She did not reply but entered the last of the unsearched places, the enormous walk-in closet, returning a moment later, scowling. “The wall safe's been opened and emptied.”
“Burglary too. Now we've got to call the cops, Rachael.”
“No,” she said. The bleakness that had hung about her like a gray and sodden cloak now became a specific presence in her gaze, a dull sheen in those usually bright green eyes.
Ben was more alarmed by that dullness than he had been by her fear, for it implied fading hope. Rachael, his Rachael, had never seemed capable of despair, and he couldn't bear to see her in the grip of that emotion.
“No cops,” she said.
“Why not?” Ben said.
“If I bring the cops into it, I'll be killed for sure.”
He blinked. “What? Killed? By the police? What on earth do you mean?”
“No, not by the cops.”
“Then who? Why?”
Nervously chewing on the thumbnail of her left hand, she said, “I should never have brought you here.”
“You're stuck with me. Rachael, really now, isn't it time you told me more?”
Ignoring his plea, she said, “Let's check the garage, see if one of the cars is missing,” and she dashed from the room, leaving him no choice but to hurry after her with feeble protests.
A white Rolls-Royce. A Jaguar sedan the same deep green as Rachael's eyes. Then two empty stalls. And in the last space, a dusty, well-used, ten-year-old Ford with a broken radio antenna.
Rachael said, “There should be a black Mercedes 560 SEL.” Her voice echoed off the walls of the long garage. “Eric drove it to our meeting with the lawyers this morning. After the accident… after Eric was killed, Herb Tuleman — the attorney — said he'd have the car driven back here and left in the garage. Herb is reliable. He always does what he says. I'm sure it was returned. And now it's gone.”
“Car theft,” Ben said. “How long does the list of crimes have to get before you'll agree to calling the cops?”
She walked to the last stall, where the battered Ford was parked in the harsh bluish glare of a fluorescent ceiling strip. “And this one doesn't belong here at all. It's not Eric's.”
“It's probably what the burglar arrived in,” Ben said. “Decided to swap it for the Mercedes.”
With obvious reluctance, with the pistol raised, she opened one of the Ford's front doors, which squeaked, and looked inside. “Nothing.”
He said, “What did you expect?”
She opened one of the rear doors and peered into the back seat.
Again there was nothing to be found.
“Rachael, this silent sphinx act is irritating as hell.”
She returned to the driver's door, which she had opened first. She opened it again, looked in past the wheel, saw the keys in the ignition, and removed them.
“Rachael, damn it.”
Her face was not simply troubled. Her grim expression looked as if it had been carved in flesh that was really stone and would remain upon her visage from now until the end of time.
He followed her to the trunk. “What are you looking for now?”
At the back of the Ford, fumbling with the keys, she said, “The intruder wouldn't have left this here if it could be traced to him. A burglar wouldn't leave such an easy clue. No way. So maybe he came here in a stolen car that couldn't be traced to him.”
Ben said, “You're probably right. But you're not going to find the registration slip in the trunk. Let's try the glove compartment.”
Slipping a key into the trunk lock, she said, “I'm not looking for the registration slip.”
“Then what?”
Turning the key, she said, “I don't really know. Except…”
The lock clicked. The trunk lid popped up an inch.
She opened it all the way.
Inside, blood was puddled thinly on the floor of the trunk.
Rachael made a faint mournful sound.
Ben looked closer and saw that a woman's blue high-heeled shoe was on its side in one corner of the shallow compartment. In another corner lay a woman's eyeglasses, the bridge of which was broken, one lens missing and the other lens cracked.
“Oh, God,” Rachael said, “he not only stole the car. He killed the woman who was driving it. Killed her and stuffed the body in here until he had a chance to dispose of it. And now where will it end? Where will it end? Who will stop him?”
Badly shocked by what they'd found, Ben was nevertheless aware that when Rachael said “him,” she was talking about someone other than an unidentified burglar. Her fear was more specific than that.
7
NASTY LITTLE GAMES
Two snowflake moths swooped around the overhead fluorescent light, batting against the cool bulbs, as if in a frustrated suicidal urge to find the flame. Their shadows, greatly enlarged, darted back and forth across the walls, over the Ford, across the back of the hand that Rachael held to her face.
The metallic odor of blood rose out of the open trunk of the car. Ben took a step backward to avoid the noxious scent.
He said, “How did you know?”
“Know what?” Rachael asked, eyes still closed, head still bowed, coppery red-brown hair falling forward and half concealing her face.
“You knew what you might find in the trunk. How?”
“No. I didn't know. I was half afraid I'd find… something. Something else. But not this.”
“Then what did you expect?”
“Maybe something worse.”
“Like what?”
“Don't ask.”
“I have asked.”
The soft bodies of the moths tapped against the fire-filled tubes of glass above. Tap-tap-tick-tap.
Rachael opened her eyes, shook her head, started walking away from the battered Ford. “Let's get out of here.”
He grabbed her by the arm. “We have to call the cops now. And you'll have to tell them whatever it is you know about what's going on here. So you might as well tell me first.”
“No police,” she said, either unwilling or unable to look at him.
“I was ready to go along with you on that. Until now.”
“No police,” she insisted.
“But someone's been killed!”
“There's no body.”
“Christ, isn't the blood enough?”
She turned to him and finally met his eyes. “Benny, please, please, don't argue with me. There's no time to argue. If that poor woman's body were in the trunk, it might be different, and we might be able to call the cops, because with a body they'd have something to work on and they'd move a lot faster. But without a body to focus on, they'll ask a lot of questions, endless questions, and they won't believe the answers I could give them, so they'll waste a lot of time. But there's none to waste because soon there're going to be people looking for me… dangerous people.”
“Who?”
“If they aren't already looking for me. I don't think they could've learned that Eric's body is missing, not yet, but if they have heard about it, they'll be coming here. We've got to go.”
“Who?” he demanded exasperatedly. “Who are they? What are they after? What do they want? For God's sake, Rachael, let me in on it.”
She shook her head. “Our agreement was that you could come with me but that I wasn't going to answer questions.”
“I made no such promises.”
“Benny, damn it, my life is on the line.”
She was serious; she really meant it; she was desperately afraid for her life, and that was sufficient to break Ben's resolve and make him cooperate. Plaintively he said, “But the police could provide protection.”
“Not from the people who may be coming after me.”