Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

She looked at him with surprise.

“That’s right, Laura. We’re going to your house.”

Getting past the policeman at the gate was going to be the next tricky part. While Laura drove, Griff formulated a plan.

“You won’t get away with this,” she said.

“I have so far, haven’t I?”

“Policemen in five states are looking for you.”

“But they haven’t found me.”

“Where have you been hiding?”

He didn’t answer that. “When we get to your place, make sure your headlights are on bright. Pull in so that they’re shining directly into the windshield of the patrol car that’s parked in front of the gate.”

“Are you sure the gate is still being guarded?”

“I’m sure.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Followed Rodarte.”

She looked at him with astonishment. “You’ve been following Rodarte? How?”

“What’s the code on your gate?”

She turned her head back to the road, and her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I can’t think of a single reason why I should tell you that.”

“Can you think of a reason why your husband would have had half a million in cash at your house that night, stacked neatly in a stationery box?”

“I explained that to Rodarte.” In nervous stops and starts, she told Griff about Foster’s heavy tipping practice.

“Half a million dollars’ worth?” Griff said, laughing. “Nobody’s that generous.”

“Rodarte believed me.”

“I doubt it. In any case, I could throw a shitload of doubt on that explanation. Or”-he paused for emphasis-“you could give me the gate code.” She gave him the code, and then he told her how it was going to play out when they reached the estate.

As instructed, when she turned in to the private drive, she pulled in so that her headlights shone directly into the squad car. Griff opened the passenger door. Before getting out, he said, “I could make mincemeat of Foster Speakman’s reputation. Remember that.”

He stepped out of the car, leaving the door open, and walked toward the keypad on the column near the gate.

The policeman had got out of the squad car and was approaching him, his hand raised, shielding his eyes against the glare of Laura’s headlights. Griff kept moving, asking over his shoulder, “How’s it going here? Everything quiet?”

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“Officer?” Laura called out to him.

The cop turned toward her. Griff reached the column, punched in the sequence of numbers she had given him, holding his breath until the double gate began to swing open.

“Is everything all right here?” Laura had alighted and was standing in the open door of her car, talking to the policeman.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“This additional security is so unnecessary.”

“Better to be safe, ma’am.”

“I need to pick up some things from the house. I shouldn’t be long.”

By now, Griff was back at the car, sliding into the passenger seat. She bent down and addressed him. “You don’t have to go inside with me,” she said, following the script he’d given her. “In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. I’ll be perfectly safe inside my own home.”

“I’m supposed to stay with you, ma’am. Rodarte’s orders,” he said, making sure the other cop heard it.

She huffed as though vexed and looked back at the officer. “Could you move your car please, before the gate closes?”

Quickly he returned to his squad car, started it, and rolled it forward far enough to clear the gate. Laura drove through.

Griff didn’t start breathing again until the gate closed automatically behind them. But if that officer was any kind of sharp, he’d be checking with Rodarte to see if Laura’s visit to her home had been approved. Or he would soon be receiving a call from the hotel telling him that Mrs. Speakman had been abducted. Griff hoped to be in and out before either happened.

“Go in through the front door, where he can see us.”

She followed the driveway and parked directly in front of the house. Griff got out and approached the mansion’s grand entrance, looked around, played the role of bodyguard in case they were being observed. Laura used her key and opened the front door. The alarm started beeping. She made no move toward the keypad.

Griff said, “The house on Windsor Street would become a tourist attraction.”

She understood the warning and punched in the code that silenced the alarm.

“Lights?”

She touched a switch that seemed to turn on every light in the house. “Fancy,” he said, impressed.

“Now what?”

“Now we go to the garage. Specifically, to Manuelo Ruiz’s apartment above the garage.”

She looked at him with incredulity. “Is that what this is about?”

“That’s what this is about. How do you get to the garage?”

Looking like she wanted to argue, she turned instead and walked stiffly across the foyer. He followed, relieved that she was leading him in the direction opposite the library.

The kitchen was three times larger than the house Griff had grown up in.

On the far side of it was a door. Laura walked toward it. “Wait,” he said. “That goes outside?”

“Through the mudroom, then outside.”

“Is the exterior door visible from the front gate?”

“No.”

Griff went around her, opened the door, and saw a utility area that deserved a more glamorous name than mudroom. He opened the exterior door and looked out. There were no longer policemen patrolling the estate grounds. They’d been pulled off when Rodarte had moved Laura to the hotel yesterday evening. Griff had been watching, and he knew.

Nevertheless, he felt exposed as he and Laura crossed the motor court between the house and the detached garage. Laura indicated a door at the side of the building. “Manuelo’s apartment is through that door and up the stairs, but you won’t find him there.”

“I don’t expect to.”

There was a keypad on the wall adjacent to the door. “Another freaking code?” Griff motioned to it impatiently, and Laura punched in a sequence of numbers. The door opened with a metallic click. They slipped inside. Griff pulled the door closed behind them and heard the lock engage.

“No lights,” he said, sensing that she was groping the wall for the switch plate. “You came to pick up stuff from the house, not the garage. The lights stay off.”

He pulled a small flashlight from the policeman’s belt and switched it on. He shone the beam down at their feet, but he could see her in the ambient light.

“Laura. Is there really a baby?”

JUDGING FROM THE LOOK ON HER FACE, THE QUESTION HAD TAKEN her completely by surprise. She stared at him for several seconds, then made a small motion with her head.

He felt an expanding pressure inside his chest. He’d never felt anything like it before, so he couldn’t put a name to it. It was a strange feeling, and yet a good one. Like supreme satisfaction. Like the total opposite of what he’d been feeling the other day in the motel when he’d reviewed his life history.

He looked down at her abdomen but couldn’t detect any change. Of course there wouldn’t be any yet.

He wondered if she was thinking, like he was, about their last afternoon together, when he’d reached around her and closed the front door. How could they have foreseen the cataclysmic impact that simple motion would have? Because of it, one life had ended. And another had begun.

His gaze tracked back up to her face. Their eyes met and held. This warm, closed space in which they were standing seemed suddenly to be very small and airless. He didn’t dare take a deep breath for fear of breaking the silence that pressed in on them, teeming with implication.