Her legs cramping, she eased the ghost downward.
A tink . . .
Yes! It worked.
But then she moaned in horror. The pull had come away in her feet, without opening the trunk. She stared at the green ghost lying near her. He must've cut the wire! After he'd dumped her into the trunk, he'd cut it. The release pull had been dangling in the eyelet, no longer connected to the latch cable.
She was trapped.
Please, somebody, Tammy prayed again. To God, to a passerby, even to her kidnapper, who might show her some mercy.
But the only response was the indifferent gurgle of salt water as it began seeping into the trunk.
*
The Peninsula Garden Hotel is tucked away near Highway 68--the venerable route that's a twenty-mile-long diorama, "The Many Faces of Monterey County." The road meanders west from the Nation's Salad Bowl--Salinas--and skirts the verdant Pastures of Heaven, punchy Laguna Seca Racetrack, settlements of corporate offices, then dusty Monterey and pine-and hemlock-filled Pacific Grove. Finally the highway deposits those drivers, at least those bent on following the complex passage from start to finish, at legendary Seventeen Mile Drive--home of a common species around here: People With Money.
"Not bad," Michael O'Neil said to Kathryn Dance as they climbed out of the car.
Through narrow glasses with gray frames, the woman surveyed the Spanish and deco main lodge and half-dozen adjacent buildings. The inn was classy though a bit worn and dusty at the cuffs. "Nice. I like it."
As they stood surveying the hotel, with its distant glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, Dance, an expert at kinesics--body language--tried to read O'Neil. The chief deputy in the Monterey County Sheriff's Office Investigations Division was hard to analyze. The solidly built man, in his forties, with salt-and-pepper hair, was easygoing, but quiet unless he knew you. Even then he was economical of gesture and expression. He didn't give a lot away kinesically.
At the moment, though, she was reading that he wasn't at all nervous, despite the nature of their trip here.
She, on the other hand, was.
Kathryn Dance, a trim woman in her thirties, today wore her dark blond hair as she often did, in a French braid, the feathery tail end bound with a bright blue ribbon her daughter had selected that morning and tied into a careful bow. Dance was in a long, pleated black skirt and matching jacket over a white blouse. Black ankle boots with two-inch heels--footwear she'd admired for months but been able to resist buying only until they had gone on sale.
O'Neil was in one of his three or four civilian configurations: chinos and powder blue shirt, no tie. His jacket was dark blue, in a faint plaid pattern.
The doorman, a cheerful Latino, looked them over with a gaze that said, You seem like a nice young couple. "Welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay." He opened the door for them.
Dance smiled uncertainly at O'Neil and they walked through a breezy hallway to the front desk.
*
From the main building, they wound through the hotel complex, looking for the room.
"Never thought this would happen," O'Neil said to her.
Dance gave a faint laugh. She was amused to realize that her own eyes occasionally slipped to doors and windows. This was a kinesic response that meant the subject was subconsciously thinking about ways to escape--that is, was feeling stress.
"Look," she said, pointing to yet another pool. The place seemed to have four.
"Like Disneyland for adults. I hear a lot of rock musicians stay here."
"Really?" She frowned.
"What's wrong?"
"It's only one story. Not much fun getting stoned and throwing TVs and furniture out the window."
"This is Carmel," O'Neil pointed out. "The wildest they'd get here is pitching recyclables into the trash."
Dance thought of a comeback line but kept quiet. The bantering was making her more nervous.
She paused beside a palm tree with leaves like sharp weapons. "Where are we?"