the polls, the election is just days away. Purchase Freeze Frame on Kindle. For info on Dave’s new thriller, Dead Lock, go to YouTube and enter: B. David Warner. And visit www.bdavidwarner.com for the first two chapters.