Justine Davis - One Last Chance

She’d be starting the first show now, he’d thought at nine. Then at ten-thirty, the second. And at eleven-fifteen the last. What then?

And then, he’d told himself sourly as he rolled over and pounded his innocent pillow with merciless force, she’d go home and climb into bed with the boss. An image of them intimately entwined shot through his mind and banished any hope of sleep that night.

Still muttering, he yanked open a drawer and got out some clothes. He picked up the worn pair of jeans he’d tossed across the foot of the bed and pulled them on, then tugged a thick cotton sweater over his head as he walked into the living room. He slipped on the leather dock shoes he’d kicked off inside the front door, and grabbed his battered faded-denim jacket from the hook on the hall tree. He locked up with instinctive care and headed down the narrow staircase.

He noted almost absently that the third and twelfth steps from the top still creaked with a satisfying loudness. More than once Mr. Hagan, the house’s owner, had offered to have someone come in for repairs. Chance had quietly declined without explaining why.

He skirted the edge of the large pool, the water shimmering from the lights below and the moonlight above, giving the lagoonlike pond an eerie glow. The man-made rocks that surrounded the glistening water looked real and solid yet strangely ethereal in the silver glow. Once he would have appreciated the effect, would have let his imagination run with the slightly unreal setting, let it become the almost fantasy place it appeared.

But the capacity for such whimsical thought seemed burned out of him now, and all he could do was think vaguely that he would have to remember to switch on the waterfall for a while tomorrow, to keep the pump clear of debris. It was one of the little things he did regularly around the place, and while Mr. Hagan had never asked him to do those tasks, he felt it was small enough payment for the low rent and privacy he was getting.

Not to mention, he thought with a wry grin, access to Hagan’s small fleet of cars. The wealthy man had a passion for the more exotic forms of transportation, and the contents of the five-car garage were the proof. After Chance had lived there for about six months, Peter Hagan had apparently decided he was reliable, and had entrusted him with the keys to his babies while he was gone for weeks at a time.

“Take ’em out now and then,” he’d said casually. “It’s not good for them to just sit.”

There was, he’d thought ruefully then, enough kid left in him to make it difficult to stifle the little kick of excitement that went through him while driving the finely tuned, powerful vehicles.

He hit the combination on the keypad outside the garage door that disarmed the elaborate alarm system. The big door lifted, and he stepped inside. Like furniture in a house closed up for the winter, the cars were low bulky shapes beneath enveloping covers. Chance’s open Jeep sat at one end, quietly unimpressed with its august company. He grinned wryly at himself, at how he’d found himself missing the high, stiff ride of the totally utilitarian vehicle after a few days of that smooth, purring power.

It was a good thing real police work didn’t imitate movies and television, he’d thought more than once when behind the wheel of one of the low-slung sleek cars. He could just see himself explaining to Pete how he’d racked up his Lamborghini chasing some crook. No, real life was full of long hours of drudgery and paperwork, with those moments of pulse-pounding, adrenaline-induced frenzy few and far between.

He started automatically for the Jeep, then realized that the odd angle of the vehicle meant it had a flat tire. He looked down the row of covered cars.

Gee, Buckner, that’s too bad, he told himself flippantly. Guess you’ll have to drive one of these.

He uncovered the one that had been sitting the longest, the blatantly red Ferrari F430. The tan top was up and he took a moment to drop it, thinking he would need the blast of cold air. It started with its characteristic throaty roar, and within moments he was pulling onto the street, the heavy iron gates swinging automatically shut behind him.

After a run up the coast that did nothing to ease the restlessness that plagued him, Chance at last pulled to a halt near the waterfront, in a spot overlooking the marina that housed boats whose extravagance matched the car he carefully parked. He didn’t think about it anymore, the fact that he couldn’t afford even the upkeep on the toys that belonged to the people he was sworn to protect. Possessions had come to mean very little to him in the past few years.

He wandered along the waterfront for a while, watching the moonlight play on the water. He tried to keep his mind empty, knowing all too well that moods like the one that had descended on him tonight too often resulted in a flood of memories he didn’t want. He wasn’t up to dealing with it, not tonight. He walked on.

He wasn’t really aware that he had changed direction until a car racing by made him look up. With a little shock, he recognized his surroundings. Had it been an accident, or had some subconscious urge turned his steps in this direction?

He hesitated at the corner, staring up the street. He could see, just beyond the halo of a streetlight two blocks up, the shadowy shape of the surveillance van. There was no movement on the street, only the sound of distant cars passing. A horn honked, somewhere a heavy door slammed, and then silence reigned again. It had to be later than he realized, he thought. No drunks out, no last stragglers leaving the club. He glanced at his watch, shaking his head ruefully when he saw it was nearly three-thirty.

He could go relieve the guys in the van. He wasn’t going to sleep anyway. Then maybe he could go home and get some rest before he was due back tomorrow. Tonight, he corrected himself glumly. He and Quisto were set to go back to the club tonight, and then to take over the stakeout on the house afterward.

Approaching footsteps snapped him out of his reverie. Instinctively he drew back into the shadows, watching, waiting. A woman, he thought, listening to the quick, light stride. And then, suddenly, without knowing how, he knew. He fixed his eyes on the circle of light cast by the corner streetlight, knowing she must pass through it.

When she did, it was as if the light had merely been waiting for her presence to come to life. It seemed to dance around her, gleaming on the sleek fall of her hair, glinting in the huge gray eyes.

She was wrapped in a thick red sweater that came almost to her knees, over a white turtleneck sweater, slacks and boots. Her hair was brushed to a smooth sheen, unlike the dramatic, tossed mane she wore onstage. She was carrying what looked like some kind of a notebook in the crook of her arm, and she looked lost in contemplation. Like a butterfly adrift on a puff of air, he could hear her humming a soft, airy melody. It seemed incredible that the power of that voice could be harnessed to anything so fragile, so delicate.

Not a butterfly, he thought suddenly. An eagle maybe. The essence of restrained power. Able to glide effortlessly on the breeze with the most delicate adjustment of feathers, yet in the blink of an eye able to soar and plummet with dynamic grace.

She walked on, into the shadows, and the streetlight’s glow once more became merely a circle of light on an empty street. She crossed the street, mere yards away. Chance stepped out of the shadows. She jumped back, every muscle in her slender body tensed to flee.

“At least I didn’t knock you sideways this time,” he said quietly.

Her gaze flew to his face, and he saw the tension drain away as she recognized him. Still, she looked at him warily, as if too aware of the late hour and the empty street.