Lynn Michaels

by The Dreaming Pool

  “I thought you were sitting with Gage.”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Because he said you were. He told Ethan and me at breakfast he had dibs on the seat next to yours.”

  “Oh,” Eslin said stupidly, just as she heard a car approaching.

  “Well, finally.” Ethan sighed irritably behind her.

  Turning around, Eslin looked up the road where she saw Gage’s blue Jeep careening over the hill.

  “Can we get on now?” she asked Ethan.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Good-bye, Doc.” Eslin gave him a hug, then smiled at Rachel. “Thank you for—”

  “No, thank you for all you’ve done and for being so brave.” Rachel swept her into a quick embrace, then stepped back and closed her hands tightly around her wrists. “Take care of them for me.”

  And bring them back to me safely, she finished inside her head.

  “I will,” Eslin promised, smiling and waving at Doc over her shoulder as she climbed the cabin steps and ducked into the plane.

  She’d expected the rich-looking paneling on the walls, the small bar at the rear of the compartment, and the six high-backed, Kelly-green suede seats. As Ramón slid into one on the right side of the aisle, Eslin took the window seat on the left and dug her sunglasses out of her purse. She slid them over her nose a half second or so before Ethan leaned through the hatch ahead of Gage. The pilot followed and drew up the ramp behind him.

  “Here you are.” Ethan reached into the inside pocket of his blue tweed jacket as he stopped in the aisle between Eslin and Ramón and handed them their tourist cards. “The consulate cautions you to keep them with you at all times. Buckle up,” he added as he slid past Ramón into the window seat.

  The jet engines roared to life as Eslin reached for her seat belt and Gage sat down next to her. He was wearing jeans, an open-necked blue shirt, and a denim jacket. He smiled at her, his gray eyes invisible behind a pair of reflective aviator-style sunglasses.

  “Morning,” he said, his voice barely audible over the scream of the engines.

  “Good morning,” Eslin answered, her eyes fixed on her belt as she buckled it and the plane rolled off the apron onto the runway.

  “How’d you sleep last night?” Gage asked, leaning close to her right ear and pressing his shoulder against hers.

  His body was very warm, his voice low and seductive. So, Eslin thought, glancing up to smile at him, turnabout is fair play.

  “Just fine, thank you,” she lied smoothly, as the jet reached the far end of the strip and paused.

  So did Gage, for just an instant, then frowned slightly and leaned away from her to buckle his belt. Eslin suppressed a grin with her fingertips and turned her head to look out the window as the jet took a sudden leap forward.

  It gathered speed at an alarmingly rapid rate as it started back the way it had come. Through the green-and-gold plaid carpet under her feet, Eslin felt the steadily increasing vibration, and heard the near shriek of the engines as the jet shot down the runway and lifted effortlessly off the ground. Her ears popped as they gained altitude, but cleared once the plane banked and leveled off.

  “And how did you sleep?” she asked, leaning toward Gage as she unbuckled her belt.

  Not at all, and his eyes had looked it when he’d dragged himself out of bed at four-thirty; that was why he wore sunglasses. He was pretty sure Eslin wore them for the same reason, but two could play that game.

  “Like a log,” he lied, settling comfortably back in his seat.

  Within ten minutes he was asleep, his head drooping toward Eslin. Smiling softly, she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, saw the glimmer of the neck chain in the gap of his open collar. Did he dream? she wondered, then turned toward the window to watch the clouds.

  Gage had no memory of falling asleep, but woke with a start when Eslin shook him awake and told him to buckle up, they were landing. Stiff and yawning, he straightened in his seat. As he drew his belt across his waist and fastened it, he leaned toward Eslin and the window and watched the plane descend.

  There was nothing at all lush about the wisps of landscape he saw through the clouds as the jet dropped lower. It was scrubby and arid-looking between the low, reddish-gray hills ringing the approaching airstrip. He was glad he’d slept through the Sierra Madre Occidental; mountains and heights were not among his favorite things.

  The landing was smooth with just a bump or two. Once the pilot had let down the debarking ramp, Gage stretched out of his seat and stepped back to allow Eslin, Ramón, and Ethan to precede him, then followed his brother down the aisle and the steps.

  There was only one man on the macadam to meet them—Kroenke, the Mike Hammer look-alike from L.A., the detective Gage had punched when he’d said Ganymede might come home in pieces. Gage felt his muscles tightening as he stared at him, but Kroenke ignored him, moving toward Ethan and leading him toward a small terminal building nearby.

  Fine with him. All Gage cared about now that they were on the ground was getting to Mexico City, collecting Ganymede, and getting the hell out of here. He hardly noticed anything else, not the breeze lifting his hair off his forehead, nor the quiver in Eslin’s right arm as he brushed past her hurrying to keep pace with Ethan and Kroenke.

  For a half second or so Eslin thought the light brush of Gage’s arm against hers was deliberate, his own not-so-subtle way of reminding her of last night’s kiss. She glanced up at him sharply, but realized as he passed her that he hadn’t even noticed that he’d bumped into her.

  The intense, preoccupied frown on his face made her wonder if he felt uneasy too. She would swear that someone was watching them. Since she’d stepped off the plane and the dry breeze had ruffled her hair, she’d felt a certain uneasiness crawl slowly up her back. A snatch of Marco Byrne’s letter flickered through her mind—This means you will be watched the entire time. Do not forget this.—and she shivered as Ethan opened the glass door ahead of her and she stepped into the terminal.

  Their luggage was waiting for them at the customs booth. Less than ten minutes later, with their tourist cards stamped with their date of entry, they followed Kroenke across a scuffed dark linoleum floor and exited through the double glass door on the opposite side of the building. A two-year-old metallic-green Chevrolet Malibu sat at the curb. Eslin slid into the backseat with Ramón while Gage squirmed into the front seat with Ethan, and Kroenke watched over the porter loading their luggage into the trunk.

  “Where’s our horse trailer?” Gage asked as the detective slid in behind the wheel.

  “Right where I found it.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “F’chrissake why?” Kroenke spat back irritably. “It’s clean as a whistle.”

  “I still want to see it,” Gage replied stubbornly. “Right now.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Ethan muttered as he glanced over his shoulder at Eslin. “Do you mind?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “All right, then,” he sighed to Kroenke. “Let’s go take a look at the trailer.”

  Swearing under his breath, the detective eased the Chevrolet away from the curb.

  The Roundtree Stables trailer, white with stripes of Kelly green and gold, sat in the back of a U-Haul lot surrounded by row after row of orange-and-silver trailers. Gage was out of the Chevy and striding toward it across the graveled lot before Kroenke had shut off the engine. Eslin watched him let down the tailgate and walk up the ramp as she and Ramón crunched through the gravel behind Ethan and Kroenke.

  He came out of it as the four of them approached and walked slowly around the outside of it with his hands in his trouser pockets. Eslin climbed the ramp and leaned inside the gloomy, semi-dark interior.

  “Phew.” Ramón wrinkled his nose beside her. “It stinks like that stuff my mother uses to clean the bathrooms.”

  Antiseptic, Eslin thought. It was indeed cleaner than a whistle. For another moment or two she lingered at the top of the ramp, th
en turned away and walked idly around the trailer with Ramón beside her and Kroenke standing a short way off looking smug.

  Once she’d completed her halfhearted inspection, she sat down on the fender protecting the left side wheel. She could hear Gage and Ethan’s muffled voices inside the trailer again, and the chink of rock on rock as Ramón wandered a few feet away kicking at the gravel.

  Tipping her head back against the side of the trailer, Eslin looked at the flat, green-gray plateau and the distant, smooth-sloped hills.

  “Dead boring view, isn’t it?”

  Eslin stiffened at the sound of Kroenke’s voice. She didn’t like him, despite his polite how-do-you-do when Ethan had introduced them on the runway. For no good reason that she could think of, the man reminded her of the alligator appliquéd on his polo shirt.

  Blinking in the brilliant mid-afternoon sun, Eslin turned her head and saw him leaning against the trailer next to her. She couldn’t see his face clearly and was glad.

  “I think it’s kind of pretty,” she said, as she turned her back to him, hoping he’d get the message that she didn’t want to talk to him.

  “So you’re the lady mind-reader, huh?”

  Eslin bristled, then decided it wasn’t worth the time or trouble to correct him.

  “That’s right,” she said flatly.

  “Heard a lot about you.” He moved closer to her. “So how about it, honey? Can you tell what I’m thinking?”

  Oh, boy, could she. As Eslin whipped around on the fender to invite him to go to hell, a shadow fell between her and the sun glaring over his left shoulder.

  “Hey, Kroenke, guess what?” Gage asked. “Even I can tell what you’re thinking.”

  The detective wheeled around, and Eslin caught a flash of Gage’s fist. Yelping, she sprang off the fender, barely managing to leap clear of Kroenke’s backward sprawl into the gravel. He landed with a grunt, and Eslin turned, wide eyed and livid, toward Gage.

  “Who the hell d’you think you are?” she yelled.

  Feet planted wide apart, Gage stood sucking the knuckles of his right hand and glaring at the spread-eagled detective. Shaking his head groggily, Kroenke struggled up on his elbows just as Ramón pelted up beside Eslin and Ethan came around the tailgate.

  “Oh, good Christ.” He sagged against the side of the trailer on his elbow. “This expedition’s getting off to a roaring start.”

  “I hope that you broke your goddamned hand!” Eslin seethed at Gage.

  “I think I did.” He smiled at her and flexed his knuckles. “But it was for a good cause.”

  Shaking with anger, Eslin watched him walk off toward the car, then dug in her purse for tissues as Ethan and Ramón helped Kroenke to his feet. His nose was swollen and trickling blood. She handed Kroenke the tissues and turned to follow Gage, who was striding quickly past the Chevy toward the front of the lot.

  “Ethan.” She said his name urgently and glanced at him over her shoulder.

  “Let him go,” he answered, his voice as hard as his eyes as he glanced up at Gage’s retreating figure.

  “But, Ethan,” she objected, “I don’t think—”

  “He knows the name and the address of our motel,” he cut her off, as he and Ramón helped Kroenke walk past her. “Trust me, Eslin, I know my little brother.”

  Chapter 21

  A gritty, blue-gray twilight was just beginning to settle over the red-tiled roof and gaudily striped umbrellas ringing the pool when Gage found his way to the motel.

  Ceiling fans whirred softly overhead, the pattern of their flat, slowly turning blades gleaming on the polished tile floor of the lobby. At the registration desk he gave his name to a dark-faced clerk with brilliant teeth, took the key he gave him, and turned left down a cool, well-lit corridor. He stopped outside number twenty-seven, slid the key into the lock, and opened the door.

  A fat ceramic lamp squatting on a squarish nightstand bathed Eslin’s small, heart-shaped face in a garish yellow glow. She sat on the edge of the double bed, and his heart leapt hopefully until Ethan straightened out of a half slouch against a desk on the right side of the room.

  “Well, finally,” he said impatiently.

  “Did Kroenke quit?” Gage asked as he kicked the door shut behind him.

  “No.”

  “I would’ve.”

  “You may have noticed,” Ethan said stonily, “that almost no one else in the world does things the way you do.”

  “Well, now that you mention it—”

  “We’ve received another letter,” Ethan interrupted. “It was waiting for us when we checked in.”

  Gage froze midway through shrugging out of his jacket.

  “What’s it say?”

  “We’ve been waiting for you before opening it.” Ethan’s mouth twisted into a frown as he picked up a white business-size envelope from the desk and stepped into the center of the room. “You might recall that we’re all in this together.”

  “Where’s Ramón?” Gage asked.

  “Playing video games in the arcade,” Eslin told him, her voice sounding strained.

  “I’m here, so open it.”

  Ethan did, with a quick tear of a fourteen-carat Cross pen plucked out of his breast pocket. The flap shredded and tiny scraps fluttered to the floor along with two blue rectangles of paper. He bent to pick them up, tucking his pen back in his pocket as he did, and looked them over as he rose. A muscle in his jaw began to twitch as he shifted his gaze to the envelope, withdrew and opened the single trifolded sheet inside.

  “ ‘So far you have done well,’ “ he read tightly. “ ‘So well, in fact, that I now give you something in return for your six million dollars—the name of my accomplice in the burning of your barn and the breakin at Miss Hillary’s home, along with proof of his treachery. You may do with him as you wish—I have no further use for him. Until Mexico City, vaya con Dios.’ “

  “You go to hell, you son of a bitch,” Gage growled.

  “He’s enclosed two canceled checks,” Ethan said grimly, as he looked up at him. “Both for five thousand dollars, both drawn on a Los Angeles bank, signed by Paul Johnson and made out to Edward Kroenke.”

  From the corner of his eye Gage saw Eslin shoot off the bed, heard her gasp, and then nothing else for a second or two over the blood pounding in his ears. Thanking God that he hadn’t broken his hand after all, he moved toward the door where Eslin stood with her back pressed against it. He stopped suddenly as their eyes met across the few feet of tiled floor separating them.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said, her voice low but steady. “If you start a fistfight here, the manager will call the police. You’ll end up in jail, and Ganymede will end up dead.”

  The roar in his head subsided. He hadn’t thought of Ganymede, only of Eslin lying pale and limp on the bloodied blue sheets.

  “She’s right,” Ethan said behind him. “Besides, there’s a better way to handle Kroenke.”

  Eslin didn’t move, but stood blocking the door as Gage turned and watched his brother pick up the phone and asked the switchboard for room seventy-two.

  “Kroenke, Ethan Roundtree here,” he said smoothly. “My brother and I have talked it over, and we’ve decided that the authorities in Santa Barbara really should have a look at the trailer…. Yes, yes, we know all that, but we’d feel better about it nonetheless. I’d like you to drive it back, and I’d like you to leave right away…. Well, of course there’ll be a bonus for you…. Yes, I’ll be glad to see you off…. Meet you in the lobby in twenty minutes.”

  He replaced the receiver in its cradle, swore softly under his breath, then picked it up again and asked the switchboard to connect him with a long distance operator. He gave the area code and number at Roundtree, then waited for the call to go through.

  “Josefina,” he said brightly. “Oh, yes, he’s fine…. Playing Pac-Man at the moment…. Yes, I’ll have him call you later…. Josefina, is Doctor Fitzsimmons there?… Yes, please…. Gerald, this is Ethan.
Where’s my mother?… Thank God for Psychic Research Society meetings. Listen, Gerald, we’ve found the viper in our bosom.” He told him quickly about the letter and the checks. “Kroenke should hit the border no later than mid-afternoon tomorrow. Can you arrange a welcoming committee for him?… Yes, there’s an express mail office here someplace, Byrne used it himself. We’ll find it and get the checks and the letter off to you just as soon as I wave good-bye to Kroenke…. Oh, no, no, I’m doing this with the little bastard’s blessing…. Yes, we’re all fine. My love to Mother, I’ll call tomorrow night.”

  He replaced the receiver in its cradle. “So much for checking references,” he said heavily as he looked up at Gage. “Satisfied?”

  “Not really,” Gage said, “but I suppose it’ll have to do.”

  “I’m sure the desk clerk can direct you to the closest express mail office,” Ethan said crisply.

  As usual, he made it sound more like a suggestion than a point-blank order; still Gage bristled until he saw Ethan’s hands tremble as he refolded the letter and the checks into the envelope. Gage bit down hard on the angry retort forming on his lips.

  Ethan handed him the envelope. “Address it to Gerald Fitzsimmons in care of Roundtree. I’d prefer that neither Mother nor Josefina see it.”

  Nodding, Gage turned toward the door as Eslin backed away from it and Ethan followed him. Gage looked over his shoulder and frowned.

  “I’m not going to waylay him in the parking lot.”

  “I know you’re not,” Ethan smiled, “ ‘cause I’m going to be behind you every step of the way.”

  As the door swung shut behind them, Eslin caught the edge and held it open. Once their echoing footsteps had faded on the tiles, she slipped past the door, made sure the knob was turned to lock, and pulled it shut behind her.

  Her own room lay four doors farther down the corridor. With shaking fingers she slid her key out of her pocket, opened the door, and locked it behind her. After tossing the key on the nightstand, she tugged a pillow free of the pale chenille spread and shoved it over her head as she sprawled face first and trembling on the bed. Her head was splitting, absolutely splitting. It felt as if it were about to explode, and had felt that way since Gage had punched Kroenke.