Killer Summer

by Ridley Pearson

  17

  Fiona entered the tent on the arm of Roger Hillabrand, the CEO of a multinational defense-contracting firm, who’d been a central figure in a recent investigation of Walt’s office. He had a Robert Redford thing going: rich, rugged, and ready for action.

  Seeing her, Walt wanted to simply disappear. “Another junior high reaction to an adult situation,” is how Gail would have labeled it. His relationship with Fiona was not entirely professional, though he wasn’t sure she knew that. If forced to say hello, to acknowledge the pair, he might blush or stammer or otherwise give himself away. That was to be avoided at all costs.

  He should have realized she’d attend, should have realized guys like Hillabrand didn’t give up. He’d gone after her before, during the investigation. Fiona had pushed back, but had now obviously had a change of heart. Walt barely recognized her in the skintight designer jeans, high heels, and red silk, western-style shirt unsnapped to the third button.

  They arrived to the party like Sun Valley royalty. Thankfully, they were swallowed up immediately by the social crush.

  “Hey, Sheriff, isn’t that-?”

  “Yeah,” Walt said, cutting Brandon off, forcing himself to look away.

  “She sure cleans up good.”

  “I’ll be at Mobile Command. Stay on comm.”

  He headed for the far entrance of the tent.

  The tent itself was now crowded with guests, a confusing mix of pretensions and loud talk that went with wine connoisseurs. Overhearing such descriptions as “a buttery nose” and “a chalky vanilla finish,” he wanted to laugh. To him, wine came in a box, and eventually went down the toilet.

  The more tasting that went on, the louder the voices became, a shouting match with built-in laugh track.

  Nearly out of the tent now, Walt overheard a young woman arguing with a volunteer hostess that she should be allowed in the party. The volunteer politely explained it was by invitation only.

  “I won’t be but five minutes,” the young woman complained bitterly. “I promise, I won’t drink any wine. I could care less! I just need a minute with one of the presenters.”

  “Who?”

  “Arthur Remy. It’s extremely important.”

  Mention of Remy’s name caught Walt’s attention. The volunteer hostess said something Walt couldn’t hear. The young woman seeking entrance, clearly disgusted, charged past her into the tent.

  When Fiona spotted Walt, she gripped Roger’s arm more tightly and steered him toward the whites.

  “Do you ever play that game where you make up what other people do, who they are, what they’re thinking?” she blurted out before realizing how childish it sounded. “Forget I just said that,” she added, embarrassed.

  “Heavens no! It’s a wonderful game. The only problem is, I know everyone here.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Damn near.”

  They each accepted a small glass of white wine.

  “What about him,” she asked, “the anxious-looking guy?”

  “You guess first,” he said. “I’ll tell you how close you are.”

  “You know him?”

  “Of him, absolutely.”

  “Someone intense. A surgeon maybe. Or a broker who lost everything in the crash last year. He’s a wannabe, worried sick, by the look of him, at not being the center of a conversation.”

  “That’s Teddy Sumner,” Hillabrand revealed. “His wife was the film producer Annette Dunning. You know, The Last Look, A Farewell to Harm-”

  “I loved that movie!” she gasped.

  “She died of breast cancer… two years ago, now. Teddy took over the reins, soon confirming the old adage that there can’t be two geniuses in the same bed.”

  “There’s no such adage.”

  “There ought to be. He’s squandered most of the fortune she’d made them-not helped any by the crash, of course-living well beyond his means. Has a teenage daughter, I think, which can’t be easy. A nice enough guy who should have been content to live off her earnings rather than trying to prove himself, which rarely works. You want to feel sorry for him, but he was his own undoing.”

  “Your turn,” she said, looking around the tent. She pointed out the Engletons, whose guest cottage she was renting. He was tall, with a wisp of white interrupting his dark hair. She was exotic-looking, wearing a shawl from India or Pakistan.

  “I know Michael and Leslie very well. You know that.”

  “But if you didn’t…?”

  “But I do… That’s not how the game is played, is it?”

  “Okay, fine. How about the man with the pinup, the blow-up doll… Do you know them?”

  “Aren’t we generous?”

  “I don’t feel sorry for someone who looks like a teakettle. You don’t wear a copper top like that unless you’re starved for attention.”

  “I’d peg him as ex-military. German, maybe something more exotic like Czech or one of the -zakis. Extremely confident. Runs his own business, plays by his own rules. Is rough in bed-and she likes it.”

  Fiona punched him in the arm. His wine sloshed, nearly spilling, and they both laughed.

  “She’s the rough one,” Fiona said. “Wants all the attention all the time. Insufferable. Fired from the evening news in some backwater TV market like Bakersfield.”

  “More like Atlantic City,” Roger said.

  “Exactly! Skipped college for a shot at showbiz. Failed miserably. Married three times, no kids. Loves dogs.”

  “Little dogs… yappy little dogs she dresses like dolls.”

  “Perfect!” Fiona finished off the glass of wine. “See? You’re good at this.”

  For a moment, there was something between them, something she found dangerous and seductive at the same time. But the feeling threatened her as much as excited her, and it ruined the moment for her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Just then, there was a commotion at the entrance on the far side of the tent. A woman charged through the crowd, stopping only a few feet from them.

  Walt signaled the volunteer hostess and pursued the crasher himself. He reached out for the rushing woman’s arm but missed.

  The woman was dressed casually, and inappropriately for this crowd, in department-store jeans, a green polo, and brown Keens.

  Intrigued by what the woman might want with Remy, he gave her some distance. He knew he stuck out in his uniform, but no one seemed to notice him.

  Coming within earshot, Walt was disappointed that the confrontation between the crasher and Remy lasted only seconds. Remy had rebuked her immediately, turning his back on her. But she was determined, pulling a pen out of the purse slung over her shoulder and scribbling something on a cocktail napkin. Interrupting Remy a second time, she pressed the napkin into his unwilling hand.

  “Call me,” she said.

  Remy leaned in close to her and apparently said something disagreeable. Her head jerking back as if slapped, she turned and hurried out an opening in the tent’s wall, a move Walt had not seen coming.

  He tried to catch up with her but became tangled in the crowd. One didn’t push around members of this set. He politely squeezed his way through the throng, making for the opening. He was several steps past one couple before stopping abruptly to get a better look at the woman’s face. Ignoring the hair and makeup, the outfit that made her look like a copper-topped battery, he realized she reminded him of someone. It took him a few seconds too many to wonder if she wasn’t the woman in the Hailey crosswalk, the woman caught on the traffic cam. The camera was too high up the pole and too far away to get a decent shot at any face, and yet…

  His moment of hesitation cost him.

  He caught Brandon’s eye, hand-signaling him over other people’s heads to get going out of the tent.

  Brandon, who’d seen Walt pursuing the party crasher, took off.

  Then Walt looked back for the woman in the copper top.

  Gone.

  Not for the first time in his life, he c
ursed his short stature. In a sea of six-footers, he was forced to lift up to his toes and crane his neck. The Duracell battery and her man were moving away from Walt but in no particular hurry. He took a step in that direction, then heard Brandon speaking in his right ear bud.

  “She’s getting into a car, Sheriff. What do you want me to do?”

  Grabbing the handset clipped to his epaulet, he answered, “Wave her down and stop her, if you can.”

  “No way.”

  “Get the plate, then. Take down the registration.”

  “Ten-four,” Brandon mumbled.

  Walt glanced back toward his quarry as another volunteer hostess blew into a microphone and began making introductions. Walt again lifted to his toes, searching for Miss Duracell.

  Not seeing her or her escort, Walt hurried back out of the tent. He caught up to Brandon, describing the woman’s copper outfit as the two jogged over to the sea of parked SUVs.

  The couple was nowhere to be found.

  “How’s that possible?” a winded Brandon asked.

  “Professionals,” Walt answered, a sense of dread overcoming him.

  He’d had her within arm’s reach.

  18

  Summer was having doubts. Her plan had seemed pretty simple at first, but its execution required a commitment she wasn’t sure she could make. “Easier said than done,” her father would have lectured. Oddly enough, just thinking of him, whether he was right or not, steeled her to her purpose.

  She’d left a note on the coffee table in the suite’s living room: Dad, found a friend. Going out. Back by midnight.

  She assumed the last bit would piss him off, since her curfew was eleven P.M. She had no intention of missing her curfew, but she didn’t want him knowing that. He’d get in well past eleven, but she just wanted to give him a little heartburn before checking her room and finding her asleep.

  The events of the next few hours were critical to her bigger plan. Her mother, with her many business dealings, had taught Summer how to use strategy. The prize went to the best planner, the one with the foresight to lay the necessary groundwork. To cinch the deal, to make the relationship stick, you had to get the other person to take the bait without knowing what he was swallowing.

  She would leave him this message tonight, then obey the rules, and by tomorrow night it would become routine. He’d automatically grant her an extension on her curfew in expectation that she’d never need it. Then…

  “Hey, dude,” she said, sliding into the passenger’s seat of Kevin’s beater Subaru. The contents of the laundry bag she carried clattered. He looked over at it, curious.

  “Whaddya got?” he asked.

  She opened the bag, revealing little liquor bottles from the mini-bar in the room. “Goodies.”

  “For real?” he said.

  “Including four cold beers.”

  “Sweet.”

  She pulled the rearview mirror her direction to inspect herself. She then pushed it back into place.

  “Seat belt,” he ordered.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “You want to get stopped? The cops here… well… I happen to know they’re sweeping for seat belts right now.”

  “You’ve got the inside track, do you?”

  She clipped the seat belt at her waist, then leaned forward against the shoulder strap, trying to emphasize her chest. She wanted his attention in all the right places, wanted him to be thinking ahead. His cooperation was key to her plan.

  “I actually do… have the inside track,” he said. “My uncle is the county sheriff.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.”

  “So are you cool with this?” She nodded at the laundry bag.

  “As long as it’s not open in the car.”

  “You’re going to drink with me, though,” she said, as if fact.

  “If I get too loaded, I can borrow a friend’s bike and ride home,” he said.

  She liked that.

  “A planner,” she let slip.

  “What…?”

  “You’re a planner.”

  “Yeah, I guess so… sometimes.”

  “You either are or you aren’t.”

  “You?”

  “I’d put a check in that box, yeah,” she said. “But I’m no type A… not hardly.”

  “You’ve got a real thing about your father, don’t you?”

  “My mother’s dead,” she said.

  The engine sounded rough when their voices weren’t covering it, an unfamiliar rhythm under the hood like someone clapping out of time. The silence between Summer and Kevin stretched out uncomfortably.

  “My dad killed himself,” Kevin said, catching his reflection in the windshield, proud that he could look so emotionless.

  “Whoa!”

  “At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. No one’ll say. Mom lost, like, a million pounds after he died and, I don’t know, changed. My uncle and grandpa are pissed off at each other most of the time, mainly, I think, because of what happened to Dad. It was ruled accidental, but I’m pretty sure he did it, and that my uncle covered for him, and that the only reason he did that was because Grandpa made him.”

  “That’s seriously random.”

  “I don’t know if he did or didn’t. He’s just dead, you know? You’re the first person I’ve met… first person my age and all… you know?”

  “Yeah. Same here.”

  The tailpipe didn’t sound all that terrific. And there was a low grinding noise coming from the back axle. Just her luck if the car broke down before tomorrow night.

  “How much farther?” she asked.

  “That’s the ski hill. Warm Springs side. Half Pipe’s on the other side. River Run. I board. Half Pipe is awesome.”

  “I’ve never skied.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Tennis.”

  “You any good?”

  Summer stared Kevin down, though at no time did he take his eyes off the road.

  “Yeah, okay, I get it,” he said.

  “I’m thinking of going pro.”

  “A friend of mine’s on the snowboarding circuit. He has endorsements and stuff like that. But I think his parents basically pay for everything. He hasn’t exactly won anything yet.” He added, “You won anything?”

  “Of course I’ve won… I’m a winner… I win.”

  “Anything big?”

  “Big enough.”

  The road narrowed, evergreens towering claustrophobically on either side. Sunset was fully an hour away, but the sky was all pink and turquoise and full of promise.

  “Wow,” Summer said about it, not meaning to sound so impressed.

  “Yeah, I know,” Kevin agreed.

  “It’s, like, the town just disappeared.”

  “That’s what happens here… the outdoors, the wilderness… it just kinda takes over. That’s what it’s all about.”

  “It’s awesome.”

  “L.A.?” he guessed.

  “Is it that obvious?” she asked.

  “I don’t mind, I’ve got a bunch of friends from there.”

  “They moved up here?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Whoa!”

  “You and your dad could.”

  “Ah… I don’t think so,” she said. “You don’t know my dad.”

  She leaned out the window to see the tops of the trees. A pair of birds crossed the sky.

  “Almost there,” he said. “Another couple of miles.”

  “Hey, just keep driving and don’t stop, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  They were quiet again. But there was nothing uncomfortable about it. Silence was usually a contest for her, a weapon. With the window rolled down, the wind was in her face, her hair whipping, and it made her laugh. Her father had been hammering this same message into her for the past two years: “You’re growing up too fast. Slow down and have some fun. Don’t be in such a hurry to g
row up: it’s oversold.”

  “This is way cool,” she called into the wind.

  “Yeah?” he called back.

  Not long after that, Kevin parked the car in the beaten-down grass about thirty yards from the hot springs and well off the road. Steam rose from the springs.

  He turned the key off and set the parking brake. She got out of the car. Waiting to make sure he was looking, as he climbed out from behind the wheel, she reached down and pulled her T-shirt up over her head while she walked toward the springs. Then she popped the button on her jeans and unzipped the fly. She knew his heart would be racing by now. She knew what she was doing.

  Her own heart was racing too, but for a different reason. She didn’t want him decoding her embarrassment.

  He wouldn’t be able to get his pants off without some major awkwardness himself. She thought that might slow him down, give her more time to make a show of her striptease. But despite all her planning, as she wiggled the jeans over her hips and down to her knees, as she sat on a rock stalling for time while kicking off her sandals, her chest felt tight.

  She wasn’t sure she could go through with this. Only her father’s combativeness and certitude drove her on. If he hadn’t dragged her along on this trip, she wouldn’t be in a position of stripping naked in front of a virtual stranger.

  Now Summer’s sandals sat on the grass alongside the jeans. She stood.

  Kevin was looking right at her. He’d slipped out of his shirt but was taking his time with his pants. His state of arousal was apparent from across the steaming pool.

  It’s now or never, thought Summer.

  She unhooked her bra, taking a deep breath, hoping for courage, and let it slide down her arms. Goose bumps raced up her ribs. She squared her shoulders to make herself look even bigger than she was, hoping he was too far away to see her blush. She slid her fingers into the elastic of her bikini briefs.

  I’ve gone this far…

  She pulled down the briefs with both thumbs, and it was done. Dragging the liquor bag behind her, she slipped into the water, gasping at the heat.

  By the time she looked up, Kevin was in the pool waist-deep.

  “Oh… damn,” she said, sinking in up to her chin, hiding herself from his stare. But it was too hot to stay under for long.