A small bird, a purple sandpiper, ran across their path, flapping furiously with one good wing. The other hung broken and useless. They watched it for a moment. Once again she asked a question. Once again there was a shake of the head. The bird rushed off. The two people continued down the beach.
Finally, where the sand ended, they came to a small parking lot, which was empty save for a single car. A black Porsche Boxster. The man offered his hand to help the woman up onto the wooden boardwalk that separated the beach from the blacktop. She took it and climbed up. Resting a hand on his shoulder, she stood, first on one foot, then on the other, and shook the sand from her sandals. Then they walked to the car. She leaned against the door, raised her arms around his neck, and pulled him to her. He slid a hand under her jacket to stroke the smooth skin on her back. She leaned into his caress. His hand came around to the front and cupped her small breast, squeezing it gently, playing with her nipple until it was erect. Then it slid to the other side. He stroked the scar tissue where the other breast used to be. She stiffened and moved his hand away. He put it back. She moved it away again and once again he put it back. This time she let it stay.
She looked up and found his lips with her own. ‘Why are we doing this?’
‘Because it feels good?’
‘Beside that.’
‘Because the risk excites you?’
‘Yes. I suppose it does.’
He slipped his hand down between her legs and probed gently.
‘They searched my car,’ she said, her breath starting to come faster. ‘They found that girl’s earring. The one who was killed in the scrap yard?’
He pulled back, studying her with deep-set eyes, saying nothing.
‘O-negative, wasn’t she?’
Still he said nothing.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, leaning in to kiss him again. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’
‘No,’ he responded after a moment. ‘No, I’m certain you won’t.’
His fingers found the top button of her trousers and worked it open. ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Someone might see.’
He pulled down her zipper and slid her pants and panties down over her slim hips.
‘Yes. Someone might,’ he whispered. ‘Isn’t that what excites you?’
They could both feel her heart pounding against her chest as his hand moved back between her legs. Two fingers slid inside.
‘Wait,’ she whispered. She stepped out of the pants and folded them neatly, then placed them through the open window onto the front seat of the car. She watched as he did the same, except he left his in a heap on the ground. She took him in her hand and he grew hard. She leaned back against the car. She let out a little gasp as he entered her.
As they moved together, he studied her face. Eyes closed, lips parted, moaning softly in pleasure. He slipped his left hand around the back of her neck, his right hand into the pocket of his jacket. He felt the handle of the folding knife just where it should be. Hiding the knife behind his back, he pressed its small button, flipping it open. She didn’t notice. He rubbed his thumb across the edge of the blade. A minute later, at almost the exact instant Hattie Spencer reached orgasm, her gasp of pleasure morphed into a cry of pain.
*
Sixteen hundred miles to the south, all sound was drowned out by the screaming twin engines of the Learjet 35 lifting off runway 23 at Boca Raton Airport. The plane’s flight plan listed its destination as a private airfield in northern New Hampshire. The Learjet was outfitted as a flying ambulance. In the back, a doctor and a nurse tended a single patient, an old man in the last stages of congestive heart failure. Up front, the crew of two, pilot and copilot, ignored their passengers. They didn’t know their names and had been exceptionally well paid not to ask.
44
Thursday. 6:30 P.M.
After leaving Tallulah’s, McCabe headed back to his apartment and called Dave Hennings in D.C. His partner for nearly five years, Hennings was a tough, smart cop who’d moved on from the NYPD after 9/11 and was now a player in the federal air marshals program. He had connections with all the major airlines.
‘McCabe, my man, how the hell are you? It’s gotta be, what? At least a year since we spoke.’
‘At least that, Dave. I’m okay. How’s Rosemary?’ Hennings’s wife was a breast cancer survivor.
‘Still hanging in. Five years and counting. We keep our fingers permanently crossed. You and Kyra still an item?’
‘Definitely an item,’ said McCabe.
‘I read about the murder of that girl and thought about how you were so sure things would be nice and quiet up there in Maine. Guess you were a little optimistic.’ McCabe smiled to himself. Wait till Dave heard the rest of it. ‘Anyway, that’s not why you called.’
‘Dave, I need a favor.’
‘I figured. Go for it, partner.’
‘There’s a doctor in North Carolina named Matthew Wilcox. He’s a big-deal heart surgeon at UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill. I need to know if he traveled from Chapel Hill to Portland on any or all of three separate occasions.’
‘He have something to do with your murder case?’