As he stood, briefly undecided, he heard sounds at last, from upstairs. Jeff slipped back into the passage, watching the head of the stairway. Nobody went by there, but after a few seconds the footsteps stopped. Then music suddenly was audible. A TV or radio set had been switched on.
That simplified matters.
Jeff moved across the hall and up the stairs, then followed the music along a second-floor passage to the right. Daylight and the music spilled into the passage through an open doorway. He stopped beside the door a moment, listening. He heard only the music. Cautiously he looked in.
A girl stood at one of the bedroom’s two windows, looking out, back turned to Jeff; a dark-haired slender girl of medium height, wearing candy-striped jeans with a white blouse. A portable TV set stood on a side table.
Jeff came soundlessly into the room, gun pointed at the girl, and drew the door shut behind him. There was a faint click as it closed. The girl turned.
“Don’t make a sound,” Jeff said softly. “I’d rather not hurt you. Understand?”
She stood motionless at sight of him. Now she swallowed, nodded, blue eyes wide. She looked younger than he’d expected, a smooth-featured teen-ager. There shouldn’t be any trouble with her. He went to the TV, keeping the gun pointed at the girl, turned the set off.
“Come over here,” he told her. “Away from the window. I want to talk to you.”
She nodded again, came warily toward him, eyes shifting between his face and the gun.
“Be very good, and I won’t have to use it,” Jeff said. “Who else is in the house?”
“Nobody right now,” Her voice was unexpectedly steady. “They’ll be coming in later, during the afternoon.”
“Who’ll be coming in?”
She shrugged. “Some of my family. There’s to be a meeting tonight. I don’t know just who it’ll be this time—probably seven or eight of them.” She glanced at the watch on her wrist, added, “Tracy should be back in around an hour and a half—about two o’clock. The others won’t begin to show up before five.”
“So Tracy should be back by two, eh? Who’s Tracy?”
“Tracy Nichols. Sort of my cousin by marriage.”
“You and she live here?”
The girl shook her head. “Nobody fives here permanently now. My Uncle George owns the place. At least, I think it’s his property. It’s used for meetings and so on.”
“Who looks after it?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Wells are the caretakers. They left yesterday after they got everything set up, and they won’t be back till tomorrow night when we’re gone again.”
“Why did they clear out?”
“They always do. The family doesn’t want other people around when they have a meeting.”
Jeff grunted. “You got secrets?” The girl smiled. “Oh, there’s a lot of talk about business and so on. You never know what’s going to come up.”
“Uh-huh. What’s your name?”
“Brooke Cameron.”
“Where do you live?”
“Place called Renfrew College. Two hundred miles from here. You’re Jeff Clary, aren’t you?” She’d added the question with no slightest change in inflection, and Jeff was jolted into momentary silence. Watching him, she nodded slowly, as if satisfied.
“Take away the beard—yes, that’s who you are, of course!” Interest was kindling in her face. “Pictures of you were shown in the newscasts, you know. But you were supposed to be heading north.”
Jeff had heard as much on a car radio ten hours ago.
“Pretty sharp, the way you walked out of that maximum security spot,” Brooke Cameron went on. “They said it’s only happened once before there.”
“Maybe you talk a little too much,” he told her. “If you know who I am, you should have sense enough not to play games.”
Brooke shrugged. “I’m not playing a game. Of course, you might kill me, but I wouldn’t be any use to you then. I’d like to help you.”
“I bet you would.”
“Really! I’m a sort of crime buff, and you’re a very interesting criminal. That’s not all, either!” Brooke smiled engagingly. “So, first, what do you need here? The plane’s your best chance out, and it got a full tank this morning. Can you handle it?”
“No,” Jeff said after a moment. “Can you?”
“Afraid not. They didn’t want to let me learn how for another two years. But Tracy’s flown it sometimes. She took it out today to get it gassed. You’ll have to wait till she gets back.”
“I could take your car,” Jeff remarked, watching her.
“No car here now, Jeff. Tracy brought me in with her early this morning and went on to the city to pick up some stuff she ordered. Either way you want to go, you’ll have to stay till she gets back. The only thing you’d find in the garage is an old bicycle, and that’s probably got flat tires. You can go look for yourself.”
“I might do that.” Jeff studied her curiously. “You’d like to help me, eh?” He nodded. “Well, let’s try you. This should be good hunting country. Any guns in the house?”
“Not sporting guns,” Brooke said promptly. “But there could be a loaded revolver in Uncle George’s desk. He usually keeps one there. His room’s down the hall.” Her gaze flicked over the gun in Jeffs hand. “Ammunition, too,” she said. “But it won’t fit the gun you have.”
Jeff grunted. “You’re wondering whether this one’s empty?”
“Well, it might be.” Her blue eyes regarded him steadily. “You put two bullets in the guard you shot, and you wouldn’t have found any spare shells on him. There was more shooting, and then they must have been pushing you pretty hard for a time. If this, isn’t a gun the couple you kidnapped happened to have in their car, it could very well be empty.”
Jeff grinned briefly. “Are you wondering now where that couple is?”
Brooke shook her head. “No, not much. I mean you’re here by yourself, and I don’t think you’d let them get away from you.” She shrugged. “Let’s go look in Uncle George’s desk.”
The revolver was in a desk drawer, a beautiful shop-new .38. Brooke looked on silently while Jeff checked it and dropped half a dozen spare shells into a jacket pocket.
“So now you have that,” she remarked. “You want to shave and clean up next, or eat? A ham was sent in for dinner.”
“What makes you think I want to do either?” Jeff asked dryly.
She shrugged. “We can go sit in a south room upstairs, of course,” she said. “You can watch the road from there and wait for Tracy to drive up. But that’ll be a while. She’ll call, anyway, to let me know when she’s ready to start back.”
Jeff laughed. “That’s convenient, isn’t it? I’ll try the ham.”
He hadn’t realized until he began to eat how ravenous he was. Then he concentrated savagely on the food, almost forgetting Brooke sitting across from him at the kitchen table. When he’d finished and looked over at her, he saw the worn brown wallet she’d laid on the table. Jeff stared at it, eyes widening.
“How—”
“I’m quite a good pickpocket,” Brooke said absently. She frowned at the wallet. “Told you I’m a crime buff—and I don’t just read about it.” She touched one of three irregular dark stains on the wallet with a finger, looked at Jeff and pushed the wallet across the table to him. “I got it while we were going to Uncle George’s room. So Mr. and Mrs. Rambow didn’t get away, did they?”
“No, they didn’t get away,” Jeff said harshly. He hadn’t noticed her brushing against him or touching him in any manner as they went along the passage, and the thought of her doing it without letting him catch her made him uneasy. “And they shouldn’t have tried,” he went on. “Their car got smashed up enough while they were about it that I couldn’t use it anymore. It’s down in a nice deep gully back in the hills where it isn’t likely to be found very soon, and they’re inside. Now you know.”
Brooke brushed back her hair. “I really knew anyway,” she said. �
��You have a sort of record, Jeff.”
Anger faded into curiosity. “Aren’t you scared?”
“Oh, yes, a little. But I’m useful to you—and I’m not trying to get away.”
“I’d like to know what you are trying to do,” Jeff admitted. “Whatever it is, there’d better be no more tricks like that.”
“There won’t be,” Brooke said.
“All right.” Jeff tugged at the shoulder of his jacket. “Are there clothes in this spooky house that could fit me?”
Brooke nodded. “Uncle Jason’s just about your build. He’s got a room upstairs, too. Let’s go see.”
Jeff stood up. “What kind of place is this?” he asked irritably. “A home away from home for any of you who happens to feel like it?”
“I guess it’s used like that sometimes,” Brooke said. “I don’t know everything the family does.”
Uncle Jason’s room was at the south end of the house. It was equipped sparsely and with the neat impersonality of a hotel room. Several suits hung in plastic sheaths in the closet and two pairs of shoes stood in a plastic box on the closet shelf. The shoes would be a bit large for Jeff, but a relief after the cramping boots he’d been wearing. He decided any of the suits should fit well enough, and he found an electric shaver. He peered out a window. No vehicle was in sight, and anyone coming could be spotted minutes away. All good enough.
He hauled a straight-backed chair away from a table, turned it facing the window. “Come here and sit down,” he told Brooke. She’d been watching him silently as he moved about, not stirring herself from the position she’d taken up near the passage door.
She came over now. “You want me to watch the road?”
“Just sit down.”
She settled herself in the chair. Jeff said, “Now put your arms behind you.” He fished a piece of rope out of a pocket.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly.
“I’ll be busy for a while,” Jeff said. “I don’t want to worry about you.”
Brooke sighed, clasped her hands together behind the chair. Jeff looked down at her a moment. Brooke Cameron bothered him. The way she was acting didn’t make sense. It wasn’t just the matter of the wallet, though that had been startling. He’d suspected at first that she was trying to set a trap for him while pretending to be helpful, but he didn’t see what she could attempt to do, and it didn’t seem to fit in with telling him where he could find a loaded gun. Perhaps she was hoping help would arrive. He didn’t feel too concerned about that possibility. He’d be ready for them.
He could put an abrupt end to anything she might have in mind by slipping the rope around her slender neck; but that would be stupid. If some unexpected trouble arose before he got out of here, a live hostage would be an immediate advantage, and he might still find her useful in other ways.
He fastened her wrists together, drawing the rope tight enough to make it hurt. She wriggled her shoulders a little but didn’t complain. He knotted the end of the rope about a chair rung below the seat, grinned at her. “That’ll keep you safe!”
He washed his hands and face, shaved carefully and put on Uncle Jason’s suit and shoes, interrupting what he was doing several times to come back to the window and study the empty road. When he’d finished, he went downstairs and found a door that opened into the garage. There was a bicycle there, as she’d said, and no car, though the garage had space enough for three of them. Jeff returned to the top floor.
Brooke looked around as he came into the room.
“I suppose you’ll be going to Mexico,” she remarked.
His eyes narrowed. At it again—and she happened to be right. “Sounds like a good first stop, doesn’t it?” he said.
She studied him. “You’ll need a good paper man to fix you up once you’re down there.”
Jeff laughed shortly. “I know where to find a good paper man down there.”
“You do? Got the kind of money he’s going to want?”
“Not yet.” There wasn’t much more than a hundred dollars in the stained brown wallet. “Any suggestions?” he asked.
“Twenty-eight thousand in cash,” Brooke said. “I keep telling you I want to help.”
He stiffened. “Twenty-eight—where?”
She jerked her elbows impatiently. “Get me untied and I’ll show you. It’s downstairs.”
He didn’t believe her. He felt an angry flush rising in his cheeks. If it was a lie, she’d be sorry! But he released her.
She got up from the chair, rubbing her bruised wrists, said, “Come along. Have to get keys from my room,” and went ahead of him into the passage.
Jeff followed watchfully, close on her heels, looked on as she took two keys from a purse. They went back to the stairway, down it to the central hall on the ground floor. Brooke used the larger of the keys to open a closet behind a section of the hall’s polished oak paneling. A sizable black suitcase stood inside. Brooke nodded at the suitcase.
“The money’s in there.” She offered Jeff the other key. “You’ll have to unlock it.”
Jeff shook his head.
“We’ll take it to your Uncle Jason’s room before we look at the money,” he told her. “I’ll let you carry it.”
“Sure,” Brooke said agreeably. “I carried it in here.”
She picked up the suitcase, shut the closet, and walked ahead of Jeff to the stairs. The way she handled the suitcase indicated there was something inside, but something that wasn’t very heavy. It could be twenty-eight thousand dollars, but a variety of rather improbable speculations kept crossing Jeff’s mind as he followed her upstairs. Was the thing rigged? Would something unpleasant have happened if he’d unlocked it just now? He shook his head. It wasn’t at all like him to engage in nervous fantasies.
Nevertheless, he found himself moving a few steps back from the suitcase when he told Brooke to put it on the carpet and open it. She knelt beside it and unlocked it, and nothing remarkable occurred. She opened the suitcase and Jeff saw folds of furry green material. “What’s that?” he asked.
“My cape. Dyed muskrat. The money’s under the clothes.” Brooke took out the green cape, laid it on the floor, added several other items while Jeff watched her motions closely.
“There’s the money,” she said finally.
Jeff nodded. “All right. Take it out and put it on the table.” Brooke glanced over at him with a quick grin. “Don’t trust me yet, do you?”
“Not much,” Jeff agreed.
“You should. That’s my money I’m letting you have.”
“Your money, eh?”
“Well-sort of. I stole it.”
“That I can believe,” Jeff said. “Get it up on the table.”
Brooke took six slender stacks of bills from the suitcase, laid them side by side on the table and moved back. “Count it!” she invited, then looked on as Jeff riffled slowly through the stacks.
“Where did you steal it?” he asked.
“Man named Harold Brownlee-city councilman. He has a home in the suburbs. The money was in his den safe. I picked it up two nights ago.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“No, not just like that,” she said. “It was worked out pretty carefully. Twenty-five thousand was bribe money on a land development racket. I don’t know about the rest—probably just a little something Brownlee wanted to have on hand, like people do. We knew when the bribe payoff was to be and where he keeps that kind of cash between his trips out of town to get it deposited.”
“How did you know?” Jeff put the last bundle down. It was twenty-eight thousand dollars and a little more.
She shrugged. “Family intelligence. How? They don’t let me in on that kind of thing yet. But they did let me do the Brownlee job by myself—well, almost by myself. Tracy insisted on being a lookout at the country club where the Brownlees were that night. She’d have let me know if they started home before I finished.” Brooke added with a trace of resentment, “It wasn’t necessary. If t
hey had come back early, they wouldn’t have seen me.”
Jeff was staring at her. An hour ago, he would have considered it a crazy story. Now he simply wasn’t so sure. He was about to speak when he heard a tiny sound, like the tinkle of distant fairy chimes. “What was that?” he asked sharply.
“Just Tracy,” said Brooke. “She wants to talk. I guess she’s ready to start home.” She tapped her wristwatch. “Two-way transmitter,” she explained. “Tracy has one just like it. You want me to talk to her?”
Startled, Jeff hesitated. The chimes tinkled faintly again. Now it was clear that Brooke’s little watch was producing the sound.
“Go ahead,” he told her. He added, “You’d better remember what not to say.”
Brooke smiled. “Don’t worry! You’ll have to stand close if you want to hear Tracy. They’re made so you can talk privately.” She slid a fingernail under a jeweled knob of the watch, lifting it a scant millimeter, gave it a twist. “Tracy?” she said, holding the watch a few inches from her ear. Jeff moved over to her.
“I’ll be on my way back in just a few minutes,” the watch whispered. “Have there been any calls?”
“No,” Brooke said. “Didn’t know you were expecting any.” Her own voice was low but not a whisper.
“I’m not really expecting one,” the ghostly little voice said from the watch. “But I remembered Ricardo wasn’t sure he could make it tonight. He said he’d phone the house early if he couldn’t come, so we’d be able to get someone else to give us a quorum.”
Brooke winked at Jeff, said, “Well, he hasn’t called yet, so he’ll probably show up.”
“Right. See you soon. ’Bye.”
“ ’Bye,” said Brooke. She pushed down the knob, told Jeff, “That switches it off again.”
“Uh-huh.” Jeff scratched his chin. “How long will it take Tracy to get here now?”
“Forty minutes probably. Not much more. It’s a good road most of the way, and she drives fast.”
“How old is she?”
“Twenty-four. Seven years eight months older than I am. Why?”
“Just wondering.” Jeff held out his hand. “Let’s see that thing.”
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 256