101

 

SEVENTEEN MILE DRIVE, 7:06 P.M.

It had started to rain, slowly at first, but now it came down heavily, sluicing over the road. The Mustang’s headlights reflected back off the slick blackness. Gwen’s wipers were wholly inadequate, batting back and forth like flickering eyelashes. Nighttime, heavy rain, visibility was crap. Gwen needed to stop, get the top up, but she drove on, heedless of the rain falling on her, falling inside her beloved car, falling on her dog, who cowered in the footwell casting baleful looks at his mistress.

She swore loudly as she took a corner at speed, felt the Mustang wallow and skid. She brought it back under control but it had given her a fright. She was lucky there’d been no car approaching. She slowed. No car crash would claim her. Daniel Jacobsen wasn’t worth dying for. She parked, caught her breath, did what she should have done first off—pulled up the roof. It’d still leak in the corners in rain this hard, but it would dry out in a day.

Dan would follow her. She knew that. She needed a bolt-hole, somewhere he wouldn’t find her. The answer came to her as she swung out of Seventeen Mile Drive. Dwayne Jonson had recently moved. Finally, he had moved out of his rented studio apartment into his own home, a fixer-upper on the wrong side of Monterey. Gwen found it easily enough. The topiaried peacock cut into the laurel hedge was a bit of a giveaway.

His Harley Low Rider was parked outside. The lights were on inside. Gwen blew out a breath of relief.

She parked, shut off the lights, got out. Leo jumped out after her, whined as the wind and rain whipped him. Gwen slammed the door, heedless of the keys she had left in the ignition. She walked up the path, Leo trailing her. The door opened. Dwayne stood framed, almost filling the whole space. He looked at Gwen, taking in the streaming wet hair, her eyes, huge in the darkness, desolation, fury and a silent plea for help flickering across them.

“Come on in.” He eyed Leo, let him pass, though he wasn’t keen on dogs at the best of times. Gwen and Leo, he knew, though, came as a package.

He didn’t touch her. She seemed to be vibrating with pain and the effort to keep it in. He knew any overly demonstrative display of kindness would undo her, shred her pride.

She told him in staccato bursts as she sat on a packing crate hugging her knees. Her dog sat at her feet, gazing forlornly at his mistress, all too aware of her pain.

Dwayne listened, nodded, but said nothing.

When she’d told him the basics, Gwen released her knees, got up, walked around the dusty floor. Her boots left imprints.

“I left my pocketbook there,” she finished miserably. “And my phone.”

“He’ll bring it to you. Kind of thing he would do, from all you’ve told me,” said Dwayne, breaking his silence.

“I don’t want to see him again.”

“You say that now.”

“Now’s all there is. Can I stay here?”

“To hide from him?”

Gwen nodded.

“You can’t hide from yourself, Boudy, but you’re welcome to crash here for as long as you want.” Dwayne glanced at Leo. “And your mangy dog.”

She managed a smile. “Thanks, Dwayne.”