Chapter 9

The voice was familiar. Slowly, I looked up into an unsmiling face I'd seen once before. He was a big man, an inch or so over six feet, with an ordinary face and medium cut brown hair, dressed in a business suit.

The gun in his hand was familiar, too. He'd slugged me with it before.

I was annoyed and angry. "Now, what the hell do you want?" I demanded.

"Carol Rutledge," he said calmly, holding the gun a few inches from my head.

"Welcome to the club," I said. "But what makes you think I know anything about her?"

"I just guessed," he said. He nodded his head. "How about the girl?"

"She's not the one you're after."

He bent to peer in at her. "Very pretty, though. Carol has a birthmark. Perhaps I should check your girlfriend, just in case!"

"I've already checked," I said belligerently. "She doesn't have one."

"Maybe I'll look anyway. I might find something even more interesting."

"You so much as leer at her-" I began.

"And what?" he said, his grip tightening on the gun.

Slowly, I began inching my fingers toward the gun at my belt.

"By the way, it wouldn't be wise for you to get any closer to your gun-not unless you want your head blown off."

My fingers retreated, and in a sudden movement he reached in and snaked the weapon from the holster. He put it in his own pocket, then made a motion with his gun.

"All right, Miss Burke, get out."

"You're making a mistake," I said. "This isn't the girl you're after."

"I'm aware of that. But you seem to be making remarkable progress, and I'd like to give you an incentive. When you find out which girl it is, I'd like to be the first to know. To make sure I am the first, I'm taking the young lady with me. I'll give her back to you when you deliver Carol Rutledge to me."

"So you can kill her?"

"What we do with Carol is our concern, not yours. I'd suggest you find her real soon, because having a pretty girl like your friend around is going to be a temptation. And if you don't find Carol for us, we'll use your girlfriend here for entertainment purposes. We'll have a little get-together, perhaps about fifty males, and we'll take turns with her, one after the other, and when we're through you won't recognize her. Did you ever see a girl who's been raped by fifty-men?"

"You bastard," I said. "You dirty bastard!" He laughed. "Chris!" Naomi said.

But I was expecting it this time. The gun in his fist shot out like a lightning bolt. I ducked, reached out with one hand to twist the ignition key. With the other hand I opened the door of the Porsche and pushed it hard into his stomach. He dropped the gun and staggered back. His grunt was lost in the roar of the engine blasting into life.

"Hangon!" I said.

I slammed the door shut, threw the car in gear, and pressed my foot into the accelerator. The car leaped ahead, spinning gravel. I pulled at the wheel, and the car responded and we pulled back onto the road. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him struggling to his feet. Then we turned a corner and were out of sight.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but I didn't slow the Porsche until we were in sight of the house. I guided us to a parking spot in the driveway and cut the motor. Silence returned.

Naomi entered my arms, and I held her close. She was trembling.

"Chris," she said, "I'm scared."

"It's all right," I told her. "It's all over."

"But suppose he comes back. Did you see the way he looked at me? He meant that about kidnapping me, about letting all those men-"

"Don't even think about it. The only reason he wanted you was because of Carol Rutledge."

"But he'll try again."

"Perhaps. But I hope to have found the girl before then. Once she's safe you'll be safe."

She forced a wan smile. "You're right. I'm behaving like an idiot. But, Chris, please find her as soon as you can and get this nightmare over with."

"I will," I promised. "But now let's go in and get some sleep. It looks like I've got a busy schedule tomorrow."

I helped her out of the car. Her hand was cold in mine, and I put a reassuring arm around her as we walked up the steps. There was no denying it had been a close call, and our safety depended on a number of things. If the car hadn't responded, if the door hadn't opened smoothly, if that blow had connected with my face-Naomi might at that very instant be suffering abuse instead of being close to me, our bodies touching.

We walked up the steps, and I fitted my key into the lock, and noiselessly pushed the door inward and then closed it behind us. The house was dark and still, with only the shuffle of our footsteps as we walked softly across the large room.

At the foot of the stairs, she turned to me and I put my arms around her. Our bodies flowed together in a fervent embrace.

"Goodnight," I said.

She opened her mouth as though to say something else, then changed her mind and whispered, "Goodnight, Chris."

I watched her go up the stairs, and then I went into the corridor leading to my own room. In the bedroom, I undressed in the dark, put on my pajamas, and climbed into bed. I should have been sleepy, but I wasn't. Too many things had happened in too short a time, and they were crowding my mind with thoughts.

I made an effort to force the unpleasant ones into my subconsciousness and consider the pleasant ones-like redheaded Naomi Burke, for example. I'd grown very fond of her in a very short time, and I didn't want anything bad to happen to her. It was ironic that in order to have her, I would have to be intimate with four other girls. Private detecting makes strange bedfellows.

I was beginning to feel more relaxed, even drowsy, when I heard a noise. Instantly, I became alert. The sound came again. Footsteps on the stairway, caus-tiously descending.

Quickly, silently, I swept away the covers and swung from the bed. There was no time to dress; already whoever it was had reached the foot of the stairs. In seconds she could cross the large room and go out the front door.

I made my way across the dark bedroom, opened the door to the corridor and slipped out. I hurried down to the end of it and opened that door ever so slightly to look through. The person was not going out the front way; she was heading toward the rear of the house, and-

I blinked my eyes and hastily drew the door closed as she passed within a few feet of me. Then I opened the door wider to get a better look at the retreating figure. The light was dim, but the fact was unmistakable.

It was like something out of a bachelor's dream: Christina Ekberg, the tall lovely Swede, with a bath-towel in one hand and a bathing cap in the other, was going for a swim-nude!