Come Unto These Yellow Sands (17 page)

“Yeah. I think I do.”

“You…think?”

Max said seriously, “I’ve thought so since the night I kicked you out of my office. Anyone else, I’d have slapped with more charges than a box of Eveready batteries.”

“Now that you mention it, I was surprised you let me walk out of there. Grateful. But surprised.”

“So was I. I was more surprised when I realized I was as worried about what you’d done to your career as what you’d done to my homicide investigation. I couldn’t figure out what to do. I had to stay away from you.”

Swift nodded. The staying away had hurt.

“When I interviewed you in your classroom, I was still angry.”

“I know.”

“But I knew…”

Swift’s smile was twisted. “I’ll be the first to admit my judgment is probably impaired. Cocaine addiction being a possible symptom rather than cause.”

“You were motivated by kindness and the desire to help. I don’t get a lot of that in my line of work. So I’ll take the impaired judgment and good heart over…anything else I’ve seen.” He added as Swift opened his mouth, “It doesn’t hurt that it all comes in a very pretty package.”

“I don’t think you should mention my package if either of us are planning to go into work.”

Max laughed and kissed Swift. “True. Stay out of trouble.”

“It’ll be my pleasure, Chief.”

Swift stuck to that all day. No calling people and asking questions they didn’t want to answer, no chasing after people who didn’t want to be found. He’d tried to help but he’d failed. You could only do what you could do.

The call came through just as he was leaving for the afternoon.

“This caller refuses to identify himself.” Dottie’s voice crackled with irritation. One more thing Swift was deliberately doing to annoy her was the implication.

“Thanks. I’ll take it.”

She transferred the call without further word.

“Swift.”

The response was blurred. He couldn’t make out the words. Swift’s scalp prickled. “I’m sorry?”

“I’m at the cottage. On Orson Island,” the muffled voice said more distinctly. “Can you come? Can you come right away?”

“Tad?”

“Yes. Will you come, Professor? Alone.”

“What’s going on? You’ve got to come in and give yourself up.” Swift leaned forward, pressing the earpiece closer, trying to make out the thick syllables.

“Please. I will. But I have to talk to you first, Professor. Just you. No one else.”

Swift thought rapidly. “All right. But it’ll take me a while to get out to the island. Are you okay till I get there?”

“Yes. Yes, but please hurry.”

The phone went dead. Swift replaced the handset, then picked it up again and dialed Max.

It took a few minutes to get through. “Hey, can I call you back?” Max greeted him brusquely.

“Max, I just got a call from someone claiming to be Tad.”

“Claiming? You don’t think it’s Tad?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. To me it sounded like someone talking through a handkerchief. Not that I’m an expert.”

“What did the caller want?”

“He—I think it was a he—wants me to go out to Orson Island. He said he had something to tell me and that I had to come alone.”

“You are fucking kidding me.”

“I know. Even
I
know enough to recognize it’s a trap. But I don’t get the point of it.”

“The point is someone’s trying to set you up.”

“Me or Tad? Or both?”

“Go home. I’ll take it from here.”

“Wait.” Swift didn’t give Max a chance to override him. “I think I should go.”

“
What?
No. Way. No fucking way.
Go home
.”

“
Wait
. Listen. You want to catch this guy, right? Whoever he is? You’ll scare him off if you show up with cop cars and flashing lights.”

“Good idea. We won’t flash our lights.”

Swift ignored Max’s sarcasm. “I’m serious. Use me for bait.”

“Remember that thing about impaired judgment? Here’s an example.”

Nice to know they hadn’t lost the ability to be frank. Swift shot back, “Fuck you, Max. If you’d look at this objectively, you’d know I’m right. If it’s a trap, then this guy is going to be watching to see that I show up and nobody else. And if it’s not a trap—”

“No.”

“All I’m suggesting is that I go to the island with you, that we take my car, and that I let you out before I get to the bungalow. That way you can grab him before he can make a move.”

“I said no.”

“Why? For God’s sake
why
? It’s the perfect chance to turn this trap on whoever set it up because whoever set it up
also
obviously thinks my judgment is impaired and that I’m going to walk right into this. Whatever it is.”

“Go figure.”

“Is it concern for me making you such an asshole, because otherwise I don’t get your attitude.”

There was a sharp silence.

“Truth?” Max said tersely. “I’m afraid you’re going to ignore what I’m telling you and go out to the island anyway.”

The honesty disarmed Swift. “Give me a little credit. If you won’t agree to my plan, I’ll leave it there. But at least consider what I’m saying. If Tad didn’t call me, then whoever this is…it’s someone you want to question, right? If you go on your own, he’ll see you coming a mile away. If you come with me, you’ll have a better shot of grabbing him.”

“What the hell makes you think he won’t shoot you the minute you step out of your car?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why the plan would be to kill
me,
though. Wouldn’t it be more likely…?”

“Yes?” Max inquired dryly.

“I don’t know. But why would anyone want me dead? It’s more logical that he’s planting some evidence at the bungalow that I’m meant to find, don’t you think? Something that will incriminate Tad beyond reasonable doubt.”

“Or it may be Tad himself.”

“Or it may be, yeah.”

Swift could practically hear Max’s thoughts. At last Max growled, “I don’t like it.”

At that irritable rumble, Swift relaxed, knowing the battle was won. “Me neither. But so what?”

“If we do this, you don’t get out of the car. Understand? You drive up to the bungalow and you stay inside the car.”

“Okay.”

Max swore. He said crisply, “I’ll meet you at the ferry in twenty minutes.”

“See you there.” Swift hung up. Having succeeded in convincing Max to his way of thinking, he was surprised he didn’t feel happier.

Chapter Thirteen

You have traveled back in time to one of the first Olympic Games held in ancient Greece. The competition is about to begin and you are one of the challengers. Will you choose to compete in the pankration or the pentathlon?

Or, considering that you’re a poet and not an athlete, maybe you oughta just stay home and write a nice ode to something.

“Remember, you don’t get out of the car,” Max said.

The car tires crunched on gravel as they wound their way up the dirt road to the bungalow. The sound of the engine drifted in the clear, cold air.

Swift replied, “The last thing I plan on doing is getting out of this car.”

One of the three deputies in the backseat of Swift’s Jeep snickered. The entire police force of Stone Coast, minus Hannah Maltz, was on the way to Swift’s bungalow—and whoever was waiting for them.

“Don’t forget to slow down from the point you let us out. Give us time to get into position.”

“Right.” This was the third time Max had reminded him of this, which indicated how uneasy with the setup Max was. That made two of them.

“And if anything strikes you as off—I mean
anything
—get the hell out of there.”

Swift nodded. He reminded himself it had been his bright idea to tag along.

He took his foot off the gas as he spotted the place a few yards ahead where he planned to let Max and his deputies out. The road dipped down and the trees sheltered it from the bungalow, but it was still close enough that it should only take Max and his men a couple of minutes to race up the hillside.

Swift slowed, pulled to the side and rolled to a stop. Max pushed open the Jeep passenger-side door, and he and his deputies scrambled out into the autumn woods.

Max’s eyes met Swift’s. He didn’t say anything. Neither did Swift. Max eased the door shut.

Swift continued slowly up the road, part of his mind registering the diffused autumn twilight glancing off the red and gold leaves, unconsciously testing the words to describe such beauty—part of his mind worrying over what might be waiting ahead.

The bungalow swung into view. It looked unchanged from the last time Swift had been there. No smoke from the chimney, no lights shining behind the curtains.

He parked in the front yard, leaving the engine still running, watching and waiting for the front door to open.

The door did not open. Nothing moved behind the windows.

Swift studied the trees and rocks surrounding the clearing and the bungalow. No sign of life. Were Max and his people in position yet? How would he know?

What if no one was here? What if the phone call had been a prank? A practical joke? On the whole Swift decided he would prefer that embarrassment to the horror of finding something awful inside the bungalow. Some bloodstained clue or the murder weapon or something even worse. A body. Tad’s body.

That was the fear that wouldn’t be banished. That Tad was dead. And, most terrifyingly, by his hand.

Swift shuddered. Why had he thought this was such a great idea? Such a great idea that he had argued Max, who knew better, into it?

He checked the rearview mirror. Drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. It was going to look weird if he didn’t get out of the Jeep, but he’d told Max he would stay in his vehicle and that’s what he intended to do. Instead, he gave two short blasts of the horn.

Not normal behavior at all. Bound to alert whoever was inside the cabin that something was up.

He caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. Swift turned his head in time to see a cardinal fly from a branch and disappear into the flame-colored foliage. He relaxed.

The windshield shattered. Something thumped the edge of the passenger seat, and stuffing floated up like tiny yellow clouds. A few glittering pieces of glass scattered over Swift’s hands where they gripped the steering wheel.

If he hadn’t already been nervous and on edge, it might have been a different story, but because he’d been waiting for something to happen, there was only a split second of disbelief that it actually
had
, and then he was sliding down, crouching as far as he could get—which, given the cramped quarters of the Jeep, wasn’t far—as another bullet punched his seat. Squarely in the center of the seat. Perfect for blasting a hole through his heart and spine. He heard the ping of something metallic as the bullet passed on through the Jeep interior, and he could hear the terrified thunder of his heart, and then more shots.

Jesus fucking
Christ
.

He could hear Max yelling, but he couldn’t make out the words over the hissing of the Jeep engine.

Max had told him to get the hell out of there if something happened, but Swift hadn’t considered this possibility, and he didn’t dare sit up. With his foot off the brake, the Jeep was starting to gently roll backwards, and while
away
seemed like a great idea, Swift remembered that if the Jeep went off the road and started down the hillside, he was liable to end up on the beach below.

He felt around frantically for the gearbox, tried to stomp his foot on the brake and then tried to use his hand. He was relatively limber thanks to all the yoga he did, but there was no room for maneuvering. It was like being in a very small cage or a metal straitjacket.

He reached for the steering wheel and hauled it the opposite way. He wasn’t trying to steer, since he couldn’t see which way he was going, so much as slow the vehicle’s progression.

The passenger-side door yanked open, and he put his arms up protectively.

“It’s me.” Max jumped half inside, crowding his leg over the gearbox so he could jam on the brakes. He yanked the parking brake, and the Jeep rocked to a stop. “Are you hit?”

“No.”

“Stay down.”

He was gone.

Swift angled to try and see from the passenger-side mirror, and he caught a glimpse of Max loping down the road, his pistol held low and ready in both hands.

Swift dropped back and stared up through the crackled window at the clouds tumbling like gray glaciers through the blue-water. Crimson leaves were stark against the dusk. It reminded him of something. He couldn’t think what.

It seemed only a minute or two, counted out by the gonging of Swift’s heart, before he heard the bite of boots on the road and the Jeep door flew open once more.

Swift jumped and then relaxed—though relaxed was probably not the right word for the current arrangement of his limbs.

“What yoga position is that?” Max inquired in a perfectly ordinary voice.

“Folding hero.” Swift took the hand Max extended and uncoiled painfully from his cramped position beneath the dashboard.

“Looks like hero showing good sense to me.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“Yep. Norman whacked his forehead on a branch. Maybe it’ll knock some sense into him.”

“Did the bad guy get away?”

“He won’t get far unless he’s one hell of a swimmer. I’ve got two deputies posted at the ferry. Did you get a look at the shooter?”

Swift shook his head.

“Neither did we. Just a camo jacket and a hunting cap.” He studied Swift critically. “Close your eyes.” He brushed the broken glass out of Swift’s hair, then dusted it lightly, carefully, from his cheeks. Swift felt the tiny burn across his cheekbones.

“You were right. This was not a good idea.”

Max grunted. “It wasn’t the idea itself that was bad. It was your participation I had a problem with.”

Swift opened his eyes. “Your fingers are shaking.”

Max nodded. “Adrenaline. It’s pretty exciting seeing your friend’s car get shot full of holes. Especially with your friend sitting inside.”