Colleen stood and walked him to the door. He set the baggage down and pulled her close, tipping her chin up and kissing her. “Be good,” he said. He kissed her again, for good measure, thrusting his tongue down her throat, then giving her left nipple a vicious twist.
“You too,” she said, forcing a smile and opening the door. It had gotten dark, but she stepped outside and waved at Morton Hicks, who was behind the wheel of his station wagon with his twenty-one-foot Boston Whaler in tow.
“See you Sunday night,” Allen called, right before he climbed in the front seat of the Vista Cruiser.
The station wagon pulled away from the curb and she stood, watching, as the distinctive curved taillights receded into the steamy summer night. When she finally saw them make the turn onto Brightwaters Boulevard, she exhaled slowly.
* * *
Colleen took the cream-colored Samsonite train case from the top shelf of her closet and set it on the quilted floral-print bedspread. This was her favorite room in the house, and she would miss it. She’d picked out the avocado green and orange floral bedspread and curtains herself, coordinating them with the thick wall-to-wall carpet she’d badgered their landlord into installing throughout the house.
She didn’t plan to take much with her. Just toiletries and cosmetics. Everything else she’d buy new, when she arrived in Atlanta. She had a second thought then, and her lips curved in a dreamy smile.
Colleen reached back into the closet and pulled out the needlepoint racquet cover that had been a birthday gift from her mother-in-law, Rosemary, who was well aware that Colleen despised tennis. She unzipped the case and felt around inside, but the only thing she found was the Wilson Chris Evert racquet. It was in like-new condition, because she’d never used the thing.
She felt goose bumps rise on her arms. The black push-up bra and the black lace garter belt were gone. She’d hidden them there just last Thursday night, away from the prying eyes of Estelle, her once-a-month cleaning lady. But Estelle wasn’t due back until next week.
Allen. He’d found her secret hiding place. How many of her other secrets had he uncovered? The realization changed things. She had to get out of this place. Now. Right this minute. She picked up the Princess phone from her nightstand and dialed Brice’s house. She didn’t care anymore about his friend’s threats. She needed to hear Brice’s voice, one more time.
The phone rang once, twice, then three times. Someone picked up at the other end.
“Hello?” his wife said. This time, instead of hanging up, for some reason, Colleen didn’t end the connection. She breathed softly, listening.
“Hello,” Sherri repeated. “Hello?” There was a long, drawn-out pause. “I know it’s you,” his wife said, her voice hoarse. “I know where you live and I know where you work…”
Colleen didn’t wait to hear more. She slammed the receiver down, grabbed the train case and fled the perfect house.
* * *
Friday morning, at precisely 11:35, she made her way to the teller’s cage at the Florida Federal Savings and Loan branch four blocks from her office.
She could forge Allen’s signature in her sleep, but just in case, she practiced copying it over and over and over again in her room at the Ramada Inn, where even the pills she’d taken from work didn’t help her to sleep at all the night before.
“Hi, Mrs. Hicks.” He was the youngest teller on the line, not even twenty-one, with wispy blond hair and a sprinkling of pimples on his cheeks. He was also the only male; the rest of the tellers were a bunch of sour-faced old biddies, who’d probably faint if they ever saw a penis.
Not Christopher, though. She bet he’d seen more than his share of dick in his young days.
“Good morning, Christopher,” she said crisply. With her fingertips, she pushed her savings passbook and the withdrawal slip across the scarred marble counter.
His eyes widened when he saw the amount of the withdrawal. “Wow,” he said.
“Down payment on our new house,” Colleen said.
“Oh, okay. You’ll want a cashier’s check, right?”
She shook her head. “The seller insists on cash.” She leaned in closer and confided, “He’s Japanese. They don’t do things the same way as us.”
“Right.” He glanced over his shoulder, looking distinctly uneasy.
“Is there a problem?” She felt like screaming, but forced herself to stay calm.
“Uh, well, a transaction like this, in cash and all, I’d have to get a manager to approve.”
“Fine,” she said, pointedly looking at her wristwatch. “I can wait.”
Colleen felt as though a million ants had taken up residence in her veins. Come on, come on, come on, she wanted to scream.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Finally, Christopher reappeared, trailing timidly behind a balding middle-aged man in a brown polyester three-piece suit. The buttons on his vest strained, and she could see sweat circles forming on the armpits of his jacket.
“Mrs. Hicks?” The manager extended a hand. “I’m Paul Forkner, assistant branch manager.” She took his hand. It was limp and sweaty.
“And I’m Colleen Hicks, and I’m due back at work in five minutes,” she replied. “As I told Christopher, we’re closing on our new house Monday, and the seller insists on a cash transaction.”
Forkner stared down at her passbook, which he was holding in his plump white hands.
“Usually in cases like these, on a withdrawal this size, we require both account holders to sign off,” Forkner said. “Perhaps your husband could drop by later—”
“That’s impossible,” Colleen interrupted. “Allen is on a fishing trip in the Keys, with his father. Dr. Morton Hicks?”
“Um, then maybe Monday?”
“The closing is at eight o’clock Monday morning,” Colleen said. She felt the blood rising in her cheeks, the ants stirring just beneath her skin. “Which is why I’m here today. With a withdrawal slip signed by myself and my husband.” She leaned across the counter and stared into his pale, bulging eyes. “Mr. Forkner, did you know that my father-in-law is on the board of this bank?”
“Yes, of course. Which is why we need to be certain things are done properly and in compliance with bank policy—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your policies,” Colleen said, so loudly that the prune-faced tellers up and down the line were momentarily frozen in place. “Now, if you would, please instruct Christopher here to complete my withdrawal, exactly as I’ve requested. Because if he doesn’t do that, and I have to tell my husband on Monday morning that we can’t close on this house because some bean-counter at this branch, where he’s banked his whole life, wouldn’t release our funds, he is not going to be happy. And if you think I’m difficult to deal with, Mr. Forkner? You haven’t met my husband. Or his father.”
Forkner pursed his lips and examined the passbook again. He handed it back to the clerk, gave a slight nod of his head, then slithered back to his office.
Colleen placed the train case on the counter, popped the lock and gave Christopher a naughty little wink. “Big bills, please.”
As he was stacking the paper-banded stacks of bills in the case, she remembered the business envelope she’d stuck in her pocketbook just before leaving the office. She took it out, removed her last paycheck and endorsed the back. “This too, please,” she said sweetly.
* * *
Vera Rennick was ridiculously pleased when Colleen asked her to go shopping that afternoon. Her coworker was the closest thing she had to a real girlfriend, and Colleen felt almost guilty about making her an unwitting accomplice to her escape plan.
“I’d love to,” Vera said, her face flushed with happiness. “But I promised to stay late for one of my regular patients. Can you wait ’til after two?”
“Okay,” Colleen said. She had plenty of time until her bus left.
When the office closed, Colleen suggested they drive her car over to Maas Brothers. “It’s too hot to walk,” Colleen expla
ined. “And anyway, I’ve had my eye on a new outfit, and I don’t want to have to haul it all the way back here.”
“Good idea,” Vera agreed.
She parked the Camaro on the second level of the parking deck, feeling only slightly anxious about the train case she’d locked in the trunk.
Shopping always relaxed Colleen, especially now that she felt no compunction about actually buying whatever the hell she wanted.
The yellow sundress was on end-of-season clearance sale, and Vera agreed it was a steal. “It fits like a dream,” she said, watching enviously as Colleen handed over the pale blue Maas Brothers charge card. They took the escalator down to the first-floor shoe department, where Colleen found a pair of yellow patent leather platform sandals that looked like they’d been designed to go with the sundress, and then, back upstairs to juniors’ sportswear, for a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt designer jeans and a slinky print top.
“I’d kill for a pair of those jeans,” Vera commented, when Colleen emerged from the dressing room to model her purchases. “Won’t Allen blow a gasket when he sees how much you spent today?”
Colleen shrugged. “He’ll get over it. Come on, let’s go get an early dinner.”
Vera grimaced. “I promised my sister I’d babysit tonight.”
“It’s just now five,” Colleen said. “And the store closes at six. Come on, it’ll be fun. My treat!”
She hardly had to twist the girl’s arm. Vera ordered the club sandwich and Colleen had the chicken salad plate, and at Colleen’s insistence, they each had a glass of Chablis.
“This has been so much fun,” Vera said, giggling as she gathered her things to leave. “But I really have to scoot now. We should do this more often. Especially the wine part!” She took a five-dollar bill from her billfold, but Colleen waved the money away. “My treat, remember?”
“Okay,” Vera said, rising. “Have a great weekend. See you Monday.”
Her bus to Atlanta wasn’t leaving until seven-thirty. Colleen ordered another glass of Chablis, gulped it down and paid again with her credit card. Then she went into the ladies’ room and changed into the tight-fitting new designer jeans and platform heels. She pulled a floppy-brimmed straw hat from her pocketbook and tucked her long hair beneath it. At the last minute, she took off her bra and put it in her pocketbook, enjoying the sensation of the silky fabric against her bare breasts, as well as the thought that Allen would have been apoplectic about her walking around braless in public.
When she got to the orange Camaro she unlocked the trunk and removed the train case, flipping the lid just to make sure her runaway money, as she’d come to think of it, was intact. All was well. She folded the new dress, still in the shopping bag, on top of the cash. She opened the driver’s-side door and placed the clothes she’d been wearing, including her bra and pantyhose, carefully folded, on the bucket seat. She tossed the shoes she’d worn onto the floor and thought for a moment. And then she had a flash of genius.
Allen enjoyed inflicting pain, so maybe she’d hurt him a little, as a parting gesture. She took the nail scissors she always carried and carefully punctured the tip of her right index finger, squeezing with her left hand, spattering droplets of blood onto her clothes and the seat, even smearing some on the steering wheel. For good measure, she slashed the pantyhose and bra, smearing blood on them too. All in all, it made for a ghastly little crime scene. It also made her a little light-headed, so she sat in the Camaro for a good ten minutes, waiting to regain her equilibrium.
When she emerged from the parking deck onto Second Avenue, she donned a pair of oversize Jackie O sunglasses and set off down the street, swinging the train case. With each swaggering step she took her mood lightened.
Colleen was standing at the corner, waiting for the light to turn, when a car pulled up to the curb. She heard a voice call her name, and when she glanced over, found she was staring down the barrel of a gun. “Get in,” the voice said.
49
The Gulf Vista security guard, who was so young it appeared he might have bought his uniform and badge at Toys “R” Us, had difficulty opening the sliding-glass door in Room 133, outside of which Drue was gloomily perched on a cheap plastic chair.
But after much grunting and sweating, he managed to inch the door open far enough to sternly command her, “Come inside, ma’am.”
Drue obliged, stepping into the room. To her delight, the kiddie cop had switched on the overhead light. There wasn’t much to see. The room was small, furnished with a queen-size bed, dresser, nightstands and bad art. The carpet was worn and faded and, though it was clean enough, the room smelled faintly of mildew. Any clues to the criminal acts that had led to Jazmin Mayes’s death were long gone, she knew.
The door from the hallway swung open and a middle-aged white guy entered. He had wire-rimmed glasses perched atop a beakish nose and was dressed in a white polo shirt, black dress slacks and a black baseball cap with the word SECURITY stitched across the bill.
“Here she is, Mr. Shelnutt,” the guard said, gesturing to Drue, who was still trying to take in every detail of the room.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Shelnutt asked, his deep bass voice meant to intimidate.
“Just looking around,” Drue said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Attempted breaking and entering,” Shelnutt said. He unclipped a radio from the holster on his belt and spoke into it. “Security one to front gate. A TI police unit should be arriving any minute. Let them in and direct them to Room 133.”
The radio crackled but the guard’s response was unintelligible.
“Say again?” Shelnutt said.
“Just passed them through,” the guard repeated.
Drue slumped down onto the desk chair.
“Who told you to sit down?” Shelnutt barked. “That’s hotel property.”
She was tired and her knee hurt too much to argue.
“So shoot me.”
They heard the soft ding from an elevator down the hall and a moment later a uniformed Treasure Island patrol officer entered the room. He was approximately the same age and build as the security guard, although his uniform badge and the service revolver holstered on his hip gave him an air of authority the two rent-a-cops accompanying him lacked, in Drue’s opinion.
He looked from Drue to the glowering security chief. “What have we got here?”
“Our security cameras caught her sneaking onto the property from the beach and attempting to break into the north tower,” Shelnutt said. “When she couldn’t gain access that way, she broke the lock on the back gate here, then climbed onto the balcony outside this room.”
“That true?” The cop, whose name badge she couldn’t read, didn’t seem too worked up about her one-woman crime spree.
“I just wanted to get a look at the rooms here,” she protested, extending her arms from her sides. “Look, you can see I didn’t take anything, and I certainly didn’t damage anything either, except my own knee and my favorite beach cover-up.”
“Got some ID?” the cop asked.
“No. I was going for a walk on the beach. If you want to look in my pockets you’ll see my phone, my house keys and a couple of bucks,” Drue said.
“Name? Address?”
“My name is Drucilla Campbell, and I live at 409 Pine Street, Sunset Beach,” Drue said.
“I want her searched,” Shelnutt snapped.
The cop looked at Drue and cocked his head.
“Go ahead,” she said wearily, raising her arms over her head.
His cheeks glowed crimson as he gingerly patted her down.
“See? No crowbar, no lock picks, no dynamite,” Drue said. “Just a stupid misunderstanding. Can I go now? My knee is killing me and I really need some Advil.”
“No way,” Shelnutt said. “I want her charged with criminal trespass and breaking and entering.”
Drue’s heart sank. She’d really thought there was a good chance she could talk her way out of this mess.
“Okay,” the cop said, motioning toward the hallway. “Let’s go.”
“Handcuffs?” Shelnutt said sharply.
“Oh yeah.” The cop snapped the cuffs around her wrists and led her out of the building and to his waiting police cruiser, whose flashing blue lights had attracted a small gathering of curious guests.
* * *
It was barely a ten-minute drive to the Treasure Island police station. Drue slumped down in the backseat, mortified. At least, she thought, at 2:00 A.M. it was unlikely that anybody she knew would see her riding to jail in the backseat of a cop car.
“Do you happen to know Rae Hernandez?” she asked the officer.
“Detective Hernandez? Yeah, I know her,” the cop said.
“Any way I could get you to call her?” Drue asked. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of those guys at the hotel, but she’s kind of the reason I was there.”
“No way,” the cop replied. “She’s off duty, and I’m not gonna be the one calling her at two in the morning. If you know her, you know what she’s like when she’s pissed off.”
“I do know her, and I promise you she’ll be even more pissed off if you don’t let her know I’ve been arrested for trespassing at the Gulf Vista,” Drue said.
“That’s a call that’s way above my pay grade,” the cop said.
After he’d removed her from the cruiser, fingerprinted and booked her, the officer, whose name turned out to be Daniels, handed over her phone.
She stared at it for a moment, trying to think of an alternative, but lacking one, she called her father’s cell phone.
It rang four times and went to voice mail, so she disconnected and tried again. This time, to her great regret, Wendy answered.
“Drue? Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, Wendy, I do. Can I please speak to Dad?”
“He’s sleeping. We were both sleeping.”
Sunset Beach Page 31