Читать книгу Closer Encounters - Merline Lovelace, Merline Lovelace - Страница 7

Straining to pick up some sound from inside the target’s room, Drew rapped his knuckles on her door.

“Tracy?”

He waited a beat, his mind conjuring a dozen different scenarios, and rapped again.

“Tracy, it’s Drew.”

He was about to put his shoulder to the oak panel when the lock snicked and the door opened a crack. Cool air whooshed out, then a pale face topped by a towel turban appeared.

“Are you okay?” Drew asked sharply.

“I…I…”

The fumbling response upped his pucker factor another few notches. What the hell had she done?

“The walls are thin,” he said with only slight exaggeration. They were thin—especially with a high-tech listening device transmitting every decibel of sound.

“I heard a scream and the sound of glass breaking. Are you all right?”

She put a shaking hand to her temple. “I think so.”

“What happened?”

“I, uh, dropped something.”

She scrunched her forehead, as if trying to remember what. Worried that she’d fallen and whapped her head, Drew softened his tone.

“Something’s obviously shaken you. Why don’t you unhook the chain and tell me about it?”

She peered through the crack for another second or two, still confused, still hesitant. While she debated, Drew angled his body to one side and surreptitiously removed his earpiece. One way or another, he was getting in to that room.

“Let me in, Tracy. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

The combination of brisk command and gentle persuasion produced results. The door closed, the chain rattled and Drew stepped inside.

Her rooms were smaller than his. A good deal chillier, too, with the breeze blowing in through the open windows. The view was incredible, but Drew spared the brilliantly illuminated casino framed by those windows barely a glance. His quick, intense scrutiny swept over a combination bedroom/sitting area done in brass and flowery chintzes. He spotted no bloodstains, no overturned furniture, no shattered windows.

The bathroom, on the other hand, looked as though a tornado had just roared through it. Wet towels were strewn everywhere. The entire contents of a cosmetic bag had been dumped on the counter. Glistening glass shards decorated the floor tiles.

Drew eyed them, his gut tightening. Had she dropped that drinking glass by accident? Or was the breakage deliberate, a prelude to slit wrists?

His thoughts grim, he faced the target. She appeared to be recovering from whatever had hit her. The dazed look was gone, anyway. Playing with the belt of her lemon-colored chenille robe, she offered an embarrassed smile.

“The mirror got all clouded with steam. I used my sleeve to clean it and knocked the drinking cup off the counter.”

That accounted for the shattered glass. Not the cry that preceded it.

“Did something startle you? I could swear I heard you scream just before the glass broke.”

“Was I that loud? I thought I just let out a small squeak.”

Small was in the ear of the beholder. Wondering if the ultrasensitive listening device had made him overreact, Drew shrugged.

“Maybe it was just a squeak. But something must have generated it.”

“Something did.” Her smile went from embarrassed to chagrined. “After I cleared away the steam, I got a good look at this face in the mirror.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t tell me you can’t see the bags under these eyes! And this hair.”

Tugging off the turban, she raked her hand through the strands of dark mink.

“Look at it! As straight as a board. Not the slightest hint of a wave or a roll. I have to get my hands on some bobby pins.”

Bobby pins? Drew had a hazy memory of his grandmother with her head hard-wired into tight curls, but had no idea women still stabbed those sharp little implements into their scalps.

He found Brandt’s sudden determination to acquire some reassuring, though. If she was so worried about her appearance, odds were she hadn’t been planning to slash her wrists. Judging by the angry mutters he’d heard just before she’d climbed into the tub, she evidently hadn’t intended to jump off the ballroom balcony, either.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t suicidal. Just strange. And mercurial as hell. For a few moments there on the pier, her shoulders had drooped with weariness and sadness shadowed her eyes. Now she seemed gripped by a sort of quivering energy.

“Do you want to go with me?” she asked eagerly.

“Go where?”

“To a drugstore, to buy some bobby pins.”

“Now?”

She flipped the ends of her wet hair. “I have to do something with this floor mop. Besides, the night’s young. How about I tie on a kerchief and we see what’s playing at the Roxy? Or grab a stool at the soda fountain and split a dusty miller? It’s been ages since I dug a spoon into one of those!”

Drew didn’t have a clue what a dusty miller was, but he’d dig a spoon into one just to keep his target talking.

“Sure, I’ll go with you.”

“Great! I’ll get dressed and meet you downstairs. Ten minutes?”

Drew let himself out, wondering if Ms. Brandt had popped a few pills or snorted something before getting into the tub. She was wired. Most definitely wired.

Her eagerness to get out and have some fun stirred more than a few unpleasant memories. Drew’s young wife used to meet him at the door when he dragged in after twelve or fourteen hours performing deck drills. Joyce had spent the day cooped up in what the navy euphemistically referred to as junior enlisted housing and swore she had to get out or she’d go stir-crazy. So Drew had traded his uniform for civvies and duly escorted her to a mall or a movie or to the on-base club. Most often to the club.

Consequently Drew had to work to dredge up a smile when Tracy floated down the stairs. She appeared to have no problem with her smile. It was wide and sparkling and hit him with the same wallop it had earlier. Alive with eagerness, she hooked her arm through his.

“Let’s go. I can’t wait to dive into that chocolate sundae.”

Assuming that was the dusty miller, Drew escorted her out of the inn and down the winding walkway to town. He couldn’t quite get a handle on what was so different about her. Maybe it was the hair, tucked into a roll at the base of her neck and accented with a headscarf tied in a jaunty bow. Or the high color in her cheeks. Or her darting gaze that seemed to want to take everything in at once.

“The town sure is dead tonight,” she commented, clutching Drew’s arm. “Where are all the cars?”

“The streets are too narrow for vehicles. Most everyone gets around in golf carts.”

Which she should have known after two days on the island. Puzzling over the inconsistency, Drew let her tug him toward a shop with an old-fashioned Drugstore sign illuminated in green and pink neon.

“Here it is, right where I remember it.” Eagerly, she reached for the door latch. Excitement bubbled in her voice. “Come on, let’s…”

One step into the shop she stopped dead. Confusion blanked her face.

“Tracy? Something wrong?”

“It’s all changed,” she said in dismay. “Where’s the soda fountain?”

Drew skimmed a glance around the small shop. The stressed wood flooring and framed sepia pictures of Catalina in earlier decades suggested the place had been there a while, but the glass shelves crammed with the usual mix of medications, beauty aids and household items were sleek and strictly utilitarian.

“If there was a soda fountain here, it probably went out with the Edsel.”

“Edsel Who?” she asked distractedly.

“The Edsel was a car.” Drew wondered how many times he’d had to give the same explanation to folks outside the tight circle of classic car buffs. “A real bomb when it came out in the late ’50s, but a collector’s dream right now.”

“Mmm.”

Obviously disinterested in Ford’s most famous flop, she meandered down the center aisle. Her gaze roamed the shelves, lingering on different objects. Searching, Drew assumed, for the illusive bobby pins. Halfway down the aisle she stopped in front of a carousel of lipsticks.

“Look at all these colors!”

She plucked out a tube for a closer look just as a teenaged clerk rounded the end of the aisle.

“That’s the new Caribbean Calypso line,” the clerk announced. “Just came in yesterday. Here, try the Juicy Jamaica Red,” she suggested. “It’s totally awesome. Tastes good, too. Like papaya or melon or something.”

Drew stood to one side while the teen painted a slash of crimson on the back of Tracy’s hand.

“Ooh, I love it. I’ll take it. And a package of bobby pins.”

“They’re right here. We’ve had a real run on them since that episode of Sex and the City, when Carrie Bradshaw stuck dozens of black pins in her blond hair.”

Drew must have missed that episode—along with every other. Feeling totally out it, he waited while Tracy rummaged through a dizzying array of brushes, combs and hairclips. He got through the tough business of choosing between crinkle style and straight-backed pins okay, but was forced to retreat to the magazine rack while she debated the tough choices of face powder, mascara, eye shadow and lip liner.

After that, she hit the perfume counter. Forehead scrunched in concentration, she sniffed one tester after another while Drew studied her from behind the pages of Motor Trends magazine.

Funny, he wouldn’t have pegged her as a woman who took perfume and war paint so seriously. Granted, their initial meeting had been dramatic and brief. He still had a lot to learn about Ms. Tracy Brandt…including her interest in the USS Kallister, he reminded himself grimly.

Forcing himself to be patient, he waited until she’d spritzed on a sample of something called Midnight Gardenia and added a small vial to her other purchases. With the delight of a chocoholic who’d been turned loose in a candy store, she carted her selections to the register. Her delight turned to shock after the clerk rang them up.

“That’ll be twenty-nine eighteen.”

Her jaw dropping, Tracy gaped at the girl. “Twenty-nine dollars?”

“And eighteen cents,” the teen confirmed, twisting the register’s digital screen around to display the total.

“That can’t be right.”

“Maybe I scanned something twice.”

While the clerk peered at the summary on the computerized screen, Tracy dug into the plastic bag and extracted several items. She turned them over and over, searching for the price.

“No wonder you got it wrong. These don’t have price tags on them.”

“The prices are all bar-coded. Look, this Juicy Jamaica Red scans up at six ninety-nine.”

“Seven dollars for lipstick?”

The teen shrugged. “We have some products left over from the winter line on sale. Want to see those?”

The prospect of another protracted round of searching and sniffing had Drew reaching for his wallet. “That’s okay. We’ll take what we have here.”

“Not at those prices,” Tracy protested.

Suspecting her out-of-work status had a lot to do with the indignant protest, he tossed a ten and a twenty on the counter.

“Price is no object when it comes to making a pretty woman prettier.”

The gallantry was clumsy and heavy-handed but got them out of the drugstore. His companion was still muttering over the cost of the lipstick when they walked out into the night.

The streets had been empty of all but a few tourists before. They were deserted now. As Drew steered Tracy toward the corner, the shop windows behind them went dark. A few seconds later, the souvenir shop across the street dimmed its lights.

“Are we under a blackout?” Tracy asked, clutching her purchases as she glanced around.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it? Guess they’re just rolling up the streets for the night.”

“It’s only a little after nine!”

“We’re a few weeks ahead of the main tourist season. Avalon probably gets livelier then.”

“How strange,” she murmured. “And sad. Lights used to blaze here all night long.”

“Yeah, that’s what the tour guide said.”

According to the guide who’d escorted them through the casino this afternoon, Avalon had once rocked. When chewing gum magnate William Wrigley bought Catalina Island in 1919, he made it a training camp for his Chicago Cubs and built a field to match the dimensions of Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Cubs spring training attracted hosts of eager spectators and sportscasters. Among them was a young Ronald “Dutch” Reagan, who zipped back across the channel in 1931 to take the screen test that changed his profession and his life.

Zane Gray set one of his novels on the island and built a home high on one of the hills above Avalon. Sportsmen like Theodore Roosevelt used to troll the deep blue waters for marlin and sailfish. Betty Grable, Cary Grant, John Wayne and friends regularly yachted over from L.A. to frolic at the great hotels and bars.

Along with the rich and famous came thousands of ordinary folks. Always a shrewd businessman, William Wrigley built the Avalon Casino to lure movie buffs and hepcats. They ferried over by the boatload to view first-run films in the casino’s magnificent theater or dance until dawn in the upstairs ballroom.

All that activity came to a screeching halt two days after Pearl Harbor. Declaring the island a military zone, the government shut down all commercial boat traffic. For four years Catalina served as a training site for the merchant marines. The only civilians allowed on the island were the residents who provided essential services to the base.

After the war, Catalina and the city of Avalon never quite regained their glitter and glamour. The big band era was over. The Cubs moved their spring training to Florida. Vastly expanded air travel allowed Hollywood’s elite to jet down to Acapulco or over to Hawaii to play. A few stars still sailed across the channel to party on their sleek yachts, but Natalie Wood’s tragic drowning seemed to signal the end of that era, too.

Now the town catered primarily to families who used it for a weekend escape and the cruise ship passengers who thronged to the shops during the day and sailed away at dusk.

“It’s nice like this,” Drew commented. “No crowds, no hassle.”

It was also very convenient. He and Tracy were two strangers thrown together in relative isolation. Playing to that theme, he made a casual suggestion.

“Since it looks like our dirty miller is out…”

“Dusty miller,” she corrected glumly.

“Since our dusty miller is apparently out, how about a drink?”

That brightened her up. “A drink sounds good.”

“Shall we find a bar or go back to the inn and enjoy the view?”

“Let’s go back to the inn.” With a last look around the darkened streets, she slid her hand into the crook of his arm. “We’ll have a private party.”

Drew formulated his game plan on the walk back to the Bella Vista. First a drink. Then some idle conversation. Another drink. A casual mention of the ships that sailed from the busy ports across the channel. A not-so-casual reference to the USS Kallister.

At the reminder of his mission, his muscles tightened. The involuntary movement pressed Tracy’s arm into his side. She slanted him a quick glance, then snuggled closer. The feel of her high, firm breast against his arm did a serious number on his concentration. The scent that tickled his senses didn’t help, either.

Midnight gardenia. It fit her, he decided. Her skin was as smooth and creamy as the waxy petals. And like some exotic, night-blooming plant, she’d opened to reveal a showy flower.

So showy, she couldn’t wait to experiment with her purchases. Once back at her room, she waggled a hand toward the minibar.

“Do the honors, will you? I just want to powder my nose and put on some lipstick.”

“What’ll you have?” Drew asked as she sailed for the bathroom.

“Scotch.”

“On the rocks?”

“Why water down good hooch?”

While she wrestled with plastic packaging in the bathroom, Drew moved fast. His first objective was the purse she’d deposited on the bed. The wallet held her driver’s license, a couple of credit cards and less than ten dollars in cash. No scribbled phone numbers, no cryptic notes and only one picture of Tracy and an older man grinning at the camera. Her father? Grandfather?

Making a mental note to have Denise run her family history, Drew flipped open her cell phone. The call log showed no calls received or transmitted since she’d arrived on Catalina yesterday.

He had time to give the small suitcase sitting on a luggage rack at the foot of the bed only a quick look. She obviously wasn’t intending a long stay. The weekender contained a neatly folded sweater, a cotton blouse, tan twill slacks and several pairs of cotton panties.

The thump of plastic cartons hitting the bathroom wastebasket announced Tracy’s imminent return. Diverting to the minibar, he poured two miniatures of scotch into plastic cups and carried them to the French doors. He doubted she would want to go out onto the balcony after her dizzy spell this afternoon, but the view from inside the room served his purpose just as well.

He could see the faint glow of lights from a cargo ship steaming up the San Pedro Channel. His opening conversational gambit was right there in front of him. Planning his segue from the cargo ship to the Kallister, he was ready when Tracy emerged from the bathroom.

“Now I feel more like the real me.”

Drew just about dropped the plastic cups. If this was the real Tracy Brandt, all it had taken was a little color to bring her out. The bright red lipstick drew his gaze instantly to full, ripe lips. Subtle shading deepened her eyes to a mysterious jungle-green. Pancake makeup eradicated the dark circles under them. He had no idea what she’d done to her skin to make it look so luminescent, but he had to battle the urge to stroke a knuckle down the smooth curve of her cheek.

Her hair was different, too. She’d taken off her headscarf and released the thick, silky mass from its tight roll. Still damp, it now fell in unruly waves to her shoulders.

The change went more than skin-deep, though. Drew was still trying to figure it out when she raised her plastic cup.

“Here’s to you and here’s to me. May we never disagree. But if we do…”

Drew hooked an eyebrow and waited for the punch line. He’d heard variations of this toast that would make his old buddies in the navy blush. Tracy kept it clean, ending with a merry laugh.

“Here’s to me.”

She tossed back a healthy swallow, closed her eyes and let the scotch slide down her throat. When her lids fluttered up, she stared at the remaining liquid in near awe.

“That’s prime hooch.”

Was retro slang the new thing? Tracy certainly seemed to be into it.

“That’s the second time you used the term hooch,” Drew remarked. “I haven’t heard that in a while.”

Shrugging, she took another sip. “Hooch, booze, giggle water. Whatever name you pin on this stuff, it sure goes down smooth. This Juicy Jamaica Red gives it a different flavor, though. Sort of smoky and fruity at the same time.”

She ran her tongue over her upper lip, testing, tasting, then moved to the lower. Drew followed her progress with a sudden tightening in his chest.

Damn! Did the woman have any idea how arousing that slow, deliberate swipe was? Probably, since she tipped him a smile that hovered between teasing and provocative.

“Want a taste?”

Drew’s ribs squeezed tighter. Telling himself this was all in the line of duty, he bent his head.