He went into the bedroom, opened the covers on the bed to bare the sheets, and then returned to the living room to pick her up off the couch and carry her back to place her on the bed. Her shorts and tank top came off much more easily than the dress had last time. She had done much of his work for him.
This morning as he drove toward his storage facility, he remembered the rest. He went over each detail. He had started to pull the covers over her sleeping form, but he had made the mistake of letting his eyes linger too long on her. He was hoping she would believe she’d relented during the part of the evening she wouldn’t remember, and if that had happened, they probably would have had make up sex. He felt a little guilty, but then assured himself that he had the right, after all he’d done for her. He also knew that this might very well be the last time.
Now he wished that he could still be at home to try to guide her to the proper interpretation of what she would see when she woke up. He had planned to be there. He had called to give Verna Machak the day off so she wouldn’t be in the way, but a few minutes later he’d remembered that Salamone hadn’t come to the storage office on his usual day, so he probably would come today.
JANE DROVE PAST DAVID CRANE’S house at eight fifteen, and on to the plaza to park her car. She returned on foot and went through the little woods to watch the house. The Range Rover was gone, and she knew it would be at least two hours before the housekeeper, Mrs. Machak, arrived. She moved to the house and walked slowly and quietly, checking windows to see if the girl Chelsea was still there.
Jane moved from window to window, but the house appeared to be empty. There were a few rooms that she suspected only opened onto the central Japanese garden and the broad hallway with the pillars. She moved into the garden and looked. There was an empty office, a living room, and a couple of rooms that had no obvious purpose. She followed the wall and realized she had misinterpreted the structure of the building. It seemed to fold twice, to wrap itself around the garden, giving the illusion that the garden was completely surrounded.
She saw that there was a louvered window in the pantry beside the kitchen. She touched it, wiggled one of the louvers a little, and saw what she had been hoping for. The sheets of glass were tempered—maybe even unbreakable—but they were mounted in an aluminum framework that opened and closed with a crank. She took out her pocketknife and used its blade to bend the frames holding the first two louvers, then slipped the first one out. She removed the next and the next the same way. Soon she had all eight out and piled neatly on the ground beside her.
Jane hoisted herself up and slithered in the window, stopped and listened for a minute, pulled herself through and listened again, and then moved out of the kitchen. She looked for the bedrooms first. People who had something to hide seemed to be most comfortable keeping it close to them while they slept. The row of bedrooms was where she had thought it would be, off the gallery on the right side where there was a view of the garden, but the windows were shielded by the protruding front wing.
There were a couple of model bedrooms that looked as though nobody ever stepped inside except to dust. Then she reached the master suite. She slipped inside and saw the girl. She was lying on the bed, fast asleep, so Jane backed out and closed the door to keep any noise from reaching her.
She went to the office she’d seen from the outside, closed the door, and began to search the drawers of the big desk. It was an impressive piece of furniture, the top of it made from two pieces of a large tree with a subtle pattern of whorls. In the inside top drawer she found a Kimber .45 caliber pistol. She checked the magazine and found it loaded.
Seeing the gun reminded her of the one she’d found in Nick Bauermeister’s toolbox. It made her shift her search to places that might hold stolen jewelry. She didn’t find any, or anything else that looked as though it had been hidden. The filing cabinets were full of file folders that contained Crane’s personal financial records, mostly monthly brokerage reports. Other drawers seemed to be duplicates of the financial records of the Box Farm Personal Storage Company—property taxes, business taxes, and other dull paper. She moved out of the office and worked her way through the house, listening for sounds that would mean Chelsea was awake.
When she finished her first circuit of the rooms it was still only nine, and she had at least an hour before Mrs. Machak would show up. She thought about the pistol. It had been a promising find, but plenty of people owned handguns. They were legal and common. Nick Bauermeister had been killed with a rifle, so the gun proved nothing. She turned her attention to finding a hiding place that was long and narrow, but she was beginning to feel discouraged. The murder weapon was probably either destroyed or still in the possession of the shooter.
She moved along the gallery and heard something. The sound was a loud electronic beep, unchanging and harsh. “Bee bee bee bee bee bee . . .” An alarm system?
She ran toward it, hoping to be able to turn it off. Usually home systems gave the user thirty or forty seconds to disarm them before a telephone signal went to the security company or the police station. She reached the place where it was loudest, swung the door open, and found herself in the master bedroom again. She saw what it was—not an alarm system, an alarm clock.
The digital clock was beside the king-size bed on an end table. The alarm was one of those that got louder each minute or two, and by now it was painful to hear. It began to make a different noise, like a howl, as some car alarms did, just when Jane reached it and hit the button.
The girl had not awakened. She was still lying motionless in the bed, her head no more than three feet from the deafening alarm clock. Jane looked closely at her. She was sprawled on her back with one arm a little behind her. She seemed to be lying on it. Jane saw a small downy feather from a pillow clinging to the bedspread. She picked it up and held it beneath Chelsea’s nose. The thin filaments of white barely moved, then were still for a count of five, six, seven, then moved again. The girl was barely breathing. Drugs?
The girl was in trouble. Jane shook her shoulder. No reaction. She shook her harder, then rolled her onto her side and pulled the arm out from under her. It was cool, and looked white as though she had been in the same position for hours. Jane got onto the bed, straddled her, and pulled her up by the shoulders. She held her and moved her hips back so she could keep her upright, then put two big pillows behind her. She patted the girl’s face once, twice, then harder. “Chelsea. Chelsea, wake up.”
The girl’s eyes fluttered but didn’t stay open. “No,” she croaked. “No.”
“You took something,” Jane said. “What was it?”
The girl’s eyes opened, but they were opaque, glassy, with no understanding. They closed again.
Jane let her lean back and hurried into the bathroom. What was it? There were no bottles or plastic bags on any of the counters. She ran back and scanned the tops of the dressers, the nightstands, then looked at the floors, and ran her hands over the bedcovers to feel for a pill bottle.
She remembered seeing a bar in the living room. There had been glasses—dirty ones left on the counter for the housekeeper to wash. She hurried into the living room and over to the bar. She sniffed the two glasses, but smelled nothing. There was also a cognac glass. She went around the granite bar and looked closely at the bottles, which seemed unremarkable, and the sink. There was no residue she could detect. When she turned to look over the bar at the room, something caught her eye. There was a shelf just below the bar for shakers, blenders, peelers, corkscrews, and other equipment, but there was also a small, plain cardboard box, and beside it the torn-off top of a little envelope. It was at most a quarter inch wide and an inch long, but the trace of white powder beside it attracted her attention. Sugar?
She knelt to look closer. The small, brown cardboard box was open at the top. Inside was a pile of identical tan paper envelopes, about an inch and a half long and less than an inch wide. She turned the small cardboard box. There was a very pretty, colorful stamp with several unfamiliar birds on it, and MEXICO CONSERVA across the bottom.
She plucked one of the envelopes out and examined them. There was a tiny pencil scribble on the side of each one: GAMMA-HYDROXYBUTYRATE.
Great. He gave her a date-rape drug. She pocketed a handful of the envelopes and ran into the bedroom. Chelsea was in exactly the same position she’d propped her in. She looked at her watch. It was after ten. Where was Mrs. Machak? Would she be here in a few seconds? A few minutes? Would she even know what to do?
Jane snatched up the telephone in the room and dialed 911.
“Nine one one, what is your emergency?”
“The address is 84792 Landover Road. There is a young woman in the master bedroom who seems to have ingested GHB. She’s in a semicomatose state.”
“Your name, please?”
“Mrs. Verna Machak. I’m the housekeeper.”
“Do you know how she came to take the drug, Mrs. Machak?”
“I have no idea. I just came in and found her. Is the ambulance on the way?”
“Of course. Are you in the room with her?”
“No. I’ve got to get back there now.” Jane hung up and ran to the bedroom. “Chelsea. The ambulance is coming.” She knew she should get out of the house as quickly as she could, but she noticed again the clothes lying on the chair. Aware that what she was about to do was foolish, she ignored the dress, snatched up the shorts and tank top, pulled the tank top down over Chelsea’s head and put her arms through, then pulled back the covers and slid Chelsea’s underwear over her ankles and up over her hips, and then the shorts. People with drug overdoses didn’t have much dignity to preserve, but the change made Jane feel better.
Jane pulled the covers up over the unconscious girl, took one of the small envelopes out of her pocket and tossed it on the bed beside her. Then she hurried to the front door, unlocked it and opened it wide, and ran to the kitchen.
She climbed out the louvered window, devoted a few seconds to sliding the eight glass strips back into their frame, and trotted along the back of the house to the side. She could see that the driveway was still clear, so she dashed across it into the stand of big trees. She waited until she could hear the wail of the ambulance before she jogged down the road to her car.