Michael Koryta - Tonight I Said Goodbye

If I’d ever been more aroused, I couldn’t remember it. But even as our bodies pressed together and our lips met, other images were flashing through my mind. I saw the crime scene photographs of Wayne Weston’s corpse, and I saw his father sitting on the deck of his son’s house staring at the snowman with the world’s loneliest eyes. This time, I broke the kiss.

“We can’t,” I said, breathing heavily.

“Ssshh,” she said, putting her index finger to my lips.

“I have an obligation to John,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but I can’t…”I let my words trail off as she began kissing the side of my neck, and then I said the hell with it. I’d given her the chance to reconsider, and she’d passed. I wanted the woman, and I wanted her badly. I pulled her head toward me and kissed her again.

She ran her hands through my hair and over my shoulders as we kissed, and I let my fingers wander up her back to the strings of her swimsuit top. I ran my fingertips over the knot, and she kissed me harder and squeezed me with her legs, encouraging me. I pulled at the knot, loosening the strings and letting her swimsuit top slide free, leaving her breasts bare and warm against my chest. We were alone in the whirlpool, but it was a hotel, and people could walk by at any minute. I wasn’t even aware of the surroundings, though. Julie was all I could think about.

She slid farther up on my lap, lifting her chest slightly out of the water, the swimsuit top falling away completely, and she ran the palm of her hand up the inside of my thigh to my groin. And then my phone rang.

“Shit,” I breathed between kisses. This couldn’t be happening. Not now.

“Ignore it,” she whispered, caressing my jawline with the tip of her tongue.

I twisted my head slightly and leaned back so I could see the cell phone’s display. The caller ID was flashing the number, clearly illuminated against the green backlight. It was Joe.

“I’ve got to answer,” I said, “it’s my partner.”

“No,” she said, kissing my neck. “Call him back.”

I pushed down the urge to take her advice, and I reached for the phone with my left arm. She groaned softly and nipped my earlobe with her teeth. I got my fingers around the phone and brought it to my mouth. She sighed and slid off my lap, feeling in the water for the top of her swimsuit. As I pressed a button to receive the call, I felt like screaming at Joe to leave me alone and call back in an hour. Or six.

“You’ve got amazingly bad timing,” I said instead.

“I don’t care,” he said, and his voice was tense. “Lincoln, we’ve got major trouble.”

“What is it?” Julie had found her swimsuit top, and she was retying it behind her back. Now she looked at me, catching the concern in my voice.

“Kinkaid and I couldn’t find the Russians this afternoon,” he said. “I had a bad feeling about it, so I drove out to the airport and showed the attendants some photographs. Krashakov and Rakic took a plane out of the city today, Lincoln. They’re on their way to South Carolina. They’re coming after you.”

I TURNED away from Julie, not trusting myself to keep my face from showing the chill that Joe’s news sent through me.

“Are you sure?” I asked, but I knew he was. Joe was not a man prone to false assumptions.

“Positive,” he said. “Kinkaid and I drove down to their house today, planning to keep an eye on them all night. The SUV was in the driveway, but it didn’t look like anyone was home. I went for a walk around the block and talked to one of the neighbors, an old lady who was out feeding stray cats. She told me she’d seen the Russians leave in a cab an hour before we got there. I didn’t like that at all-why leave in a cab when your own car is sitting in the drive, you know? So I went back and talked it over with Kinkaid. He thought maybe they were just trying to avoid using their own vehicle because they were going someplace where they didn’t want to be noticed, but I disagreed. I was thinking about the airport right away. I made him go out there with me, and we showed pictures around until we found someone who recognized them.”

“What time was their flight?” I asked. I had climbed out of the whirlpool now. The wind was cold against my wet body. My eyes were locked on the window of Julie’s hotel room, where Betsy Weston slept alone.

“Four-thirty,” he said. “There was a stopover, though, so the flight was expected to get into Myrtle Beach around nine tonight.”

“What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“Shit, Joe. Why the hell did you wait until now to call?”

“I’ve been trying to call, LP. It kept telling me your phone was either turned off or out of range.”

Cell phones. You gotta love ’em.

“You need to get moving,” Joe said. “Fast. According to the airport attendants I spoke with, Krashakov and Rakic were with two other men.”

“Four of them,” I said, my voice an unnatural monotone. “Great.”

“Are you with Mrs. Weston and the girl?”

It seemed strange to think of Julie as Mrs. Weston now, although I wouldn’t have thought twice about it a day earlier. “I’m with Julie,” I said. “We’re outside. Betsy is asleep in the room.”

“Well, get the hell up there, get her, and get gone. When you’re someplace safe and you have time to slow down, call me.”

“All right.” I hung up. My heart was still beating quickly, but it was no longer because of Julie. I turned back to her and saw she was standing at the edge of the swimming pool, clutching the towel to her body.

“I’m sorry,” she said as I approached. She wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t believe I did that. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

“It’s my fault, so don’t apologize. But right now we can’t worry about it, and we don’t have time to talk about it.”

“What’s wrong?”

I didn’t want to tell her, but I had to. “My partner was at the Cleveland airport. He found out four of the Russians flew out this afternoon. They’re coming here.”

Her eyes went wide, and she raised a hand to her mouth. “Betsy,” she said. “Oh, no.” She pushed past me and ran for the hotel door. I followed, wishing I’d thought to bring my gun with me to the whirlpool. They’d been due in town at nine, Joe had said. It was nine-thirty. Plenty of time to have rented a car.

The elevator was on the ground floor, and it opened immediately when Julie pressed the button. We stepped in, and I took her by the shoulders and pushed her against the wall.

“I need you to keep being strong,” I said. “I know you’re scared, but we have to stay calm. I don’t want Betsy getting hysterical, and neither do you. If she sees your fear, she’ll respond to it. You need to get your things together and get her ready to leave, but you need to keep her calm while you do that.”

“What do I tell her?”

“Tell her the hotel made a mistake and someone else needs our room. Tell her you’re tired of the scenery. Tell her anything, I don’t care what it is so long as she believes it and doesn’t panic.”

The elevator door opened again, and we stepped out into the seventh-floor hallway. I heard Julie exhale with relief when she saw the door was still closed and didn’t appear to be damaged. I used her keycard to open it and stepped in before she did, just in case someone was waiting for us. I was unarmed, barefoot, and shirtless. Not ideal combat conditions. I turned the light on and looked around the room. It was empty, and the balcony door was closed and locked. Julie shoved past me and ran to the bedroom door, opened it, and looked inside.

“She’s still asleep.”

“Get her up, and get packed,” I said. “We need to go very quickly.”