Sandra Brown - Ricochet

She took several sips from the glass, then set it on the nightstand beside his.

He moved his hands lightly up and down her rib cage. “Are you still angry with me, Elise?”

“About the private investigator? No, Cato. I’ve told you time and again. What else could you think? All the signs pointed to an affair. It was silly of me not to explain Coleman’s situation to you.”

“Even if you had, I wouldn’t have approved your meeting him in hotel rooms.”

“I didn’t inflame his desire,” she said with a light laugh. “I tried to when we were in high school. It was a disaster. He didn’t want me that way.”

“Then he wasn’t only gay. He must have been dead, too.”

The telephone rang. He glanced at it, but saw that the light for the kitchen extension was on, indicating that Mrs. Berry had answered. He curved his hand around the back of her neck to draw her head down to his.

Through the intercom, Mrs. Berry said, “Judge Laird, I apologize for the intrusion. That Detective Hatcher insists on speaking to you.”

Cato held Elise’s gaze for several seconds, then removed his hands from her and picked up the receiver. He depressed the blinking red button on the telephone’s panel. “Detective Hatcher?”

Elise reached for her drink, noting that her hand was shaking, hoping that Cato didn’t notice.

“I see,” he said. The conversation lasted only a few more seconds. “I’ll adjust my schedule accordingly. We’ll be there.” Slowly he replaced the receiver and continued staring at the phone, saying nothing.

She was unable to contain her anxiety. “What did he want? You said we’ll be there. Where?”

“The police station. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Why?”

He looked up at her then. “We have a problem, Elise. Or rather, the police have a problem.”

“With what?”

“Your relationship with Coleman Greer. They don’t believe you.”

Duncan ’s car crawled along the street as he checked addresses until he found the one he sought. He pulled to the curb and stopped in front of the house. It was a dangerous, high-crime neighborhood that could accurately be called a slum. Every house on the street showed decades of disrepair and neglect, but this one was particularly ramshackle.

The darkness may have been playing tricks on his eyes, but the clapboard structure appeared to be listing several degrees. Nothing was growing in the yard except for a lone live oak that was hosting too much Spanish moss. The tree itself appeared to have been sucked dry.

He turned off the car’s engine and slid his service weapon from its holster. With the pistol secure in his right hand, he got out of the car and took a careful look around. The street appeared to be deserted. Or perhaps “abandoned” would be a more accurate word. A few houses on the block had lights on inside, but most were dark and seemingly vacant. The few streetlights that still had globes intact provided feeble light and served only to deepen the shadows.

The sidewalk was uneven. Weeds grew up through the wide cracks in it. Concrete crumpled into dust beneath Duncan ’s shoes as he walked to the edge of the yard and studied the house. It was entirely dark.

He questioned the advisability of being here. At the very least, he shouldn’t have come alone. He knew that, acknowledged it. It was reckless and stupid and, to some extent, self-serving.

“It’s about Savich. Come alone.”

That and this house address had been the sum total of the message left in his cell phone mailbox by a husky female voice. When he checked the call log, he saw that the call had come in at 10:37 P.M. Instead of a number, it had said “Private Caller.”

No shit.

He’d thought immediately of the woman Savich had set him up with last Saturday night. Was he using her again? Would Savich be that blatant? It didn’t sound like something Savich would do, but if you tried to predict Savich, you’d be wrong nine point nine out of ten times.

Cautiously he took the walkway up to the porch of the house. He looked over both shoulders, but saw no movement on the street, heard no sounds. Old boards groaned beneath his weight as he crossed the porch to the door.

He realized chances were excellent that he was walking into a trap that would spell his doom. He had figured that Savich would launch a surprise attack. Had he been wrong? Had Savich decided on a face-to-face showdown instead?

Or maybe, inside this house, Savich had another gory surprise waiting for him. The corpse of Lucille Jones, perhaps. The prostitute who’d been pleasuring Savich following the murder of Freddy Morris was still at large and, consequently, unable to be questioned by police. Possibly Savich had silenced her forever and left her body here for Duncan to find.

Gordie Ballew also crossed his mind. Had Savich heard that they’d tried to strike a deal with Gordie to turn snitch? Lucky for Gordie, he was safely behind bars in the county jail.

Whatever this old house held in store for him, the moment of truth had arrived. Duncan moved aside the rusty screen door that was hanging by one hinge, then took hold of the doorknob. It turned in his hand. He had to apply his shoulder to get the moisture-swollen door to open, then he stepped across the threshold into the house. The air inside was stifling hot, and had the musty smell of old, vacant houses. But not of decaying flesh, he noted with relief.

Listening intently for any sound, he took a moment to orient himself. It was a traditional Southern house, built before air-conditioning, when cross-ventilation was necessary for cooling during the brutal summers. At one time, maybe a century ago, it would have been a lovely house.

Ahead of him stretched a hallway with a staircase at one end and rooms opening off it on both sides. He crept forward and guardedly looked into the first one on his right. It was empty. Wainscoting and several generations of faded, tearing wallpaper. A hole in the ceiling where a chandelier had once hung. Probably designed to be a dining room.

He crossed the hallway to the opposite room, which was a parlor. Different wallpaper, but also torn. Ragged sheer curtains looking as fragile as spiderwebs hanging in the windows. The room was furnished, but sparsely.

Elise Laird was standing in the center of it.

His heart did something funny. But he raised his gun and pointed it at her.

“You’re here.” Her voice was barely a whisper. The same whispering voice that had left the message on his cell phone. He wondered why he hadn’t recognized it as her voice.

Or had he?

Had he known, despite the mention of Savich, precisely who would be waiting for him here in this dark and deserted house? Had he refused to acknowledge that it was her voice, because if he had, he couldn’t have come here with a clear conscience? Savich provided him justification for coming. She didn’t.

“What the hell?” he asked angrily.

“I used that criminal’s name to get you here.”

“How did you know it would?”

“Cato told me about your history with him.”

He studied her for long, ponderous moments, then lowered the nine-millimeter. But he left a bullet in the chamber and he didn’t return it to the holster. He moved so that his back would be to the wall and not to the open doorway.

Sensing his wariness, she said, “There’s no one else here, if that’s what you’re thinking. I had to see you alone.”

“Whose place is this?”

It was the first time he’d seen her with her hair hanging loose rather than pulled back. It brushed her shoulders when she moved her head. “It belongs to a friend.”

“Your friend should consider refurbishing.”

“He’s been away for a long time. He gave me permission to use the house if I needed to, in exchange for airing it out occasionally.”