John Lutz - Hot

After about five minutes Beth appeared in one of the ground-floor windows, looked in his direction and gave a slight wave. She must have watched him before breaking in and gotten a fix on where he’d taken cover. She knew her stuff, all right. He tried not to contemplate her background, the kinds of crime she’d lived through as perpetrator or victim. Some areas of the past you left alone.

He continued watching the window where she’d appeared. Now and then he could see her moving around inside, smooth, nimble, seemingly unafraid, her lean dark body more capable than his for this kind of task.

He caught a glimpse of movement in the window two rooms from where Beth was, grabbed his cane and scooted over behind a low wall topped with planters so he could get a better view. Almost knocked over a potted geranium.

There was Hector, slumped in a brown leather chair and reading a magazine. Good. Carver liked knowing where Hector was. He was only two rooms away from Beth, but Carver would know if he got up from his chair. He saw Hector pick up a glass and take a sip of something, his eyes not leaving his magazine.

Carver settled down and continued to watch, occasionally glancing to his right to try to catch a glimpse of Beth. He couldn’t see her, but he noticed a moving shadow and knew she was still in the same room. She must have found something of interest there.

Hector shifted in his chair but didn’t get up.

Carver’s nerves were singing. His mouth was dry. He wished he could be inside instead of Beth, even though he knew that how they were working this made more sense.

He was in close enough to see what Hector was so avidly reading. It looked like pornography, nude figures on the large glossy cover. Tall red letters: naughty nymphets. Hmm, that should keep Hector involved enough not to know Beth was in the house, as long as she didn’t venture into the room where he sat. Carver picked up a pebble. If she went into the middle room, next to the one occupied by Hector, he’d toss it at the window, warn her to get out of there. Carver had a particularly clear view of that room, a kind of den with pale wicker furniture and pastel artwork on the walls.

Uh-oh. Above him! He thought he saw someone in the third-floor window.

There! Again!

It was Lilly. She was standing at the window and looking out at the sea. She was very erect and smiling with a vaguely cruel confidence, like a goddess surveying her domain. He stayed completely still. She hadn’t seen him yet, and wouldn’t unless she peered down through the darkness.

Then she cocked her head suddenly, as if hearing something that had aroused her curiosity. Drew back from the window and out of sight.

A light appeared in a window directly above the middle room. Lilly was on the move.

Now Beth was in the middle room, looking out the window at where Carver used to be, giving her little “I’m okay” wave.

Shapely legs and a pink skirt appeared in the second-floor window above Beth. It looked in on a staircase, and Lilly was descending!

Motion on the left caught Carver’s attention. Hector had put down the magazine and was sitting forward in his chair.

He got up, inserted a finger to scratch beneath the cast on his left wrist, and started toward the middle room.

Carver could only watch. He felt like screaming for Beth to run, but he knew that would only make things worse.

Lilly’s head passed from view, she was almost on the ground floor, only seconds from the room where Carver had last seen Beth.

Finally he remembered the pebble in his sweating palm and tossed it at the window. Too hard. It made a startlingly loud sound and almost broke the glass.

Hector picked up his pace.

Lilly was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Beth.

Carver’s heart was the loudest sound in the night.

He could only wait.

Wait.

There, Hector and Lilly were in the middle room! They were looking only at each other, talking. Lilly, in a delicate pink wrap unsuitable for her athletic frame, was waving an arm as she spoke. Hector held on to his cast and gazed around. Shrugged.

Carver got the idea. They’d both heard the pebble striking the window, not nearly as loud as it must have sounded to Carver, and both thought the sound might have been made by the other. That was improbable, but it was the kind of thing he could hope.

He wanted to bolt, but he waited for Beth.

Then he saw her over by the pool filter, searching for him. He stayed low and hobbled toward her, keeping his silence.

She saw him and ran wordlessly to him; the wind had died and he could hear her bare feet pounding the hard lawn. My God, she was grinning!

She whispered, “Time to make like fishies again,” and slowed her pace to his as they moved through the darkness to the sea.

When they were a hundred yards from land, the floodlights came on around the Rainer house, and Carver thought he saw Hector walking the grounds.

By the time they’d reached the opposite shore, the lights had been extinguished.

In the cottage Beth showed Carver a soaked and ink-smeared paper she’d brought with her on the swim back. It was illegible now, but she told him the room she’d spent so much time in was an office, and the paper was an unsigned letter insisting that “the cargo had to be shipped, whatever the danger.”

Might the letter have been a plant, part of an elaborate scheme to set him up?

He doubted it. There was no way for Rainer to be sure the house would be broken into, and the alarm Beth had neutralized would have activated the sound and light show that had driven Carver away on his first visit to the Rainer estate.

He and Beth decided they should proceed on the premise that Rainer had been compelled to load the Miss Behavin’ and put to sea.

Carver limped into the bathroom and got a towel, but Beth asked him not to dry himself. She wanted to make love wet. He was exhausted but he understood her need. Shared it. They’d been flying on fear and excitement, and it wasn’t so easy to land.

Adrenaline took over.

At breakfast Beth said, “Some night, huh?”

“On which shore?” Carver asked.

She stirred her coffee. “Why wouldn’t Rainer just put to sea during the day? You figure he doesn’t want anybody being able to swear when or how long the boat’s been gone?”

The morning hadn’t heated up yet, and Henry’s kitchen window was open. There was a breeze, the ancient-new scent of the sea pressing in. Carver took a sip of coffee. Yech! It was in a ceramic mug with a yellow smiley face on it, but it tasted like the coffee from the thermos bottle and didn’t appeal to him. He hadn’t slept well after last night. He was suddenly sick of Walter Rainer and all the Walter Rainers and the people who sucked up to them and even the people who merely tolerated them. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to swim far, far out to sea, join Henry Tiller. He admonished himself; he hadn’t been haunted by thoughts like that for a long time. Not since he’d been with Edwina. Hadn’t allowed it.

“Fred?”

“I figure it’s more than the boat coming and going,” he said. “He also doesn’t want anyone seeing him load or unload those crates, doesn’t ever wanna have to explain them. He’s got to know that at any given moment he might be under surveillance. But like the letter said, time was beginning to run out on some kinda deal, so he had to take a chance. If we did happen to be watching, we’d only know crates were taken aboard in the dead of night to ferry something somewhere.”

“Not hard to figure what that something is, though,” Beth said. She calmly buttered her toast. The cut on her forehead still looked nasty, almost luminous, but her bruised cheek was much better. She healed fast. “Maybe you better talk to Chief Wicke.”