‘Sure,’ Sam said.
And then suddenly, it struck him that it wasn’t just a bad mood he was sensing about Toni this evening.
Something about her was manifestly wrong.
The small hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Because suddenly, Billie had sprung back into his thoughts.
Sam was prone to hunches and gut feelings, and he’d had a minor one last Friday just before visiting Billie’s home, which had taken him no closer to helping him find their missing Carmen.
But just now, when Toni Petit had stabbed those pins into the cushion, Sam had inexplicably experienced another jolt.
A medium to strong one on the Becket scale. About a 6.00, he figured. Nowhere near powerful enough to shake up anyone but himself, but still a hunch.
The kind that had often led somewhere over the years.
He took a breath.
‘Toni?’ he said.
‘Mm?’
She leaned forward again, slid both hands down the fabric on his left leg, then tugged it gently, not looking up at him.
‘How well do you know Billie?’ He kept his tone conversational.
‘Not well,’ she said. ‘Like everyone here, it seems.’
‘But you’re not really like the others,’ Sam said.
‘Why not? Because I’m not a singer?’
‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Because you care about other people’s needs in the company. Not just their costumes. You notice when they’re sick or down.’
‘I try,’ she said.
She leaned back, removed another pin from the cushion, then slid it into place in the hem of his pants, and the motion was smooth enough, yet he noticed a tiny tremor in her right hand.
His hunch edged up to a 7.00.
‘That’s why I just found myself wondering if Billie might have confided in you,’ he said. ‘I don’t necessarily mean immediately before she went missing, but in the past, in general.’
Toni sank back on her heels again. ‘It’s no good,’ she said, then stood up with a grunt of effort.
‘Are you OK?’ Sam asked again.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not. I have a headache.’
‘Bad one?’ He was sympathetic.
‘Bad enough,’ she said.
‘Are we done?’ Sam asked.
‘We’re done for tonight,’ Toni said. ‘You can take it off.’
He did so with care, passed the clothes to her, stepped back into his pants.
‘The costume’s really terrific,’ he said. ‘You’re very talented, Toni.’
‘I try,’ she said again.
He looked into her face and thought he saw the pain she’d complained of – though to him, fleetingly, it looked more like despair than the physical kind.
Up to an 8.00 now.
‘Toni,’ he began.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Please.’
And without another word, she turned, still holding the costume, and walked away from Sam, out of the garage and into the backyard.
Leaving him unaccountably chilled.
He waited three minutes before following.
The rehearsal had gotten under way again, Don José singing with Micaëla, and Holden’s throat seemed better and Carla’s voice was beautiful, and if her heart wasn’t really in this role with her sights set on the lead, no one could have accused her of short-changing the company.
Toni was standing by the table, a water glass in her hand, had probably taken pain pills; and maybe that was all this was, after all, maybe he could downscale to less than a 2.00, more of a knee-jerk than even a micro-hunch.
‘Hey.’ He kept his voice low as he approached. ‘I was wondering if I could maybe offer you a ride home.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I have my car.’
Her small smile was insincere, but that too was probably down to pain.
‘Is it a migraine?’ he asked, still quiet, mindful of the rehearsal.
Toni nodded. ‘Excuse me.’
She moved away from the table and from Sam, bypassing the performers on Tyler Allen’s lawn, heading toward the pathway that led to the front of the house and to the road.
Sam realized that she was leaving. Without a word to Linda or anyone else.
There might be a precedent – Sam had been away from S-BOP for a few years, after all – but though Toni’s presence wasn’t mandatory, he couldn’t recall her ever leaving before a rehearsal was over.
And though Sam was still wholly unsure why, his hunch magnitude climbed right back up to a 7.00, and after waiting sixty seconds, he went after her.
The taillights of her small Honda were still visible as she made a turn out of Lime Court.
Sam got in the Saab, started the engine, and followed.
Grace was not feeling relaxed.
Joshua had asked Claudia if he might spend the night at her house, where Mike and Robbie, her sons, always enjoyed playing with him, and Grace hadn’t wanted to spoil their pleasure.
Perhaps, she thought, it was her slight concern that Thomas Chauvin might decide to put in another appearance, and in that respect she was doubly glad she’d let Joshua stay over in Sunny Isles, away from any possible unpleasantness.
Felicia Delgado was on her mind, too, disappointment that her father had not yet called her again.
Nothing she could do about that now.
She went upstairs, ran water into the tub, lit an aromatherapy candle.
She was, she realized, missing Sam and Joshua, and felt somewhat ashamed of that, because her little boy was safe and happy at her sister’s, and Claudia’s husband was never coming back, while Sam would be home soon enough.
And so far, at least, there had been no sign of the Frenchman.
If he did show up again, she would simply not answer the door.
On the South Dixie Highway, heading north, Sam was trying to rationalize his reasons for tailing Toni Petit’s car.
The woman had done nothing wrong, either at Allen’s place or on the road; had exceeded the speed limit a few times, but minor infringements only, her driving in no way erratic.
Sam was almost certain that she had no idea that he was following.
Still had no solid idea as to why he was.
Only that sense of something ‘wrong’ about her, and because something indefinable was telling him that she might possibly know something about Billie’s disappearance.
Something had caused that brief look of despair after he’d asked a couple of questions about Billie – though probably it had been unconnected to that, could just have been a stress response to a fast-building migraine.
But was it just a headache that had made her cut and run so swiftly after a few harmless questions?
Except Toni had not really ‘cut and run’, Sam continued the dialogue in his head. She had taken his costume – had not rewrapped it, which was unusual but hardly a crime – and had walked out of the garage into the backyard, where he thought she had taken pills, probably for pain, and then she had walked, not run, out to the road and gotten into her car.
And now she was driving just a little faster than she ought.
But who didn’t?
Still, he guessed he’d call Martinez as the Honda continued north on I-95.
Force of habit for them both, even off duty, checking in at unexpected moments like these.
He called him on his cell.
‘I’m still at the office,’ Martinez said. ‘I’m going to wait a while longer in case I get something on our pal.’
‘Give it up,’ Sam said. ‘Chauvin’s my creep, not yours.’
‘And I thought we shared everything,’ Martinez said.
‘Matter of fact,’ Sam said, ‘I might ask you to run a twenty-four on a tag number.’
‘Shoot.’ Martinez took it down. ‘What’s up?’
‘Ninety per cent probability, nothing at all, just one of my gut feelings.’
‘About?’
‘Woman from S-BOP, name of Toni
Petit.’
‘The dressmaker, right?’ Martinez said.
Sam kept his eyes on the car still up ahead, keeping two vehicles between them. ‘I thought you never listen when I talk about opera.’
‘It’s the singing I try not to listen to, man. I don’t mind hearing about the people – except I thought it was the choreographer you had a bad feeling about.’
‘I know, and I have no real foundation for this, but I’m just keeping you in the loop, like always. I’m on Ninety-five going north, tailing this woman’s Honda Civic, and there’s no need to run the tag yet or do anything, because I’m seventy per cent sure this really is nothing.’
‘Moment ago, it was ninety per cent,’ Martinez said. ‘You want me to come and join you, man?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Sam said. ‘But I’ll stay in touch.’
‘You do that,’ his partner said.
Martinez hung up, not entirely happy because like all the detectives, they never went on calls alone. Though this, of course, wasn’t official, this was just Sam Becket going on what sounded like a wild goose chase.
Except that Sam had used the words ‘gut feeling’.
Which made Martinez a little uncomfortable.
Toni Petit was still driving carefully and steadily.
Which spoke against migraine, Sam thought, because people who suffered those tended to drive either erratically or too slowly, and those who got aura with their headaches often pulled over because their vision was impaired.
This woman was driving normally.
Even less of a crime than taking too many photos of a person.
Sam’s mind flicked back to Chauvin, who had, albeit briefly, spooked his daughter and angered his wife, and his own hands tightened on the wheel.
His eyes moved to the rearview mirror, then narrowed and focused ahead again, concentrating on maintaining the tail on the Honda.
He wondered if Toni was going home or someplace else.
Either way, he was staying with her.
Mildred had been sleeping.
Her left eye was covered with a plastic shield, and she had a cannula in a vein in her left arm attached to a drip feed, and she’d asked David why she needed that, and he’d assured her that it would only be there until she felt well enough to eat and drink normally.
‘If I hadn’t had anesthesia, I wouldn’t need it,’ she’d said, shaking her head. ‘Such a wimp.’
‘But a happy one, who didn’t need to know anything about her surgery,’ David said. ‘Remember to keep your head still.’
‘Yes, Doctor.’ Mildred had smiled at him, and drifted off to sleep.
Awake again now.
‘I don’t know why you don’t go home.’
‘Because I want to be with you,’ David said.
The room was dimly lit, and she didn’t know how her operated eye was doing because it was covered, but her right eye was just as before, and anyway, even without looking at her husband, she knew that he was doing his ‘sentinel’ thing. Keeping watch on her lest she experience the slightest problem.
Her problems behind her now, thank the Lord, at least for a while.
The remnants of the anesthesia still working on her very nicely.
There would, of course, be tomorrow to contend with. Dr Adams coming to check on his handiwork, maybe one of the other younger doctors doing the same. And then there’d be follow-ups . . .
Stop that.
She reminded herself how Ethan Adams had made her feel just before the procedure; almost confident, so far as she could recall.
And she did feel fairly confident of his skill now, so, provided it had worked and her vision was as improved as everyone said it would be, she might even agree to having the right eye done in due course.
Not that she would be hurried into that.
And she didn’t need to think about it now. Not with this pleasant, sleepy buzz still coursing through her.
‘You should go home,’ she told David. ‘Or at least go get some dinner.’
Right on cue, David’s stomach rumbled, and he laughed.
‘Guess you might be right about that,’ he said.
For a while now, Sam had felt pretty sure that he’d picked up a tail of his own.
It was always hard to be certain on a busy Interstate, but it seemed to him that the driver of the car in question had been working hard to keep close but not too close, ducking in and out.
An amateur, for sure.
White car. Hell of a popular color.
Sam ignored it, stayed focused on Toni’s car.
Three vehicles now between the Saab and Honda, but he saw her right indicator start flashing.
Exit up ahead.
Maybe heading to Miami Beach.
More choices up soon.
Sam took the right turn-off, checked and saw that the white car was still with him, just one pickup truck between them.
Starting to tick him off . . .
Not going to Miami Beach, Toni turned right instead onto West Hallandale Beach Boulevard, then left onto NW 2nd Avenue, and Sam followed, his own suspect tail coming with them . . .
And then, finally, on Foster Avenue, in a quiet, dark piece of Hallandale that neither Sam nor any other cop would have especially chosen to visit on their own, the Honda finally came to a halt.
Sam, holding back by a few hundred yards, slowed to a crawl.
He watched Toni Petit get out of her car, lock up, then walk toward a beat-up looking little house set well back from the road, and go inside.
Letting herself in, so far as he could see.
Still edging forward, he looked in his rearview mirror.
‘Goddamn it,’ he said.
He slammed on his brakes, got out of the Saab, sprinted back toward the other car.
A white Ford Focus rental.
Anger filling him.
‘Get the fuck out of the car,’ he told the driver.
Thomas Chauvin opened the door slowly, warily, and got out.
The five inches height between them suddenly seemed a whole lot more.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry.’
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Sam demanded.
‘Being an asshole, I guess.’ Chauvin was meek.
‘You got that right,’ Sam said. ‘What are you, eight years old?’
‘I got a little carried away,’ the Frenchman said. ‘I guess I was in the zone, you know?’
‘No, I don’t know,’ Sam said. ‘Nor do I know what you thought you were doing in my house and my daughter’s apartment earlier today, and we’ll be getting back to that some time real soon. But right this minute I just want you to get back in this car, turn your butt around and get the hell back to Surfside, or I will get your ass kicked right out of this country.’
‘Am I allowed to ask what—?’
‘No,’ Sam said.
‘Just get in the car, right?’ Chauvin said.
‘Now,’ Sam said.
David had given in, and had gone to get some dinner.
Hungry now. Food suddenly a metaphor for the goodness of the life he looked forward to sharing with his wife. A woman tough enough to cope all by herself for years on the streets, yet too fragile, too human, to want to face up to something she’d felt ‘squeamish’ about.
An understated word for something that had, of course, been a fear of phobic proportions. And yet, with a little help and encouragement, she had faced that too.
Great lady.
So now he could eat. Now he was suddenly starving.
Chops came to mind. With mashed potatoes and, maybe, a glass of wine.
Mildred was OK.
That merited a celebration.
More of that when they got her home.
Mildred was sleeping.
Dreaming.
In her dream, she was sitting on the smooth sand at South Beach, all alone, watching two men walking slowly away from her. One quite old, one young, but both walking evenly
, their pace matched. Donny, her late fiancé, and David.
They were leaving her, but she did not feel sad because she was too compelled by what was happening up in the sky to keep her eyes trained on the men.
The light was dying, the sun itself slowly disappearing.
No clouds anywhere, a perfectly clear sky, yet darkness was spreading.
‘It’s just an eclipse,’ Mildred said to herself.
‘Don’t watch,’ Edith Bleeker, her mother, told her, ‘or you’ll go blind.’
But Mildred knew there was nothing to fear, and anyway, her mother had told her not to marry Donny, and she had thought him long dead, but there he’d just been, walking on the beach with David, so if she wanted to watch the eclipse, she was going to do just that.
And oh, Lord, what a sight it was as totality began, and the corona she’d only ever read about, only ever seen on television, blazed into the blackness, and oh, my, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, and there was nothing at all to be afraid of, and she was just going to look and look until . . .
‘Mrs Becket?’
The voice woke her.
The brightness of the light from the corridor outside her room made her right eye blink.
Dr Wiley was looking in on her. ‘How’s my favorite patient doing?’ he asked.
Which irritated Mildred, because he had broken her wonderful dream, and because she was sure that she was no one’s favorite patient.
‘I was sleeping,’ she said.
‘That’s good,’ Dr Wiley said. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘I don’t know,’ Mildred said pointedly. ‘I was asleep.’
‘No nausea?’
‘No.’
‘What about the eye?’
The eye was exactly what she had just been enjoying not thinking about, though she guessed the dream about the eclipse and, in particular, her mother’s warning, indicated that her fears were still alive, and if she had been allowed to continue dreaming, maybe the worst would have happened, maybe she would have been blinded, so Dr Wiley might have done her a favor, after all.
‘It feels all right,’ she answered him.
‘No pain?’
‘A little discomfort earlier. Not really pain, and it’s fine now.’
The doctor closed the door quietly, came over to the bed and took her hand, startling her a little in the semidarkness, her eye shield limiting her vision.
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