The Woman (13 page)

Linda fully expected Chief McIlhenny would notice the similarity to Cynthia Leclair, but she hadn’t considered that when she fired this second shot. Then again, she really didn’t give a fuck. It had made her feel good to strike back, even though her behavior had sickened and frightened her.

“You got off lucky,” she said to his silence. “I didn’t have a chance to first do to you what you or someone like you did to my friend.”

Before leaving, she again straddled the now harmless killer, this time with her face toward the shore. She grabbed the belted top of his trousers and strained to drag him a little farther out into the surf, but the sand had ebbed around him. She had moved him a few inches when an incoming wave smacked her on the backside, knocking her face down on top the dead stranger, her face to his groin.

She rolled off and stood up, her shoes filling with wet sand, her heart racing as if King Neptune had chosen to resurrect this man rather than accept him into the kingdom of the sea.

Chapter 19

Linda continued up-beach with her heart slamming her chest as if she were being pummeled with medicine balls. If the man she had left in the surf had an accomplice, he could have driven toward town, looking for a place Linda might climb up from the beach. That place would be the wooden staircase she now approached, the stairs near Clark’s house. Yet she had no better choice. If she turned back, passed the man she killed and returned to her condo from the beach, the accomplice could be there.

Before starting the climb, she stood for several minutes, her eyes fixed on the ledge that topped the one-hundred stairs, the crest of the cliff top. Then, holding the gun behind her right thigh, she started up the back-breaker, another of the local names for this climb. She paused at each of the several landings to again study the crest and to prepare herself for the next stretch of rising stairs. She was now pulling herself each step using more arms than legs.

She slowed near the top, her eyes focused on the clearing, alert for any kind of movement. But there was no one, no movement other than Old Gray, who apparently had his own way up the hill without using the stairs. The dog, being at the top, assured her that the accomplice, if there was one to begin with, was not up there. Old Gray didn’t like strangers.

At the top of the stairs, seeing no one, Linda reached through the backless step to nest the gun amongst the trash the wind had back flushed into the dirt cavity.

* * *

Clark was home. The front door was open except for a latched screen, its dry wooden frame grayed by weather. The inside was dark except for flickering lights dancing on the far wall. Many of the owners of these beach-facing houses had screened in their ocean facing decks. She guessed the one Clark rented had done so and the light was from a television around the corner on that deck.

“Clark?” she hollered through the screen. “Are you home?”

A moment later, his head peeked around the side of the archway that partitioned off the back part of the house. He immediately moved toward the door, his fist tucking his white T-shirt into the elastic waistband of his gray shorts. “Linda? Is that you?”

“Yes. May I come in?” She asked as he reached the other side of the screen. “I’m exhausted from a late jog. I remembered you lived nearby so I thought I’d stop by for a few minutes before heading home, if I didn’t come at a bad time.”

His finger slapped the hook out of the eye screw that held the screen shut. “Sure. Linda. Sure. Come on in.”

She stepped inside. “Thanks, Clark. I appreciate this.”

“Anytime. . . . You look a mess, a good mess. Did you fall?”

“Sorta. I’m okay though.”

“What happened?” He latched the warped screen to prevent it from sagging open.

“I don’t need questions, just a place to sit for a while. Okay? If not, I can head on home.”

“Hey, chill.” He took her arm and led her toward the back from where he had come. She sat. He turned off the television.

“Leave it on, will ya? Anything. No violent stuff. Okay?”

“Sure. I’ll put on a music channel. We can just sit. Talk if you wanna.”

“Thank you.”

After looking down for a moment, he said, “I was real sorry to hear about your friend, Cynthia. I didn’t know her except for seeing her in O’Malley’s with you. But she was your friend, so she was aces in my book.”

“Yes. Cynthia was . . . aces.”

“You know, the town’s full of rumors about that company where she worked. Some say she owned it, others claim they brokered drugs. In O’Malley’s I hear it all. That kinda talk turns real shitty in no time at all. Everybody trying to top the last crazy thing they heard somewheres else.”

“She did own SMITH & CO.,” Linda said. “The rest of all that’s . . . a bunch a bull.”

“I figured as much. You wouldn’t be tight with somebody selling shit.”

“Can we just sit quietly?”

“Sure.”

After a few minutes, Linda said, “So, you happy living here in Sea Crest?”

“Sure. Nice town. I love the ocean. O’Malley’s good people, tough, but in a nice way, you know. The tips, well, they could always be better. But it’s clean work, which is a huge change from my life before I came here. So, yeah, everything’s cool.”

Linda rubbed her upper arms. Clark got up and shut the two partially open sliding windows. “Did somebody attack you? It don’t look like you’re hurt, but you’ve been, I don’t know, hassled or somethin’.”

“I went jogging on the beach tonight. You know those logs at the surf line about a mile or so down-beach? Stupid me, I tried to hurdle ‘em.” She stood back, holding her arms out from her sides. “I tumbled in the sand, a wave washed over me. My pride hurts the most.”

Clark raised his eyebrows. “Okay, Linda, if that’s the way you want to play it.”

“That’s what happened. I really don’t need your doubting attitude.”

“No offense.” He raised his hands as if somebody had put a gun against his back. “Whatever you say, is cool for me. I’ll back you all the way.”

They sat through three songs before either spoke again.

“You wanna shower? I got a clean pair of sweats you can wear, and a T-shirt. That might take the edge off your done-in look.”

“I’d like that. Thanks.”

“Let me show you the way. Excuse the mess. You know us bachelors, give us a toilet and a shower, a bed and a TV, micro and refrigerator, and we’re set for life.” She smiled. He did too.

The hot water pounded the top of her head, cascading down over her breasts. The trailing water stung her thighs, chafed from sand grinding on wet skin. She shampooed and rinsed her hair, then stood under the spray until the hot water withdrew into warm and surrendered into cold. Clark had put out a fresh pair of sweats, a clean T-shirt, and a pair of clean socks across the tops of her wet tennis shoes, along with a plastic bag for her wet things.

She dressed and went back into the bathroom to fuss with her hair. When she came out, the plastic bag was gone. She rejoined Clark, leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.

“This was a good idea. Felt great.”

“I’m glad I was home.”

“What did you do with my wet clothes?”

“I burned them in the fireplace. They smoked quite a bit. You can probably still smell it.”

“Why did you burn them?”

“The front was stained with a red smear. You musta fell in something. I didn’t think it would come out. There was none on your shoes.”

He knows. How can he know?

“Look. If you wanna talk, really talk. I got some beers. Cold Coronas with lime just like at work. You drink them sometimes. Listen, if tonight’s earned me the right to a guess, I’d say somebody’s pressed you about something, forced you to act. You know.”

Linda said nothing for a moment, and then stood. “I’m leaving now. Thank you very much. This was just what I needed. I’ll get your clothes back to you in a day or two.”

“I can run you home on my hog. Let the air blow dry your hair.”

“Another time. I’d like to walk.”

“No hurry on getting those sweats back, I got a ton. They fit you okay. Well, a bit big, but I’ll bet they think they’re on vacation being on you instead of me.”

She hugged him. “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown. Thank you.”

She stepped outside and closed the screen. Then she turned back at the sound of his voice.

“By the way,” he said. “We had cheeseburgers and watermelon for dinner. Shared a six-pack of Coronas, put on some music and watched the ocean.” She started to protest. He held up a hand. “Just in case somebody asks where you were tonight. You walked down here a little after five and left about now. Don’t say you were jogging on the beach tonight because too many people might have seen you on the beach all day.”

“Why is this necessary?” she asked.

“I don’t know that it is. It’s just there, if you need it. Like I said, I got your back. And let me say this, please. I’ve never heard of you taking up with anybody, but if some dude’s giving you a hard time, you tell me and I’ll see that he stops.” He pushed open the screen and looked straight at her. “Even if it’s Chief McIlhenny. I’ve noticed the way he watches you.”

“The chief is always a gentleman.” She touched her still damp hair, then his cheek, turned and walked down Main Street leaving him holding the edge of his screen door. She heard the snap-click when Clark reengaged the latch hook.

She wanted to go back and ask Clark to drive her home, to go in with her and make sure no one was waiting for her. But, flimsy as her story had seemed to him, she wasn’t about to tell him what had really happened on the beach. She also saw no reason to bring him into the danger that had crowded out everything else in her life.

A minute later, she stopped at the top of the beach stairs to retrieve her gun from under the top step. There was a gun there, fully loaded, but not the one she had left.

Chapter 20

Webster didn’t know the time but it was earlier than four in the morning because that was when the master timer turned off the lights under the eaves of the cabana about fifty yards from the main house. And the cabana lights were still reflecting off the pool.

Webster could feel the lushness of the grounds surrounding his estate, even detect the mild aroma of the horse stables on the far side of the helipad. From where he stood the stately trees at the back of the property silhouetted against the moon. A chorus of crickets reminded him that God had made creatures of all kinds, but selected only a few to protect and preserve the balance and order of life. He would not fail that duty.

One day he would put a stop to the drunken spending by politicians in their endless pursuit of the votes they needed to keep themselves in power. Like addicts everywhere, selling their very souls for the next fix. For politicians, the next fix was campaign money for the next election. For now, it served Webster’s interests to be one of their main suppliers.

He loved walking and thinking in the quiet of the night. In the distance, the sky lightened with what he believed to be the glow of the nation’s capital. The White House. The Capitol Building. The U.S. Supreme Court. The three centers of power. The rest of D.C. was about posturing and pomposity, along with serving the big three. All that would be his once he had sufficiently tightened his noose around the big three.

No one in the modern world could conquer America from the outside, but complacency, arrogance, and voter apathy had made the country highly vulnerable from within. His plan: claim power silently, one member of congress at a time, then, eventually, the presidency. The banks in which he held considerable influence would play their part. They could be counted on to go along with any structure that took the government’s growing yoke from their necks. The leaders of the major banks, along with the technology giants and the makers of armaments would be at the apex of his multinational world government.

The same excessive debt and out-of-control spending that ruins families and companies would eventually ruin the entire country. The need to give everything necessary to garner votes required a government powerful enough to first take all that the people had. A benevolent dictator was needed to prevent that, one insulated from the vicissitudes of politics.

Now this nobody, this Linda Darby, had become a tumor growing on the side of his plan.

As for Ben McIlhenny, who had handled the installation and monitoring of the surveillance equipment in Cynthia Leclair’s company, he would be of no help with the Darby matter. In fact, McIlhenny would soon become another loose end that required tying off.

Webster had dispatched Blue, his best operative, aside from Ryan Testler, to Sea Crest on the same day he had ordered Testler to come east to report in person. Blue had called in earlier to report having located Linda Darby’s residence, but that she had not been at home. Not wanting to be seen hanging around, Blue had driven to the bigger town north of Sea Crest to get something to eat before going back to see if she had returned. Webster had gone out to walk his estate grounds to keep himself awake while waiting to hear from Blue. He had to know what Cynthia Leclair had told Linda Darby, and in turn if Darby had leaked that information to others. West coast time was three hours earlier, but Blue should have reported in by now.