“I know,” I said. “While you were out today a taxi arrived to take Keith and Trey to the airport.”
“The airport?” Sean queried. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I spoke to the driver myself, until Keith came out and made out like he hadn’t ordered a taxi, it was all some big mistake. He was getting quite irate, though it was hard to tell if that was because the taxi had turned up at all, or because I’d intercepted it.”
“What happened?”
“Well, in the end Keith paid the guy off and he went away swearing merrily in that cheery way of disappointed taxi drivers the world over.”
I felt rather than saw Sean smile into the darkness. “So,” he said, “is Keith planning a great escape, or is somebody just trying to wind him up?”
“You think there might be something serious going on here after all?”
He shrugged slightly. “Could be.”
I started to shift round to face him. As I did so my hand brushed against something cold and hard under the pillow. I hardly needed more than that to identify the object for what it was.
“Sean,” I said, my voice calm, “why have you got a gun under your pillow?”
“It could just be that I’m pleased to see you,” he said. He eased away from me, leaning across to flick on the bedside light.
I blinked for a moment, propping myself up on one elbow while he retrieved the gun. It was a SIG Sauer 9mm pistol, a P225 – similar to the one I’d used in Germany but without the double-stacked magazine, giving it a slimmer profile.
“How the hell did you manage to get that onto a plane?”
He grinned at my consternation. “I didn’t,” he said. “I was working out here a couple of years ago and I left this behind. All I did this time was detour on my way from the airport and pick it up.”
“Does Gerri Raybourn know you’re carrying?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, “and that’s how I aim to keep it. I learned the hard way never to play all your aces at once.”
“So,” I said, “what happens now?”
“Well give me a minute, Charlie,” he said, mocking. “I’m only human.”
I shot him what I hoped was a stern glance. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“OK, OK,” he said, laughing. “I’ve arranged a meeting with Ms Raybourn tomorrow while you’re baby-sitting Trey at the theme park. By the time you get back I should have some answers, otherwise we’re on the next plane out of here.”
“Just do me one favour.”
“What?”
I nodded to the SIG. “Take that with you,” I said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Don’t worry,” Sean said. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere without it.”
***
Now, I walked into the room that had been Sean’s and looked around me. It was as empty and as lifeless as my own, as though he’d never been there at all. On impulse I picked up one of the pillows, just to see if it still smelt of him. I sat down on the bed and pressed my face into the cotton cover. The faintest trace of his aftershave still lingered somewhere in the fabric.
But as I went to put the pillow down again I noticed something just sticking out from under the sheet. When I pulled the covers back there it was.
Sean’s SIG.
I picked the gun up slowly, slipped the magazine out and saw that it was fully loaded. And suddenly a rush of emotion came rocketing up out of the depths of nowhere and hit me in the face. Tears exploded. I sat there, on my own in a deserted house, clutching a gun and sobbing my guts out.
Sean had said he wouldn’t leave the house unarmed, and that could mean one of two things. Either he’d been taken prisoner, against his will.
Or he was already dead.
Four
I left the house the same way I got into it, locking the kitchen door behind me and wiping the handle once I was done. My search had told me everything and nothing. But had it been worth the risk?
At least I’d managed to find a fresh shirt. None of my own clothes were where I’d left them, but I remembered seeing something crumpled up behind the small bar by the pool. I made a small detour through the lanai and found it, a rather tatty man’s striped shirt with a white collar and cuffs. Still, it didn’t look so bad once I’d put it on and rolled the sleeves back three or four times. It had the added advantage that at least it didn’t have blood on it.
The tails were long, almost down to the bottoms of my shorts, but I left them untucked nevertheless. At least that way it covered the fact I’d shoved Sean’s SIG into the back of my waistband. The gun was momentarily chill against my skin but it took on body heat fast. I couldn’t deny that the weight of it was reassuring.
I’d splashed cold water on my face in the bathroom before I’d ventured out. It had taken down some of the puffiness around my eyes and the redness out of my nose. Still, it didn’t take a genius to spot I’d been crying like a spoilt kid. I had eleven years on Trey, but right now I felt little better than his baby sister.
I slipped through the smallest gap in the gates, closing them behind me. Outside, beneath the dappled shade of the rows of palm trees, the street looked as quiet and deserted as it had done when I’d arrived. I tried to use its very normality to calm my shattered nerves.
I’d almost made it back to the Mercury when a man’s voice froze me in my tracks.
“Hey there!”
After the briefest hesitation, I kept walking, picking up the pace. The man called again and this time I heard his footsteps approaching behind me.
Just for a second, I considered the wisdom of drawing the gun but dismissed it just as quickly. The SIG was my safety net. My last resort. I wasn’t quite that far gone yet.
I halted, turned, trying to contrive a faintly irritated expression. Behind me a trim upright guy in his early sixties was hurrying down the paved driveway of the house next door.
Livingston Brown III had seemed an unlikely friend for a computer nerd like Keith Pelzner. I’d wondered if their paths would have crossed at all except for the accidental fact that the company Keith was working for had rented the property next to Brown’s, but the two of them seemed to hit it off strangely well.
Brown was a tall slightly gangling figure, tanned to the colour of a pecan and just as wrinkled. He was one of those perfect adverts for why you should use sunblock and big floppy hats in this kind of climate. He wasn’t wearing either today and the perspiration pasted thin wisps of grey hair to his scalp.
“Hi there,” he said, puffing, as he caught me up. “Thought I’d missed ya. Carly, isn’t it?”
“Charlie, sir,” I said. “Hello, Mr Brown.” I kept my voice polite but noncommittal, as though he was keeping me from some minor task.
Now he’d got me, he seemed a little lost as to what to do with me. “I saw the truck this morning,” he said at last. “Couldn’t get over the fact that Keith never said he was moving out sooner.” He pulled out a voluminous handkerchief and blew his nose loudly, peering at me over the top of it. “So, you forget something?”
“You saw them go?” I said, sharper than I’d intended. “What time was this?”
“Oh, well now, lemme see,” he said, so slowly I could have rattled him. “Well, I do believe I’d just had my midmorning swim. Fifty lengths every day, come rain or shine, did I ever tell you that?”
“Yes sir,” I said dryly. He’d mentioned his daily constitutional on both of the occasions we’d met over the last couple of days, but I’d already worked out that men as rich as Livingston Brown III did not accurately recall names or conversations with their neighbours’ staff unless you gave them undue reason to. It wasn’t rudeness particularly, he’d just had money for so long that he couldn’t remember what it was like talking to people who dared interrupt his ramblings.