Someone was at the ranch or was approaching it. Or did those lights belong to someone following the Jeep? Ryan must have arrived by this time and found her gone. Found the door unlocked, the tire tracks, the animals upset. If she had, there’d be cops all over, and Max would be following their tracks.
They topped the rise and turned, bumping over rocks. She glimpsed broken stone walls, they were in the ruins, the old Pamillon estate. Did Cage mean to kill her here? She had to get away, get back down the trail to Max-If Max couldn’t get a vehicle up that trail, he’d follow her on horseback. Not alone on horseback, Max, please. They’re both armed. Please…There was a shotgun between the front seats, she’d seen it when they threw her in the Jeep, and Cage had a handgun.
Stop it, she thought. Max is no fool. If he comes on horseback, they’ll never see him, never know he’s there. Twisting her hands in ways she hadn’t thought they’d bend, she again tried desperately to free herself; she felt blood flowing, making her hands slick as she tried uselessly to undo the knots. Cage pulled the Jeep deeper in among the fallen walls, stopped, and killed the engine.
The Jones house had been dark when Greeley arrived back there, though it was only an hour since he’d left, since he’d seen them cats tossing the place. What the hell were they doing? What were the little sneaks looking for? They couldn’t know what this was all about. Approaching the Jones’s front windows, he could see no light now. Had Lilly gone to bed? Not until he stepped around the side of the house did he see that one lamp was burning low, just about where Lilly had been sitting earlier. Was she still in that same chair, mindlessly knitting away? Moving around to the front porch again, he rang the bell, hoping she might be in a better mood this time around. Hoping to hell them cats was gone, dirty, nosy varmints.
Well, he was damn glad to be shut of that cop, rousting him out of Mavity’s place like that. As if a cop had that kind of rights. Like some Gestapo bully. Stateside cops were as bad as them Panamanian La Guardia, didn’t give a damn for people’s rights. Unless you lined their pockets. In Panama, if you didn’t buy your freedom, the Guardia’d just as soon shoot you. Cheaper than feeding you, in jail. Well, hell, it made no difference. You get thrown in a Panama jail, only way out is in a pine box-if they bother to put you in a box, if they don’t just throw you to the sharks.
He’d stayed in that motel patio, after that cop followed him from Mavity’s, until he was sure the rookie was gone. Watched him drive away, talking on the radio like he was heading on another call. Watched him as far as he could see the cop car, then he’d retrieved his own car and headed up the few blocks to Lilly’s place. Oh, he’d checked in to the motel, all right. Waited till that cop called them, then said he’d changed his mind.
He didn’t know how he was going to convince Lilly to let him stay, but he’d figure it out. Once he got settled in one of them upstairs bedrooms, he could search the house at his leisure, do it while she slept. Do it before Cage got back. Sure as hell this would be his last chance before Cage barged in here to get the stash.
If Cage got it first, he’d turn right around and head back to the city, to the same fence. And once that fence started moving Greeley’s own share to collectors, the feds would hear about it and them bastards’d have the dogs out.
He rang the bell again, fidgeting. What the hell was Lilly doing? At last he heard her padding to the door and he had to think how best to con her. She wasn’t an easy woman. So far, she sure hadn’t been what you’d call cordial.
He’d thought of phoning her first, asking real nice if he could stay there a day or two, that his sister had a problem with the apartment he was in. Maybe tell her the water pipes broke? But Lilly’d of hung up on him, sure as pigs had curly tails. He’d thought of pretending to be Cage, telling her to give Greeley a room, but their voices were too different, no way he could pull that off. He heard the knob turn, and she opened the door with the burglar chain on, peered out through the little crack at him. One good lunge with his shoulder and he could break that puny chain, send the door flying. Instead he gave her a big smile. “It’s me, Lilly. I come back. I…I have a kind of a problem. You think I could come in? Come in and maybe tell you about it and maybe get warm for a minute?”
“It’s still ninety degrees, Greeley.”
“Well, it’s a lot hotter in Panama,” Greeley said pitifully. “My blood’s thin. And I sure do need some help. For old times’ sake?”
“What old times?”
“It’s Mavity,” Greeley said. “Something happened to her apartment where I was staying. She’d rented it and those folks showed up early to move in, and I had to leave. She didn’t have no more room; I just need me a place to stay for the night. Until I can get a motel, until the tourists go home. Motels are all full, I got me no place to sleep.” He hoped to hell she didn’t check. “I’d be gone again first thing in the morning…”
She stood scowling down at him for a long time. They were the same height, but with him standing a step down on the porch, she was some taller. She looked real sour at being disturbed, sour and stubborn. He could have been starving or sick, she would have looked just as mean. When she shut the door, he thought that was the end of it, that he’d lost the first round.
But she’d only closed it to slip the chain. She opened it again, still scowling. She stared at him for another long minute, then stepped back, opening it wider. He gave her a pitiful, grateful look and moved inside, doing his best not to grin. He thought of going back to the car to get his duffle but was afraid she’d change her mind and lock the door. There wasn’t nothing in it he really needed.
She didn’t ask him into the living room, didn’t ask him to sit down. She led him along the hall to a little bedroom on the first floor. “You’ll have to use the guest bath,” she said, pointing back toward the bath near the front door. “I’ll set out a towel. You’ll find sheets in the top drawer of that dresser. When you leave in the morning…” She gave him a hard look. “What makes you think you can get a motel tomorrow if they’re all full tonight?”
“I made me a reservation,” he lied. “It’s Sunday night, some of them tourists don’t leave till Monday morning. I got me a room for then, all fit and proper, soon as they’re made up, so I won’t burden you.”
Looking unconvinced, Lilly turned and left him.
He found sheets in a drawer, and spread them on the bed, listening hopefully for the sound of Lilly going upstairs to her room. He waited for a long time, but when he went to use the bathroom, the reading light was still on in the living room and he could hear the clicking of her knitting needles, could see her seated shadow reflected against the wall between two devil masks, her shadow hands twitching and jumping as she cast on stitches or whatever the hell knitters did.
He had to brush his teeth with his finger and lavender hand soap. Didn’t know why he bothered. The towel she’d left him was thin and had a hole in one corner. Why the hell didn’t she go on to bed? Returning irritably to the fusty little bedroom, he fidgeted and stewed, sat on the bed with the pillows behind him and thought about Cage’s stash.