Carolyn G. Hart (13 page)

Her hands were sweaty. “What do you expect,” she scolded herself wryly, “for a first-time housebreaker?” She unfolded the towel and lifted out the disk. Slipping it out of its white jacket, she put it into the right-hand disk drive and pushed it in. The operating software was already in place in the left-hand drive.

The cursor flashed in the upper left corner, then green letters centered on the black screen:
Initial system checks satisfactory. Please wait for system to load
.

A clock ticked somewhere across the room. Outside, a sea gull shrilled. A dripping noise obtruded. Just a slow leak in the bathroom.

An odd, uneven creaking sounded behind her.

Annie jerked around.

A faint bar of sunlight edged into the bedroom.

Must be from the kitchen. Those window curtains were open. Dust motes swirled.

God, she was jumpy. There was no one here. She had an oppressive feeling of danger. But that was easy enough to understand. After all, she had broken into a dead man’s house. If Saulter found her here, he’d carry her off to jail for sure. The sooner she looked at the disk and got out, the better.

The terminal hummed with on-screen commands:
Fonts loaded. Loading Valdocs system. Loading interrupt and background support modules
.

It was taking forever.

Finally, the message flashed:
Press any typing key to enter editor
.

Almost there. Only seconds away now.

As the document window appeared, Annie studied the keyboard. She pressed the index key.

The index listed all the files stored on the disk. This was pay dirt, all right.

There were eight files.

She studied the dates. Elliot was killed on Sunday the thirteenth, so he’d finished working on the files on Thursday. That figured. He must have dropped the disk into the mail to her on Friday for arrival Monday.

Should she take the files in order, beginning with Emma Clyde?

She pushed back a curl from her forehead. The tiny house was incredibly stuffy. She looked longingly at the air conditioner in the rear window. It wouldn’t do any harm to turn it on. She reached over, switched it on, then turned back to the screen and punched the command to retrieve a file. The cursor blinked by Emma Clyde’s name. Annie almost pushed return, then, remembering Elliot’s taunt about all the information he had on Max, tapped the down arrow until the cursor blinked by her name. It would only take a second to see what Elliot had put in her file. She punched return.

Within seconds, the sentences began to form, fluorescent green against black.

Good grief, how did he know about that week in Santa Fe? He must have talked to Richard.

He had the goods, all right. When Elliot claimed that he could ferret out information, he wasn’t kidding. Yes, here was the stuff on Max.

Her eyes widened. Well, for God’s sake. Max had never told her …

The blow caught her completely unaware. A streak of fire flared on the side of her head, then nothing more.

Max groaned and massaged the back of his neck. He’d never before appreciated the fatigue associated with constant phoning. Somewhere in all of this jumble there had
to be the one fact they needed. Figuring out which fact mattered, that was the rub.

Absently, he picked up his glass, finished the last of the Bud Light, and ignored its faint warmth. Time to organize.

He rolled paper expertly into Annie’s portable Olivetti. He’d mastered a fast hunt-and-peck when he worked as a reporter one year. He typed quickly, and, when he was finished, he reread the compact bios, ignoring typos.

*   *   *

Emma Clyde. It might be fascinating to take a peek at the police report on Morales’s death. Max rubbed his nose. Funny. She was apparently never known as Mrs. Morales. The bare bones suggested that Morales stopped running his resort (motel? vacation apartments?) as soon as he married and took up a cushy residence on Broward’s Rock. Of course, his drowning might have nothing to do with the murders now. Emma’s secret could go back as far as her days as a surgical nurse.

Max frowned and reread the paragraph on Douglas. Annie had mentioned Douglas and Kelly Rizzoli as a twosome. So where was Lenora Harris Douglas?

Zero on weaselly-faced Harriet. The net hadn’t fished up anything useful. But Annie’d mentioned that Harriet’d been mad as hell at Elliot, because he was hinting she’d cribbed somebody else’s book.

Jeff and Janis Farley. Could be volumes there. Both of them foster children and marriage at a sadly young age for Janis. It helped explain her utter dependence on that stiff. No schooling for her, but lots of talent with pen and paper.

Max wiggled his shoulders and stretched. Without losing his place, he rose and used peripheral vision to cross the living room to the kitchen, open the refrigerator, and pick out another Bud Light. This time he settled on the couch, feet propped on the rattan coffee table, took a double gulp, and continued to read.

Max pulled a legal pad closer, sighed, and rubbed his face, then downed the rest of the tepid beer. Damn, he was getting hungry.

He looked up. For a moment, his tired eyes refused to focus, then they noted the open living room windows, the slatted, tropical blinds not yet closed for the night.

For the night …

Darkness had fallen. He looked at his watch, and an empty, sick feeling moved inside him. 7:15. Annie had left for the five-minute bike ride to Elliot’s house a few minutes before six.

Where the hell was Annie?

A
nnie moaned. The sound came from her, but it seemed separate and far away. She tried to lift her head, and pain seared down into her shoulder. She moaned again and rolled her head. The pain caused her to cry out. She opened her eyes. And saw nothing. An instant of panic flared. Her heart thudded erratically, and she fought down the nausea.

Elliot’s house. The disk.

She was lying on her back, her hands outstretched. Something heavy lay in one hand, her left hand. Something heavy and nastily sticky.

Unsteadily, Annie rolled on her side. She let go of the horrid thing, whatever it was, and propped herself up, then attempted to get up.

She stood and swayed as if the floor moved beneath her feet.

She was going to be sick.

Moving heavily, one hand clasped to her mouth, she reached the doorway. Elliot’s tree house was built to the same pattern as hers, the only difference was his second bedroom. She turned left toward the bathroom, flicked on the light and made it just in time to heave violently into the toilet. Sick. Sick. Sick. Finally, clinging to the edge of the lavatory for support, she knew the sickness was past.

Breathing unevenly, she stared down into the basin.

Then she saw the reddish stickiness on her left hand. Slowly, she turned her hand, looked down at the palm, at the blood smeared across it. Blood streaked the whiteness of the lavatory where she had gripped it.

Blood.

Her head.

Annie looked up and saw her face in the mirror. A smeary face. Blurred vision. Clumsily, she moved her right hand up to her head, gingerly touching her scalp behind her right ear. The swelling felt spongy. But her fingers located no cut or fresh wet blood. She turned the spigots and thrust her hands under the cold rushing water, ridding them of the unpleasant stickiness, then patted water on her face. She used a pale yellow towel to dry her hands. It was pink where she had touched it.

Her head. Somebody hit her. That’s what had happened to Jill Kearney. But Jill had a skull like an eggshell. Annie’s head felt like hell, but it must be as thick as Max had always maintained it was. No blood. Where had the blood on her hand come from? Must have been a little cut, already dried.

Dried. God, how long had she been here? She’d better get—

The disk. She was reading the disk.

Annie moved like a drunken june bug, misjudging distance. Swaying unsteadily, she reached the hall, started up it toward Elliot’s office.