“Putting you on the spot like that.”
“It’s okay.”
“Not very sorry,” she said, grinning.
“Vamp.”
“Uh-huh. I feel like one. It feels good, like finally waking up.”
* * *
Jeri remembered seeing what had looked like a mall, and I drove back west on 501. Jeri spotted it again, which wasn’t much of a trick. Outlet Park at Waccamaw was three malls in one, the complex covering almost a square mile, including parking lots.
We went in dripping, drawing stares. I bought jeans and a shirt, socks, a three-pack of Jockey shorts, a small duffel bag, then changed in a dressing room, threading a wet belt through the loops. Jeri bought navy slacks and a cream blouse, a bra, panties.
None of it went on Dallas’s tab however. “I don’t charge for my own silliness,” Jeri told me.
We ate lunch at another seafood place, Pier Fourteen, taking our time, watching Beryl rage on, letting an hour and a half laze by before returning the rental and taking a Hertz shuttle to the terminal.
The rain hadn’t let up, but flights were still taking off. As bad as the weather was, it wasn’t enough to shut things down. Yet.
We took off ten minutes late. Ten minutes into the flight we broke through the cloud cover into sunshine and high, wind-flung clouds. We kept going up, leaving Myrtle Beach and Beryl behind. In the middle of a storm, right in the thick of it, that’s all there is, the mad whirl of wind and rain, but a change of perspective reveals greater truths, whole new horizons, new realities.
Storms, I thought, were a lot like love.
* * *
Suddenly I was faced with something I hadn’t anticipated, hadn’t seen coming. Given binoculars, CIA-quality sound equipment, and a twenty-minute head start, I probably couldn’t get out of the way of a herd of stampeding elephants.
Kayla and Jeri.
Each had disavowed commitment. Each had given the other first claim on me. Each had shared my bed and clung to me. Each was gorgeous, sexy, desirable, and evidently willing.
What an incredible mess, not that I was complaining.
Mike, old buddy, where are you? What did you do at times like these?
I would have to choose between them, and soon. Or—and this seemed equally likely—I was an idiot and they would both sail out of my life as abruptly as they’d sailed in, without so much as a backward glance. I was a rock of sorts, something to cling to, but only for a while. Life could go on perfectly fine without me.
That, too, had the ring of truth.
* * *
Chasing the sun, falling gradually behind the spin of the planet, losing time in airport terminals, we landed in Reno at 10:55 p.m. Stars were out. The air was cool and dry, smelling of sage. Beryl and all that glorious tropical outrage was part of a different universe.
Jeri drove me home in silence, slowly, almost reluctantly. I could feel her wanting to say something, but she held it in.
A lone van was camped out in front of my house. Unbelievable. You can get rid of tapeworms with less trouble. I had Jeri circle the block and let me out in front of Velma’s.
Jeri licked her lips and gave me a nervous smile. “You really go through the fence, huh?”
“Until this Jonnie and Dave thing blows over, yeah.”
Her smile grew sadder, full of hidden longings, unspoken words. “See you tomorrow at nine?”
“Sure,” I said. “What’s our next step?”
“Dunno. We’ll think of something.”
She stared down at her hands, twisting nervously in her lap, pale green in the dashboard lights, then she looked over at me. “If she ever lets you go, Mort. Here I am.”
“Okay.” Stupidly, I reached for the door handle. My only other option was to kiss her, and I couldn’t do that, couldn’t bring myself to get everything tangled up that way.
“Could you kiss me?” she asked. “One more time.”
Now what? I had to. I did. It lingered, which was at least as much my fault as hers. She tasted good, too good. Probably the only thing that had saved us at the Meridian Plaza during those early morning hours was that we hadn’t kissed.
I got out, waved, walked away. Behind me, the Porsche’s engine continued to idle, a bit longer than necessary, I thought, then it wound up and faded off into the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
KAYLA WASN’T HOME. I looked in the usual places for a note, but she hadn’t left one. The words “easy come, easy go” sailed through what I loosely call my mind, but then I realized that that wouldn’t be her way. She was a note-leaver.
So, where was she?
Being a world-renowned gumshoe, my name on the lips of half the population of the country, I tried to rustle up clues. The bed was made. Her shampoo and toothbrush were in the bathroom. And as far as clues went, that was about it.
I wandered through the house, feeling a sense of dread build up inside me until it became unbearable.
She’d been fascinated with the idea that Victoria might be her half-sister. Winter might be her half-niece.
I stared out a window at the night.
Jacoba, Victoria, Winter, Miranda.
Perhaps Jeri and I had flown off to follow a lead that would take us nowhere because it wasn’t anything. Jacoba had been raped four decades ago. Ford had replaced Tricky Dick as president. Vietnam was over, but its scars were fresh. Apple hadn’t yet rolled out its first computer. No one waits forty years to get even. Hell, after forty years there’s usually no one left to get even with.
It was Tuesday, approaching midnight. I hadn’t spoken with Kayla since Monday morning. Foreboding crawled through me, making me feel hot. A film of perspiration popped out on my forehead, under my armpits, all over my body like a hot flash.
Victoria. Before, the name had been just a name. Now it sounded dangerous, positively sinister.
I wondered if Kayla’s Volkswagen was parked where it had been several days ago. I went through the fence and jogged five blocks to
