No. All six were on the dining room table, the three automatics and the three shotguns. The Sentinel was still under the table. He left it there; what he needed to do would be done differently.
In the living room, the alarm system had been switched on. Its warning light gleamed red, though Parker had seen to it that it would not respond to break-ins. And in the kitchen, the refrigerator was now full of food, as were the shelves. So they planned to spend a few days here, until things calmed down, which was smart.
Parker made his way through the house, slowly, noting the changes, pausing to lean against a wall when the weakness got to be too much. He came last to the big empty room with the piano in the corner and the glass wall facing the sea, and out there lights now moved back and forth, police boats with searchlights, roving this way and that, like dogs who’ve lost a scent. So the trio had gone to the robbery by land, in a fire engine or some other official vehicle, but they’d left by sea.
Soon they’d be back here. In a boat? Or were they diving? Probably diving.
He didn’t have much time to find a hiding place. He had to be secure, but somewhere that would make it possible to move around. He went up to the second floor, tried all the shut doors up there, and found a staircase leading up to the attic. It was covered with black industrial carpet and didn’t make a sound.
The attic area at the top of the stairs had been converted into a screening room, probably by the movie star couple, and then later all the projection equipment had been taken out again, leaving two dozen plush swivel chairs facing a screen attached to the wall. The screening room had been meant to look like a thirties movie house, with art deco lighting sconces and dark red fabric on the walls. There was no reason for the three to come up here, so this was where Parker would wait until he could get at them.
He went back down to the second floor and out one of the bedrooms to the upstairs terrace. Lights still moved back and forth in the thick darkness, but Parker knew the police boats were searching too far out, probably expecting to find a boat. But the three would stick close to shore as they made their way back, without a boat.
He sat on one of the chaises, feet up, and watched the lights roam out there. So long as they stayed out there, restlessly moving, Melander and Carlson and Ross had not been caught. So they had a good operation, and they were now on their way to Parker with twelve million dollars in jewelry.
It was good to sit here for a minute, after the exertion of moving through the house, but he didn’t want to get too comfortable and fall asleep. He could sleep later.
The dim flashlight had been moving on the beach for a minute or two before his mind told him what his eyes were looking at. A small light, fainter and more diffuse than the searchlights out over the ocean, was headed this way up the beach from the water. The three, coming back?
One of them. And it wasn’t a flashlight, it was a headlamp. The figure beneath it was black, almost impossible to see as he came forward across the sand. Parker lost sight of the lamp and the hurrying man as he neared the retaining wall at the edge of the property, then he heard the loud rusty squeal as the gate at the foot of the narrow concrete stairs was opened.
Here came the headlamp, up the stairs to the terrace. And beyond him, two more lights were now coming from the sea.
All three of them. Parker got to his feet and stood back by the door, ready to go inside.
The first one down below stopped on the terrace and was taking something bulky off his back. A scuba tank. And now the other two came up, also removing scuba tanks, and the first one spoke, and it was Melander: “Did you see the dolphin?”
“No. What dolphin?” That was Carlson, the driver.
“He crossed right in front of us.”
“You were out ahead, you were making some sort of race out of it.”
“I wanted to get back.”
Ross, the third one, said, “In the morning, early, we gotta sweep the sand down there.”
Carlson said, “Why?”
“You see those lights? They’ll stay out there till daylight, and when they’re sure we didn’t get picked up in a boat they’ll come back in and search the island, and one thing they’ll look for is footprints coming in from the sea.”
Melander said, “Jerry, you’re right. I never would have thought of that, and tomorrow morning they’d be all over my ass.”
Carlson said, “First light, the cops’ll be out, too, maybe they see us sweeping. We should do it now.”
Melander said, “Let me get out of this wet suit, and then I’ll do anything you want.”
They started to move toward the house, carrying their scuba tanks. They were almost out of sight from Parker’s vantage point, and he was about to step inside, when everybody heard the sudden squeak of the gate down below, abruptly stopped.
Melander was fast. He didn’t bother with the stairs, just ran forward, vaulted over the railing, and dropped the seven feet to the sand below.
Parker heard the woman cry out in sudden fear, and knew immediately it was Leslie. Wanting to be sure she got hers, wanting to hang around and observe from just out of sight, and immediately got herself caught.
Ross and Carlson ran down the stairs to take a hand. Would they kill her? That would be the simplest, for Parker and for them both, kill her and throw the body in the ocean and forget about it.
No. They were bringing her up the stairs. They were curious, they wanted to ask her some questions, complicate things a little more.
Parker watched the three dark men come up, headlamps bobbing, the paler figure of Leslie struggling in their midst. She was protesting, stupid half-sentences, pretending to be just an innocent bystander, nothing to do with anything, which they would not buy for a minute. They’ve just come back from the biggest heist in Palm Beach history, and here’s a woman trying to sneak into their house. Not a coincidence.
But Parker didn’t expect the conclusion that Melander leaped to, as easily as he’d leaped over the wall. While Leslie continued to struggle and to argue, Melander shook her with the one hand holding her arm and said, “Don’t make me punch you, okay? You gotta shut up now so we can talk.”
She did shut up then, shrinking into herself as she looked at the three of them, looming over her, encased in black, with the headlamps shining in her eyes. Parker saw her face unnaturally white against the darkness all around as she forced herself to be silent.
And Melander had a touch of gloating humor in his voice when he said, “Claire Willis, am I right? We visited your house, up north, sorry you weren’t there.”
She blinked at them, baffled. “What?”
Melander said, “So that means our friend Parker’s around someplace, too. He’d probably like us to take good care of you, right? Let’s go inside. You could be valuable to us.”
Damn. Almost as irritated with Leslie as with the other three, Parker faded into the house and up the attic stairs. Leslie didn’t have a purse with her, and probably didn’t have ID, and wouldn’t be able to prove who she was. So let them thrash it out together all they wanted. Sooner or later, they’d go to sleep.
2
But he went to sleep first, not intending to, and woke when the wall sconce lights came on, then heard them coming up the stairs. Why? To have a place to keep their prisoner.
When he’d first come up, in the darkness, he’d sat on one of the swivel chairs with his feet on another, but the curved position was bad for his ribs, bad all around, and he gave up and lay on his back on the black-carpeted floor. He didn’t think he’d sleep, it wasn’t that late. Melander and Carlson and Ross had done the robbery a little after eight, just barely night, then full night by the time they got back to this house, after eight-thirty. They’d be keyed up, and now they’d have Leslie to distract them, so they wouldn’t go to sleep until late. Parker figured he shouldn’t go downstairs until at least three in the morning, so he had six hours up here to rest.