He called out again.
The flippant voices from the television rose and fell. If Courtney Kimball was here, she couldn't answer.
Ch
Annie recognized him at once and knew his arrival meant trouble.
Chastain Police Chief Harry Wells wasn't a forgettable man, not from his slablike face to his ponderous black boots, now solidly planted on her front porch.
Wells hadn't changed a whit since she'd last seen him. His wrinkled black jacket, white shirt, and tan trousers were just as she remembered. The crown of his white cowboy hat was as smooth and undented as a river-washed stone, and his rheumy, red-veined eyes surveyed her like a hangman measuring rope.
Annie didn't hesitate. 'What do you want?' she demanded.
Dislike flickered in his eyes. Dislike and a flash of malicious pleasure.
Annie braced herself.
'I'm investigating a disappearance in Chastain, Miz Darling.' Wells's words had the lilting cadence of South Carolina, but even that glorious accent couldn't mask the threat in histone. 'Your husband's involved. I want to know about this woman he was meeting.' His eyes clung to her face, greedy for her response.
The blows were so rapid, Annie felt stunned and sick. Woman.
Chastain.
Disappearance.
Max.
Only the adrenaline flowing from the shock of Wells's unexpected appearance kept her on her feet.
That and hot, swift, unreasoning fear.
'Max! Where is he?' She gripped the door for support.
'He's safe enough.' Wells's voice scraped like a rusty cemetery gate. 'Right now he's in the county jail. Under arrest as a material witness. Who was she, Miz Darling?'
When she didn't answer immediately, the burly police chief leaned forward. It was, she remembered, a favorite trick of his, using his commanding height to intimidate. His sour breath swept over her. 'So you didn't know about her. Well, that doesn't surprise me, Miz Darling. I understand she's good-lookin'. A mighty cute blonde. The kind a man would go a far piece to keep his wife from finding out about. Thing is, those kind of women get insistent, say they're going to tell the man's wife—'
Later, Annie was proud of her quickness because she understood in a flash: Wells was going to accuse Max of an affair and blame the disappearance of this woman—what woman, oh Max, what woman?—on Max's determination to keep the truth from her. But despite the shock, there was an immediate, elemental response too deep for words. Annie couldn't know the truth of anything—except Max would never injure a living soul.
Not Max.
Never Max.
She clapped her hands to her hips and thrust out her chin. 'Get real, Wells.' Her voice dripped disgust. 'Max had a business engagement this evening. If some client's in trouble, if something's happened to her, it's because of the problem she
brought to him. And no, I don't know what that is. Or who she is. Or care. I run a bookstore, Chief, and I don't try to work two jobs. Max takes care of his own business. But I'll tell you this, you're wasting your time talking to me. Did you say she's disappeared? Then you'd better get back to Chastain and start looking for her—and listen real hard to what Max has to tell you.' With that she turned and marched back into the house.
Wells started to follow.
Annie yanked her coat out of the front closet and scooped up her purse from the hall table. 'Nobody asked you in,' she snapped, facing him in the doorway like an outraged terrier staring down a mastiff, 'and I'm leaving.'
'Now wait a minute, Miz Darling.' He backed out onto the porch, his face turning a choleric purple. 'If you won't cooperate with lawful—'
'You don't run a damn thing on Broward's Rock.' She slammed the door. 'If you try and detain me, I'll file the biggest lawsuit for illegal restraint you've ever seen.' She marched down the steps, heading for her Volvo. 'See you in Chastain, Chief.'
By the time a sleepy magistrate agreed to release Max on his own recognizance, there were no more ferries to the island. They found a motel, The Pink Flamingo, on the outskirts of Chastain. As the door shut behind them, Annie glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Almost three A.M.
'The sorry bastard.'
Annie knew who Max meant. The brief drive from the jail had consisted of one furious diatribe by Max.
Max gave her an exhausted, despairing look. 'God, Annie, this is a mess.'
'We'll handle it.' She reached out to take his hand.
He looked down abruptly and smiled, the first smile she'd seen since he'd been ushered out of his cell.
Annie smiled in return. This was Max, her Max. 'Tell me.' He gave her hand a hard squeeze and nodded, then dropped
wearily into the bedroom's sole chair. Annie propped up some pillows on the lumpy bed and curled up to listen. It didn't take long to tell: the original assignment, his report, tonight's phone call, the purse at the cemetery, Courtney's apartment.
