“Thank you.” It was no coincidence that he was echoing her very words to him. “Although my elephant is different than yours. Mine’s bright purple and I like to lead him around on a leash and introduce him to people by name.”
Gina nodded. “Well, this really sucks. Our marriage is going to need an awful lot of work.”
He laughed.
“Thanks for the lift.” She opened the car door, and he reached over and put his card in her hand, closing her fingers around it. “I’m not going to need that,” she told him.
“I was thinking that maybe you had a brother you could introduce me to.”
Gina laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got three, but you definitely don’t want to go near them.”
“You can’t be sure. The family’s often the last to know.” Jules got out of the car, too, and spoke to her over the top. “You know, Gina, there are places on the other side of the island that have internal access rooms. You know, like a real hotel? It’s much safer for a woman staying alone.”
She fished in her pocket for her key. “But I like this place. I’m feet from the beach, I can afford it without maxing out my credit card, and I’m perfectly safe. But you can tell Max that you tried your best to talk me out of staying here.” She unlocked her hotel room door, slid it open. “Good night.”
As she closed the door and then shut the curtains, he was still standing there. But a few minutes later, when she went out to take a walk on the beach, he was gone.
Sam sat in the car he’d picked up for a buck and a half at one of Jon Hopper’s rival used-car dealers on the other side of town, and waited for his cell phone to ring.
He was parked in the Wendy’s lot, with a clear view of the exit ramp off the interstate. It was the exit to take when driving from Orlando to the Sunset Motel.
Beth Weiss, the morning desk clerk, wasn’t back from her trip to Orlando. As far as her roommate could guess, she was making the drive in the morning and going straight in to work. And no, she didn’t know where Beth was staying in Orlando. It wasn’t at a hotel—it was with some friend from college.
The straight-to-work thing complicated life a little, considering Alyssa and her gang were still staked out around the Sunset Motel.
If Sam didn’t spot Beth’s blue Ford Focus—with South Carolina plates, thank you, roommate—before she got to the motel, Alyssa would talk to her first. And warn her not to talk to anyone else—like Sam—about the details of the case.
It wouldn’t be long, if it hadn’t happened already, before someone—the nosy desk clerk, the motel manager, Beth’s roommate—brought to Alyssa’s attention the fact that someone had called, looking for Beth. Alyssa would know instantly that it was Sam. And Beth’s lips would be soldered shut.
Although, if she were anything like her roommate, that would be pretty hard to do. The roommate was a talker. She’d told him that Beth always stopped for coffee and doughnuts on her way into work. Sam was hoping that this morning would be no exception, and that he’d be able to intercept her there.
Of course, there were two Dunkin’ Donuts and a Krispy Kreme to choose from between the interstate and the motel—he’d driven the area until he knew it like the back of his hand—so he’d have to start following her right here at the exit ramp.
Beth wasn’t known for arriving to work early, so it was more than likely Sam had a solid seven to eight hours before he had to be watching for her in earnest.
What he really had to do—particularly after a day filled with shopping, not his favorite thing—was to get some sleep. Problem was, the sound of his phone not ringing was keeping him wide awake.
It was entirely possible that Alyssa wasn’t going to call him back. Even after everything he’d told her.
He opened his phone, checking to see that he still had service out here, checking to see if the charger he’d just bought and plugged into the cigarette lighter was working. He did, and it was.
Which meant Alyssa wasn’t calling him because she didn’t want to call him. Not because she couldn’t.
And then, Hallelujah, it rang. But the number displayed on the screen was . . .
“Donny?” he said into his phone.
“Sam, the game’s almost half over.”
Aw, shit, he’d completely forgotten that he’d made tentative plans to watch the Padres get trounced by the Mets tonight with his crazy-ass next-door neighbor back in San Diego.
“Oh, man, Don, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I should have called you. I’m still in Florida.”
“How are Mary Lou and Haley?”
“Well, I think they’re probably just fine.” Sam couldn’t tell Donny the truth. The man was quite literally crazy. Seriously mentally ill.
Don DaCosta had missed his friendship with Mary Lou and Haley something fierce when they’d left San Diego. Sam had felt responsible and started bringing the shut-in his mail and dropping off food—little things that Mary Lou had previously done for the guy. Sam had started dropping by Donny’s house, too, because despite the fact that he sometimes wore an aluminum foil covered hat to keep the aliens from reading his mind, he was pretty smart, with his own kind of sideways sense of humor.
Sam actually looked forward to seeing Donny a couple of times a week. Watching football, basketball, hockey, and now baseball.
It was ironic, really. Ever since WildCard and Nils had both gotten married and started spending so much of their free time in their own little perfect worlds with their families, Sam’s two best friends were a homosexual—Jules—and a nutjob—Donny. It was pretty freaking amazing. But tolerance, as Jules would say, was a wonderful thing.
“You remembering to take your medicine, Don?” Sam asked now.
“Yes, but . . .”
But was never a good word to hear from Donny’s lips. Sam braced himself.
“I saw him again,” Don admitted. “The alien.”
Sam’s call waiting beeped. Oh, freaking perfect. It figured Alyssa would call right now. But there was no way he could hang up on Donny or even put him on hold when he was using the A-word.
“Which alien is that?” he asked, reaching down deep for the patience he was going to need in order not to sound frustrated. Or, worse, to laugh.
“The one who used to watch me from your driveway. He used to hide behind Mary Lou’s car.”
“And he was back? In my driveway?” Jesus God. Sam realized what he was hearing. He’d heard it before, but it suddenly had an entirely new meaning.
His neighbor had seen someone lurking around Mary Lou’s car. The car she’d used to get to her job. On the Navy base. Where a weapon with her fingerprints on it had been smuggled in and used to try to kill the President.
Sam worked hard to keep his voice relaxed, light. “Donny, how long ago did you first see him? You know, hiding behind Mary Lou’s car?”
Time could sometimes be a tough concept for Don. “Oh, gee . . .”
“I guess it must’ve been back when Mary Lou was there, since you said he was hiding behind her car, right?”
“Yeah,” Don said, grateful for an easy answer. “Yeah.”
“How often did you see him?”
“Oh, all the time.”
“Like, every day?” Sam asked. Maybe the guy Donny had seen was hiding so that no one would see him going into and out of Sam’s house. Maybe Mary Lou had been stepping out on Sam with some terrorist scum right in his own flipping bed.
“I don’t know,” Donny said. He was starting to sound upset, no doubt picking up Sam’s sudden tension. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
“Hey, whoa, no problem,” Sam said as soothingly and as laid-back sounding as he could manage. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. His call waiting beeped again, but he refused to let his blood pressure rise. “I was just curious, buddy. If you don’t remember, it’s no big deal. Here’s a question, though, one I bet you can answer easily.” Please God.
“Oh, good.”
“You told me once that the aliens try to look human, right?
”
“Right. Right. That’s right. Right.”
“Well, that wasn’t the question, but that’s good, because now we’re both on the same page. Here’s the question.” Sam paused, trying to figure out the way to get a description of Don’s “alien” without putting too much pressure on the guy. “What color . . . what color skin does this alien have?”
“White,” Don said. “Like mine.”
“Excellent. How about—what color hair?”
“Light.”
“Really? I mean, really?” Sam adjusted the tone and inflection of his voice so he didn’t sound like he didn’t believe Don.
“Yeah, lighter even than Haley’s. Very, very light. Shiny at night.”
A blond terrorist.
Well, why the hell not? Just because most of al-Qaeda came from the Middle East didn’t mean there wasn’t a cell operating out of Stockholm.
Unless this blond “alien” was simply some random guy Mary Lou was using to two-time—three-time?—both Sam and her terrorist boyfriend.
Sam tried another tack. “When you saw him again—was it today?”
“This morning.” Don said with an unusual amount of decisiveness before adding, “I think.”
“Do you remember what he was doing?”
“Yes.” Another absolute.
But Sam had been hanging out with Don enough to realize that the mistake was his own, and he shouldn’t wait for Don to expound. He hid a laugh inside of a cough. “Don, I really love you, man.”
Don laughed, clearly pleased. “Really?”
“Yes,” Sam said, then asked, “What was the alien doing when you saw him?”
“Oh, he was watching the flower man.”
“The flower man?”
“Yeah,” Don said. “You know the flower man. Mary Lou’s friend.”
Mary Lou was also friends with some flower man. Holy shit. Sam didn’t have a clue who the flower man was, but he didn’t want to freak out Donny who seemed convinced that he did. “So what was the, uh, flower man doing?”
“He was ringing your doorbell,” Don said. “But you weren’t home so no one answered the door.”
“So then what’d he do?” Sam asked.
“He came over and rang my doorbell,” Don reported. “But I didn’t answer either, because even though he didn’t know it, I could see the alien was down the street, watching him.”
“How come he didn’t see the alien?” Sam asked.
“Because the alien was in his car. After the flower man left, the alien drove past, really slowly. I got a good look at him. It was definitely him.”
“What color skin does the flower man have?” Sam asked, trying to make sense out of any of this.
“Brown,” Don said.
“And how about his hair?”
“Black. Mary Lou told me that he’s from Saudi Arabia.”
Well, now, wasn’t that interesting?
“Did the flower man used to ring my doorbell a lot?” Sam asked. “You know, back before Mary Lou went to Florida?”
“I don’t think he ever did,” Don said.
“You mean, he just walked in the door?”
“No, Mary Lou came outside. I think she saw his truck. Or maybe she heard the lawnmower. He was nice. I wish I could’ve opened the door.”
Don was talking about . . . “The flower man used to cut lawns and do yardwork in the neighborhood,” Sam clarified. He had only a vague recollection of a skinny, swarthy man with a beard and a warm smile.
“Yes.”
Oh, man. He had to get this information to Alyssa.
“So are you okay?” Sam asked Don. “Even though you saw this alien this morning?”
“I guess,” Don said. “He scared me. He looked right at me, and even pointed his finger at me. He saw me watching from the window.”
Sam had a sudden disturbing image of Don lying facedown in his kitchen, with half of his head blown away. Oh, fuck . . .
“Donny, I want you to stay away from the windows and doors, okay?” Shit, this was going to set Don back about ten years in terms of his overcoming his fears of alien invasion. “Don’t answer the door, okay? I’m going to call your sister, see if Mike—her husband—is back in town. If not, I’ll get your grandparents over there. They’ll come in with their own keys, Don, so don’t answer the door, okay? I’m going to need you to tell everything that you’ve just told me to someone from the FBI. Do you think you can do that?”
“Can’t you come over?” Donny asked, sounding very worried.
“I’m in Florida, Don,” Sam said. “But I promise I’ll get there as soon as I can. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Sam cut the connection and immediately dialed Alyssa’s number, pulling out of the Wendy’s lot and heading downtown.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alyssa nearly jumped through the roof when Max knocked on the side window of her car.
“Where did you come from?” she asked as she popped the lock and let him in. She honestly hadn’t seen him approach. And she’d been watching.
Her heart was still racing as he sat down next to her and closed the door. She’d thought when he’d first knocked that he was Sam. No such luck.
“I just walked up,” Max told her.
“Like hell you did.”
“You must’ve been sleeping.”
“Like hell I was.”
He smiled at her. “Then I must still be wicked awesome good even though I haven’t been in the field in years.”
Alyssa smiled back at him. “Allegedly haven’t been in the field in years. I work with you, remember? Your interpretation of sitting behind a desk is questionable.”
Max laughed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Despite his laughter—which faded far too quickly—he looked like hell. He looked tired and . . . haunted. She hadn’t seen him looking this bad since just after the takedown of that hijacked plane in Kazbekistan.
It was no coincidence, considering . . .
“I took a chopper up from Sarasota,” he told her. “I wanted to get an update.”
Alyssa held up her cell phone. “Check out this amazing new technology, boss. It allows you to get that update from the comfort of your hotel room. Right before you fall into bed, unconscious.”
“I’ve been having a little trouble sleeping lately,” he admitted.
“Lately?” She gave him a look. “Try the last two years.” Since Kazbekistan.
He sighed.
Were he anyone else, Alyssa would have reached for his hand. But this was Max and there was no touching allowed. “How can I help you?” she asked as gently as she could.
“Well,” he said. “Funny you should ask.”
Her cell phone rang, and she quickly glanced at the number.
“That important?” Max asked.
It was Sam. “No,” she said. It was half a lie. It wasn’t important to the case, just important to her. But, “It can wait.”
Sam wasn’t going anywhere tonight. And she wasn’t either. He hadn’t answered when she’d called him back, and now it was his turn to wonder what she was doing. She switched the ringer over to vibrate, and when she looked up at Max, he was watching her intently.
He looked so serious. “This is going to sound a little crazy, so don’t answer right away. Just think about it, okay?”
Alyssa nodded, suddenly uncertain. Was this something about work or—
He reached over and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise.
“I was thinking about that night that we, um, very nearly made love,” he said quietly, “and it occurred to me that I really haven’t slept since then, and, uh, I think you should marry me.”
Alyssa sat there, completely speechless. Completely unable to move, unable even to think.
She cleared her throat. “Max—”
“I love you,” he said. “I’m freaking out at the idea of you and Starrett getting back tog
ether. I don’t want to lose you.”
To him. Max didn’t say the words, but they hung there, unspoken. Alyssa’s brain kicked back on and all she could picture was Max, crying in a playground sandbox, because some other kid had stolen his favorite toy truck. Add that on top of the fact that she knew she wasn’t the main reason Max was freaking out, as he so accurately put it.
She looked down at their hands, looked back up at Max. “And?” she prompted him.
He shook his head, not understanding. Or at least pretending not to understand. He was, after all, Max.
“When Jules called,” she told him gently, extracting her hand from his, “he mentioned that Gina came into the office tonight.”
Max closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead. “Ah, crap.”
“This is about you running from her, Max. Not about you really wanting to marry me.”
“You’re wrong,” he said, but he sounded exhausted. Almost defeated. “Seeing Gina was a major motivator, yes, but . . . Alyssa, we’d be so good together and you know it.”
She’d put her cell phone between her legs, and it vibrated. Sam. Calling back.
“Our lives would run like a precision automobile,” Max told her.
Alyssa laughed. “That’s supposed to make me want to marry you? We’d bore each other to tears.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said, and he kissed her.
Unlike his approach to the car, she saw it coming. He leaned across the parking brake and gently cupped her cheek, drawing her mouth to his. And oh, Max could kiss. He could suck her breath right out of her lungs and . . .
She pulled away, angry at him and angry at herself for momentarily considering that precision automobile thing. Max didn’t love her. He said he did but he didn’t love her. “You’re in love with Gina. You told me you were.”
“That’s not love,” he countered. “That’s something else, something possessive, something, Christ, I don’t know, greedy and twisted and obsessive and chaotic and . . . I want to own her, Alyssa. I want to wrap her up and keep her safe and put her in . . . in . . . some closet somewhere and take her out when it’s convenient for me to . . . to . . . Okay. Yes. Sex. It’s about sex and it’s about power and control and it’s about her looking at me with those Bambi eyes and adoring me when she should goddamn hate me, and . . . that’s not love.”
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