Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page B

kitchen.
    Something cold moved through Carver, like the ghost of ancient premonition. Something beyond thought.
    Edwina was in the doorway. She was frowning.
    Carver set the tip of his cane and limped toward her.
    “A car coasted down the driveway as I left the house,” she said.
    He stopped and stood near her. Why had what she’d seen upset her?
    “Someone turning around,” he suggested.
    “No, it was far up in the driveway, near the house.”
    “What kind of car?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “Big? Small? What color?”
    “It was a fairly large car. White. There was only the driver in it. A man. I only saw him for a moment, from the back, so I couldn’t say what he looked like.”
    “Could be someone drove up here to see you, then changed his mind,” Carver said.
    “It’s possible. Only there was something . . . furtive about the way he drove away. The car was just rolling down the driveway, already turned around and pointing that way. As if he’d backed up to where he’d been parked. I’m sure the engine was off.”
    Carver said, “I wouldn’t worry about it. Just one of those things that happen without apparent reason. But if we knew more we’d understand why. Might be a number of explanations. Someone was coming to see you—or me—lost his nerve, and didn’t want us to know he’d been here.”
    Edwina clutched her purse close to her body, as if she’d heard pickpockets were all around her. “Doesn’t that strike you as a bit peculiar?”
    “Sure. It’s a peculiar world. Maybe your condo customer wanted to see how the saleslady lived. Maybe somebody at the office has a crush on you. You know how beautiful women attract this sorta thing.”
    Edwina didn’t seem soothed by that line of reasoning.
    He kissed her this time. Gently. On the forehead. “It’s okay,” he told her.
    “Has to be, I guess.”
    She pushed a dubious smile his way and left the house again.
    He listened closely. This time she got in the Mercedes and drove away. He followed the wavering sound of the car’s engine until she’d turned out of the driveway and accelerated.
    Edwina’s house wasn’t visible from the coast highway. Someone who’d followed him here from Sunhaven might have wanted to get a look at what was at the other end of the long, winding drive Carver had turned onto. Seeing Edwina steer her car into the driveway shortly afterward might have piqued his curiosity and provoked action. Contemplating a quick getaway, the watcher might indeed have turned his car around and backed up the drive toward the house, then parked near enough for observation but far enough away so the sound of the engine wouldn’t reach whoever was inside.
    A pro would do it that way. That concerned Carver.
    The phone jangled, startling him.
    Probably Desoto.

5
    B UT THE CALLER WASN’T Desoto; it was Alice Hargrove, a real-estate agent from Quill, trying to get in touch with Edwina. Carver had met Alice a few times, the first a long time ago when he’d pretended to be a customer so he could talk to her about Edwina’s former lover Willis Davis. Willis was dead now, which was a condition he deserved.
    Carver told Alice she’d just missed Edwina, made some polite and inane small talk, and hung up. He hated small talk.
    A few hours later, he was dozing on the sofa with his shoes off when the phone brought him quickly awake. In his stocking feet, without his cane, he balanced himself with a palm on the sofa arm and lunged the few feet to where the ringing phone sat on an end table. Half asleep, he’d momentarily forgotten he was crippled.
    This time the caller was Desoto. Carver could hear Latin music pulsing softly from the portable radio the lieutenant kept on the windowsill behind his desk. A sad guitar backing a woman’s melodic lament. Love was full of drama on Desoto’s station.
    “Nurse Rule is Nora Rule,” Desoto said. He told Carver her address in Del Moray. “She’s been working at Sunhaven three years. Before that