by ML Gamble
She frowned but headed for the door. Alec followed her closely, slipping into the foyer closet at the last second. She wondered again how much his looks belied his true nature. The front door opened to the left and in, and she flung it wide, deciding only at the very last half second not to scream for Rafe to run.
But Rafe wasn’t there. Instead, a young man about twenty-five stood in the doorway. Nice-looking with neatly groomed brown hair gelled into spikes, he was wearing a denim shirt and jeans, both hands crammed into a windbreaker-type cotton jacket. He smiled at Molly.
“What do you want?” she nearly yelled.
“Miss Jakes?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Tell Alec Steele he has a caller.” He pulled a gun out of his pocket, his lip curling up viciously. “Move back. And don’t scream or I’ll blow you away.”
It was just like in the movies. Molly’s jaw dropped open. For about two seconds, she simply stared, but then the punk put his hand flat against her chest and pushed. It flashed through Molly’s mind to haul off and hit him, but before she could do anything, a movement outside caught her eye.
The gunman caught her motion and glanced sideways. They both saw Rafe at the same instant, just as the jackhammers out on the street quieted.
“Well now, Miz Jakes. Did you call for a real man to come to your rescue?”
Molly realized the big old fool was halfway down the walk, and he had not even noticed the gun in the punk’s hand. “Rafe!” she screamed, but he never heard her. The gun exploded with a spurt of fire and smoke the same instant the jackhammers started again.
Molly kept screaming, unheard by anyone, and watched helplessly as the best cable puller in the Southern region hit the ground a dead man.
With a blind fury, Molly turned on the gunman, her arms and fists flailing against him, but he hit her on the side of the face with his gun, and she slumped onto the floor. He started to kick her, but Alec grabbed him by the shoulder and smashed him against the foyer wall.
Her vision blurred, she watched him hammer the killer into the floor.
“Who sent you?” he demanded.
“Stuff it—”
Alec savagely twisted the younger man’s arm behind him. “Listen, slime, you’re dead meat. Now who are you working for? Brooker? One of the cops?”
Instead of answering, he kicked Alec and managed to knock him sideways. Alec’s gun spun out of his hand and the guy grabbed for it. Molly also crawled toward it, blinking until her vision cleared.
Maybe I can sink my teeth into his ankle or something, she thought. But then she saw Alec pull out the second gun and heard it fire. Alec rolled away, then rose and came to her.
Molly was crying and whimpering and generally falling apart. Alec was shaking, and his breath rattled in his throat. He pulled her close to him and tried to comfort her, though he was as shaken as she. Rafe was dead, as was the new intruder bleeding at her feet.
Suddenly it seemed to Molly that every single thing in her life was screwed up forever. She began wailing, but Alec jerked her to her feet. He pointed to the door that led to the back patio. She looked where he was staring and, through the glass, saw two men coming down the slope, guns drawn.
“We’ve got to go. Now!” Alec pulled Molly outside and they ran away from the corpses lying across her welcome mat at her sun-splashed, open front door.
* * *
ALEC DROVE LIKE a little old lady, never pushing past fifty-three miles an hour.
Molly stared out at the brown layer of smog that was eating into the clean morning air, craving the cigarettes she had given up the past year. As they drove by the massive hunk of granite beside the road at Eagle Rock Monument, Molly realized that the hole gouged out of the middle of the thing really did look like an eagle’s profile.
Funny what you notice when you’re trying not to be hysterical, she thought. For the past few minutes, she had sat in a stupor. Alec had stopped long enough to confirm that Rafe was dead. They had then taken his keys and stolen his truck.
Molly thought about how for all his thirty-five years on the job, Rafe had never left his keys in the ignition. For all the good that safety rule had done him today.
They approached the Summer Point Marina turnoff, and Molly had no idea at all where they were heading. The direction was north from San Clemente, but since half the world is north from there, a guess would be a waste of energy.
“I don’t think any of my neighbors heard the shots. You didn’t see anyone looking out their window or coming to their door?”
“No,” Alec replied softly. “But I’m sure the police will find your friend’s body soon.”
Molly was watching the side of Alec’s face because the motion of the passing scenery was making her dizzy. He glanced at her, and she felt like slugging him. He had caused her friend’s death. She hated him for it.
Alec knew she was in pain and could feel the waves of rage and guilt over Rafe’s death rolling out of her. It wasn’t my fault, he wanted to say. But he didn’t, more than a little afraid it really was.
Molly turned away and gingerly felt the side of her face. It was sore and a lump was rising. She turned and faced forward, then swung the visor down. The cut was small, but ragged. She already had a bruise.
“Where are we going?” she asked, feeling numb. She told herself she had to stay sharp. The police were going to ask a thousand questions sooner or later, and it was going to be tough to answer anything that started with “Why did you...?”
“I know of an empty boat at Summer Point. We’ll go there and I can lie low, ditch the truck and try to contact a doctor, or someone else who can help.”
“Do you know any doctors?”
“Yeah. One. She’s a police psychiatrist. Maybe she’ll suggest something.”
“I thought you didn’t trust the cops,” Molly retorted.
“I don’t. But Alicia’s not really a cop. She does contract work for them. I got to talk to her when the D.A. checked me out to see if I was a competent witness. But I’ve known her for quite a few years. I can trust her.”
“That’s a pretty rich taste in people to trust. Can you pay a psychiatrist to help? Or get money from your family?”
Her hostile remark brought a small chuckle from Alec. “No. I’ve a bit of cash, but I don’t expect I’ll have any problem with her bill. As for my family, I never knew my mum. Dad’s a cowboy. Drives cattle down at the Alice Springs station. My dad’s how I know Alicia, actually. He was married to Alicia’s mum for about ten minutes a few years ago. Alicia and I never really knew each other then, but we got to know each other when I crewed for a team in San Diego during an America’s Cup race five years ago. Like I said, she’s a good egg. Not really family, but as close as I get to it.”
Molly regretted being so petty with him, but she felt as if she was going to explode with grief. She was suddenly convinced that she shouldn’t have gone along with his plan. “Let me out, Alec. Take the truck. I won’t tell anyone. But I need to get out. Now.”
Alec gripped the steering wheel more tightly. “No. I can’t stop now, Molly. You saw those two men on your patio. It’s too dangerous, for both of us. They could be following us, for all I know.”
Molly peered out of the truck’s back window. Five lanes of traffic glimmered in the morning sun. Shiny, metallic, like a molten snake, the vehicles cruised behind Rafe’s truck as far as the eye could see. “You can go to hell,” she said quietly, staring down at the floor where she thought he’d concealed the guns. “I want out! I’ll take my chances with the cops. They’ll find out what’s going on, and who’s behind it, even if it’s one of their own. This isn’t Nazi Germany, for God’s sake. And I am not your prisoner, you know.”
“No, you’re not, Molly. But I can’t stop now. We’ve got to find somewhere safe, and I think we better stay together.”
“Why?”
He turned his cool blue stare at her. “A man just tried to kill you, Molly. He knew where you lived.
Probably knows where you work. Can’t you see that you’re part of this somehow?”
She realized at that moment that Alec had been constantly checking the rearview mirror. “Great. So now you’ve got the counterfeit cops and the thugs after you. Why don’t you just push me out of the car, Alec? I’d probably have a better chance of living through that than if I stay with you.”
“I didn’t plan this any more than you did, love. And there’s nothing I can do to change any of it now. I’m sorry I got you involved last night. But my being sorry doesn’t change the facts. And the facts are that we’ve both got to put some distance between ourselves and the friends of that little twit who tried to kill us.”
Molly clenched her teeth but said nothing. She knew what he said was right. “So who do you think that guy was working for? Brooker?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can’t you guess? Or do you have a variety of people gunning for you?”
Alec didn’t answer for several seconds, then he sighed. “I know you’re upset, Molly. I don’t blame you. But I can’t let you out, and I can’t explain everything because I really don’t know what the hell is going on myself. Try to relax. Be patient. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She made a snorting noise and folded her arms across her chest. “Boy, I feel better already.”
“You should.”
His retort took the wind out of Molly’s indignant sails as she sat in silence mulling over the implications of fleeing with him. Lieutenants Cortez and DeWitt would both be annoyed with her, of that she was sure. Pacific Communications would make her file nine hundred pages of reports. And her neighbors would probably never approve her for permanent ownership of the town house she was leasing under a lease-to-own contract.
But worst of all was that Rafe was dead. Tears began to fall, hot and fast, down her cheeks.
Chapter Six
Molly cried for a few seconds, then Alec surprised her by reaching over and giving her arm a squeeze. She pulled away from his touch, and he had the decency to look ashamed.
“Look, you’re a right spunky chit, and too stubborn for common sense. But things will work out. Just give me a little time to think this out, decide who we can trust.” He drove a few silent miles then asked, “So you never married?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Molly sighed. Her brain hurt too much to try to explain how her career had been her number-one concern for a long time and that men had come and gone without leaving much of a mark. “I haven’t had time,” she finally blurted out, more than a little uneasy that the answer was truer than she cared to admit. “You don’t have a wife, or ex-wife, or kids?” she asked quickly.
“No. Never married. After watching Dad rat around and marry three times and never have it work out, I decided the Steeles aren’t really the nuptial type.” He grinned at Molly, forgetting for a moment their dicey situation. “Looks like we have a bit in common. On the lam from the law, and not able to make it in a marriage.”
He was teasing. Under any other circumstances, Molly would have risen to the occasion and given as good as she got. Instead, she looked out at the traffic, wishing she was asleep, alone in her bed. “We’re sure in this thing together, aren’t we?” she replied softly.
“That’s right, Molly. You have to trust me.”
“With my life, eh, mate?”
He looked at her, but didn’t answer.
With my life, her mind echoed silently, not liking the sound of it at all.
The miles passed with no more conversation. Several road crews had closed lanes during the rush hour, naturally, and it was bumper-to-bumper traffic when they turned off at the Summer Point exit. It was Thursday and not yet the end of the tourist season. Alec found a place to park by some condos about three-quarters of a mile from the marina.
They left the truck and started walking. The air was cool and salty, and the tang of it coated Molly’s dry lips and filled her nostrils with a briny promise of relaxation. Despite the mess she was in, her shoulders slackened. The beach had always had that effect on Molly.
But not on Alec.
He was stiff, somewhat favoring his right knee, and he knew his demeanor was tense and distracted. As they approached a fast-food drive-through, the smell of coffee and french fries made him realize how hungry he was.
Molly had the same reaction. “Can we stop and get something to eat?” she heard herself ask him as if she were a child. “I’m famished.”
“It’s not a good idea to be seen. I’m sure my mug will be splashed all over the news any minute now. Yours, too, once they find the bodies.”
Rafe. Somehow Molly had managed to put his death out of her mind these past few minutes, but she felt the shock of memory and immediately lost her appetite. The man was dead. Because she had asked him to come and pick her up.
“Molly? You okay, love? You’re going a bit pale.” Alec didn’t touch her, but his voice was kind.
“I’m fine. Where’s the boat?”
“North slip 111. I don’t have a key to the dock ramps, so we may have to jump a fence. You game for that?”
His voice was half tease and half challenge.
He was trying to make her relax, she realized. As if either of them really could, a thought brought home by the fact he was still armed and still checking behind them every few seconds.
“Yes. I should have worn pants, though.”
Alec glanced at Molly’s legs and shook his head. “Nah. That’d be a real crime to cover up those gorgeous legs.” Before she could say anything to put him in his place, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “Now don’t start moaning at me. I’m a man who doesn’t think much before I talk. It’s just the way I am, Molly. One good thing about it is that I don’t lie. I never leave myself enough time to think of one.”
“I’ll remember that,” she mumbled, enjoying, despite her anger and misgivings, the feel of his warm strength.
They didn’t have to jump the fence, which was all to the good. It was six feet of chain link, with those twisty little topknots designed to rip skin. An older man dressed in natty white cashmere slacks and a blue jacket unlocked the gate at that moment, holding the door for Molly and Alec because they acted as if they belonged there.
The man stopped at a shining new Cal 34 yacht, where a bikini-clad girl about nineteen was polishing a brass winch with a toothbrush. Alec allowed a wolfish smile of appreciation as he nodded. She swooned, and Molly shook her head. California. Despite earthquakes, fires and riots, the general population was always ready to respond to someone with hot looks.
They walked the length of the dock. All the boats were bobbing in the low tide, decks shimmering above sleek, polished hulls. Above them, the boats’ halyards, whose job it is to hoist the billowing sheets of sails into the wind, snapped tautly against jutting masts.
They slapped in rhythm with the triangular yacht-club pennants, called “burgees.” Fluttering at the top of the masts, they announced the wealthy owners’ social connections for all to see.
As they walked farther down the dock the size of the boats increased. “They’re all so incredible, Alec. But it looks like you’d need a crew of ten just to get them out to sea.”
“Not if a bloke knows what it’s about, love.” He came to the end, which faced the calm, protected water. Alec walked up a short set of stairs. “Here we are. Get ready to board the Geisha Empress.”
The boat was gorgeous. Forty feet of teak-bedecked artistry lolled in the water, the vessel’s beamy cockpit big enough to seat eight with room for a servant to pass the hors d’oeuvres. Though Molly belonged to the working-class, money all by itself didn’t impress her much. She worked in Beverly Hills, Glendale and Pasadena, and saw too much of it thrown around to have it hold instant glamour. But when it was wed to good taste, she felt her envy beeper go off. Beep, beep, beep, it said now. And she couldn’t even swim.
The lines of the ketch-rigged beauty
were simple and pure, proclaiming speed and comfort.
“Whose boat is this?” Molly asked in admiration.
“Fred Brooker’s.”
Molly reeled back a step. “What? Are you nuts?”
“Yes, I may be. But he’s in prison and I still have the keys. If they work, I’d say we’ve picked the perfect place where no one would think to look for us. In the lion’s den, so to speak.” Alec jumped aboard spryly, then reached for her hands. “Take off your shoes, Molly. It’s a rule with wooden boats.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea. Are there any life jackets?”
“I’ll get you one,” he replied. “Now come aboard and I’ll fix you something to eat.”
Reluctantly, Molly slipped off her shoes, holding tight to Alec’s hand as she followed him to the galley hatch. “She’s beautiful.”
“That she is. The Empress is a classic Cheoy Lee. Built about sixty years ago. You can’t get them like this anymore.” He spun the combination lock easily, then pushed back the hatch cover and stepped inside.
Molly peeked in after him, marveling at the compact efficiency below. A kitchen and dinette, complete with stereo and television mounted into the wall next to a microwave oven, beckoned invitingly. Alec drew back curtains and opened windows, then turned and smiled the first genuine smile Molly had seen since their surreal second acquaintance began.
“Come on down, Molly. I’ll make you some grub, then we’ll call Alicia.”
She threw her purse and shoes, along with the satchel into which she had stuffed a company directory, onto a chintz-covered sofa and walked backward down the stairs. Beside her was a shelf full of pictures, and her gaze was drawn to one with Frederick Brooker and a teenage boy. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders, while people in the background were pouring champagne onto their hair.
Molly picked up the leather-framed photo. “I didn’t know Brooker had any children.”
Alec looked over his shoulder. He was opening up a canned ham. “Yeah. A son. I met him once in Brooker’s office. He’s a good kid. Deaf, however. Goes to a special school in the East, I think.”