67

 

 

Gwen drove off through the darkness of Seventeen Mile Drive, past the nighttime cypress trees. With their gnarled branches they looked like something out of a horror movie. For Elise Rochberger, they had been.

*   *   *

Back at the cottage, the two men stood in the darkness, staring out to sea. All that was visible was an endless void, defined in the foreground by the moon-silvered spume of breaking waves.

Spence turned to Dan.

“She’s gorgeous. Beautiful. Defiant. Sexy as hell.”

Dan nodded. “All of that.”

“Dangerous too, for you my friend.”

“That I know.”

“So what you gonna do?”

Dan turned away, spoke to the night.

“Trapped between a rock and a hard place is I think the expression that fits.”

“Maybe. You still haven’t answered the question.”

Dan gave his friend a tight smile. “I haven’t, have I?”

Spence barked out a laugh. “Hoping to play both sides, the old double-agent trick, Danny Boy? We all know what happens to them in the end.”

“We’re a long way from that, I hope,” said Dan as the memories flooded back. The knife, the exposed neck, the blood gushing onto the sand. He felt the breeze chill his skin as it washed over him. He wished, as he had many times, that he was able to wash his mind.