Jan Burke - Nine

“Sorry, boyakina, business before pleasure.”

She laughed. “Did you just call me your ‘spoon rest’?”

He turned her around and pressed his crotch against her backside. He wrapped his arms across her chest, moving his hands inside her jacket, brushing his thumbs over her nipples with practiced care, then pulling at them a little as they responded. Breathing gently into her ear, he whispered, “Boyakina, because I like spooning with you. Do you mind if I call you that?”

“No,” she said breathlessly.

He laughed softly and released her, setting her a little apart from him. “Now go on, join the others. What time do you think you’ll be back home and ready for company after the hike?”

She was dazed, but answered, “Midnight, maybe a little earlier.”

He smiled and said, “Then, we’ll end our masquerade at midnight, all right?”

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said.

He checked his temper and transformed his expression into one of deep disappointment. “You don’t trust me, do you? Of course not. I can’t blame you, really. It’s just that I had hoped you were feeling-”

“Oh! Of course I do! I’m sorry! Please-I won’t say another word. I’m going. I’m going right now.”

She smiled-bravely, he thought-and turned to walk off to join the others. While her back was turned, he hurriedly moved out of sight. He was afraid she might try to enact a prolonged scene, and he wondered how much Meghan might be able to see from the windows of the restaurant. He remembered that Meghan had dinner reservations at the restaurant, so he knew where she’d be for at least another forty-five minutes or more. It would be worth hiding near the tram platform for a few of those minutes, just to make sure he wouldn’t be followed by his latest conquest. He spent most of this time fantasizing about what Meghan would look like naked and completely under his control.

“Why do we have to wait in here for her?” Spooky asked. The words were a little distorted. She had polished off her third Shirley Temple and was, for the third time, trying to tie a knot in a maraschino cherry stem using only her tongue.

Thirteen, Kit thought to himself. “Because this is where she’s expecting to meet us.”

He kept his eyes moving, staying aware of the other patrons in the restaurant, watching those who seemed to be watching the door. He was out of cell phone range, so he couldn’t check to see if she had made it safely to the tram. He considered using a pay phone to call the man who had been sent to guard Meghan, but he decided to wait a few more minutes.

Spooky took a loosely knotted stem from her mouth in triumph, then complained that he wasn’t paying attention. When that didn’t prove effective, she said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

He glanced at the restaurant doors and then at his watch. Meghan was running a little late. Should he go out to the platform? Try calling her cell phone? Maybe he’d call her while Spooky was in the bathroom. “Okay. But promise me two things-”

“Let me guess. I won’t rob anyone in the restroom,” she said impatiently. “And I won’t start any fires.”

“Thanks. Hurry, all right?”

She frowned, said, “Why should I? Your girlfriend’s not in any hurry.”

She then strolled off at a leisurely pace. He knew he had doomed himself-she’d take as long as possible now.

In the next moment, his thoughts were completely distracted from Spooky. Meghan Taggert walked into the restaurant.

He had wondered if she would look different. She did. She wasn’t the teenaged Meghan whose image he held in his mind, or the girl in half a dozen cherished photos taken during visits to her family’s home when he was in high school with her brother. She had matured from the pretty girl every boy in Malibu had wanted to date to a woman who, dressed in blue jeans, a loose sweater, and hiking boots, radiated elegance and an indefinable something, a quality of which Kit could already see the usual effects: women studying her with slight frowns on their faces, men with drinks half-lifted to their mouths-halted mid-action as they stared.

If she was aware of these effects, she didn’t reveal it in any way. She scanned the room as if its population didn’t exist, then saw him and smiled.

He was glad he didn’t have a drink in his hand.

He stood and began walking toward her, and her smile widened, and he found himself smiling back. As he came nearer, he saw that she was opening her arms, and he realized she was going to hug him, so he quickly forced his mind to put up one of the mental partitions that he built whenever he needed to cope with what at times seemed to him an embrace-crazed society. But although no one else ever had noticed this slight withdrawal, she seemed to sense it immediately and changed the motion a little, so that she merely lightly touched his shoulders before dropping her arms. Her smile seemed to waver, and he felt something in the region of his chest waver with it. Then she said in her husky voice, “Kit Logan, it’s been far too long since I’ve seen you.”

He felt a sudden urge to do something that-from the age of ten-he had never done of his own volition with an adult woman. He wanted to open his arms to her.

But then the memories came pushing and shoving their way into his awareness, and the desire passed.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve missed you.”

She smiled up at him, and he let out a breath he had not realized he was holding.

“This must be Malibu week in Albuquerque,” she said. “You’ll never guess who I saw making out with his girlfriend in the tram.”

“Who?” he asked sharply.

“What’s wrong?”

He tried to keep his voice calm. He was thinking of the ones who killed Molly, though, and the incident at the hotel, and wondered if the FBI had ever been watching Meghan, or if his suspicions were right. “If you saw someone from Malibu, I don’t think it was a coincidence.”

“It was just Freddy,” she said. “You know, Freddy the Fourth.” She said it lightly, but he could tell that she had started to worry, too.

“Where is he now?”

She looked around. “I don’t see him. Probably with the group of hikers he was with. By the way, where’s Spooky?”

“In the women’s room. Listen, I’m going to take a look around, to see if I can find him, just to make sure he’s actually going on the hike. Would you mind going into the women’s room and waiting there with Spooky until I figure out where he is?”

She was studying him in the way she used to study him when he was a teenager. Assessing something he had told her, sorting out for herself whether or not it was part of his craziness. “Okay,” she said. “But what if-what if something happens to you?”

“Nothing will happen to me,” he said. “I’m not going to confront him unless he tries to hurt you or Spooky. In fact, I don’t want him to know I’m here, if I can help it. I just want to try to figure out what he’s up to.” He described Spooky and what she was wearing. He then asked Meghan to describe what Freddy was wearing.

“And the girlfriend? What did she look like?”

She told him, then said, “Now that I think about it, she was dressed for hiking. He wasn’t really, was he?”

“I’ll find out.”

She came with him as he hurried to the table and collected his jacket and Spooky’s, and paid for the drinks. He gave Spooky’s jacket to Meghan.

He also wrote a quick note to Spooky on a cocktail napkin and gave it to Meghan.

“Don’t let her intimidate you,” he warned.

She laughed. “I won’t.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Be careful,” she said, and walked off. He watched until he was sure she had safely entered the women’s room. He waited another minute, just in case Spooky came bounding out in rebellion. He didn’t even hear raised voices, though, so he made his way to the restaurant entrance.