"Santa Fe Edge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Woods Stuart)

32

Todd Bacon left La Fonda and stepped into the Plaza, the main square of Santa Fe. Two sides of the area contained shops and art galleries, while a third side was taken up by the old Palace of the Governors, the seventeenth-century seat of power in the city’s early days. The fourth side was of less interest to him, since it was mostly taken up by restaurants and a bank.

He began working his way through the shops on the opposite side from the Palace of the Governors. They specialized mostly in women’s clothing and art. He wandered through each shop, looking cursorily at its wares and paying particular attention to the female shoppers. They came in all shapes and sizes except one-fairly tall, slender, with noticeable breasts: Those seemed to be in short supply.

He tried the west side of the Plaza, which had more art and less clothing, but came up dry. Finally he turned his attention to the Palace of the Governors.

An Indian street market featuring silver jewelry and some pottery took up most of the broad sidewalk under a portico, and the crowd was thick around the sellers, who had spread their wares on blankets. Todd drifted through the crowd, glancing at the displays but paying more attention to the shoppers.

They seemed to be mostly tourists, sloppily dressed and carrying shopping bags. Then one woman stopped him in his tracks: She fit the physical description of Lauren Cade-five-seven, made taller by western boots that looked new; chestnut-colored hair; and a tight sweater, secured at the waist with a broad belt and a silver buckle that accentuated her breasts, which were more than ample.

She would have attracted his attention at any time, but since she was the first woman he had seen who matched what he was looking for, he had trouble keeping his eyes off her.

She locked eyes with him for a moment, then went back to looking at jewelry. He noticed that she was wearing a gold wedding band. That would have been disappointing on a personal level, but it fit a woman who was traveling with a man.

Todd had a creepy feeling that he was being watched from behind, and it occurred to him that if he was right about the woman, her companion might be nearby, and if it was Teddy Fay, he was dangerous, even in a public place.

He turned around and scanned the faces of the men present: Two of them could be Teddy, he thought, but they were both with women, so he turned back to watch the putative Lauren. She was nowhere to be seen.

Todd began searching the crowd for her, trying not to show the panic he felt at losing her. Then his eyes swept the Plaza and he saw her, already on the other side of the square, disappearing down a side street. He broke out of the crowd and began to run.

LAUREN MADE IT AROUND the corner, but as she hazarded a glance back, she saw the man break from the crowd and start across the Plaza. Damn, she thought, another two seconds and he wouldn’t have seen her.

She hurried across the street and into a building that had a restaurant on the ground floor and a stairway up to galleries on a mezzanine. She ran up the stairs and looked for a way out of the rear of the building. An exit sign over a door drew her, and she opened it to find fire stairs descending to an exterior door. In a moment she was out the rear of the building and into a parking lot that faced the street behind. She ran to the sidewalk and turned up the street in the general direction of where she had parked the car, near the cathedral.

TODD REACHED THE CORNER and surveyed the street, which was not crowded. He couldn’t see her anywhere. He started down the street, looking through the windows of each shop, then crossed and worked his way up the other side, toward the Plaza. She was nowhere to be found.

LAUREN CROSSED THE STREET in front of the cathedral and hurried to where she had parked the green Volvo station wagon. Before she approached the car she checked carefully to be sure the man was not behind her, then she jumped into the car, got it started and pulled into traffic, which was moving slowly because of a stop sign at the end of the block.

She kept checking the rearview mirror, looking for the man, but she didn’t see him. Then it was her turn at the stop sign, and a moment before she was able to turn, she checked the mirror again and saw him come running around the corner into her block.

TODD STOOD ON the bumper of a pickup truck parked on the block, to give himself some more height, and looked up and down the street. The slow-moving traffic was being held up by a stop sign.

He got down from the truck’s bumper and began walking down the middle of the street, checking the driver of each car.

LAUREN TURNED RIGHT AT the stop sign, because that would put her on the opposite side of the car from her pursuer. She forced herself not to do it quickly, because that might attract his attention. Ahead of her was a long, straight stretch of roadway, leading to and crossing a main artery, so she took the first left, then another, then a right, then another right, which she hoped would keep her out of his line of sight.

TODD REACHED THE CORNER just after a green Volvo station wagon made a turn to the right, then drove away. A woman was at the wheel, but all he could see was the back of her head. He began running, but before he could close the distance between them she turned left, and he lost sight of her again. By the time he reached the next corner she had disappeared. The big problem was, he had no idea if the woman in the car was the woman at the Indian market.

LAUREN MADEIT BACK to Canyon Road, then turned onto Garcia Street and pointed the car toward home, constantly checking her mirror. Once home, she pulled into the garage and closed the door behind her. She jumped out of the car and ran into the kitchen, where Teddy was sipping a cup of tea.

“I think I got made,” she said.

“Where?”

“At the jewelry market in front of the Palace of the Governors,” she said. “When he turned his back for a moment I got out of there, but I think he spotted me. Then I lost him for about ten minutes, but he nearly caught up to me in traffic, though he couldn’t have had any idea which car I was in.”

“Do you think the Volvo is blown?” Teddy asked.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Describe the man.”

“Six feet, a hundred and eighty, short, sandy hair, sort of muscular, like he works out a lot.”

“Did you make eye contact?”

“Once, just for a second, then he turned around and looked at the people behind him. He may have been looking for you.”

Teddy put his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. “He’s lucky I wasn’t there,” he said.