Once off the highway, the woman proceeded at precisely forty-five miles an hour through the township's preamble of gas stations, tourist hotels, and fast-food joints. Then on the far side of all that quick, cheap, and easy, things started to get expensive. Grand houses, the kind that were set back on lawns that looked like carpets, began to crop up, their low, loose stone walls quaintly crumbling at the sides of the road. She bypassed all of the estates, however, finally pulling over into the parking lot of a little park that had a river view.
Just as she got out, he drove right by her, his head turning in her direction, measuring her.
A hundred yards later, out of sight from where she was, Assail stopped his car on the shoulder of the road, emerged into the biting wind, and did up the buttons on his double-breasted coat. His loafers were not ideal for tracking through the snow, but he didn't care. His feet would put up with the cold and the wet, and he had a dozen more pairs waiting for him in his closet at home.
As her vehicle, not her body, had the tracking device on it, he kept his eyes on her. Sure enough, she was putting those cross-countries on, and then, with a white ski mask over her head and the pale camos covering her lithe body, she all but disappeared into the blue-washed winter landscape.
He stayed right with her.
Flashing out ahead at clips of fifteen to twenty yards, he found pines to shield himself behind as she progressed back toward the mansions, her skis eating up the snow-covered ground.
She was going to go to one of those big houses, he thought as he kept pace with her, anticipating her direction and, for the most part, guessing correctly.
Every time she went by him without knowing he was there, his body wanted to jump out at her. Take her down. Bite her.
For some reason, this human made him hungry.
And cat and mouse was very erotic, especially if only the cat knew the game was afoot.
The property she eventually infiltrated was nearly a mile away, but in spite of the distance, her blistering pace on those skis didn't lag in the slightest. She entered at the front right corner of the lawn, stepping up on the perennial low wall, and then resuming her course.
This made no sense. If she were compromised, she was an extra distance away from her car. Surely the nearer edge would have made more sense? After all, and in either case, she was exposed now, no trees to offer cover, no possible defense against trespassing available to her if she were sighted.
Unless she knew the owner. In which case, why hide yourself and sneak up at night?
The seven- or eight-acre lawn gradually rose toward a fifteen- to twenty-thousand-square-foot stone house, modernist sculptures sitting like blind, shiny sentries on the approach, the gardens sprawling out in the back. The whole time, she stuck close to that wall, and watching her from seventy-five feet up ahead, he found himself feeling impressed by her. Against the snow, she moved as a breeze would, invisible and quick, her shadow thrown against the gray stone wall such that it seemed to disappear -
Ahhhhhhh.
She'd chosen the route specifically for that, hadn't she.
Yes, indeed, the angle of the moonlight placed her shadow exactly on the stones, effectively creating further camouflage.
An odd tingle went through him.
Smart.
Assail flashed forward, finding a hiding place in and among the plantings at the side of the house. Up close, he saw that the grand manse was not new, although not ancient, either - then again, in the New World, it was rare to run into anything constructed earlier than the eighteenth century. Lots of lead-paned windows. And porches. And terraces.
All in all? Wealth and distinction.
That was no doubt protected by plenty of alarms.
It seemed unlikely she was simply going to spy on the property as she had on his own. For one, there was a ring of forested growth on the far side of that stone wall she'd traversed. She could have jettisoned the skis, negotiated that stretch of ten- to twenty-foot-high bramble, and gotten plenty of view shed to the house. For another? In that case, she wouldn't need whatever was in the backpack she'd slung onto her shoulders.
The thing was nearly big enough to carry a body in, and it was full.
As if on cue, she stopped, got out her binoculars and surveyed the property, staying stock-still, only her head subtly moving. And then she started across the lawn proper, moving even faster than she had before, to the point where she was literally racing toward the house.
Toward him.
Indeed, she headed directly for Assail, for this juncture between the bushes that marked the front of the mansion, and the tall hedge that ran around to the rear garden.
Clearly, she knew the property.
Clearly, he had chosen the perfect spot.
And upon her approach, he stepped back only a little...because he wouldn't have minded getting caught spying.
The woman skied right up to within five feet of where he was, getting so close he could catch her scent not only in his nose, but down the back of his throat.
He had to stop himself from purring.
After the effort of covering that stretch of lawn so quickly, she was breathing heavily, but her cardiovascular system recovered fast - a sign of her overall health and strength. And the speed with which she now moved was likewise erotic. Off with the skis. Off with the pack. Open the pack. Extract...
She was going onto the roof, he thought, as she assembled what appeared to be a speargun, aimed the thing high, and pulled the trigger on a grappling hook. A moment later, there was a distant metal clang from above.
Glancing upward, he realized that she had picked one of the few stretches of stone that had no windows in it...and it was shielded by the very long wall of tall shrubs that he himself was obstructed by.
She was going inside.
At that point, Assail frowned...and disappeared from where he'd been watching her.
Re-forming around the back of the house at ground level, he peered into a number of windows, cupping his hands on the cold glass and leaning in. The interior was mostly dark, but not completely so: Here and there, lamps had been left on, the bulbs casting a glow on furnishings that were a combination of old antiques and modern art. Fancy, fancy: In its peaceful slumber, the place looked like a museum, or something that had been photographed for a magazine, everything arranged with such precision that one wondered if rulers hadn't been used to arrange the furniture and the objets d'art.
No clutter anywhere, no casually thrown newspapers, bills, letters, receipts. No coats cast over the back of a chair or pair of shoes kicked off by a sofa.
Each and every ashtray was clean as a whistle.
One and only one person came to his mind.
"Benloise," he whispered to himself.
Chapter Thirty-six