Glancing down, she saw that her hands were once again curled into fists in her lap.
“Life’s a bitch,” Debbie said.
Julie suddenly, totally agreed. “Amen.”
There was a pause as he sped up to pass a lumbering semi. Then he glanced at her.
“Listen, next time you feel like following your husband on one of his nocturnal adventures, don’t. You want him followed, call a professional.”
If he was trying to distract her from her own gloomy thoughts, he succeeded.
“A professional?” She almost hooted. “A professional what? Husband follower?”
“Private investigator. You hire one, he gets the goods on your husband for you. It’s a lot less messy than doing it yourself, believe me. And a lot less dangerous for you.”
“A private investigator?” Julie wrinkled up her nose doubtfully. “I wouldn’t know how to go about finding one. It seems kind of risky just to look one up in the yellow pages. And—well, you know how things are around here. Everybody’s related to everybody, or knows everybody, or something. Word would get out. There’d be gossip. Sid would find out.” Julie shuddered.
“Not if you got somebody you could trust.”
“There’s nobody I trust. Not when it comes to Sid.” It was so true that there was a tinge of bitterness in her voice. Sid was a Carlson, and a Sidney, and in South Carolina the Carlsons and the Sidneys, along with the Pughs and the Pettigrews and the Hughleys, were God. He was related, by blood or marriage, to half the population. The other half, like her own less-than-pedigreed family, just didn’t count.
“You can trust me.”
“You?” She glanced at him in surprise.
“I’m the McQuarry half of McQuarry and Hinkle, Private Investigators.” He said it almost apologetically. Julie’s eyes widened.
“You’re a private investigator? Are you serious?”
“Serious as a grave.”
“I never would have guessed.” Julie realized she still sounded incredulous. Debbie—a private investigator? Turning the notion over in her mind, Julie realized that it was no more mind-boggling than picturing him as a bank clerk. In fact, less. Everybody had to have a job. “Do people actually hire you to spy on their husbands?”
“All the time.” The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Wives, too. You’d be amazed at how many spouses cheat. Sometimes I think most of ’em do. What you’re going through isn’t anything out of the ordinary, believe me.”
That was so depressing that Julie was momentarily silenced. She didn’t say anything more until a big green sign just a few hundred yards ahead jolted her back to reality.
“This is the exit!”
She thought he was going to miss it—she’d given the warning way too late—but he was already pulling into the appropriate lane as she spoke. Of course, she’d told him the first Summerville exit. Good thing he’d remembered.
The Blazer rolled down the ramp, paused at the red light at the bottom, then headed into the sleepy bedroom community of Summerville.
The tiny, picturesque town had an old-resort feel to it. The streets were wide and perpetually shady, lined with huge bearded live oaks and masses of azaleas. The historic district consisted of gracious antebellum structures complete with soaring Greek columns, some of which had been converted into shops and hotels and others of which remained private residences, nestled cozily side by side. Carolina Belle was located in an area of newer development a little to the north. At Julie’s direction they turned the other way, heading toward the Ashley River, where some of the finest new houses in the area had been built, many of them by All-American Builders. As they drove along the deserted streets, she checked the time again: 2:50. They were going to be cutting it close.
Butterflies took wing in her stomach. Returning to her house suddenly seemed about as appealing as a convict might find returning to prison. She was going to have to face Sid and lie, face the police and lie. . . .
She really, truly, positively didn’t want to go home. She had to struggle with herself not to ask him to turn the car around and floor it in the opposite direction.
“How long is it going to take you to break into the garage, do you think?” she asked, careful to keep her voice even.
“Not long. A couple of minutes.”
“Is that all?” It seemed a ridiculously short amount of time to circumvent metal garage doors and deadbolt locks. “The house is new, you know. The locks are pretty sturdy. Oh, and what about the alarm system?”
If it went off, the police would come right away. He could be caught in the act.
“Was the alarm set? Did Sid set it when he left? Did you?”
Julie thought. She’d been in such a hurry not to lose Sid. . . .
“Sid usually sets it before he goes to sleep. But it wasn’t set when I left—it would have gone off—and I never touched it. So it’s off.”
If Sid had set it before he left, he would have had to turn it off when he got back home. And whenever it was turned off, the alarm beeped a loud warning in their bedroom.
If she’d been asleep, she would almost certainly have woken up. And Sid, knowing that, would have taken the safer route of not turning the alarm on at all. After all, there was no real risk. Crime in Summerville was practically nonexistent.
“Then we’re in business.”
Julie pointed out her house, an eight-thousand-square-foot Greek Revival mansion that Sid had designed and built himself, and the Blazer stopped in front of it. The tall iron gates were still open—they stayed that way most of the time because it was a pain to wait for them to open electronically—but he didn’t pull up the driveway.
“It’d be better if we walk up. That way, the neighbors won’t see a strange car pulling into your driveway in the middle of the night,” he said, answering her unspoken question.
“Good idea.” Although the neighbors were in all likelihood sound asleep. At least the other houses—she could see only three from where she stood, the Macalasters’, the DeForests’, and the Cranes’—were all dark. Like her house, they had been designed and built by Sid’s company to similarly tasteful specifications, although of course the facades were all different. Sutherland Estates was Sid’s showcase development, which was why they had a house in it. Whichever development was his baby of the moment was where they lived.
Since their marriage, they’d had no permanent home. Sid’s father—his mother had died when Sid was young—was living with his girlfriend in the family’s moldy Civil War–era mansion in Charleston’s historic district, which Sid, as the only child, expected to inherit one day. Given that circumstance, he’d seen no compelling reason to establish a real, true home of his own. At first, when Julie had hoped to fill the many rooms of the various big houses with children, she’d planned to go to the mat with Sid about settling down permanently as soon as she got pregnant. But Sid basically felt about children the way he felt about dogs, and he’d kept putting her off about having any of their own. She’d let the matter slide, and now she guessed that she wouldn’t be going to the mat about living in this house permanently, either.
It was starting to look like she wouldn’t be living in any house permanently. At least, not with Sid.
She and Debbie were both out of the vehicle now, and Julie was walking around it to join him. He was wearing the gloves, she saw as she reached him, and carrying a crowbar in one hand. Her stomach turned over at the thought of what they were about to do, but there was no help for it. She was just going to have to lie as convincingly as she could and hope for the best.
Too nervous to talk, she walked silently beside him up the driveway. It was paved in brick, and pink and white creeping petunias bloomed in bright profusion along the edges. Night reduced their colors to no more than shadowy patches of dark and light, but their perfume scented the air. Julie reached under a loose stone and grabbed the spare house key. The katydids were busy, adding their distinctive chorus to the soft chirp of the crickets
and the piping of the tree frogs. The strategic stand of palmettos that, along with a brick privacy fence, provided protection from the Macalasters next door rustled faintly as some nocturnal animal moved about among the branches. The sound certainly didn’t result from a breeze. There wasn’t any. The air could only be described as sultry.
They reached the garage, a long, single-story brick rectangle angled away from the street with a quartet of identical white car doors set into it, and paused.
“Which one?” he asked.
Julie indicated the second door from the left.
He glanced at it. “Piece of cake.”
“You’ve been great,” she said, the words heartfelt, looking up at him through the shadowy darkness. “I don’t know what I would have done without you tonight.”
“I try.” He smiled at her, a slow, charmingly crooked smile that did something funny to her insides. Reaching into his rear pocket, he pulled out his wallet, thumbed through the contents, and withdrew a white business card, which he handed to her. “My number’s on this. Next time you get the urge to go chasing after your husband in the middle of the night, call me instead.”
“Will do.” She glanced down at the card. It was impossible to read anything in the darkness. “And I’ll call you tomorrow about the damage to your car.”
“Sounds good.”
She needed to make a move. Seconds were ticking swiftly past, and seconds added up to minutes, and minutes were all she had. Still, she hated to walk away.
She didn’t want to go in. She wanted to stay out here in this heavy perfumed darkness forever with this stranger who had somehow morphed into her new best friend.
So he happened to be a guy named Debbie: it didn’t matter. It occurred to her that whoever he was, whatever he was, she felt safe with him. She’d gotten more comfort from him tonight than she had from her own husband in years. Once she walked away from him, she was on her own. Her problems were strictly hers to deal with.
“I’ve got to go in now.”
“Yeah.” He was hefting the crowbar in his gloved hands, his expression unreadable in the darkness.
She summoned a smile. “If you hear about me being arrested on the morning news, you’ll know just how bad a liar I am,” she said. Then she impulsively laid a hand on his arm, and rose up to press a quick kiss on his warm, sandpapery cheek.
“Thank you,” she said. “You were right: Tonight I really needed a friend.”
“No problem.”
She gave him one last smile, turned her back, and walked away.
Even before she rounded the corner of the garage, she could hear the grating of iron on metal.
He was doing his part by breaking in. Now all she had to do was go to bed, wait, and lie through her teeth when Sid started screaming.
* * *
Mac watched her go, and realized that he felt like the biggest criminal left unhanged. She was sweet, unbelievably sweet considering who she was married to, and more vulnerable than she knew. It had become obvious to him over the course of the last hour or so that, when it came to Sid, she didn’t have a clue.
But even if he told her, even if he shared all he knew with her, she almost certainly wouldn’t believe him. Besides, whether she did or not, knowing so much might put her in a bad situation. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure Sid was dangerous, at least as far as she was concerned, but he strongly suspected that he could be.
The best course of action was probably just to keep his mouth shut and let the situation play itself out. Hang loose and wait to see what developed. As long as she stayed clueless, she was probably perfectly safe. She could get her divorce and get off the stage before anything bad happened to anyone.
Thus there was really no reason at all for him to feel like he was crouched on a deer stand waiting to take potshots at Bambi. But, Mac realized as he wedged the end of the crowbar beneath the metal door and gave a mighty heave, telling himself that wasn’t much help. He could rationalize all he wanted. He still felt guilty as hell.
6
BASTA HAD JUST REACHED the foot of the wide, curving front staircase when he heard the unmistakable sounds of someone entering the house.
He froze, his senses on high alert, then clicked off his small Mag-lite and slipped silently into the nearest room: the den. Earlier he’d prowled through it, just like he’d gone through the rest of the house. Getting the lay of the land, so to speak, so tonight wouldn’t be a dead loss.
Just in case his quarry didn’t return before he had to leave. But, it seemed, she had. Who else could this be?
Waiting just inside the den’s doorway, careful to stand to the side so, should someone decide to flip on the chandelier in the cavernous entry hall, he wouldn’t be caught in its light, he kept his eyes trained on the darkness beyond the door and listened intently. Soft footsteps were heading his way, barely audible at first as they came through the kitchen but a little louder as they reached the cool black and white marble of the hall. Whoever it was was in a hurry, and feeling secretive, too—so far, no light had been turned on anywhere in the house.
Basta inhaled, then smiled. After so many years in this business his senses were nearly as acute as a dog’s. And what he smelled was—the soft, sweet scent of a woman.
It was Julie Carlson all right.
A moment later she stepped into view. Moonlight from the glass sidelights on either side of the front door bathed the hall in twin shafts of soft silvery light. They glinted on the shiny pink thing she was almost wearing: nice, was his verdict. She passed out of his line of vision, and he moved to keep her in view, visually catching up with her again as she began to climb the stairs. She was moving quickly, and her long, slim legs flashing in the moonlight were even nicer than her outfit.
Watching her, he smiled. They were all alone, the house was dark and quiet, and she was his for the taking. There wasn’t much time left—it had been nearly three when he’d started down the steps—but then he didn’t need much. Five minutes, if that was all he had, would be enough. Although it seemed a shame to rush, he was professional enough to do it if circumstances dictated.
And right now it seemed they did.
Silently he stepped out of the den and began to follow her up the stairs, keeping a tight grip on his bag. She wouldn’t have time to make a phone call and there was no gun anywhere in the house, so it didn’t matter if she heard him. Might even add to the fun if they had to play chase, although he couldn’t toy with her for long because they were out of time.
He didn’t want to cut it too close. It was his nature to be careful.
She didn’t hear him. He was certain of that. She reached the top of the stairs and disappeared into the enveloping blackness of the upstairs hall. Heading for her bedroom, no doubt: a big, fancy affair with a marble Jacuzzi in each of the two adjoining bathrooms and a leopard-print throw on the enormous bed. His hand tightened on the cool wrought-iron railing as he regretted that he was not going to have time to do everything he wanted to her on that bed.
In just a minute or so he would have her bound and helpless. Then he would strip her naked and do her fast and squeeze the life out of her.
Tomorrow he would collect what was still owing on his fee and get back to his regular life. For starters, there was a fishing boat out there with his name on it.
As he neared the top of the stairs, he fancied he could hear her getting into bed: a soft rustle of bedclothes and a creak as she settled down, and over all the surprisingly hurried in and out of her breathing.
He smiled. He’d soon have her breathing faster yet.
Behind him, his sharpened senses picked up something less pleasing: sounds coming from the garage.
He frowned, pausing with one foot on the top step as he listened. Yes, he could definitely hear something he wished he could not.
The husband must be home. Some five, ten minutes early.
For a moment Basta hesitated, irresolute. Julie Carlson lay tantalizingly defenseless maybe thirty f
eet from where he stood. He could hear her breathing, smell her scent, practically taste her. She was his. He vibrated with longing to do what he’d come here to do.
He would do it, he promised himself. But not tonight.
His lips pursed as he faced the inevitability of that. With the sounds from the garage, the window of opportunity had just slammed shut.
He had to get out of the house.
Turning, he ran silently down the stairs, then with long swift strides headed for the door he had entered by.
Julie Carlson didn’t know how lucky she was, he reflected as he let himself out the door, then slipped away through the shadows.
She got to live for one more day.
7
SID WAS CHEATING ON HER. Julie knew it as well as she knew her own name, and the knowledge hurt more than she had ever imagined it would. It felt like a boa constrictor curled around her chest, crushing it so that she could hardly breathe.
Last night he had come running up the stairs at seventeen minutes past three, according to the bedside clock. The mere fact that he was coming upstairs at all at such an hour—to say nothing of the hurry he’d been in at the time—told her that he’d missed the Jaguar as soon as he had arrived home, just as she had known he would. She’d pretended to be asleep, although it was hard to keep her breathing slow and rhythmic when her heart was racing like a NASCAR winner’s engine. She’d been curled on her side, the covers pulled high over her shoulders, her eyes shut, when he’d reached the bedroom door. For a moment he’d loomed there, both hands resting on opposite sides of the jamb, breathing hard and just staring at her as she lay in bed. He was wearing a dark suit—Sid always wore a dark suit, even in the dead of summer, because he didn’t believe in relaxing standards even in the heat—and his wire-rimmed glasses had been askew, which they never were, because Sid was nothing if not meticulous. He was a hair shy of six feet tall and thin—Sid watched his diet religiously—but even so he had looked almost . . . menacing standing there.
To Trust a Stranger Page 7