John Lutz - Burn

Carver wasn’t so sure Desoto could hobble McGregor. “Don’t expect professional courtesy.”

“I don’t. But McGregor can expect a professional reaming out if he doesn’t stop playing personal games and cooperate. Where are you going when you leave here?”

“Red Feather Realty, to try to see Gloria Bream.”

Desoto arched an eyebrow in puzzlement. “Who is?”

“A real estate agent. Red Feather handles the listings in the condo development where Brant lives. Gloria Bream and Brant are rumored to be in a personal relationship.”

“Hmm. You better let us talk to her. Brant might have hired Achilles Jones to scare you off delving into his life when you were supposed to be investigating Marla Cloy. Questioning Gloria Bream might qualify as delving.”

“Or Marla might have hired Jones to scare me off investigating her claims of harassment against Brant.”

“That could be. Why do you think he killed Spotto?”

“He knew Spotto was working for me, but that doesn’t tell us much. He might have thought Spotto’s involvement was in regard to either Brant or Marla. If you find Jones, that’s what I need to know from him, which of the two hired him.”

“It might not have been either of them.”

“There’s that possibility,” Carver admitted.

Desoto unconsciously caressed a gold cuff link with the very tip of his middle finger. “It’s difficult,” he said, “to know where the truth lies. Maybe we won’t even know the truth for sure when this is over.”

“That’s what Beth says. You two think amazingly alike at times.”

“About you, I expect we do. Where’s Beth now?”

“My cottage.”

“I think you better go to her. I’ll send some of our people over to talk with this Gloria Bream. Achilles Jones might still be searching for you, and he might find Beth.”

Carver knew he was right, and suddenly he was struck by a sense of urgency so strong that he almost felt he could dash from the office without his cane.

“Call me after you get Gloria Bream’s statement,” he said.

“Sure. And you remember to be careful,” he heard Desoto say behind him as he headed for the door and the hot, fast drive back to Del Moray.

They’d made love within minutes after Carver arrived at the cottage, the Colt handgun within easy reach on his side of the bed. Though the breeze that found its way in through the screened window was warm, its whimsical movement kept the dim room comfortable.

Beth slept sprawled loosely on her back, while Carver lay awake, listening to the ocean continue its endless and ultimately victorious assault on the land. He tried to discern some primal truth in its hushed message, but failed. Something profound was always there, inches or seconds beyond reach and understanding, Carver had read somewhere that ancient philosophers believed the basic elements of all things, singly or in combination, were earth, fire, water, and air. Maybe, in a way that had little do with hard fact, they were right.

The phone by the bed trilled, and so alert was Carver to sound that he snatched it up before its first ring was completed.

He glanced over at Beth, who hadn’t moved, then whispered a hello into the receiver.

Desoto said, “Isn’t it early to be in bed?”

“How do you know I’m in bed?” Carver asked.

“Someone is, or you wouldn’t be whispering, right?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Besides, I heard bed springs squeak as you picked up the phone. I know that sound.”

“All right. I’m in bed.”

Desoto could probably guess why, at four in the afternoon, but he dropped the subject. “We were told at Red Feather Realty that Gloria Bream was on vacation, visiting her mother in Kansas City.”

“You check on that?”

“Of course. We talked to her. Then we even had the Kansas City police make sure the woman who told us on the phone she was Gloria Bream was actually there and was who she claimed to be. And her vacation and visit had been planned for a month, according to some of the other Red Feather employees. It looks like Bream’s out of the picture here.”

“Unless Kansas City is where Brant’s gone.”

“The K.C. police are onto that possibility, but they say it’s unlikely, given the situation there. They’re keeping the Bream house, and Gloria Bream, under observation in case Brant does show up, but it’s more a matter of touching all the bases than thinking in terms of a home run.”

“There’s always the possibility of a wild pitch,” Carver said.

“Ah! Another baseball analogy. Very good, amigo, but I’d already changed seasons to football.”

“Football?”

“Yes. I see your dilemma more as sudden-death overtime than extra innings.”

“Is that your way of cautioning me?”

“It is, though I don’t delude myself that it makes any difference. Still, one must try.”

“One sure doesn’t talk like a cop sometimes.”

“Like a friend, I hope.”

“Like a friend,” Carver confirmed. “And it does make a difference.”

“I’m assuming Beth’s okay.”

“She’s never been better.”

“Uh-huh.”

Carver thanked Desoto and hung up, letting the back of his head sink deep into the pillow. For more than the obvious reasons, he’d been hoping Brant had run to Gloria Bream. It would mean he hadn’t snapped entirely under the strain and frustration and been serious about his threat to kill Marla. Now Carver feared Brant was determined to thwart Marla by actually killing her, his judgment warped as he moved in a dream of vengeance. Carver knew how it was to be trapped in that dream, and how difficult it was to escape. Revenge could be as basic and powerful a craving as hunger or sex. He wondered how the ancient philosophers had regarded revenge. Fire, he decided.

Fire and then earth.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. His mind and body lurched, and suddenly he realized the room was dark. The digital numerals on the clock near the bed said it was almost ten o’clock.

Beth’s form was barely visible, but he could hear her snoring lightly. She didn’t seem to have changed position. The crash of the surf on the beach was louder, with more time between incoming waves. Though it was probably cooler outside, the breeze had died and the bedroom was warm. Carver’s nude body was perspiring, and he could feel heat emanating from Beth. The scent of their coupling was heavier in the air than when he’d fallen asleep, stirring desire in him again, but only faintly. He became aware of the pressure of his bladder and reached for his cane so he could make his way into the bathroom.

As he was standing at the commode relieving himself, he heard the phone trill again. It stopped after two rings. Beth must not have been sleeping as deeply as he’d thought.

By the time he’d returned to the bedroom, she was sitting cross-legged on his side of the bed with the reading lamp on, holding the receiver to her ear with a hunched shoulder while she wrote with a pencil on the back of a magazine she’d managed to find.

She said “Owe you” into the phone, then smiled and hung up.

She stared at the magazine in her lap for a few seconds, as if double checking her information, then looked up at Carver. “Marla and Portia Zahn,” she said.

“What?”

“That was Jeff Mehling on the phone. He’s been at his computer almost all day and worked his way back to Marla’s and Portia’s birth records. They were born within a year of each other in Winter Haven, Florida. Same mother and father. Jeff said the Zahns’ car was struck broadside by a tractor-trailer when the girls were eighteen months and seven months old. They were the only survivors. Since they had no other family, they became wards of the state and were put up for adoption.”