Michael Prescott - Deadly Pursuit

He had spent the past fifteen minutes in this narrow hideaway that Steve, in his guided tour, had somewhat incongruously referred to as the maid’s room, though there was no maid in residence at the Larson house now. The radio room-that was what it should be called, since the two-way radio on the worktable was the sole object of interest in the place.

Part of his time had been occupied with a small but important operation requiring some minimal mechanical skill. Only when that chore was done had he switched on the radio, dialed the volume low, and found a news channel. Ear pressed to the speaker, he’d waited for an update on the manhunt.

According to leaks from anonymous sources “close to the investigation,” the FBI had tracked him at least as far as Miami International Airport. Meanwhile, Sheila had achieved the status of a minor celebrity, peddling her story to a tabloid television show for $25,000.

There had been more, but he hadn’t heard it. He’d been afraid to leave the radio on with Kirstie in the next room. His behavior-sitting alone by the radio with the door shut-would only deepen her suspicions and perhaps prompt her to listen to the news herself.

He wondered what she had been doing in the kitchen… and what she was up to now.

Rising, he crossed the room and eased open the door. The kitchen was empty.

He remembered the sound of the French door shutting. She’d gone out onto the patio. Perhaps she was sunbathing.

His blue jeans, which he’d donned again after the trip to the reef, swelled slightly with the beginning of an erection.

Voyeurism was not his usual mode of operation. But he wouldn’t mind a glimpse of Mrs. Kirsten Gardner stretched in a lounge chair, wearing a swimsuit, skin oiled with suntan lotion.

Cautiously he passed through the kitchen into the dining room and approached the French doors, their square panes dappled with sun. He peered through the glass and felt a brief plunge of disappointment.

She wasn’t sunbathing. She knelt in the garden, her back to him, pulling dandelions.

No swimsuit, either. Her outfit was the same one she’d worn all day: sandals, shorts, yellow tank top.

Still, even that attire was revealing enough. Save for the tank top’s straps, her shoulders were bare, the upper part of her back exposed. Her muscles flexed as she worked. Firm, well-toned muscles.

He watched as she leaned forward, still humming the same melody he’d heard in the kitchen, and uprooted another weed. He thought of kneading her shoulders, her back.

Her lean, sinuous arms reached for a clump of ragwort. The weed was unexpectedly stubborn. She pulled hard, muscles stiffening. Jack thought of Ronni Tyler in her last living moment, her body snapping taut, head thrown back, arms extended like rigid poles. And years earlier, Meredith thrashing in the pool-her muscles had been well-toned also-she’d reached up for the surface, grasping desperately for life…

A shudder moved through him, the shock wave of some internal explosion, and abruptly he knew what he had to do.

His need was suddenly too strong, the blind, raging need that had been building steadily throughout the day. He had no choice but to satisfy it. Will, self-control, his very sense of self melted away in the furnace heat of the fever within him.

Distantly he recalled Steve’s warning, but the memory seemed remote and unreal. Steve wouldn’t shoot him. Little Stevie? No way. He didn’t have the nerve.

The door opened soundlessly under his hand. No creak of hinges. No squeal of wood.

He stepped into the humid air, heavy with flower scents. For a moment he stood in the shadowed coolness of a portico, peering out at the garden like a predator lying in ambush in its den.

Then silently he advanced into the heat, the light.

She was only six feet away. Her suntanned shoulders were dusted with soft freckles. The down on her nape shivered in a lazy current of air. She went on sweetly humming, the tune hypnotic and gently sad, haunting as a lullaby.

Regrettably he didn’t have his knife. It must still be packed with the snorkeling gear, which Steve had concealed somewhere in the house.

Well, his bare hands would do.

Her neck was thin, delicate.

If he grasped hold of her head from behind, gave it a good sharp twist He could almost hear the wet crackle of snapping bone.

With luck he would merely paralyze her when he broke her neck. Then he could finish her more slowly while she watched with wide, helpless, staring eyes. Blue eyes. Meredith’s eyes.

He took another step.

A hand closed over his arm from behind.

His heart stuttered, missing a beat. He jerked his head sideways.

Steve was there, his gray eyes cold behind his glasses.

Slowly, wordlessly, he nodded toward the house.

Making no noise, the two men retreated, leaving Kirstie to continue her work, unaware.

Steve didn’t speak until the French door was shut, and he and Jack were in the living room. Then: “You son of a bitch.”

Jack was certain the Beretta was concealed under Steve’s jacket. And equally sure Steve was very close to using it.

Maybe he did have the nerve.

“Hey, Stevie,” he said with a faltering smile, “relax. I didn’t

… do anything.”

“Only because I stopped you. All of a sudden it occurred to me that it wasn’t such a good idea to leave you alone with her.”

“You can trust me.”

“Like shit I can. Now listen to me, asshole”-Steve jabbed him rudely in the chest, the first time in their long friendship he had ever done so-“you keep your goddamn distance from her. Got that? Keep your fucking distance.”

“Sure. Sure. No problem.”

“Oh, yes, it is a problem. A big problem-for you. Remember what I said on the boat. You so much as touch her, and I’ll kill you. I mean it, Jack. I really do.”

Jack met Steve’s wintry gaze and understood that he was serious, he did mean it, he really would kill to protect or avenge his wife. It was the one hard spot within him, the one place where he was not weak and pliable and yielding.

In that moment Jack knew there would be trouble before the night was over.

Because regardless of what he’d promised, he no longer had any intention of allowing Kirstie Gardner to live.

The car phone chirped at seven p.m. Moore talked to a field agent in New Jersey while Lovejoy drove.

The Light Fantastic, New Jersey reported, had been sold to Albert Dance’s next-door neighbors, Jim and Jeanne Turner, in 1985. It was still berthed in Belmar.

Moore lowered the phone long enough to say, “Boat’s a dead end.”

Lovejoy grunted, unsurprised, and hooked left onto a side street on Plantation Key. To the west, the Everglades lay in purple silhouette against the reddening sun. A solitary bird circled the endless expanse of marshland, a blinking check mark in the sky.

“You interviewed the Turners, then?” Moore asked New Jersey.

“Yeah, we went over there. They remember Jack. Watched him grow up. Their daughter used to babysit for him.”

“Would she be worth talking to? Maybe they kept in touch.”

“She’s dead.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Accidental drowning when she was twenty-two. Her folks have got a sort of shrine on the mantel: her picture with flowers and candles all around it. Their only child. You never get over that.”

Moore had a thought. “What did this girl look like?”

“Blond, pretty, all-American type…” New Jersey caught on. “You think so?”

“Unlikely. Still… blue eyes?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Could her death have been something other than an accident?”

“Don’t know that, either. We’d have to ask the Turners for details-or see if we can dig up the police file.”