Chapter Thirty-Five
Mark Waters pushed open the library door and closed it behind him. He glanced around the bathroom and saw that things had moved around a bit since the last time he had came to check on the house. He did it every 6 months or so to see if Amanda had moved in yet. Someone had been here, but he wasn't convinced it was her until he went into his bedroom and saw clothes and hi-heels on the floor. He mistakenly took Sylvia's outfit to be Amanda's.
He let a smile come across his face when he saw his favorite tie draped across the chair beside his bed. He left the bedroom and wandered into the kitchen and found a bottle of wine sitting upright that he had left for her. Someone she found in the library had given it to her for him. His long wait without her was finally coming to an end.
He didn't want to linger too long in the house and be discovered. There was no telling when she'd be coming back. Mark walked back down to the library and made the unsettling discovery that the book he needed to return to his island paradise wasn't where he had left it. He had intentionally left it beside the leather chair, next to the old desk so he could use it when needed and in such an easy place that hopefully Amanda would find it! But it wasn't there any more. She must have picked it up and somehow dodged reading where it had fallen open.
With increasing panic as the clock ticked away, Mark searched all the titles of all the books still laying on the floor, being very careful not to disturb anything, but his book was no where to be found. He finally noticed a robe on the floor in one of the aisles and quickly slung it to the side and behind him. The robe flew over his shoulder and knocked another book off of one of the shelves behind him. It fell, splayed open and as he turned to reach for it, he made the unconscious mistake of beginning to read the words of the thick book, as he touched it, he was taken to the setting inside the story. A story no place near an island paradise he had called home for almost two years!
****
The sound of high energy subsided in the house with no one to hear it when a gray, unmarked police car pulled alongside the curb and in front of Sylvia's white Durango. Both Detective Clark and Jones walked across the small yard and up to the steps of the nice, waterfront home. "Do you smell that?" LaShay asked,
"Yeah. What is it?"
"Smells like hairspray."
"No, it's ozone, like you can smell when you're around high voltage," Clark said.
"Nice, house, but I'm telling you that I couldn't get used to it at all!"
Clark banged on the front door, "I doubt anyone's home, only the friends SUV is here and the Mustang's gone."
LaShay smiled and said, "Do you have something against using door bells? Try the door again."
Clark banged on the door once more, ignoring his partners sarcasm, "The smell's almost gone," he observed.
"Yeah, you're right," she paused a second and walked around the outside of the house and looked into open windows. "I don't see any movement inside. They're gone. Want to hang around a while?"
"No, we have more files to look over at the department," he called out to her.
LaShay had walked around the side and to the back of the home. She emerged a minute later and said, "Come take a look at this."
They both walked around the back of the home and spied what would have been the backyard. Except in this case, an empty boat slip lay on the water and a slightly weathered white gazebo with a swing hung by two chains had been built just to the side of the boat slip. Clark said, "Nice view."
The view looked over the bay, and across the water, a little over three miles away on the opposite side of the bay were the hills of Driftwood stood a lighthouse on the outermost edge of land. "I take back what I said, I could live here even with the stink!" LaShay corrected.
"We need to get going, we've got things to do!"
"Steven, just chill." LaShay turned and put her arms around his neck and said, "I had a great time last night."
He slid his hands around her tight and slim waist and said, "I did too. I'm going to tell you something."
"What's that?" she asked.
"I need you. I know I can count on you, but there's something deeper between us," he cocked his head and looked into her green eyes and said, "I need you!"
"I need you too Steven, I feel it too," and she pressed her lips to his and opened her mouth when she felt his open too.
"Unit 79, acknowledge," their radio's crackled at the same time, interrupting their embrace.
They broke the kiss and pressed their foreheads together and smiled at each other. Detective Clark reached for his hand-held radio and said, "79."
"Unit 79, please report to watch command," the female voice on their radio said.
"79, 10-4." he said into it. "We've gotta go," he said to LaShay.
"Okay, but let's leave our contact card on the door so she knows we want to talk with her," she said.
"Not a bad idea," the two working partners broke their embrace and headed back to the real world of crime, mystery and no smooching on the job.
****
Amanda had returned to her rented home by the beach and changed into a pair of tight, hip hugging blue jeans without pockets on the rear. After sorting through her stacks of shoes she settled on a tan pair of double strap wedge heels. Sylvia rejected her first top selection and approved her white sporty, mid-sleeve crop top that was cut low enough to show cleavage, but also most of her wonderfully defined torso. Amanda figured she should change her navel jewelry from something big into something a little less, a basic gold capture ring was inserted and deemed appropriate.
