Hearts of Sand(77)

“Can you guess at all what time you got to the clinic? Did you stay long?”

“I stayed about ten minutes,” Virginia said. “Say seven to seven ten. It couldn’t have been much past seven ten, because after I left I did go to the restaurant, and most of my people were still there.”

Virginia felt ready for more questions, but it appeared there would be no more. Gregor Demarkian was getting to his feet. Virginia made herself rise, too, and hold out her hand to him. He took it.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’m supposed to send a text message, and then my ride is supposed to appear outside and pick me up. Your brother thought having me go in my own car would be too conspicuous.”

“My brother is a very cautious human being.”

“I suppose that’s one way of putting it,” Gregor Demarkian said.

2

Hope Matlock had spent the entire time waiting for Gregor Demarkian wishing she had something to fend off the cold, and then worrying, because it was July, and it was not cold. The truth was that she hated this idea of Tim’s. She hated the idea of taking Gregor Demarkian anywhere. All the way over here from the hospital, he had sat beside her in the front seat and stared through the windshield as if he had X-ray vision. Then he’d made a few comments that made no sense at all. Then he’d thanked her, and she had said “You’re welcome,” without knowing what he was welcome to.

When the text message came saying Hope could pick him up again, she turned on the engine of her car and left it in park for a minute or two. Then she inched carefully out into the street and around the corner. She was so enormously stressed, she could barely breathe.

She saw the tall man coming down the walk toward her and sped up just a little. There was no reason to crawl down the road as if she were casing the condominiums.

Gregor Demarkian was almost at the car. Hope looked up and down his incredibly tall body and shivered a little. Then she pulled the car to a stop. Demarkian opened the passenger side door and got in.

“Thank you,” he said. “This was very good of you.”

There it was again, the thank-you. Hope drove carefully through the streets of the complex and then out onto the two-lane blacktop that she knew would swing around and end up near Beach Drive. There shouldn’t be many people on Beach Drive tonight.

Hope slid a look at Demarkian. He was staring straight ahead out the windshield. It was unnerving.

“You’re at Darlee Corn’s place, aren’t you?” Hope said, because she really couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

Demarkian nodded. “The Switch and Shingle,” he said. “I still don’t know what that means.”

“I don’t know that it’s supposed to mean anything,” Hope said.

“I hope I haven’t gotten you at a bad time,” Demarkian said. “He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he? The man who died tonight?”

“We grew up together,” she said. “We used to hang around together in high school. It was a long time ago.”

“You didn’t see him recently?”

“Well, I did see him,” Hope said. “I mean, we lived here, you know, and he was around. And sometimes we ran into each other.”

“Did I take you out of your way?” Demarkian asked her. “Did you have to come out and pick me up?”

“Oh, no,” Hope said. “I was at the emergency room. I didn’t used to go to the emergency room when my heart didn’t feel right, but Tim says it’s important now that if we have emergency room problems we go to the one at the hospital. It’s very expensive. And it isn’t true what they say about how you go to the emergency room and you never get charged. You get bills, and big ones. And they don’t go away.”

“Are you feeling all right now?” Demarkian asked. “Should we get you someplace?”

“No, no,” Hope said. “I’m fine. It was just stress. And, you know, I’m confused.”

“Confused about what?”

Hope took in enough air to power a sailboat and had at it. “The rumors around town say you already know who killed Chapin. That it was that man, Ray Guy Pearce, the one who publishes all the conspiracy books. But why would Ray Guy Pearce want to kill Kyle?”

“I don’t think he did kill Kyle Westervan,” Demarkian said. “In fact, I know he didn’t. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think he killed Chapin Waring, either.”

“Really?” Hope said. “Because I’ve been worried about it ever since I heard.”

“Why?”

Hope felt her body squirming against the wheel, and tried to make it stop. “It was just,” she said, and then decided she was going after it the wrong way. “I know Ray Guy Pearce,” she said finally. “I mean, I’ve met him. I went in to see him just this week.”