But now she had to be searching as hard as she could to find the information he had asked her about. It was almost impossible that she wouldn’t. No woman could find out that her husband had been killed over a secret and not ache to know what the secret was. Certainly nobody could be stripped and threatened and humiliated and not want to frustrate and outsmart the man who had done those things to her.
Hobart could only step back now and wait until Emily Kramer found what he wanted. Even if she found the information right away, he knew he could do nothing more tonight because the police would be out searching for him until daylight. He was eager to have the prize quickly, but he could not afford to be impatient and put himself into more situations like the one at the house. He felt restless and dissatisfied. All he could do was let Emily Kramer search, and wait for the moment when the cops ran out of patience and left her alone again.
23
Ted Forrest awoke knowing it was late. He could see that the level of the sun was high, that it must be at least ten. He also knew that something had come to him during the night while he was asleep, some idea, some decision. He got up and went into the bathroom. He had not brought any of his toiletries into the guest suite, but the guest bathrooms were always stocked with toothbrushes and razors and combs. He showered and wore the bathrobe from the suite to walk down the hall to the master suite.
When he entered the bedroom, he saw that the maids had already been here. They had made the bed, emptied the clothes hampers, opened the curtains and replaced the flowers on the table. He was aware of these things, and he liked reliability and efficiency in service people. He detested their opposite.
Forrest took a moment to look in the mirror on the way to his closet. If someone had asked him why, he would have had to say it was to be sure he looked the same. It was not that he would have changed, but that he had so many things on his mind that he wondered if they showed. He went into the dressing area of the big closet and dressed in a pair of gray, unpleated pants that had a simple, informal look, a plain blue oxford shirt, and a black cashmere sport coat. He packed a single small suitcase with the things he might need over a period of a couple of days.
He finished his packing, went to the little wall safe where he kept a few good watches and some cash, and took out a thousand dollars for pocket money. He heard footsteps in the bedroom and stood still, preparing himself. He had been trained since he was a small child to exert control over his feelings. This moment was no different from that second when he stood ready with his tennis racket in his hand and his knees flexed and waited to read the green flash of ball coming off his opponent’s racket to streak over the net. Until he knew which way to move, any move was wrong.
She came in and stood six feet away, as always. “You’re packing.”
“Yes.”
“Are you leaving me?”
“I’m going away for a day or two.”
“To get away from me?” She was physically rigid, as though her sense of outrage had tightened her into paralysis.
“To get away.”
“Is that all you’re planning to say to me?” she asked. He could see that her eyes were tearing, and it intrigued him. She must be crying for herself because she felt insulted. Her brain was filled with impressions of undeserved injuries inflicted on her by an uncaring world. She never seemed to be aware that she had done things to precipitate them, and she was always certain she knew what other people were thinking. She was never right.
He exerted self-control. “I hadn’t been planning to say anything to you. I delayed my trip so I would be available for your event last night. It’s over, and now I’ve got things to do. Good-bye.”
He picked up his suitcase, but she held her position, blocking the door to the bedroom. He turned and walked through the bathroom door into the hall. He moved along the hall and down the stairs quickly, hoping to deny her the time to deliver some angry comment, or at least to be far enough away not to hear it distinctly.
Ted Forrest got to the foot of the staircase, across the foyer, and out the door. He shut it behind him quietly so she would not be certain which way he had gone, then walked down the gravel path to the garage. He put his small suitcase in the trunk of the BMW and left the trunk open.
He went through the door to the back room of the garage. When the building had been the stable, that side had been the front of the building, where the carriages and tack had been kept, and the horses had been led around to be hitched. Now it was the workshop, where the gardeners stored their mowers and blowers, the pool man put spare filters and chemicals, and the caretakers stored tools and supplies. Along the back wall there were three workbenches, and above them was a shelf with a row of paint cans in shades matching each room in the house for touch-ups. Forrest took two unopened halfgallon cans of mineral spirits, placed a strip of duct tape over the cap of each to prevent subtle leakage, and set them in his trunk in a plastic leaf bag. Then he took a battery-charged electric drill and a set of bits and put those in, too.
He started his engine, pulled down the long driveway, and out onto the road. He turned off his cell phone and put it into his pocket. He didn’t want to receive calls and create a record of which repeater towers had relayed the signals to him. After a moment he took the phone out again. It would be wise to make one call before he left the area. He dialed the number with his thumb. “Hi. I’m afraid I had to go out of town unexpectedly. I won’t be anyplace where I can be reached by phone, so don’t call. I’ll get in touch the second I get back. Erase this. ‘Bye.”
He turned off the phone again and put it into the glove compartment, so he wouldn’t be tempted to use it on the daylong drive. Maybe he would buy Kylie a present while he was gone. It would have to be small enough to be paid for plausibly by her paycheck from Marlene’s. Of course, the present would depend upon whether she followed his instructions about the message he had just left. He had the four-digit code she used to replay her messages, and he sometimes used it to listen to them. Usually what he heard was vapid voices of fourteen-and fifteen-year-old girls asking whether she was going to this or that, and what she was going to wear. In the past sometimes she had saved a message of his so she could replay it and listen to his voice on her cell phone after she had gone to bed. Later tonight he would check to be sure she had erased his message.
He drove to the Golden State Freeway, pulled onto the southbound entrance ramp, and accelerated into the stream of traffic. He drove steadily for two hours before he stopped outside Bakersfield at a large complex where rows of trucks sat idling at the back of the lot, went into the restaurant and ate steak and eggs, then pulled into the gas station and refilled his tank. Down the road in the suburbs, he stopped at a Rite Aid drugstore and bought a box of wooden kitchen matches and two cans of charcoal starter.
The drive from Bakersfield seemed longer than he had anticipated, because from here on the traffic grew gradually thicker and slower. There were long-haul trucks in the right lane, then recreational vehicles as big as buses beside them, and then the left lanes full of SUVs and pickup trucks fighting for inches, passing each other for illusory advantages or for spite. It was dangerous and tiring, and Ted Forrest didn’t want to get into an accident or be pulled over by a highway-patrol officer, so he tolerated a spot in the middle lanes.