Scorcher (21 page)

“Sometimes.”

“You going to ask me inside where it’s cool?”

“I’d better not, Laura.”

She gave him a slow, silky smile. She knew, all right. She said, “Worried about those statistics concerning sex after divorce?”

“What statistics? Where’d you see them?”

She waved a hand. “
People. Cosmopolitan.
Someplace or other.” Baiting him. “Anyway, one in three couples sleeps together at least once after the divorce. Worried about that?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. Why not be honest with her? She was being disturbingly honest with him.

“I won’t try to convince you that way to stop searching for Paul Kave,” she assured him. “But I want you to stop. If you won’t, I’ll go to the Kave family and tell them who you are and what you’re doing.”

He gripped her upper arm and squeezed. “I want you to promise you won’t do that, Laura.”

Anger flared in her eyes. “Trying to make my arm like your leg?”

“Why did you come here? The entire reason.”

She locked stares with him; didn’t blink. “I told you, I want you to stop hunting Paul Kave. Remember what Sam said, about how some things should be left alone.”

“You didn’t tell me everything.”

“You hear what you want to hear. Always did.”

He released her and moved back, leaning on his cane and breathing heavily. He wouldn’t have minded crippling Laura just then, for coming here taunting and threatening. As if she were in control of things and he weren’t. Her hand moved toward her reddened bicep, then withdrew. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him see her rub where he’d hurt her.

“You’re sick with this thing,” she told him. “Edwina told me about the fire. You need someone to save you from yourself. She won’t, apparently.”

“You don’t understand how it is between us.”

“Somebody doesn’t.”

“I don’t want you talking to the Kaves. I mean that.”

She gave him a long, careful look. Her entire face trembled slightly, as if she were about to cry or scream. Or bolt into the ocean.

Then she whirled and stepped down off the porch. “I can’t promise I won’t!” she said, not looking back as she strode to her rental car parked in the sparse shade of the palms. Tiny clouds of dust kicked up behind her as her straw slip-ons flapped against her bare soles.

Carver watched her drive away, spinning the little car’s tires on the sandy earth, raising more dust.

God damn her! She was complicating his life again, multiplying his worries and making him feel like a fool.

Hurling the truth in his face like a custard pie and then grinding it.

He struck his cane against the wooden porch railing hard enough to make a sound like a pistol shot, then he limped inside, slamming the screen door behind him like return fire.

W
HEN
C
ARVER AWOKE
in the dark cottage he thought he smelled smoke. He lay for the moment where he was, very still, the side of his face mashed into the sweat-damp pillow, his exposed eye bulged open. The clock by the bed read 5:00 A.M. The sea was pounding and smacking at the beach: high tide. It sounded as if it were all happening two feet outside the cottage, just on the other side of the wall.

The telephone rang, and he groggily fought toward greater awareness and realized it had been ringing for a while and its persistent jangle was what had drawn him from his dream of fire. A dream; that’s all it had been.

He sucked in clean sea air from the open window; no smoke. Then he picked up the receiver and quieted the pesky phone. When he tried to say hello, his mouth was so dry and the taste on his tongue so sour that no sound came out. The smoke-filled dream he could barely remember had really worked him over, kicked around the old subconscious.

“This is Van Meter,” the voice on the phone said. “You awake, Carver?”

“Yumph.”

“Means yes, I suppose. Well, what I called about, my man watching the Kave estate said he saw Nadine return home fifteen minutes ago.”

Carver swallowed. Licked his lips. They were coated with mucus that felt and tasted like glue. “Return from where?” His voice was a cross between a whisper and a croak. He swallowed again. It hurt his throat.

“That’s the problem,” Van Meter said. “She snuck out without being seen. We don’t know where she went. My man figures, though, that she left sometime after midnight. He saw her at the house about then.”

“She drive?”

“No, she came home in a cab.”

“Why would she take a cab when the family’s got three cars sitting around getting dusty?”

“Maybe she suspects the place is being watched. She’s no dummy, if she’s Adam Kave’s daughter. Only thing my man can figure is she left the house by a side window and made her way down to the road, where she walked to a phone booth and called a taxi. That little red sports cars of hers never moved; she probably parked it out where it was visible so her folks’d think she was home.”

“Or so your man’d think so.”

“Naw. He’s good. She didn’t know he was there; she was being careful in general. Maybe she went to meet Dewitt to go play house somewhere. Girl and Boy Stuff.”

“She’d drive to see him,” Carver said. “No need for secrecy there. Hell, they’re supposed to be engaged, and Nadine’s not the type to worry about whether people think she’s a virgin. It’s the late-twentieth century, Van Meter; I’m surprised at you. Girl and Boy Stuff goes on right under your nose all the time.”

“Not under my nose,” Van Meter said. “Not so much anymore.”

“Point is,” Carver said, “she wouldn’t worry about her reputation or family if she went to meet Dewitt in the early morning hours. Not Nadine Kave.”

Van Meter sighed into the phone. “Yeah. That attitude went the way of fins on cars. Looks like she might have gone someplace to meet her brother.”

“Your guy get the cab number?”

“ ’Fraid not,” Van Meter said. “He was too far away, and it all happened fast. The cab let her out at the base of the drive and she walked to the house. I can check with the cab companies, though, and probably find out where she went. Don’t know how much that’ll tell us. My guess is she’d meet Paul Kave someplace other than where he’s holed up. Some bar or all-night restaurant, maybe.”

“Better check anyway,” Carver said. “She and Paul might set up another meeting at the same place—if that’s who she went to see.”

“Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry we fucked up, Carver.”

“S’okay.”

“It’s not, but that’s how it goes sometimes. Imperfect world. Sorry I had to wake you, but I thought you’d want to know about this as soon as possible. In case you wanted to act on it right away.”

“Right now, I’m too tired to act on anything short of an alligator chewing on my good leg.”

“Get back to bed, why don’t you?”

“I will,” Carver said, and hung up.

But he was finished sleeping. He lay awake and watched the black patch of the window, waiting for the sun.

He’d decided not to tell Nadine he knew about her nighttime excursion, but he wanted to talk with her anyway, in case she might volunteer information.

A part-time maid, in for the day from Fort Lauderdale, answered Carver’s ring at the Kave estate. He waited just inside the door amid mock-Spanish splendor while she disappeared down the hall to announce his presence. Her footfalls made no noise.

A few minutes later she returned and showed him to the large room off the veranda. As they approached the closed door, Carver heard loud, argumentative voices. He glanced at the maid, a middle-aged Latin with a closed stone face. She might have smiled—but no, that was simply the cast of her features. She had a great face for a maid, with a permanent wry expression perfect for deflecting trouble.

She knocked lightly on the door, and the voices were abruptly stilled. She pushed the door open and shuffled soundlessly aside for Carver to enter.

The entire family was there. Adam Kave was standing near open French doors, holding a ceramic coffee mug. Elana, looking pale and distraught, was curled on the sofa, also gripping a coffee mug. She’d spilled coffee on her pink robe, leaving two small but distinct wet spots on her lap. Nadine was standing next to Joel Dewitt, her expression tight and stormy. Dewitt looked mad, but not as mad as the red-haired Mel Bingham, who was standing a few feet from him on the other side of Nadine. Not many people could look as angry as Bingham. He resembled a skinny modern-day Viking consumed by the red rage. A berserker with wild eyes and clenched fists. A large vein pulsed and writhed like a blue worm trapped beneath the taut flesh of his forehead. Ugly, ugly.

Adam Kave cleared his throat loudly; he was embarrassed. He nodded and said, “Carver.” Nadine glared at Carver. Elana regarded him remotely, as if from behind soundproof glass. Dewitt and Bingham hardly noticed him; they were glaring at each other. Carver felt like a servant in a British movie: part of the scene yet not a part, existing in a lower-level universe of manner and meaning. He wished just then that he had a face like the maid’s.

“We were discussing where Nadine went last night,” Adam said. “I happened to hear her leave a few minutes after two and then return several hours later. She refuses to tell us why she sneaked out in the middle of the night or where she was going under cover of darkness.”

“I don’t see why I should have to tell,” Nadine said. She was wearing yellow shorts and a sleeveless white top. Her thick, tennis player’s thighs flexed powerfully as she shifted her weight. Her black hair was skinned back and braided with a yellow ribbon. A healthy and vigorous girl who looked ready to play time to a draw and always have her own teeth and live to be two hundred.

“We assumed you went to meet Joel,” Elana told her. “Since you and he are seeing each other anyway, we simply wondered why you felt the need to sneak away behind our backs.” She talked as if they weren’t engaged and were merely casually dating. There was something about her daughter’s involvement with Dewitt she couldn’t even come close to acknowledging as reality. Or maybe she figured that, with her limited time left alive, she could accept or reject whatever she pleased and ultimately it wouldn’t matter whether it had been fantasy or fact.

“But when it was mentioned this morning at breakfast in Joel’s presence,” Adam said, “it was obvious he knew nothing about it.”

If either of them suspected Nadine had sneaked off to meet her brother, they weren’t saying so.

“I think she went to meet this turd,” Dewitt said, pointing at the seething Bingham, “but she’s afraid to admit it, and so is he. Why’s he always hanging around the house, anyway? He’s got no business here.”

“I come to see Nadine,” Bingham said, “whether you like it or not. We’ve been friends since childhood, and I’ve come and gone here whenever I wanted for years.”

“Only to see Nadine?”

“Of course.”

“Well, that’ll soon be over.”

Bingham fumed and Elana smiled. It was as if she were pleased at seeing Dewitt’s true personality exposed under stress. Will the real sleazy seller of doctored engines and tired transmissions please stand up? Yet there was a kind of regret in her eyes.

“If you want to think I met Mel, fine,” Nadine said. “There’s no way either of us can convince you otherwise, so fuck you.”

Dewitt said, “I notice our friend Mel’s not trying very hard to convince me that it wasn’t him you sneaked out to meet.”

“I wish she
had
met me last night,” Bingham said in a strained but controlled voice. “Or met anybody else but you. She’d have been doing herself a favor. And who needs to convince you of anything?”

The tension level in the room was electric, tickling the nape of Carver’s neck. It must feel that way where lightning was about to strike.

Nadine said, “Hey, calm down, Mel,” and moved closer to him and gently rested a hand on his shoulder.

That seemed to burn Dewitt’s fuse all the way down. He reached around her and grabbed the taller but thinner Bingham by the shirtfront. Nadine ducked low as Bingham pulled back, popping buttons. “For God’s sake!” Nadine said. Bingham raised an arm, elbow crooked, and awkwardly angled a punch over her head at Dewitt. Not with much force. Dewitt blocked it and yanked Bingham around Nadine, who took two off-balance steps and dropped hard to her hands and knees, jarring the room.

“Joel! Stop it!” Adam Kave yelled.

But it was Bingham bringing the fight to Dewitt. The lanky redhead was hurling windmill punches, landing one in four. Not a lot of skill, and too much righteous fury. Each time he threw a punch he grunted with effort and the mindless joy of combat. Forward was the only direction he knew.

Dewitt was all icy determination now, infuriated but calm, slipping punches and weaving and conserving his energy and waiting for Bingham to wear himself out. His blue eyes never blinked, even when Bingham landed a punch.

Finally Bingham stepped back, his scrawny chest heaving. He’d had enough action, worked away his rage. Reason had returned.

Dewitt smiled and said, “My turn,” and neatly kicked him in the groin. A short, economic flight of the foot. Must have had karate lessons somewhere along the line.

Bingham went white and dropped in a hunched position on the floor, his hands cupped between his legs. He rocked forward until his nose touched the thick rug. Dewitt, still with that nasty calm smile, began systematically kicking him, starting with the ribs and working toward the head.

Carver knew Bingham would soon be hurt seriously, if he didn’t already have some broken ribs or bruised internal organs. Dewitt was wearing pointy-toed leather loafers that could do genuine harm; Italian-import Mafia shoes.

Reaching out with the cane, Carver hooked Dewitt’s arm and pulled him away from Bingham. Dewitt whirled and tried to wrest the cane from Carver’s grip. It took him only a second to realize Carver’s superior strength; a man’s upper body developed powerfully from pushing around with a cane, from hours of swimming against strong ocean current.

“You’re gonna hurt him in a way you’ll regret,” Carver said, holding the cane tight and leaning into Dewitt to keep from falling. If he went down, he knew he’d have to drag Dewitt with him; he didn’t want to be kicked like Bingham.