"They also have the resources to run background checks on guests who haven't played here before," Jamie said.
"No FBI," Cavanaugh repeated.
8
Sheltered by a cypress, Cavanaugh sat at the northeast rim of Carmel's beach, close to where the shore rose to the grass of the Pebble Beach links. He was far enough inland that he blended with the trees and shrubs behind him. The air was balmy, the afternoon sun reflecting so brightly off the water that he had to wear sunglasses.
"All roads lead to Rome?" Jamie asked.
"And everybody in the area ends up going to Carmel's famous beach. As much as the golf courses and 17-Mile Drive, this is the big attraction." Cavanaugh studied the long crescent of white sand. Hundreds of people were on it, reading in beach chairs, splashing in the surf, strolling, jogging, or tossing Fris-bees to dogs. "I can't imagine that Prescott would live in the area and not come down here. At first, he'd be apprehensive about showing himself. He'd probably stay close to wherever he's living. But eventually he'd begin to loosen up. He might even come down here for exercise. Hell, for all I know, he got himself a dog."
"The FBI could check everybody who recently bought property around here," Jamie said.
Cavanaugh continued watching the people on the beach.
"It's just a thought," Jamie said.
"I keep seeing Roberto with his head beaten in… Duncan with his face full of bullet holes… Karen literally scared to death in her wheelchair."
"The government might not be as lenient with Prescott as you think."
Instead of responding, Cavanaugh glanced down at a map of the shops in town. "The big bookstore is in the Carmel Mall. We could keep a watch on the place. Since Prescott likes books, there's a good chance he'd eventually show up there."
"Unless he buys books off the Internet."
"There's nothing like a real bookstore, though."
"In that case, he might decide to make the short drive north to Monterey," Jamie said.
Cavanaugh gave her a look.
"Just trying to investigate alternatives," she said.
"Which brings us back to sitting here on the beach and watching for him."
"Fine with me. I'll get a beach chair and a book. I can use the rest," Jamie said.
"After dark, we'll stake out the best restaurants and see if he shows up."
"I was sort of hoping we could eat in those restaurants, not watch them."
"Given how little he's probably eating these days, he'll want the small portions he allows himself to be exquisite. Only the top two or three restaurants in town will be acceptable to him."
"Unless he eats at home."
Cavanaugh gave her another look.
A jogger sprinted to their end of the beach, turned, and ran back in the opposite direction.
"Weight loss," Jamie said.
"You thought of something?"
"I'm going to hate myself for being honest. It'll take more than dieting for Prescott to lose weight fast. He'll need exercise. Hours and hours of it."
9
Cavanaugh waited in an art gallery while Jamie found a break in traffic and crossed to the opposite side, where a walkway led to what their map indicated was a warren of shops in the center of a block. They'd learned that one of the exercise clubs they wanted to check was on the second floor of a building over there, affiliated with a nearby hotel. The time was now 4:30. Although there wasn't any guarantee that Prescott would use an exercise club, let alone that particular club at that particular moment, Cavanaugh couldn't risk entering, just in case Prescott might, in fact, be present. Because Prescott didn't know Jamie existed, the safer course was for her to go in alone and look around. If no one aroused her suspicion, she was to tell an instructor that she was writing a health-magazine article about overweight people who'd lost a remarkable amount of weight in a short time thanks to their determination. Then she'd ask if any of the club's members fit that description.
Pretending to appreciate the gallery's paintings, Cavanaugh often glanced through the front window toward the other side of the street. The late-afternoon sun put some of the doorways in shadow. As tourists went in and out of the mews over there, he checked his watch, then feigned interest in more of the paintings.
Thirty minutes later, he was still pretending to be interested in the paintings.
He stepped outside and crossed the street. Pots of brightly colored flowers flanked the mews's entrance. Beyond them, shifting among tourists, he passed a walkway on his right. According to what he and Jamie had learned, the exercise club would be along the next walkway on the right. He turned a corner, passed more flowers, and came to steps that led up to the second floor. A sign read the fitness clinic.
Upstairs, he scanned the lobby and the long, bright exercise room beyond it. Jamie was nowhere in view. Staying to the side of the lobby, he carefully assessed the people working the various machines. None of them reminded him of Prescott. Amid the hum of treadmills and the clank of weights, he approached a muscular man in tight shorts and a T-shirt who stood behind a counter.
"I'm supposed to meet my wife here, but I'm late," Cavanaugh said. "Do you know if she's still around? Tall, thin, auburn hair. Good-looking."
The instructor frowned. "Is your name Cavanaugh?"
"Why? Is something wrong?"
"Man, I'm real sorry about what happened."
"Sorry?"
"After your wife fainted, her two friends told me she's got some kind of low blood pressure problem."
Cavanaugh's hands and feet felt numb.
"I wanted to call an ambulance," the instructor said, "but they said she'd had fainting spells a couple of times before. Nothing life-threatening. Something about her electrolytes being low."
Cavanaugh's stomach turned to ice.
"So I got them a bottle of Gatorade from the machine over there," the instructor said. "They gave her a couple of sips and helped her stand. She was woozy, but she could walk, sort of, if somebody put an arm around her."
"Friends?" Cavanaugh could barely speak.
"Two women who came in behind her. A good thing there were two of them. The one with the crutches couldn't have handled your wife all by herself."
"Crutches?" The lobby seemed to waver.
"Because of a cast on one leg. She said she knew you'd be worried, so she left a message for you." The instructor reached under the counter and set down an envelope.
Cavanaugh's fingers didn't want to work as he fumbled to open it. The neatly hand-printed note inside made him want to scream.
Tor House. Eight tomorrow morning.
10
Grace, Cavanaugh thought. He struggled to keep control. Despite the weakness in his legs and arms, he drove at random through the area, going around blocks, making U-turns and heading back in the direction from which he'd just come. He timed traffic lights so he got through them just before they turned red, using every technique he could think of to make sure he wasn't followed. Cursing, he realized that Grace had made the connection between A Summer Place and Carmel. With no other direction in which to go, she was searching the area as he and Jamie had been doing. Sometime during the day, their paths had crossed. Perhaps at Tor House. Grace didn't know about Prescott's fascination with Robinson Jeffers, but that didn't matter. Tor House was one of the local attractions and had to be investigated. Perhaps Grace had been approaching it when she'd seen Cavanaugh and Jamie get in their car and drive away. That would explain Grace's choice for a meeting place tomorrow. Or had it been on 17-Mile Drive or at Pebble Beach's lodge, or had Grace seen Cavanaugh through binoculars while she scanned Carmel's beach?