Shoot Him If He Runs

49

Stone and Holly sat in their car on Black Mountain Road as dusk fell. Holly had produced a small pair of binoculars from her handbag and was training them, alternately, on the Pemberton and Weatherby houses, which could both be partly seen from their vantage point. They had already peered through the windows of the Robertson house and seen nothing out of the ordinary.

“What else have you got in that handbag?” Stone asked.

“Huh?”

“You keep pulling things out-a satphone, binoculars. What else is in there?”

“Oh, a couple of changes of clothing, a disguise or two, a bowling ball, a light machine gun-you know, the usual spy stuff.”

“I don’t think I want to walk through customs with you on the return trip.”

“Don’t worry; the duty is paid on everything.”

“Why are we sitting here? Why don’t we just go knock on both doors and see who opens them?”

“I want to see if any lights come on first,” she said. “That way, we’ll know if anybody’s home. I don’t want to approach the houses if anybody’s home.”

“Wait a minute; are you thinking of breaking and entering?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, maybe alarm systems, attack dogs, security cameras. All we need is to give duBois an excuse to rearrest us.”

Suddenly, lights came on in the Pemberton house.

“There you are,” Stone said. “Somebody’s home.”

Then lights came on in the Weatherby house.

“Did you notice,” she said, “that, in each house, three or four lights came on at once?”

“You’re thinking they’re on a timer?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. Isn’t it odd that both houses came on almost simultaneously?”

“Not very odd,” Stone said, “if they’re both set to come on as it gets dark. Maybe, instead of timers, they work on light sensors. You want to hang around and see if they go off when the sun comes up? I’d rather go get some dinner and, eventually, some sleep.”

“You’d never make a CIA agent,” she said.

“What, doesn’t it say anything about dinner and sleep in the official spy handbook?”

“Come on,” Holly said, opening the car door.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to peek through some windows.”

“Do you have any memory at all of what I just said a minute ago about alarm systems and security cameras?”

“Oh, come on, Stone; don’t be such a wuss.”

“Tell you what, you do the spy thing, and I’ll play the part of the getaway driver. If any alarms go off, you run like hell for the car, and you might catch up with me.” Stone started the car, put it in gear, made a U-turn and stopped, keeping his lights off. “Don’t delay, or you might have to hoof it down this mountain.”

“You move from this spot and I’ll kill you.”

“Don’t give me that; you’re unarmed.”

“I’m a trained killer; I don’t need guns.”

“Hurry up!” Stone left the engine running.

Holly took a small flashlight from her handbag, got out of the car and trotted up the drive toward the Pemberton house.

Stone waited and watched; he could see her silhouetted against the lights of the house. She looked in a couple of windows, then he was astonished to see the front door open and Holly go inside. He could see her moving about from room to room. Stone waited for the alarm to go off, but nothing happened.

Holly left the house, came down the driveway, then trotted up the road to the Weatherby driveway and disappeared. Stone took deep breaths and tried to remain calm. He glanced at his watch; she had been gone for nearly fifteen minutes.

Suddenly the car door opened, startling him, and Holly got in.

“Okay, we can go now,” she said.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he said, putting the car in gear and starting down the mountain. “What the hell were you doing inside that house?”

“Well, somebody got here ahead of us and forced the front door-both front doors, in fact.”

“Yeah, I think duBois got here first.”

“I’m glad he didn’t get here simultaneously.”

“Me too.”

“What did you find inside?”

“Two unoccupied houses,” she said. “Three, with Robertson’s. The Pemberton place had men’s and women’s clothes and some canned food, but the Weatherby house, though it’s furnished, seems never to have been occupied at all.”

“Maybe they’re not in the country.”

“Maybe,” she said doubtfully.

“Well, if they were in the country, there’d be signs that they’re living there.”

“Maybe,” she said again.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I don’t know what to think.”

“Go for the simple explanation: neither Pemberton nor Weatherby is on the island.”

“Nor Robertson.”

“Can we go back to the inn and have dinner now?”

“I guess.”

At the bottom of Black Mountain Road, Stone turned toward the inn. “Holly,” he said, “if you say Robertson is not Teddy, and neither Pemberton nor Weatherby is on the island, and if Teddy killed Croft, then neither Pemberton nor Weatherby could be Teddy. Or more likely, Teddy didn’t kill Croft, somebody else did.”

“Depressing, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Not really. If you think about it, the best possible outcome of this little jaunt would be that Teddy isn’t on St. Marks, that he has never been on St. Marks.”

“That’s what depresses me,” she said.

“It shouldn’t. Lance is just dying to be told that Teddy isn’t here. That would get him off the hook with the director, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“Oh, I get it: you were hoping to cuff Teddy and deliver him to Lance with a big red bow on him.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, at least if Teddy isn’t here, you won’t have to kill him.”

“What makes you think I would kill him, if he were here? I don’t even have a gun.”

“You’re a trained killer; you don’t need a gun.”

“Well, what makes you think I would slip a stiletto into him, or garrote him? I’m not an assassin.”

“If we find Teddy, that’s what Lance is going to ask you to do-or, more likely, order you to do.”

“I won’t.”

“So you’ll just tell Lance to stick Teddy up his ass?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or resign from the Agency?”

“I don’t know; I’ll think about that when I have to.”

“You’d better think about it now. My advice is, tell Lance that Pemberton and Weatherby are not here, and you think somebody besides Teddy killed Croft.”

“But what if I don’t think that?”

“You’d better start reflecting on the consequences of not thinking that,” Stone said.

Holly didn’t speak for the rest of the way back to the inn.