by Zoe Sharp
I knew the layout pretty well, because I’d spent the previous night there.
***
I’d gone simply to talk to him. At least, that’s what I’d told myself to begin with. Not so much talk as argue, really. I was pissed off with the way the job was unfolding and he was the only one I could shout at about it.
Ten minutes after I’d heard him go in I was outside, banging on the door. At first I thought he was avoiding me. He’d seen at dinner how annoyed I was at Whitmarsh’s automatic assumption that my sole purpose in life was to look after the kid. It was only Sean’s warning glance and his murmured, “later,” that had stopped me shooting my mouth off there and then.
I knocked again, louder this time. I was about to give it a third go when the door opened and there was Sean, wearing nothing but a towel round his hips, water glistening across his naked upper body.
“Sorry,” he said, rubbing at the back of his dark hair with another towel. “I was in the shower.” He stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come on in.”
I swallowed, the action ungluing my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “Look,” I said, my anger fleeing, “you’re busy. I can come back la—”
“Charlie,” he said, cutting me off in mid-waffle, pinning me with that deadly gaze. “Shut up and come in.”
I did as I was told almost meekly. He shut the door and turned to face me, a smile playing round his lips. I was trying not to look at the expanse of skin on view, but I couldn’t help it.
Even though he’d been out of the army for the best part of four years by that time, Sean was still fighting fit in the true sense of the word. Every lean inch of him was packed with the muscle of an athlete rather than a weight-lifter. He’d always been wide across the shoulders but he’d never used that as an excuse to bulk up.
My eyes strayed to the small scar just below the point of his left shoulder. The memory of how close I’d come to losing him hit me like a blow.
I realised Sean hadn’t moved but was just standing there without conceit watching me, watching him. I tore my eyes away, face heating, and sat down on the bed rather abruptly.
“So,” he said, “what’s on your mind?”
The flush, which had been starting to subside, flared painfully.
He laughed softly, then reached over to a chair and picked up a bundle of clothing. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll take myself out of your sight into the bathroom. You can yell at me from here.”
It was only when he was safely in the other room that my brain seemed inclined to resume normal service. “What the hell is going on, Sean?” I demanded, trying to pick up the thread of my earlier indignation. “Did you know I was going to be here as some kind of glorified nanny?”
“No.” His voice floated back to me. He’d left the door open just a slit and I could see him moving about behind it in a series of tantalising snatches. “I can’t start kicking up too much of a fuss about the way Whitmarsh is handling you, because as soon as he asks for a list of your previous jobs, we’re a bit snookered. It’s one of those difficult situations where nobody wants you without experience, but to get the experience . . .” I heard rather than saw him shrug. “You’ve no idea how much bullshitting you have to do to get started in this business.”
“So I just have to bite my tongue, is that it?” I said, aware of a weary kind of resentment.
“No,” he said again, emerging from the bathroom. This time when he appeared the towel had been replaced by a pair of dark tan chinos. But he had yet to put on a shirt, or buckle the belt. It seemed a wanton invitation.
My eyes suddenly became fixed on the chevron of dark hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his trousers. I could feel my body reacting, however much my mind told it not to.
“Keep looking at me like that, Charlie,” Sean said, his voice husky, “and talking is the last thing we’re going to be doing.”
He moved in closer, pulling me to my feet, running his fingers lightly down my arms. My skin came up in goose bumps instantly.
“I though you’d lost interest,” I managed, suddenly breathless.
He shook his head. “Oh no,” he said, rueful. “I’ve been going cross-eyed trying to let you move at your own pace, but I really think you ought to leave now, because otherwise I’m going to be so tempted to push you faster than you want to go.”
I had every opportunity to move away from him then, but I didn’t. It was time. I was ready. I stepped in closer and lifted my face to his, my voice little more than a whisper. “Who says I don’t want that, too?”
***
It was only later – much later – that we had resumed our conversation.
“To go back to an earlier subject, something’s clearly wrong out here, and I think both of us are being kept in the dark about it,” Sean said, settling so I could lie with my head resting on his shoulder and listen to his heartbeat recover its steady rhythm. Above us, I could hear the quiet rustle of the ceiling fan as it gently cooled the sweat on our bodies.
“I know,” I said. “While you were out today a taxi arrived to take Keith and Trey to the airport.”
“The airport?” Sean queried. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I spoke to the driver myself, until Keith came out and made out like he hadn’t ordered a taxi, it was all some big mistake. He was getting quite irate, though it was hard to tell if that was because the taxi had turned up at all, or because I’d intercepted it.”
“What happened?”
“Well, in the end Keith paid the guy off and he went away swearing merrily in that cheery way of disappointed taxi drivers the world over.”
I felt rather than saw Sean smile into the darkness. “So,” he said, “is Keith planning a great escape, or is somebody just trying to wind him up?”
“You think there might be something serious going on here after all?”
He shrugged slightly. “Could be.”
I started to shift round to face him. As I did so my hand brushed against something cold and hard under the pillow. I hardly needed more than that to identify the object for what it was.
“Sean,” I said, my voice calm, “why have you got a gun under your pillow?”
“It could just be that I’m pleased to see you,” he said. He eased away from me, leaning across to flick on the bedside light.
I blinked for a moment, propping myself up on one elbow while he retrieved the gun. It was a SIG Sauer 9mm pistol, a P225 – similar to the one I’d used in Germany but without the double-stacked magazine, giving it a slimmer profile.
“How the hell did you manage to get that onto a plane?”
He grinned at my consternation. “I didn’t,” he said. “I was working out here a couple of years ago and I left this behind. All I did this time was detour on my way from the airport and pick it up.”
“Does Gerri Raybourn know you’re carrying?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, “and that’s how I aim to keep it. I learned the hard way never to play all your aces at once.”
“So,” I said, “what happens now?”
“Well give me a minute, Charlie,” he said, mocking. “I’m only human.”
I shot him what I hoped was a stern glance. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“OK, OK,” he said, laughing. “I’ve arranged a meeting with Ms Raybourn tomorrow while you’re baby-sitting Trey at the theme park. By the time you get back I should have some answers, otherwise we’re on the next plane out of here.”
“Just do me one favour.”
“What?”
I nodded to the SIG. “Take that with you,” I said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Don’t worry,” Sean said. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere without it.”
***
Now, I walked into the room that had been Sean’s and looked around me. It was as empty and as lifeless as my own, as though he’d never been there at all. On impulse I picked up one of the pillows, just to see if it still
smelt of him. I sat down on the bed and pressed my face into the cotton cover. The faintest trace of his aftershave still lingered somewhere in the fabric.
But as I went to put the pillow down again I noticed something just sticking out from under the sheet. When I pulled the covers back there it was.
Sean’s SIG.
I picked the gun up slowly, slipped the magazine out and saw that it was fully loaded. And suddenly a rush of emotion came rocketing up out of the depths of nowhere and hit me in the face. Tears exploded. I sat there, on my own in a deserted house, clutching a gun and sobbing my guts out.
Sean had said he wouldn’t leave the house unarmed, and that could mean one of two things. Either he’d been taken prisoner, against his will.
Or he was already dead.
Four
I left the house the same way I got into it, locking the kitchen door behind me and wiping the handle once I was done. My search had told me everything and nothing. But had it been worth the risk?
At least I’d managed to find a fresh shirt. None of my own clothes were where I’d left them, but I remembered seeing something crumpled up behind the small bar by the pool. I made a small detour through the lanai and found it, a rather tatty man’s striped shirt with a white collar and cuffs. Still, it didn’t look so bad once I’d put it on and rolled the sleeves back three or four times. It had the added advantage that at least it didn’t have blood on it.
The tails were long, almost down to the bottoms of my shorts, but I left them untucked nevertheless. At least that way it covered the fact I’d shoved Sean’s SIG into the back of my waistband. The gun was momentarily chill against my skin but it took on body heat fast. I couldn’t deny that the weight of it was reassuring.
I’d splashed cold water on my face in the bathroom before I’d ventured out. It had taken down some of the puffiness around my eyes and the redness out of my nose. Still, it didn’t take a genius to spot I’d been crying like a spoilt kid. I had eleven years on Trey, but right now I felt little better than his baby sister.
I slipped through the smallest gap in the gates, closing them behind me. Outside, beneath the dappled shade of the rows of palm trees, the street looked as quiet and deserted as it had done when I’d arrived. I tried to use its very normality to calm my shattered nerves.
I’d almost made it back to the Mercury when a man’s voice froze me in my tracks.
“Hey there!”
After the briefest hesitation, I kept walking, picking up the pace. The man called again and this time I heard his footsteps approaching behind me.
Just for a second, I considered the wisdom of drawing the gun but dismissed it just as quickly. The SIG was my safety net. My last resort. I wasn’t quite that far gone yet.
I halted, turned, trying to contrive a faintly irritated expression. Behind me a trim upright guy in his early sixties was hurrying down the paved driveway of the house next door.
Livingston Brown III had seemed an unlikely friend for a computer nerd like Keith Pelzner. I’d wondered if their paths would have crossed at all except for the accidental fact that the company Keith was working for had rented the property next to Brown’s, but the two of them seemed to hit it off strangely well.
Brown was a tall slightly gangling figure, tanned to the colour of a pecan and just as wrinkled. He was one of those perfect adverts for why you should use sunblock and big floppy hats in this kind of climate. He wasn’t wearing either today and the perspiration pasted thin wisps of grey hair to his scalp.
“Hi there,” he said, puffing, as he caught me up. “Thought I’d missed ya. Carly, isn’t it?”
“Charlie, sir,” I said. “Hello, Mr Brown.” I kept my voice polite but noncommittal, as though he was keeping me from some minor task.
Now he’d got me, he seemed a little lost as to what to do with me. “I saw the truck this morning,” he said at last. “Couldn’t get over the fact that Keith never said he was moving out sooner.” He pulled out a voluminous handkerchief and blew his nose loudly, peering at me over the top of it. “So, you forget something?”
“You saw them go?” I said, sharper than I’d intended. “What time was this?”
“Oh, well now, lemme see,” he said, so slowly I could have rattled him. “Well, I do believe I’d just had my midmorning swim. Fifty lengths every day, come rain or shine, did I ever tell you that?”
“Yes sir,” I said dryly. He’d mentioned his daily constitutional on both of the occasions we’d met over the last couple of days, but I’d already worked out that men as rich as Livingston Brown III did not accurately recall names or conversations with their neighbours’ staff unless you gave them undue reason to. It wasn’t rudeness particularly, he’d just had money for so long that he couldn’t remember what it was like talking to people who dared interrupt his ramblings.
Now, he beamed at me and stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Well now, yes, I heard the sound of the truck arriving and I came out for a little look-see, ‘cos it’s pretty quiet round here. Must have been right around eleven.”
Eleven. Right about when Trey and I were getting off the wooden coaster. Right about when Oakley man had been casually lingering in the gift shop and observed the kid’s temper tantrum. Right about when he’d smiled at me with such apparent sympathy and friendliness.
“Who was with the truck?” I demanded now. “Did you see them?”
Brown frowned, unaccustomed to quick-fire questions. I wondered how he’d managed to accrue the personal fortune through shrewd property dealings that he was rumoured to possess. Maybe he just delegated to smart cookies and let them get on with it.
“Well, just a couple of ordinary-looking guys, I guess,” he said, in the kind of doubtful tone that discredits eyewitnesses the world over. “Like I said, I came out and there was this U-Haul truck backed right on up to the front steps.”
“And you didn’t see any sign of Mr Pelzner?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, surprising me. “Keith came on over to the fence when he saw me out front. Seemed in kind of a hurry – not like him. He’s always been a laid-back guy, y’know? Anyways, he said as how he was having to move out kinda unexpected.”
“Did you see anyone else – Jim Whitmarsh, or Sean?”
Brown rubbed the back of his head, fluffing his hair up from its comb-over style across the top of his scalp. “Sean?” he repeated, puzzled. “Oh, you mean the Brit guy? No, no, I don’t think so. Come to think of it, I didn’t see any of the usual guys either. Just the ones with the truck, I think.”
A nondescript beige Buick saloon turned in to the end of the street then and started to slowly cruise down in our direction. Inside were two suited men wearing sunglasses. Neither had their seatbelt on. They both had big necks and square jaws and could possibly have been double glazing salesmen who liked to work out a lot, but I wouldn’t have bet on it.
“Did Mr Pelzner say where he was going, or give you a forwarding address?” I asked quickly, starting to edge towards the Mercury. If it hadn’t already been telling me it was time to go, my mind was now screaming “leave!” repeatedly in my inner ear.
“No, no he didn’t, which I must admit I thought was kinda strange, but he did ask me if I’d pass on a key to the realtor. He seemed kinda nervous, y’know? On edge. Said they’d be stopping by this afternoon to see about leasing the place out for the summer. I guess they might know. I think I maybe have a card some place in the house if you wanna come in for a mo—”
“No!” I said. The Buick had come to a halt about halfway down the street. It was hard to tell if the two men were watching me, because I couldn’t see their eyes, but they were sitting very, very still.
“No,” I said again, less vehement this time as I took in his offended face. “Look Mr Brown, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have to go now. I don’t want to keep you standing out here.”
He was around four or five strides away at that point. Too far for me to be sure of getting him into cover if things
went bad now. We were both way too exposed.
“Oh, well OK,” he said, still looking a little put out.
Just get back inside, you stupid old git, I wanted to yell at him. Get off the battleground! I breathed in, rolled my shoulders. Under my shirt the SIG had already stuck to my back with sweat that wasn’t entirely brought on by the heat. It wasn’t in a holster and I wondered how long it would take me to bring it out.
Longer, I calculated grimly, than it would take the two men to draw and fire the guns I just knew they were carrying. If you can’t run then take the passenger down first. He’s more likely to get out of the car faster than the driver.
I took another couple of steps towards the Mercury, keys already out in my hand, when Brown called a final question.
“Say, young lady, weren’t you supposed to be looking after Trey today?”
Christ, the old boy had a death wish. “Erm yeah,” I said, glancing back at him as I wrenched the car door open. “I’ve left him with a friend.” I thought of Joyce. At the moment she was the nearest thing I’d got.
“Oh,” Brown said, clearly nonplussed at my cavalier attitude towards proper childcare. “Oh well, that’s OK then I guess. You take care now, Carly.”
I didn’t bother to correct him again, just jumped in and cranked the Mercury into life. In the rear-view mirror I saw Brown shaking his head as he turned back into his own driveway. I waited until he’d got another few steps towards comparative safety and hoped that, if the guys in the Buick were as dodgy as I feared, they wouldn’t mistake the old guy as one of my allies and go after him as well.
I needn’t have worried on Brown’s account. As soon as I put the car into gear I had their full attention. I tried not to make direct eye-contact as I passed within a few feet of the other car but it was impossible not to let my eyes slide sideways, just a little.
The two men were craning to see into the Mercury, lifting up in their seats as they did so, making no bones about it. It was immediately obvious that I wasn’t the one who interested them. They were checking to see the kid wasn’t hiding in the back. When they saw he wasn’t they swung the Buick in a tyre-squealing circle and hooked it onto my tail.