More Deaths Than One (30 page)

Grasping the outstretched hand, Bob nodded,
not trusting himself to speak. In the silence, he heard the
children’s excited voices growing louder. A few seconds later they
burst into the room, Kerry in tow.

She launched herself into his arms. “You got
away. I was so worried.”

He held her tightly. The briny scent of her
hair reminded him of all she had been through, and he felt
something catch in his throat.

Becoming aware of Scott’s shrewd gaze focused
on them, he loosened his grip and took a step back.

“We have to go.”

“Mom’s going to be home soon,” Beth said.

“And we’re having spaghetti for dinner,”
Jimmy added.

Kerry hugged both of them at the same time.
“There’ll be other days.”

After a flurry of goodbyes, Bob and Kerry
left.

He scanned the cars parked along the curb.
“Where’s the VW?”

“Around the corner and down the block. I
didn’t want to get too close to the Mulligan’s place in case
somebody followed me.”

A chill feathered the back of his neck, but
he managed to keep his voice steady. “Did anyone follow you?”

“I don’t think so.” She rubbed her arms as if
to get warm. “When I went in the house, I dropped my purse on the
table like I always do. I turned around, and this guy came toward
me. I hit him with the lamp. It knocked him over, but he got up
right away, then the other guy came out of my bedroom. I didn’t
know what else to do, so I screamed and ran. I didn’t hurt you, did
I?”

“No.”

“I saw you, but I couldn’t keep from running
into you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Your flight hormones
took over is all.”

She shuddered. “Who were those guys?”

“The one you hit is Sam, the other is
Ted.”

“That’s what I figured. Somehow it seemed
like a game—hiding out in motel rooms, dashing halfway across the
world, but after today . . .”

“I know,” Bob said softly. “I am sorry.”

“What are you sorry about? You didn’t do
anything.”

“I got you involved.”

She planted a fist on her hip. “We already
had this discussion.”

He considered pointing out that the stakes
were higher for her now, but realized it wouldn’t change the way
she felt.

“You handled yourself well this
afternoon.”

“I acted like a dippy girl, screaming and
run-ning.”

“But you’re alive. At the end of the day,
that’s all that counts.”

“I guess.”

“There’s no guessing. What’s that saying,
‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’? Well, you got
going.”

He was pleased to see her lips curve into a
slight smile.

“That’s not what it means, and you know it.”
She paused by the car. “Maybe you better drive since my license is
in my purse back at the house.” She handed him the keys, then
snatched them back. “Wait a minute. You don’t have a license
either.”

She scooted around the car, slid into the
driver’s seat, and turned the key in the ignition.

“Where to?”

“A motel.”

She peeled away from the curb. “After the
guys started chasing you, I ran for the car, threw the lamp in the
back seat, and drove around. When I couldn’t find you, I went back
to the house to wait, but a green Ford was parked down the block
with two adults in it, and a white Buick with two more adults
cruised the neighborhood. I didn’t know what to do. Then I
remembered the Mulligans. Since they’re the only people we both
know, I thought that was the best place to go. I’ve been there for
hours. Where were you? I’m babbling, aren’t I? Jeez, I’m so tired I
feel as if I could sleep for a month.”

“It’s the adrenaline washing out of your
system. That day when I found Sam and Ted in my room, I hid out in
a porno theater and fell asleep.”

“You fell asleep watching porn?” She laughed,
the mischievous glint back in her eyes.

Chapter 27

Kerry drove around the block twice while Bob
studied the pedestrians and the people in the parked cars. Not
seeing anything suspicious, he directed Kerry to park down the
street from Copy and Send, the storefront business where she had
rented a mailbox.

He laid a hand on her knee. “I’ll go in
first, check the place to make sure it isn’t staked out inside. If
I don’t come out, or if I’m with anyone when I do, I want you to
leave. Go see Scott. He knows people who can protect you.”

Her brows drew together. “You want me to
drive away?”

“I can endure anything if I know you’re
safe.”

“All right, if that’s what you want, but you
better take care of yourself.”

“I intend to. If everything seems okay, I’ll
come out and watch from across the street while you go in to see if
the package has arrived. After you’ve returned to the car, I’ll
wait a few more minutes to see if anyone follows you or if any cars
start up. If I don’t see anything suspicious, I’ll come back to the
car. If I don’t come back—”

“I know. Go see Scott.”

***

An obese woman with big hair and mean eyes
stared at Bob from her position behind the long counter as he
looked around.

There wasn’t much to see: rows of mailboxes,
several copy machines, racks of packing materials and greeting
cards. A leather-jacketed man in his twenties, who had six earrings
in one ear, pulled envelopes from a mailbox, and an old woman with
heavily rouged cheeks made copies.

When Bob saw nothing that struck him as being
out of the ordinary, he sauntered outside and crossed the street.
Leaning against a pole, he took note of the activity. Vehicles
slowing, pulling away from the curb, angling into parking spaces.
People scurrying. Kerry walking into the store and coming out a
minute later with a box about eighteen inches tall, two feet long,
and a foot thick.

A few men glanced at her as she carried the
box to the car, but no one showed more than a passing interest. She
shoved the box into the back seat, climbed into the driver’s seat,
and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

Bob waited. One minute. Two minutes. Finally,
he returned to the car, and Kerry drove off. No one followed.

***

They were on Highway 6, heading west. Denver
lay behind them; housing tracts and office complexes stretched out
on either side of them.

Kerry bounced in her seat as she drove,
radiating excitement. “I wonder what Harrison left you. Maybe we
should stop at one of the motels around here. Whose idea was it to
spend the night in the mountains, anyway?”

Bob smiled at her. “Yours.”

“Oh, right. Well, how was I to know you
weren’t going to open the box till we got to the motel? If it was
my box, I’d have opened it already.”

“We’ll be there soon enough.”

“If I live that long,” she grumbled.

An hour later, they pulled onto an
unobtrusive dirt road and descended into a barren bowl dotted with
tiny cabins.

“How did you hear about this place?” Bob
asked.

“A woman I waited on a couple of months ago.
The way she raved about it, I expected something more than these
shacks. Should we go somewhere else?”

“No. It’s perfect. We’ll be able to keep
track of the cars on the road.”

They found the office in the largest
building, which also housed a snack bar. A watery-eyed man leaning
on two canes gave them a form to fill out, then directed them to
their cabin.

It felt as chilly inside as outside, but a
plump down comforter covered the bed, and logs lay ready in a stone
fireplace that took up half of one wall.

“Their insurance must be astronomical,” Kerry
commented, putting a match to the logs. When the fire took hold,
she peeked into the bathroom. “I can do without the rust-stained
fixtures, but otherwise it’s not a bad place.” All at once she let
out a strangled cry. “What are you doing?”

Startled, Bob dropped the brush he had picked
up. “I’m getting ready to paint. Why?”

“Why? Why? The package, that’s why.”

He grabbed the brush and continued to lay his
painting supplies on the scuffed wooden desk, unable to explain his
reluctance to paw through Harrison’s papers.

She stared at him. “Every time I think I’m
get-ting to understand you, I learn something that reminds me I
don’t know you at all.”

He met her gaze. “We don’t have to know
everything about each other right away. Since we’re going to be
together, we have the whole rest of our lives to get to know each
other.”

“Are we going to be together?”

“I’m planning on it.”

An impish look appeared in her eyes. “Is this
a proposal?”

“If you want it to be.”

The breath rushed out of her, and she dropped
into a chair. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded
subdued.

“My whole life I’ve looked forward to having
a wedding and being married, but after what I’ve learned about the
government and their intrusions, I couldn’t bear to have to ask
their permission, to get their sanction, to let them have any part
of our life together.”

“I feel the same way.”

He placed beads of phthalo blue, napthol red,
and titanium white on his palette and mixed the color of the
Colorado sky.

“Where are we going to live?” Kerry
asked.

“Your choice. Where you go, I go.”

She didn’t hesitate. “I want to go back home
to Chalcedony. I realize it’s still a quiet backwater, set apart
from the rest of the world by mountains, but with you there with
me, I’ll have all the challenge I need. We can get a nice place in
the mountains. I’ll garden, maybe even build a greenhouse like the
Mulligan’s.”

As she continued to describe the future, Bob
could see them walking hand in hand along the garden paths, and he
could smell the flower-scented air. He could see the years passing.
Kerry grew more beautiful and more settled without ever losing her
boldness or the glint of laughter in her eyes. Despite their
continued closeness, some of their differences were never
reconciled. She always opened her mail on the walk back from the
mailbox on the highway, and it drove her nuts that he set his aside
unopened until he had time to deal with it.

“Bob?”

He pulled himself back to the present.
“Yes?”

“You’ve been painting a long time. Are you
ready to eat?”

He glanced at the canvas, surprised to see
he’d finished the painting.

Kerry came to stand beside him as he studied
the scene. In the distance were the mountains, stark against the
sky. In the foreground grew an exuberantly chaotic mix of flowers
and vegetables. Off to the side stood the figure of a woman,
radiant and serene, one hand raised as if in welcome.

“That’s me,” Kerry exclaimed. “I thought you
never painted people.”

“When it comes to you, I’m not afraid of what
my fingers will see.”

“The garden is exactly as I imagined.” She
gave him an oblique glance. “It’s lovely, but the flaw, as you call
it, is still there.”

He put an arm around her and drew her close.
“I know.”

“Are you okay with that?”

“It’s a small shadow. I now realize some
darkness will always appear in my paintings, and that’s fitting.
Without shadow there is no perspective.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “You never
answered my question. Are you ready to eat?”

“I can wait a little longer. While I clean my
mess, why don’t you open Harrison’s package.”

***

Kerry ripped open the box, shoved aside
layers of bubble packing material, and pulled out a battered brown
leather valise.

Bob recognized it instantly. Harrison’s
valise, the one he had dragged all over Vietnam, having found that
a briefcase could not hold all of his writing paraphernalia. Bob
imagined he could feel Harrison’s presence, as if, once again, his
friend had left the case in his safekeeping while he went in search
of another beer.

It seemed impossible that Harrison was dead,
that he himself was leading this chaotic life where he was both
hunter and prey.

What about Hsiang-li? Had he at least found
what he sought? Bob pictured Hsiang-li living peace-fully amid the
ruins of the ancient monastery, with ageless Buddhas and the
spirits of his long-dead wife and son to keep him company. Bob
clung to the image, hoping it was true. He could not bear to think
of his mentor still wandering the jungle, alone and hopelessly
lost.

Kerry snapped open the latches of the valise,
withdrew a handful of papers, and looked through them.

“These are all transcripts of interviews with
ex-soldiers concerning The Sweeper. They must be research for the
book Harrison planned on writing about him, but it doesn’t seem as
if anyone knows much. One guy swears The Sweeper simply faded into
the jungle one day and no one ever saw him again. An ex-corporal
says he knows for a fact The Sweeper was a Russian spy who returned
to Moscow after the war.”

She set the papers aside and pulled a few
more from the valise. “Here’s an interview with someone named Todd
who says he served with him. According to Todd, The Sweeper didn’t
fit in. He kept to himself, and he didn’t smoke or drink or take
drugs because those things dulled his senses, clouded his mind,
distorted his perceptions, and interfered with his ability to blend
into the jungle. Todd says they kept telling him that was the whole
point, but the guy never listened to them.”

She laughed. “Here’s a note in what I assume
is Harrison’s handwriting. It says, ‘Sounds like Todd used more
than his share of the drugs. He can’t remember what The Sweeper
looked like, what his name was, where he came from. Quite a
commentary on modern life, wouldn’t you say? For months, Todd lived
with a soldier with an incredible gift, yet all he can remember is
the man was a loner who didn’t take drugs. He couldn’t even tell me
if the man kept to himself by his own choice or because no one
would have anything to do with him.’ What do you think?”