“I’ve never been up here before,” the kid said when they were outside the house.
Katya leaned in and stared at him.
“No,” she said. “And you never will again.”
Something about the way she said it made the kid feel very nervous.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “Just give me the rest of the money.”
Todd went inside for another three hundred dollars in dry bills, and a few minutes later the guy drove off six hundred bucks the richer, and none the wiser, while Todd and Katya dragged themselves up the turret stairs to the master bedroom, sloughing off their cold damp clothes as they crept towards the bed they’d thought they’d never see again.
It took Todd a long time to get across the bedroom to the closet: his body ached to his marrow, and his thoughts were as sluggish as his body. Only as he was pulling on a clean pair of jeans did he realize there were voices in the house.
“Shit … ” he murmured to himself.
He decided not to wake Katya. Instead he would try to get rid of these people himself, without unleashing her righteous fury on them.
He went back into the bedroom. Despite the hullabaloo from below Katya showed no sign of waking. This was all to the good. She was obviously hearing the hurts of recent days. He lingered at the bedside, studying her peaceful features. The seawater had washed every trace of rouge or mascara from her face; she could have been a fifteen-year-old, lying there, dreaming innocent dreams.
Of course that innocence was an illusion. He knew what she was capable of; and there was a corner of his brain that never completely ceased warning him of that fact. But then hadn’t she come to the beach to save him? Who else would have done that, except perhaps for Tammy? All anybody had ever done for him was use him, and as soon as they’d got what they’d needed, they’d moved on. But Katya had proved she was made of more loyal stuff. She’d been ready to go all the way with him; to death if necessary.
So what if she was cruel? What if she had committed crimes that would have had her behind bars if anybody knew about them? Her sins mattered very little to him right now. What mattered was how she’d taken his hand as they’d turned their back on the lights of the beach and faced the dark waters of the Pacific; and how hard she’d struggled to keep holding onto it, however much the tide had conspired to divorce them.
The voices below had quieted.
He pulled on a white T-shirt, and went to the door. As he did so there was a small earthquake. The door rattled in its frame. It was a short jolt, and he guessed it was probably an aftershock. If so, then perhaps what had woken him in the first place was the big shaker. Why else would he have woken? He was still very much in need of sleep, God knows. Nothing would have given him more pleasure than to strip off his jeans and T-shirt and crawl back into bed beside Katya for another three or four hours of blissful slumber.
But he could scarcely do that with a search party in the house. He heard Eppstadt’s voice amongst the exchanges. Fuck him! It was typical that the little prick would get his nose in their business sooner or later. Todd had hoped that he and Katya would get some quiet time together to plan their next move: to search the house (and of course the Pool House) for incriminating evidence of scandal, and destroy it; then to hide in the depths of the Canyon until the investigators were satisfied that there was nothing here worth investigating, and left, taking Eppstadt and whoever the hell else was here (Maxine, no doubt) back with him. But Eppstadt had ruined that hope. Before these interlopers left they were going to search every damn room, no doubt of that: the master bedroom included. He was going to need to find a way to spirit Katya and himself out of the house and away before they came looking.