Walt and Lyle, the two officers officially on duty, were drinking coffee. The others each had a beer. Tash leaned against a wall, holding a glass of white wine. The crimson of the soon-to-set sun filled the white room, the combination of colors so intriguing that Coltrane wished he still had his camera.

An object on the coffee table caught his attention.

“My Nikon? I thought I’d lost it in the water.”

“No, you dropped it on the rocks,” Walt said. “In all the commotion, I didn’t have a chance to go back and get it until a few minutes ago.”

“I owe you. This camera and I have been through a lot.” Coltrane examined it, unhappy to see that the lens was shattered and the body more scratched than it had previously been, but it didn’t appear that the case had been cracked – the negative of the images he had taken of Tash might not have been exposed to light. Even so, with its lens cracked, the camera was temporarily useless to him.

“We told you ours. Now you tell us yours,” Nolan said.

“Excuse me?”

“Your story. You didn’t just happen to show up here. Why did you come?”

So you’re still not sure about me, Coltrane thought. “My timing wasn’t the greatest. I hope this doesn’t sound presumptuous.” He looked at Tash. “I’m curious about… You inherited some property recently from a man named Randolph Packard.”

Tash straightened against the wall. “That’s right.”

Except for Nolan, the men looked puzzled by the reference. Coltrane told them who Packard was.

“I met him toward the end of November,” Coltrane said to Tash. “In fact, I collaborated on a project with him, although he died before I could get much input from him. Not that it mattered – from the beginning of my career, he had tremendous influence on me. And especially lately, I guess you could say he changed my life. Anyway, I decided to buy a house he owned. When I heard about another property he owned, one in Mexico, I was tempted to buy it also, but then I discovered that the property had been given to you, so I…” Coltrane’s sentence hung in the air.

“You came here to ask me if I’d be interested in selling it?” Sounding almost relieved, Tash leaned away from the wall.

“Something like that,” Coltrane said.

“That’s what this is all about?” Walt sounded annoyed. “You came here to buy real estate?”

“Basically,” Coltrane lied.

“Well, for God sake,” one of the state policemen said. “I waited around to hear that? I was sure there had to be a fancy explanation for the coincidence.”

“Sorry.”

Shaking their heads, several men stood. “I’ve got to be going,” one of the state troopers said.

“Me, too,” Lyle said. “My wife’s got a pot roast in the oven. There’s no point in all of us hanging around anymore. The man we were trying to catch was probably studying the house. When we tipped our hand too soon because of…” He gestured toward Coltrane.

“Yeah.” Walt sounded disgusted. “The creep’s long gone by now. We started our surveillance in the middle of the night, presumably before he started his own surveillance.” Weariness strained his face. “But now that he knows we were waiting for him, we’ll have a hard time setting another trap. The good news is, tonight will probably be quiet. You guys go ahead. Enjoy what’s left of your New Year’s. I’ll hold down the fort.”

“No, that’s all right,” Tash said. “You go ahead, too.”

“But…”

“As you said, tonight will probably be quiet. Cross fingers that whoever it is left the area for now. The sheriff’s department has more people to protect than just me.”

“But not all of them need protecting,” Walt said. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Tash said. “I won’t be alone, though.”

Walt looked puzzled.

“Mr. Coltrane is going to stay for a while. We’re going to discuss real estate.”

Coltrane must have looked surprised.

“If that’s convenient,” Tash said to him. “Perhaps you have somewhere else you need to be. I just thought that since you came all this way to talk to me…”

“No,” Coltrane said. “No, there’s nowhere else I have to be.”

8

THE TIME WAS JUST AFTER FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON, the air turning from crimson to gray, the breeze increasing, becoming cooler as the men stepped outside the front door and put on their sneakers. Tash opened the twin garage doors, revealing two large four-wheel-drive vehicles, an Explorer and a Mountaineer. As some of the men got into them, Tash eased into her Porsche and backed it out of the driveway, allowing the Mountaineer that she had been blocking to get out of the garage. The moment the stall was free, she pulled into it.

Coltrane couldn’t help noticing that for the brief time she was away, the men who hadn’t yet gotten into the vehicles stopped talking and watched her.

“Remember, if you have even the slightest hint of trouble, don’t think twice – call us,” Lyle told her.

“Don’t worry. I’m a coward at heart. When I’m by myself, I don’t go anywhere without carrying the phone.”

Coltrane frowned. “Phone? But I thought it was out of service.”

“It is,” Walt said. “We’re talking about a cellular phone I bought for Tash and had activated in my name. Whoever this creep is, he keeps managing to find out the new numbers she gets in her name. But so far, he doesn’t know anything about this number.”

“Good idea,” Coltrane said.

“Let’s hope it stays a good idea. Tash, if you need anything, let me know.”

She touched his arm in a gesture of thanks.

“While you guys are still here…” Coltrane said.

They looked at him, wondering what he was leading up to.

“Can you wait another few minutes while I get my car? I don’t want to stumble around looking for it after dark. This way, Tash won’t be alone while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, I can stick around a little longer,” Lyle said.

“And I’ll make it quicker by driving you to your car.” Nolan motioned for Coltrane to follow him to the garage and the Explorer that remained in the stall next to Tash’s Porsche.

One of the policemen was in the passenger seat. Another policeman and one of the state troopers was in the back. While Nolan got behind the steering wheel, Coltrane climbed into the back. He saw Walt and Lyle talking to Tash in front of the house while Nolan left the garage, reached the road, and drove away.

“Our cars are parked behind a service station on the highway,” the policeman in the front seat explained. “That way, it didn’t look like we were having a convention at Tash’s place while we were waiting for him to show up.”

“You set it up well.”

“Too bad the wrong guy showed up.”

Uncomfortable, Coltrane changed the subject. “I’m on a street on that bluff.”

“You certainly had yourself lost,” Nolan said.

By the time Coltrane got back, it was dark. Lights glowed warmly in the house. The officers in the Mountaineer had gotten out and joined Walt and Lyle, speaking with Tash in her front hallway.

Tash smiled at Coltrane in welcome.

“Just as a precaution,” Lyle told him, “better put your car in the garage, where nothing will happen to it.”

“Right.”

Then Walt, Lyle, and the others said good-bye and drove away. As the gleam of taillights receded, the road became dark except for the pinpoints of lights in a house farther along.

Finally Coltrane and Tash were alone.