partner thinks he probably has a lockbox in his car to hide everything.”
“Even if they could,” she said, “we still couldn’t find Harwood.”
“Probably not.”
“Unless you think there’s a way,” she said.
“There may be,” I said. “I could talk to him. I could ask him real nice.”
“I probably don’t want to know what ‘real nice’ means.”
The signal went out, came back, went out.
“Maria?”
“I’m still here.”
“Which way is his car facing?”
“It’s facing… south, I think. I’m terrible with directions, Alex. If you’re coming up the street to my house, he’s facing so that he’ll see you coming.”
“That figures,” I said. “All right, just make sure the doors are locked. I’m gonna try something here.” I had just left M-31 and was racing up B-15 along the shoreline. I caught up to a station wagon pulling a boat on a trailer. The driver was taking it nice and slow, so I blew by him.
“I’m gonna go back to the window and take a look,” she said. “I’ll keep talking like nothing is happening. In fact-”
“What? What is it?”
“I’m going to keep him occupied, Alex.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m gonna make sure he keeps listening.”
I heard a door open. Moments passed. “Is that you?” she said. Her voice was normal now.
“Maria, what are you doing?”
“I’ve been thinking about you,” she said. “I know we haven’t spent much time together yet. But I can’t help wondering.”
I didn’t say anything. I let her talk. The road curved suddenly. Two wheels slipped over into the sand. I touched the brakes, swerved hard to the right, and then snapped it back to the left.
“Can I make a confession?” she said. “I was thinking about you while I was taking a bath today. Which reminds me of a story. Do you want to hear it? It happened when I was a lot younger.”
I was pushing eighty miles an hour now. Two lanes running along the edge of the world, water on one side, pine trees racing by in a blur on the other side.
“When I was eighteen years old, my whole family came out here to the lake for the summer. The water was always so cold, even in the middle of July, but at night it didn’t seem so cold. It felt warmer than the air. So some nights when everybody else had gone to bed, I would sneak out onto the beach in just my bathrobe. If I was brave enough and I was sure nobody was around, I’d take my robe off and jump into the water.”
I kept driving.
“One night, after I had been swimming for a little while, I got out and ran back to where I had left my robe. But it wasn’t there.”
There was a long pause.
“Maria?”
Nothing.
I looked at the phone. The signal was gone.
“Oh no, you worthless piece of shit.” I picked it up and shook it, as if that would really make it start working again. “Come on, don’t do this now.”
I tried calling her number, but it wouldn’t send. The stupid little display kept saying the same thing: LOOKING FOR SERVICE.
“I’ll give you service,” I said. I was about to smash it against the dashboard, then stopped myself and tossed it onto the passenger’s seat.
I concentrated on driving the truck, on getting there as quickly as I could. I saw the sign welcoming me to Orcus Beach, passed Rocky’s place, turned left at the comer, gunned it down the access road, across the little bridge to Maria’s street.
I didn’t turn. I stopped the truck at the boat launch and got out. The sudden quiet was unnerving. Just the thin sound of the waves lapping and the lingering hum of the road in my whole body.
Okay, Alex. Let’s be smart. If you walk down the road, he’s gonna see you. It’s a dead end, so there’s no way to come from behind. Unless…
The beach.
I stepped down over the boat launch onto the sand and rocks. It was rough going, especially in the dark. The only light came from a half-moon hidden behind clouds and the even dimmer light from the houses along the shore.
I made my way north, behind the line of houses. I knew Maria’s was almost at the very end. The next to last, if I remembered right. I had to go all the way down, at least a half mile.
I thought of Maria on the beach. In her bathrobe.
I tripped over something and landed hard. I picked myself up and kept going.
I got to Maria’s house. The chief’s house. If he could only see me now, sneaking up on it from behind. I remembered the fence that ran all the way down the roadway. I needed to be even farther down the road, to be sure he couldn’t see me climbing over the damned thing. I passed her house and went to the very last house on the block. There was a cyclone fence around three sides of the property, stopping a few feet from the shoreline.
I grabbed the fence and caught my breath. What kind of paranoid bastard puts a fence like this around his property, totally open to the water? He obviously wasn’t considering the possibility of a sea invasion. The house was completely dark. Either nobody was home or they’d all gone to bed early.
I remembered the dead end, and the lower fence that ran along the guardrail. If I could make it all the way around the place…
I walked across the man’s beachfront, waiting for the motion detectors to trigger the spotlights and then the running guard dogs. Nothing happened. When I got to the other side, I saw a narrow strip of land running along the far fence line. It sloped down sharply to the little inlet I had seen from the road.
It was time for a little tightrope walk. I held on to the fence as I made my way down the strip of land. In some spots, the erosion had eaten away all the way under the fence. I had to climb my way over the gaps until I could walk again. Finally, I came to the concrete embankment and the low fence that ran behind the guardrail. I could see the dim shape of the Cadillac up the road.
I climbed over the fence, trying for silence and failing. I caught my pants on the top of the fence and nearly tumbled over onto my head. Another brilliant display of agility by the former athlete. I made it to the ground and dropped into a crouch, rubbing my right shoulder.
I watched the car for a while. There were no signs of movement. I figured it was about two hundred feet away, with not much cover between us. I had to move fast and quiet.
The wind kicked up, the sand swirling in my face. I closed my eyes, waited for it to pass. Then I moved.
I kept low, hoping he wouldn’t see me in the rear-view mirror. I pictured him sitting there with his eyes closed, listening through the earphones. That’s it, just keep listening. No reason to look back here. It feels so good to just sit there and rest your eyes…
The light went on inside his car.
I dived to the ground, breathing hard. Had he seen me?
I looked up. I was still a good thirty feet away. Why was his light on?
I waited. The door didn’t open. Nothing.
Okay, start moving again. Slowly. Very quiet. Why the hell did he turn his light on?
This will actually help me. He won’t be able to see outside very well with that light on. I came up to the rear of his car. Okay, now which side? Driver’s side or passenger’s side?
On the driver’s side, I can open the door and pull him out. If the door is unlocked. And if he doesn’t see me in the side mirror.
On the passenger’s side, I can open the door and jump in beside him. If the door is unlocked. I peeked around on that side of the car. No mirror there. I thought Cadillacs always had mirrors on both sides. Maybe it fell
