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“I’ll wait,” Tash said.

Self-conscious, Coltrane entered the bathroom and shut the door. For a moment, his automatic impulse was to lock it, but he stopped himself, imagining how ridiculous the snap of the lock would sound, as if he was afraid she would barge in on him while he was undressing. He peeled off his wet sport coat, shirt, pants, and socks, took his belt, wallet, keys, and comb from his pants, hesitated, then decided that he didn’t want her to have to deal with his underwear. Even as things were, he didn’t feel comfortable that she would have to touch his wet clothes. He solved the problem by wrapping them in a towel. Despite the underwear he kept on, he didn’t think he had ever felt quite so naked as when he stood behind the door and opened it a foot, peering out at her.

“I’m sorry to put you through the inconvenience,” he said.

“Nonsense.” Tash’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “I’m hoping that if I’m nice to you, you won’t sue me.”

Coltrane couldn’t help smiling.

“Be back in a jiff.” She carried his towel-wrapped clothes down the corridor.

Coltrane took another towel from the rack, dried himself, then sponged the towel against his wet underwear. That done, he combed his hair, folded his sport coat over the toilet seat, rubbed his arms to try to get warmth into them, and was surprised to hear Tash’s voice behind him.

“Maybe this will fit you after all.”

Turning, he saw her hand projecting through the gap he had left in the doorway. She was offering a white terry-cloth bathrobe.

“Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Coltrane said.

Instead of replying, Tash leaned in far enough to drape the bathrobe over the side of the tub, her head turned away from him. The next thing, her arm was gone, and her footsteps receded along the hallway.

Coltrane looked at the robe a long time before picking it up and putting it on. Tash was right. Although a little snug, it did fit him. The fragrance on it was possibly from perfume and not laundry soap.

EVEN WITH THE DOOR AJAR, Coltrane couldn’t hear what Tash and the men were talking about in the living room. Their voices blended. An echo distorted them. Frustrated, he waited, tensing as heavy footsteps came along the corridor. What’ll it look like if one of those guys comes in and sees me crammed into this robe? he wondered.

“Do you want a beer instead of the coffee?” Nolan’s voice asked.

“Yeah, with a straw.”

Nolan chuckled. By the time he returned, handing a Budweiser into the bathroom, Coltrane had gotten out of the robe and hung it on a hook. Nolan had indeed put a straw into the open can of beer. Coltrane shook his head in amusement, took out the straw, tilted the can to his lips, and drank half of it.

The indistinguishable voices in the living room filled him with increasing frustration. The hands on his watch didn’t seem to move. To distract himself, he looked for a magazine, didn’t find any, and examined the pump containers of hand soap and lotion that were on the counter. Curious, he reached to open the medicine cabinet.

“All done.” Tash startled him.

Turning in embarrassment, he saw her hand offering him dried clothes through the gap in the door.

“Thanks.”

When Coltrane took them, their hands happened to brush. He felt another crackle of electricity.

“Sorry,” she said from the other side of the door. “The air must be dry in here or something. I didn’t mean to shock you.”

“I barely noticed.”

“
I
did. I’ve been doing it a lot lately. I even took off my socks so I wouldn’t generate static. No difference. It makes me self-conscious.”

“There’s no need to be.”

“It’s in my nature.”

“To give off static electricity?”

“To be self-conscious. See you in a few minutes.”

“Right.” Coltrane looked at the side of his hand where the crackling sensation lingered.

As quickly as possible, he slipped into his pants, shirt, and socks, enjoying their warmth, grateful to be dressed again. He tried to look natural when he entered the living room, the men looking up at him from the sofa and various chairs.

Walt and Lyle, the two officers officially on duty, were drinking coffee. The others each had a beer. Tash leaned against a wall, holding a glass of white wine. The crimson of the soon-to-set sun filled the white room, the combination of colors so intriguing that Coltrane wished he still had his camera.

An object on the coffee table caught his attention.

“
My Nikon
? I thought I’d lost it in the water.”

“No, you dropped it on the rocks,” Walt said. “In all the commotion, I didn’t have a chance to go back and get it until a few minutes ago.”

“I owe you. This camera and I have been through a lot.” Coltrane examined it, unhappy to see that the lens was shattered and the body more scratched than it had previously been, but it didn’t appear that the case had been cracked — the negative of the images he had taken of Tash might not have been exposed to light. Even so, with its lens cracked, the camera was temporarily useless to him.

“We told you ours. Now you tell us yours,” Nolan said.

“Excuse me?”

“Your story. You didn’t just happen to show up here. Why did you come?”

So you’re still not sure about me, Coltrane thought. “My timing wasn’t the greatest. I hope this doesn’t sound presumptuous.” He looked at Tash. “I’m curious about . . . You inherited some property recently from a man named Randolph Packard.”

Tash straightened against the wall. “That’s right.”

Except for Nolan, the men looked puzzled by the reference. Coltrane told them who Packard was.

“I met him toward the end of November,” Coltrane said to Tash. “In fact, I collaborated on a project with him, although he died before I could get much input from him. Not that it mattered — from the beginning of my career, he had tremendous influence on me. And especially lately, I guess you could say he changed my life. Anyway, I decided to buy a house he owned. When I heard about another property he owned, one in Mexico, I was tempted to buy it also, but then I discovered that the property had been given to you, so I . . .” Coltrane’s sentence hung in the air.

“You came here to ask me if I’d be interested in selling it?” Sounding almost relieved, Tash leaned away from the wall.

“Something like that,” Coltrane said.

“
That’s
what this is all about?” Walt sounded annoyed. “You came here to buy real estate?”

“Basically,” Coltrane lied.

“Well, for God sake,” one of the state policemen said. “I waited around to hear
that
? I was sure there had to be a fancy explanation for the coincidence.”

“Sorry.”

Shaking their heads, several men stood. “I’ve got to be going,” one of the state troopers said.

“Me, too,” Lyle said. “My wife’s got a pot roast in the oven. There’s no point in all of us hanging around anymore. The man we were trying to catch was probably studying the house. When we tipped our hand too soon because of . . .” He gestured toward Coltrane.

“Yeah.” Walt sounded disgusted. “The creep’s long gone by now. We started our surveillance in the middle of the night, presumably before he started his own surveillance.” Weariness strained his face. “But now that he knows we were waiting for him, we’ll have a hard time setting another trap. The good news is, tonight will probably be quiet. You guys go ahead. Enjoy what’s left of your New Year’s. I’ll hold down the fort.”

“No, that’s all right,” Tash said. “You go ahead, too.”

“But . . .”

“As you said, tonight will probably be quiet. Cross fingers that whoever it is left the area for now. The sheriff’s department has more people to protect than just me.”

“But not all of them
need
protecting,” Walt said. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Tash said. “I won’t be alone, though.”

Walt looked puzzled.

“Mr. Coltrane is going to stay for a while. We’re going to discuss real estate.”

Coltrane must have looked surprised.

“If that’s convenient,” Tash said to him. “Perhaps you have somewhere else you need to be. I just thought that since you came all this way to talk to me . . .”

“No,” Coltrane said. “No, there’s nowhere else I have to be.”

THE TIME WAS JUST AFTER FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON, the air turning from crimson to gray, the breeze increasing, becoming cooler as the men stepped outside the front door and put on their sneakers. Tash opened the twin garage doors, revealing two large four-wheel-drive vehicles, an Explorer and a Mountaineer. As some of the men got into them, Tash eased into her Porsche and backed it out of the driveway, allowing the Mountaineer that she had been blocking to get out of the garage. The moment the stall was free, she pulled into it.

Coltrane couldn’t help noticing that for the brief time she was away, the men who hadn’t yet gotten into the vehicles stopped talking and watched her.

“Remember, if you have even the slightest hint of trouble, don’t think twice — call us,” Lyle told her.

“Don’t worry. I’m a coward at heart. When I’m by myself, I don’t go anywhere without carrying the phone.”

Coltrane frowned. “Phone? But I thought it was out of service.”

“It is,” Walt said. “We’re talking about a cellular phone I bought for Tash and had activated in
my
name. Whoever this creep is, he keeps managing to find out the new numbers she gets in
her
name. But so far, he doesn’t know anything about this number.”

“Good idea,” Coltrane said.

“Let’s hope it
stays
a good idea. Tash, if you need anything, let me know.”

She touched his arm in a gesture of thanks.

“While you guys are still here . . .” Coltrane said.

They looked at him, wondering what he was leading up to.

“Can you wait another few minutes while I get my car? I don’t want to stumble around looking for it after dark. This way, Tash won’t be alone while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, I can stick around a little longer,” Lyle said.

“And I’ll make it quicker by driving you to your car.” Nolan motioned for Coltrane to follow him to the garage and the Explorer that remained in the stall next to Tash’s Porsche.

One of the policemen was in the passenger seat. Another policeman and one of the state troopers was in the back. While Nolan got behind the steering wheel, Coltrane climbed into the back. He saw Walt and Lyle talking to Tash in front of the house while Nolan left the garage, reached the road, and drove away.

“Our cars are parked behind a service station on the highway,” the policeman in the front seat explained. “That way, it didn’t look like we were having a convention at Tash’s place while we were waiting for him to show up.”

“You set it up well.”

“Too bad the wrong guy showed up.”

Uncomfortable, Coltrane changed the subject. “I’m on a street on that bluff.”

“You certainly had yourself lost,” Nolan said.

By the time Coltrane got back, it was dark. Lights glowed warmly in the house. The officers in the Mountaineer had gotten out and joined Walt and Lyle, speaking with Tash in her front hallway.

Tash smiled at Coltrane in welcome.

“Just as a precaution,” Lyle told him, “better put your car in the garage, where nothing will happen to it.”

“Right.”

Then Walt, Lyle, and the others said good-bye and drove away. As the gleam of taillights receded, the road became dark except for the pinpoints of lights in a house farther along.

Finally Coltrane and Tash were alone.

SHE BROKE THE SILENCE. “Would you like another beer?”

“Sounds good.” Coltrane had all kinds of questions, but he didn’t want to overwhelm her. Take it slow and easy, he thought.

She locked the front door, then opened the inside garage door and pressed a button that closed each stall. After that, she secured the inside garage door, too.

“Before I get you that beer, would you help me walk the picket line? You know, check the security?”

“Officer Coltrane reporting for duty.” He hoped it sounded like a joke, which apparently it did, because she looked amused as she started down the hallway.

“Carl and the others already locked up, but I feel more comfortable if I double-check,” she said. Past the stairway, they entered the living room and crossed to the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck. There, Tash tried to open the door. “Definitely secure.”

Pensive, she looked out past the white deck toward the darkness on the rocks and the whitecaps on the waves in the black ocean. “I used to love sitting out there, even when it’s cold like this, watching the waves hit the shore, listening to them. Sometimes I can see a freighter on the horizon, its lights moving, heading to mysterious places. ‘So we beat on, boats against the current . . . ’”

“‘. . . borne back ceaselessly into the past.’”

She turned to him, surprised. “You know
Gatsby
?”

Coltrane shrugged. “When I was at USC, one of my photography instructors insisted I take a few literature classes. For some reason,
The Great Gatsby
really stayed with me, that final image. Randolph Packard had an image like that in one of his photographs. The lights of a freighter on the horizon.”

“Heading to mysterious places,” Tash echoed. She had sounded melancholy, but now she mocked herself. “Probably only to Long Beach. Anyway, for a while, those nights are over.”

She pressed a button on the wall to the right. A faint rumble puzzled Coltrane until he saw metal shutters descending, blocking off the all-glass wall at the back of the living room.

“It makes me feel like I’m in a castle,” Tash said, “except I’m lowering the shutters instead of raising the drawbridge.”

Coltrane followed her into the kitchen, where she turned on an overhead light that reflected off white countertops, creating a pleasant luster. After confirming that a side door was locked, she leaned against a counter, stared down, shook her head, then roused herself. “Almost forgot that beer.”