As she approached the rear corner of the house, she saw a square carpet of light suddenly splash onto the grass in the back yard. He had turned on the kitchen light. She would step in the back entrance, let him see her, but cover his mouth before he could say her name. She would tug him outside, out of the house before she spoke, in case that woman had planted a microphone like the ones she had found in the house in California.
Jane turned the corner of the house and looked at the big maple tree in the back yard. The glow of the red and yellow leaves above her made her stop and step back into the shadows along the house. She looked up. The light had come on in the bedroom.
Carey had come in the front door, walked through the living room, the dining room, and into the kitchen. He had not had time to climb the stairs and turn on the light in the bedroom. Jane quickly moved to the kitchen door, unlocked it, and stepped inside. The room was empty.
She hurried to the dining room, but he had already passed. She heard his footsteps above her on the upstairs landing. She ran across the living room to the stairway and climbed, taking the steps three at a time. As she reached the top, she saw him—the long legs, the familiar shape of his back, the unruly light-brown hair that stood up from his head, glowing in the light from the bedroom doorway.
Jane quickly moved along the second-floor hall as he stepped into the room. She heard him say, “What’s going on?” It was too late to prepare, too late to think. She slipped into the room and stepped in front of him.
The woman’s pretty face contorted into a mask of fright as she snatched the bedsheet to cover herself. Her green eyes shot to Carey’s. “Who is she?”
Jane’s mind fought to sort out what she saw: blond hair, size eight, the right age. But this wasn’t the way she had expected to find her—in bed, with her clothes in a pile on the chair. This had to be some kind of deception, and Jane sensed instinctively that she had to make the woman believe it was succeeding. Maybe she would not think she had to kill them if she thought they were fooled. Jane could only play the role that the woman had invented for her, and pretend to be the wronged wife. Jane said, “I’m just the woman who lives here—his wife.” After a pause she added, “You seem to have us mixed up.”
But Carey was gulping and staring, his face longer and emptier than she had ever seen it. “Jane. I just got here myself. I didn’t—”
Jane kept her eyes on the woman, but she patted Carey’s arm. “Stop,” she said. “I know you didn’t arrange this.”
“I’m glad.”
“You might come home late for dinner, but you wouldn’t have been late for this.” She struggled to figure out what was going on. The woman had been in here with the lights off until Carey had come in the house. The woman had come into the house to do something or other, and Carey had interrupted her.
Jane’s heart beat faster. If the woman had been interrupted—surprised—then pretending she had come to seduce Carey would be a good tactic. All she had to do to be convincing was take off her clothes. But she had seen Jane now, and she wasn’t doing anything. Jane stared at her. It was just possible that she wasn’t armed, and that she was afraid Jane might be.
Maybe she just couldn’t reach the gun. Jane kept her eyes on the woman and walked to the chair by the wall where the woman had left her clothes. There were suede leather pants, a silk blouse, underwear, a black leather purse. Jane reached down and tossed the clothes onto the bed where the woman could reach them. She squeezed the purse and tested its weight, then tossed it on the bed too. She felt her muscles go slack with relief. She had been right. The woman had not brought a gun. Jane could still get Carey out alive.
Jane took Carey’s arm and began to lead him out of the room. “She’s going to want to get dressed.”
The woman’s voice startled her. It was soft and low, teasing and seductive. “Aren’t you going to say anything, Carey?”
Carey and Jane both stopped and turned as the woman swung her legs out of the bed. She stood up, casually naked. Jane felt shock, a flash of rage. Just what did this woman think she was doing? The woman seemed to read her mind. She shrugged. “He’s not seeing anything he hasn’t seen before.” She reached into the pocket of the suede pants and held up a key. “I guess I won’t be needing this anymore. Did you find the one I left the other night?”
“Yes,” said Carey irritably. He walked toward her, but kept the bed between them and reached across it for the key. The woman’s eyes were on Jane, and the big red lips began to turn up at the corners.
The sights in the room seemed to burn themselves into Jane’s brain. The familiar shapes—the chair, the picture of Carey’s parents on the bureau, Carey’s golf bag full of gleaming silver clubs in the open closet beside her—all were distractions now. The key. What did the woman gain by the business with the key? Forget the key. Jane lifted her eyes toward the bed.
The woman was standing beside it now. She had pulled on the suede pants, and she was buttoning the white blouse. She stopped and tilted her head in a pantomime of false sympathy. “I know how this must make you feel. But it really wasn’t anything serious. I just saw a chance to have some fun, so I thought I’d borrow him. We never thought that this could happen.”
Jane stared at her, mystified. Why was she trying to make it look as though they’d already had an affair? What did it buy her? She should want to get out of here. Jane’s heart beat faster. Something was wrong.
Carey moved to his dresser and opened the box on top where he kept small things he didn’t want to think about—single cuff links, loose screws, keys that fit nothing. As he reached into his pocket to find the key, he said coldly, “Please don’t imply that something went on between you and me. It’s bad enough that you’re here in the first place, but you’re not going to—”
Jane raised her hand and shook her head. “Please. Stop.” She tried to sound annoyed, but she was feeling a growing fear. “There’s no point in discussing this. Let’s leave this woman alone so she can get dressed and go.”
The woman glared at her. “Not ‘this woman,’ ” she said. “Susan Haynes.”
Jane’s body grew tense as she stared at the woman. She couldn’t know that it was the name Jane had seen on the machine for making false credit cards. But she shouldn’t be saying it. She should not want Jane to hear any name.
Jane saw the woman’s hand slip under the bedsheet and grasp something hidden underneath, and she drew in a breath as she recognized the shape of it. As the hand began to come up off the bed, Jane was aware of Carey, still turned away to put the key in the small wooden box on his dresser.
Jane’s right hand shot out beside her and plucked a golf club out of Carey’s bag. The three-iron flew up inside her grasp until the handle reached her hand. She tightened her grip and swung it downward, hard.
Jane’s eyes caught everything during the instant when the shining club swung down. She saw the woman’s eyes read the trajectory, fix on Jane’s eyes, and convey the terrible message: Not you … him! The gun had already begun its move to the left toward Carey, so Jane’s swing sliced through empty air and onto the wooden footboard of the bed.
The club struck on the metal shaft, and the heavy head broke off, bounced once on the bed, and fell to the floor. Jane saw the woman’s thick lips curl upward as the gun continued its rise toward the back of Carey’s head.
Jane screamed, “No!” as she hurled herself toward the woman. She jabbed out at her with the only object she had. She felt the long, thin metal shaft stab into the woman’s body below the rib cage. The woman shrieked and shrank backward, but the pistol swung around toward Jane’s face.