Mind Games (36 page)

Grace Lucca was not family. They had liked and respected each other, Sam reflected, almost from the get-go, their mutual concern over Cathy Robbins bringing them closer. They’d become
comfortable with each other –
real
comfortable and easy. And then they’d made amazing love up on his roof – just that one time – and even
that
had been
interrupted by his damned pager. On the surface, their relationship was hardly established enough to make Sam take the kind of risks with his career that he was running this afternoon. If Hernandez
or the chief found out what he was up to, they’d probably have his head first, then his badge, and ask questions later.

Questions.

There were a whole lot of questions Sam might well be asking himself. Like what were the exact ingredients for this giant mess he was cooking up in his brain, and on what grounds was he
breaching regulations and going off half cocked into who knew what situation?

Peter Hayman’s old records hadn’t jumped right into Angie Carlino’s lap on a Saturday afternoon – which might or might not mean that the man had materialized out of
nowhere on Key Largo just a handful of years ago, just the right kind of decent time lapse after John Broderick had disappeared.

A double shooting that Hayman had talked about happening in St Petersburg had also failed to show up – which might or might not mean that it had never happened. And if it had
not,
that might or might not mean that Hayman had invented it, maybe just to open up a channel of communication with Grace.

Anna Valdez had been stabbed to death with a scalpel in a doctor’s office, which might mean zip in this context, or might mean a whole lot, or might even, at a pinch, mean the whole damn
schmear.

Grace had arrived at a hotel on Key Largo to find she had no reservation, and had apparently therefore gone to stay with Hayman. She was, according to her host, feeling unwell, and had, also
according to him, previously injured herself, albeit in a minor way. She had, since then, failed to respond to a message left with Hayman, and they had both now, if the unanswered telephone was
anything to go by, apparently left Hayman’s home.

It wasn’t much to go on, Sam reminded himself as he reached the Overseas Highway and drove through a lovely cluster of white butterflies as fast as he could without tearing them apart or
getting stopped for speeding by the highway patrol. For one thing, Grace had given him no indication of what Hayman looked like – for all Sam knew, he could be Chinese or eight feet tall
– and as he’d already reminded himself, surely if he bore a resemblance to John Broderick’s photograph, Grace would have noticed.

Or maybe she had noticed by now.

And maybe that was why she had not called him back.

Maybe she couldn’t.

The queasiness was back, and the headache, too. They were out on the open sea now and the wind was rising and some bad-looking clouds were gathering, and suddenly Grace
wasn’t so sure after all if this was the right afternoon to be out on the ocean, especially feeling the way she was.

She said as much to Hayman.

‘Weather looks okay to me,’ he said.

‘It’s getting bumpy.’

‘There’s maybe a little more movement than before, but it’s nothing to worry about.’

He looked the opposite of how she felt, his cheeks warmed by sun, wind and exertion, facial muscles relaxed, body movements easy. Just looking at him made her feel envious. Worse.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You should have left me on dry land.’

‘You know there was no way I would have done that.’ He glanced at her face, checking her over again. ‘Just give it a little more time, Grace, and I guarantee you’ll be
feeling better.’

‘What if I’m not?’ Her optimism seemed to have vanished along with the temporary cottonwool euphoria that had set in when they’d started out.

‘You will.’

There was a tinge of hearty authority – almost of gently couched dictatorship – in those words that made Grace wonder if she was maybe dealing with a control figure. She felt her
hackles rising, but suppressed the urge to snap back. She did not, after all, want to fall out with Peter Hayman, especially not when he was all that was standing between her and an increasingly
rocky Atlantic.

‘I’ll give it another half-hour or so,’ she compromised, ‘but if I still feel lousy, or if the weather gets worse, I’m going to want to go back.’

‘No problem.’

Hayman’s smile was beginning to have a patronizing tilt to it.

‘Peter, I mean it.’

‘Grace, so do I,’ he said.

He was still smiling.

Sam located Hayman’s house easily enough, heard the ship’s bell clang several times, then stepped up on to the porch and began to follow it around the house,
climbing over rails where they got in his way.

‘Watcha doin’, mister?’

He turned around slowly, saw a craggily handsome man of about sixty, dressed in a short-sleeved Polo shirt and slacks, staring accusingly up at him from the road.

‘Looking for Dr Hayman,’ Sam said.

‘He’s not in.’ The man had steel grey hair and piercing eyes to match.

‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

‘Depends who wants to know,’ the man said.

Sam was beginning to feel he’d landed in the deep South. Any second now, he half expected the man to pull a shotgun on him and order him off the doctor’s land. He thought about
showing his badge, but he wanted to avoid that if he possibly could.

‘My name’s Sam Becket, and I’m actually looking for Dr Lucca, the woman who’s been staying with Hayman.’

The man nodded. ‘Pretty woman.’

‘Do you happen to know where they went?’

‘Sailing.’

Broderick flashed through Sam’s mind again.

‘Sailing where?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then how do you know they went sailing?’

‘It’s what he does most weekends.’ The cold eyes narrowed again. ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

Sam turned towards the closest steps back down to the road. ‘Does Hayman have his own boat?’

‘He does.’

‘Do you know where he keeps it?’

‘I might.’

Sam wasted no more time. He showed the man his badge. ‘Do you know where Dr Hayman keeps his boat, sir?’

‘Dooley’s Marina.’ The change in attitude was half-hearted. ‘Where might I find that?’

The guy gave directions, his voice clipped.

‘Do you know the name of the boat, sir?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Do you know anyone around here who might know?’ Sam asked.

‘People around here mind their own business,’ the man said.

Sam’s cellular rang just as the marina came into view – the caller ID displayed Martinez’s home phone. Sam answered. ‘What do you have, Al?’

‘Zilch so far,’ Martinez answered. ‘You said you wanted to know even if nothing was showing up, and so far I got nothing on Hayman except what you already know, like he’s
listed in Key Largo with fancy letters after his name.’

‘Did you reach Angie?’ Sam asked.

‘Yeah, I reached her, and she called me back five minutes ago. She says she needs more time, and she can’t do much before tomorrow, but everyplace she’s looked she still
can’t find anything about those shootings.’

‘Okay, Al,’ Sam said. ‘Thanks.’

‘So what now?’ Martinez asked. ‘You coming home or what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where are you, man? What’s going on?’

Sam heard the anxiety in his partner’s voice, and the temptation to share the situation with him was intense, but he knew he’d be doing Martinez more favours by keeping quiet.

‘Better you don’t know, Al,’ he said. ‘Like I said before, I don’t want to put you in a bad place. Okay?’

He cut off the call before the other man answered.

‘It’s no good, Peter – I’m feeling worse, not better, and this swell isn’t helping one little bit.’

Grace was standing a couple of feet away from where Hayman still appeared to be having a great time steering the boat through the rising waves, while she hung on to a guardrail on the gunwale
and told herself she was
not
going to throw up under any circumstances.

‘Peter, I’d like us to turn back.’

‘Not much sense in that,’ he said, looking right ahead. ‘There’s
perfect
sense in it,’ she said, getting ready for a fight she wasn’t at all sure she
had the strength left for.

‘I mean there’s no sense going back when we’re not that far out from Long Key,’ Hayman pointed out. ‘We could put in there for a while if you like – give you
a break till the weather passes. Or I can give you something for seasickness – I have something that works pretty fast.’

‘But I don’t think this is seasickness,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve hardly ever suffered from it – and anyway, this started on dry land, didn’t it?’

‘The medication I have works on nausea in general,’ he said.

Grace didn’t answer. She was too busy remembering exactly when the queasiness and headache had started. Soon after she had cut herself on the glass – the glass that had felt oily
when she’d taken it, which was why she’d dropped it and broken it. Soon after Hayman had gone to stop her picking up a jagged fragment and had inadvertently closed her hand on the
shard.

Inadvertently?

And then he’d fixed the wound for her.

He’d covered it with antiseptic-impregnated gauze.

At least that was what he’d
said
it was.

The boat rocked, and Grace shut her eyes and held on harder to the guardrail. It was getting more difficult to think straight, to keep her thought processes going along cleanly, sensibly.

Where exactly were these processes heading? What precisely was she thinking
about
?

She was thinking about the brief, but shocking, bout of suspicion she had experienced that morning after Hayman had talked about Broderick slipping cannabis into Cathy’s vitamin capsules.
She’d told herself that she’d been imagining things, over-reacting, but suddenly she wondered if that was true. Which was making her think back again to the fact that he’d come
into the guest bedroom –
her
bedroom – in the middle of the night and stood right up close to the bed, and then, next morning, he’d told her that odd little lie about
hearing her crying out. That
had
been a lie – she was suddenly certain that it had been.

‘Grace, I’m going below.’

She opened her eyes.

‘We’re all steady.’ Hayman’s expression was concerned. ‘I’m just going to get that stuff to help you feel better. Okay?’

Grace didn’t answer. She was still thinking.

The photograph.

She had remembered the photograph tucked inside the address book in her tote bag. She wanted to look at it. She needed to look at it, just to reassure herself that there was no way on
God’s earth or ocean that Peter Hayman could be John Broderick.

‘Grace?’ His voice jolted her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘It’s okay,’ he said, gently. ‘I just wanted to check you heard me. I’m going below to fetch some of the medication I told you about – I’m going to take
care of you.’

‘Okay,’ she said, sounding vague. ‘Thank you.’

It was an effort to speak normally, but then again if she sounded strange Hayman was only going to think it was because she felt so bad – and maybe, Grace hoped, that
was
part of
it. Maybe all these wild thoughts were crowding in on her because she was sick.

Except what if she
wasn’t
just sick in a normal, natural sense? What if it hadn’t been antiseptic in that gauze, soaking into the gash on her hand?

A new thought struck. What if Hayman had found the photograph in her bag? What if he thought she’d recognized or at least suspected him?

But it had been Hayman who had first asked her if she’d ever seen a picture of Broderick, he who’d suggested she get one.

Or had he just been on a fishing expedition, checking to be sure she hadn’t made a connection.

I’m going to take care of you.

Grace watched his back, watched him open the hatch that led below and disappear through it.

He’s great with boats, really at home.

Broderick had kept a boat. Had died on a boat.

Or not.

Grace ripped the sticking plaster off her palm, took off the gauze, held it up to her nose and sniffed at it. She could smell something, but she didn’t know what it was – it might
have been antiseptic, it might have been some chemical, poison even, something that could have entered her bloodstream, triggered a reaction, made her feel this way . . .

Wasn’t that just the kind of thing Broderick would have done?

‘Oh, Christ,’ she said, out loud.

She moved as fast as her unwieldy limbs would let her – not as fast as she wanted to move, not
nearly
as fast – it was the way one sometimes felt in bad dreams, the common
dreams that some of her young patients had, in which they wanted to run but their legs felt leaden.

Still, she made it, over to the side, and if Hayman came up and saw her, Grace thought he’d probably assume she was about to throw up, but that wasn’t what she was doing. She stuffed
the gauze into the right-hand pocket of her jeans, waited for the next wave to rock the boat so that she could lean closer to the water—

There
. . .

The boat heeled about seventy-five degrees, enough for her to dunk her injured hand into the salt water.

It hurt.

Better than being poisoned
.

Grace felt the small but fiery pain bum through her palm.

One thought, now, was going through her mind, repeating itself over and over again. It was short and to the point.

Why the
hell
had she agreed to come on Hayman’s damned boat?

How
the hell could she – a supposedly intelligent woman – have been so utterly and completely
stupid
?

Sam was still ignoring the small – not
so
small – warning voice that kept reminding him he was way out of his jurisdiction and that he
ought, by rights, to be handing this over to the Monroe County Sheriffs department. To begin with, he told the voice, he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to
be
handing over
to them, and to end with, rational men and women as he presumed they were, they were hardly likely to raise their blood pressure over what was little more than a probably ill-founded
hunch.