Yet he slept like a puppy. That according to JoLayne Lucks, who was sitting in the room when he awoke in bright daylight.
“Not a worry in the world,” he heard her say. “That’s one of the best things about my job—watching puppies and kittens sleep.”
Krome rose up on both elbows. JoLayne was wearing a sports halter and bicycle shorts. Her legs and arms were slender but tautly muscled; he wondered why he hadn’t noticed before.
“Babies sleep the same way,” she was saying, “but watching babies makes me sad. I’m not sure why.”
“Because you know what’s in store for them.” Krome started to roll out of bed, then remembered he was wearing only underwear.
JoLayne lobbed him a towel. “You are quite the shy one. Want me to turn around?”
“Not necessary.” After the bathtub episode, there was nothing to hide.
“Go take a shower,” she told him. “I promise not to peek.”
When Krome came out, she was asleep on his bed. For several moments he stood there listening to the sibilant rhythms of her breathing. It was alarming how comfortable he felt, considering the lunatic risks that lay ahead. This unfamiliar sense of mission was energizing, and he resolved not to overanalyze it. A woman had been hurt, the men who did it deserved to pay—and Krome had nothing better to do than help. Anyway, chasing gun nuts through South Florida was better than writing brainless newspaper features about Bachelorhood in the Nineties.
He slipped next door to JoLayne’s room, so he wouldn’t wake her by talking on the telephone. Two hours later she came in, puffy-eyed, to report: “I had quite a dream.”
“Bad or good?”
“You were in it.”
“Say no more.”
“In a hot-air balloon.”
“Is that right.”
“Canary yellow with an orange stripe.”
Krome said, “I’d have preferred to be on a handsome steed.”
“White or black?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, right.” JoLayne rolled her eyes.
“As long as it runs,” Krome said.
“Maybe next time.” She yawned and sat down on the floor, folding her long legs under her bottom. “You’ve been a busy bee, no?”
He told her he’d lined up some money to finance the chase. Of course she wanted to know where he’d gotten it, but Krome fudged. The newspaper’s credit union, unaware of his resignation the day before, had been pleased to make the loan. JoLayne Lucks would’ve raised hell if he’d told her the truth.
“I already wired three thousand toward your Visa bill,” he said, “to keep the bastards going.”
“Your own money!”
“Not mine, the newspaper’s,” he said.
“Get outta here.”
“Ever heard of an expense account? I get reimbursed for hotels and gas, too.”
Krome, sounding like quite the big shot. He wasn’t sure if JoLayne Lucks was buying the lie. Her toes were wiggling, which could mean just about anything.
She said, “They must really want this story.”
“Hey, that’s the business we’re in.”
“The news biz, huh? Tell me more.”
“The men who beat you up,” Krome said, “they haven’t cashed your Lotto ticket yet. I checked with Tallahassee. They haven’t even left their names.”
“They’re waiting to make sure I don’t go to the police. Just like you predicted.”
“They’ll hold out a week, maybe ten days, before that ticket burns a crater in their pocket.”
“That isn’t much time.”
“I know. We’ll need some breaks to find them.”
“And then… ?”
She’d asked the same thing earlier, and Krome had no answer. Everything depended on who the creeps were, where they lived, what they’d bought at that gun show. That the men had remembered to steal the night videotape from the Grab N’Go showed they weren’t as stupid as Krome had first thought.
JoLayne reminded him that her Remington was in the trunk. “The nice thing about shotguns,” she said, “is the margin of error.”
“Oh, so you’ve shot people before.”
“No, Tom, but I do know the gun. Daddy made sure of that.”
Krome handed her the phone. “Call the nice folks at Visa. Let’s see what our party boys are up to.”
Sinclair had told no one at The Register that Tom Krome had resigned, in the hope it was a cheap bluff. Good reporters were temperamental and impulsive; this Sinclair remembered from newspaper management school.