Double Take - Catherine Coulter [126]
Dix saw Pallack shrug. “It doesn’t matter. Julia’s not important. If Makepeace kills her, it’s on his own dime, not ours. That’s what I told him. Go to bed, Charlotte. I’ll be up soon.”
He heard Charlotte’s heels lightly tapping the wooden hallway, then muffled by the thick Persian runner on the stairs.
Pallack sat down behind his desk and pulled the phone close. Dix listened to him report the alarm failure to Berenger Security, nasty-bitch the individual on the other end of the line, and hang up. Then he booted up the computer, began to hum as he typed.
What was he typing at midnight?
The phone rang.
Pallack said, “Yes?”
Pallack listened for some time, said finally, “I don’t care if she is staying at the Sherlock house, there’s no reason to go after her now. Dammit, you shouldn’t be calling me here. A public phone? Still—look, now that I have August’s journals, our business is at an end. You should leave San Francisco as soon as possible.
“Dammit, Julia Ransom isn’t important. I don’t want to have to deal with any fallout from that. No, I don’t want to see you tonight.”
Pallack’s fingers tapped impatiently on the desktop as he listened.
“You’ve lost perspective, Xavier. Listen to me, go to Costa Rica, lie on the beach. Enjoy your money. It’s over, do you hear me?”
Pallack jerked the phone away. Dix supposed he’d been hung up on. Pallack slowly put down the phone. Dix saw him stare at it, shaking his head.
Through the slit in the drapes, Dix saw Charlotte walk back into the study, wearing a nightshirt that read across the front I Only Swing Left. The shirt ended at the top of her thighs. Those weren’t Christie’s legs, not the same shape at all. “Thomas, was that David?”
Pallack said irritably, “No, it wasn’t David.”
“I do wish he’d call. It’s been over two days now.”
“Yes, I’m worried now as well. Maybe we should hire someone to look for him.” Pallack struck his fist on his desktop. “If only I could convince that psycho to simply leave San Francisco. But he’s fixated on Julia. Makepeace just called and wanted to meet to discuss it again, but I said no.”
She started wringing her hands, pacing back and forth in front of his desk. “He won’t stop, you know he won’t. I don’t think he can.”
“Look, as I told you, the police have only a whole lot of coincidences, bits and pieces, conjecture, but nothing to stick. If Makepeace kills Julia, he kills her. It won’t matter, not in the long run. They still won’t have anything on us.”
She didn’t look like she believed him, but she stopped her pacing and crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself.
“What about the alarm system?”
“The guy at Berenger Security said they’d get the system up again, said they’d do a thorough investigation since it was most of the building this time. They got hold of three of our neighbors, two others weren’t home, but none of them had even noticed. They said they couldn’t understand how it happened.”
“It’s going on midnight, Thomas. You’re tired, come to bed. There’s nothing more to be done tonight.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Dix heard the computer click off.
The lights went out. Their footsteps receded. Dix waited, listening, for another ten minutes. He’d heard enough, seen enough.
Dix heard no sound at all. The Pallacks were upstairs in the bedroom. And he was alone downstairs.
Dix eased out from behind the curtain and felt his way slowly around chairs, lamps, and a sofa until he got to the door. He looked out at empty darkness. He took several more steps, paused, listened intently again. He saw the red blink of the alarm system on the hallway wall. The security company had gotten the system running again. Thank the good Lord they didn’t suspect a burglar yet. Maybe they would, once they investigated. All he had to do was