She looked up at Clyde, frowning. “Gravel won’t be there until ten. They’re usually more reliable. Scotty said he called the concrete company and delayed that delivery so they wouldn’t sit waiting. Damn. I’d hoped we’d be finished by noon.”
“Call Charlie. Maybe, before you go to work, you can help with her phone calls.”
An hour ago, when they’d parted from Charlie, leaving the robbery scene, she’d been trying to reach the four families, to find out what instructions they would have for her once the police had released the scenes. And to find out if anyone else had had keys to any of their doors. She’d had no luck reaching any of the four couples. She’d headed home so irritated, and concerned, that Ryan wondered if she’d be up all night dialing cell phones that had been turned off. What worried Charlie the most was the possibility that one of the few employees who’d left her, or one of the two she’d fired, might have copied her keys on the sly.
But maybe by the time Davis finished canvassing the nearby houses, they’d have some leads. That was a close neighborhood, maybe someone had seen a stranger or a strange car. Everyone for blocks around had to know those four couples were on vacation, and they were inclined to watch out for one another. Ryan dialed Charlie’s cell, got a busy signal, and left a message: “My delivery’s delayed for tomorrow morning. If you haven’t reached your clients, call me. I’ll make some calls for you before I head up to the job.”
Clyde sat down on the edge of the bed, watching Rock and Snowball, the small cat curled up tight against the Weimaraner, happily purring. “Such a sweet and innocent little cat,” Clyde said, reaching to gently stroke Snowball. “You don’t go chasing off in the middle of the night after burglars.” He wished Joe would learn to stay in at night-and how unrealistic was that?
Ryan finished her cocoa, set her cup on the dresser, and went to brush her teeth. Getting into bed, she slipped her feet carefully around the sleeping animals. “At least everything was insured-except maybe Theresa’s paintings. Insurance on pieces of art is ridiculously high.” She looked at him bleakly. “I don’t know if I can sleep, worrying about Joe. I’ve worried before, but not like this. You’d think, after they got themselves locked in that closet, they’d be ready to call it a night.”
“Not those three.” He switched off the lamp and stretched out.
“Did he tell you what, exactly, they were doing? Tell you how they got locked in? Were they tailing the burglar? Why did they let him get so near that he shut them in? And what good to run surveillance,” she said crossly, “if they go off in the night and don’t tell anyone what they found?”
Clyde sighed, and shook his head. “We just have to live with it.” He drew her close. “Do we have a choice?”
31
HE WAS SWEATING as he headed for the highway. He couldn’t stop seeing that cat watching him through the window. What had made it stare in at him so intently and then stare straight down at her grave, almost as if it knew what he was doing? He thought about that big gray cat watching him, too, while he was packing up the last of the books. He couldn’t figure how it had gotten in there. Why had it and those other two followed him to the next house? Evil devils, all of them. Evil.
Well, he’d taken care of them. With any luck, they wouldn’t be found in that closet for weeks-found dead from thirst and starvation. He smiled, thinking of them locked in and slowly dying, and a chill of pleasure filled him, a sharp and satisfied lust.
But then he couldn’t get his breath. He had to find the inhaler. He felt all his pockets again, felt around on the car seat. Had he left it on the table by her grave, where he was headed? If he’d left it in one of those houses…Oh, God. When those cleaning people found the paintings gone, found the furniture and rugs cleaned out, the books and paperweights, there’d be cops all over those rooms. He couldn’t let them find the inhaler with his prints on it. Couldn’t…
He had to get hold of himself. He searched his pockets yet again, squirming up in the seat as he drove. Found his handkerchief that she’d always ironed and folded just so. His pocketknife, the gloves he’d used. The four sets of keys, which he would dispose of somewhere along the highway, toss them off the cliff into the Pacific. But no inhaler.
But even if they found it, found anything of his, what would it matter? He was a neighbor, a friend, he was in and out of those houses all the time. The cops could find his fingerprints-which they wouldn’t because of the gloves-and it wouldn’t make any difference. And yet, heading for the remodel, he knew he’d feel easier not to have left it in one of the houses. Before he searched the remodel, he knew he had to go back to the houses he’d robbed, even if he had to leave the RV sitting right there all loaded up…Oh Christ…
But he’d feel better when it was done, when he’d found it. Winding along the hillside roads, back onto the residential streets, half of him knew he was being paranoid-the neighborhood was quiet and dark, everyone was asleep, there was nothing to worry about. This wouldn’t take long, and he’d feel easier, maybe it was there somewhere. Swinging into a U-turn he headed along the hillside street above his street, where he could look down there before he approached. Or maybe he could park up there, walk down the hill, find the inhaler, and then hit the highway, and not have to go back near her grave.
Head for the city, make contact with the fence, collect his money, and then across the Golden Gate and on up the coast, just another tourist in his beat-up old RV. Drive slow and easy up through the little lumber towns, on into Oregon and then inland to eastern Washington for a while before he headed home-returning alone and devastated from their vacation, where she’d left him. Had taken her bags and walked out on him, cleaned out their bank account, and caught a plane to the East Coast.
He’d take care of the electronic deposits on her laptop, transfer the funds to her household account. He didn’t know yet how he’d manage withdrawals from that account, he’d figure that out later. He’d tell people she had a lover, that he’d been so shocked and hurt, heartbroken. And then to find they’d been robbed, that would nearly destroy him.
Calling the cops about the robbery, he’d wonder aloud if she had come back and cleaned out her treasures, stashed them somewhere before she caught her plane. He wouldn’t be certain this was a burglary until he learned that the other houses had been robbed. Then he and his neighbors would share their misery.
Winding along the hill’s steep crest on the dark and narrow street a block above his, he was rehearsing the poignant scene with his neighbors when a tire blew. The RV lurched, the steering wheel jerked in his hands, and the suddenly unwieldy vehicle headed for the drop. There was no guardrail. It was all he could do to pull the RV over onto the opposite side, against the rising hill.
He got out, shaken, looked along the dark, empty street where it was too steep for houses. The three houses high up on the cliff were dark. He walked over to the edge, looked down the steep drop to his own street, below…Quickly, he stepped back.
The street was filled with lights. Car lights, lights on in all the houses. More cars approaching, cop cars. He could hear men’s voices and the distant mutter of police radios. What the hell was this?
Had someone seen the RV enter or leave one of the garages and, unable to mind their own business, called the cops? The garage door openers had been her idea. Over the past year, using one excuse or another to be in each garage alone for a few minutes, borrowing tools or a dab of paint, he’d used the electronic duplicator she’d purchased through a special catalog to program duplicate garage door openers. It had worked like a charm.