CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kevin was up uncharacteristically early the next morning. He had finished breakfast before Eric was halfway through his eggs and hash, ready to escape the trapped feeling that he anticipated might seize him when Vanessa came in.
“You seem very bright and sprightly this morning,” Eric remarked, buttering toast.
“It’s those girls they had over on Sunday,” Harriet said over her shoulder from the stove. “Life here will never be the same now. Which one do you fancy, Kevin? The tall one, the blonde, I bet.”
“Oh, I don’t know. . . . One life at a time’s enough,” Kevin answered, grinning faintly.
“Where do they live?” Eric asked.
“Avril’s on this side of Tacoma. Janna . . . I think she’s somewhere around there too. I’m not sure exactly.”
“Hmm. Sounds as if we might be seeing more of them.” Eric winked at Harriet as she refilled his coffee cup.
Kevin shrugged neutrally. “Maybe.”
“Good morning,” Vanessa’s voice said from the doorway. She came into the kitchen, make-up on, hair tied back and high, dressed to go out.
“Very nice,” Eric complimented.
Vanessa acknowledged with a wisp of a smile and a nod. “Just a cup of coffee for me, Harriet,” she said. She remained standing by the breakfast bar.
“Not hungry?” Eric said. “If it’s a diet, you don’t have anything to worry about.” He indicated her appearance generally with a motion of his head. “You look as if you’re off out somewhere.”
“I have to go into the city.”
“What, again?”
“Just to check the shops, and a few chores. I’ll probably have lunch. Somebody told me there’s a new Scandinavian place opened at the Center. I might try that.”
Kevin was unable to comprehend her nonchalance—even though there was no reason why it should be any different today than any of the days that had preceded it. Confusion and the claustrophobia that he had feared began taking hold of him.
“Can I have the keys to the Jag, then?” he asked Vanessa, at the same time standing up. “I’ll get those boxes out of the trunk before I go.”
“Oh yes, I’d forgotten about those,” Eric murmured.
Vanessa looked mildly surprised. “Well, certainly. They’re in my purse, in the den. Can you get them?”
“Sure.” Kevin tried to think of something more to say, couldn’t, and left the room awkwardly.
“He seems quiet, not his usual self this morning,” he heard Eric say as he left the kitchen.
“Definitely the signs,” Harriet pronounced.
Kevin found Vanessa’s keys and went out the front door. The morning had a sharp nip, with frost on the grass and a clear sky. He felt as if he had walked out of what had suddenly turned from a home to a prison, into a different world.
He crunched across the gravel to the Jaguar, which was in front of Corfe’s bronze Chevrolet, and opened the trunk. The black plastic bag containing the relay was in the top of one of the two boxes of gadgets and tools, standing among other items of Vanessa’s. The rip in one side didn’t seem to have been investigated, although he wasn’t exactly sure how he expected to tell. Despite all his experience with mecs, it was still a strange feeling to find himself looking at the same cuts that he had made himself and crawled through, days ago and miles away. He lifted out the boxes and started to close the trunk again. Then his motion slowed, and he let the lid rise open again as a new thought struck him suddenly.
If it hadn’t been for the mec finding its way onto Payne’s yacht, nothing that he had discussed last night with Michelle and Doug would have been known. He had never thought of using mecs as intelligence-gathering devices before, and that one, brief, fortuitous episode had proved how amazingly effective they could be. In that case, why be restricted to that one lucky episode? Michelle had said they needed more information, and one sure thing was that in times ahead, Vanessa would be going to the right places to get it. Why not prepare for future opportunities in advance? He didn’t exactly feel the ethical constraint at such a thought that he might have a week ago.