Desperate Measures

9

Pittman was uncomfortably aware of more sweat slicking his brow. His anxiety, combined with the heat in the room, made him nauseous. Avoiding Webley’s intense gaze and Sloane’s nervous expression, Pittman turned again toward the wall-length window. It took him a moment to adjust his vision to the painful glare of the sun. The fir trees were even more beautiful. The green of the spring grass was made exquisite by his terror. In the distance, golfers passed trees near a pond.

Abruptly a motion caught Pittman’s attention. At the bottom of the slope on Gable’s estate. Close to the wall. This side of the wall. The man who’d driven the golf cart toward the opposite side of the wall was now in view, climbing the slope toward Gable’s mansion. Pittman didn’t know how he had gotten over the wall, but it was the same man, Pittman could tell, because the man in the golf cart had worn a white cap and a red windbreaker, the same as this man. Despite the sheltering cap, it was now possible to see that the man was elderly. But he moved with slow determination, climbing, holding something in his right hand. And as he trudged higher, beginning to show the physical cost of his effort, just before pine trees obscured him, Pittman realized with hastily subdued shock that he recognized the grimacing elderly man. Pittman had bought a drink for him last night. He’d followed him to Mrs. Page’s mansion. He’d taken him to a hospital when the elderly man collapsed. Bradford Denning. This morning, Denning had snuck from the hospital’s cardiac ward, and now he looked totally deranged as he stumbled into view again, leaving the fir trees, struggling higher toward the house. With equal shock, Pittman distinguished the object in Denning’s right hand-a pistol held rigidly to his side.

No! Pittman thought. If Gable sees him, if Webley notices, they’ll decide that I’ve tricked them, that I can’t be trusted, that everything’s out of control. The moment they realize Denning’s armed, they’ll shoot him. And then they’ll finish me.