The Multitude, стр. 17
She could join the club of stressed-out middle-class recession victims. Brewster counted himself a member. He’d earlier handled a flurry of emails and phone calls about yet another unsolvable problem at his failing day job. The office had been following him home with increasing frequency lately. A home in need of repairs he could barely afford. Was it any wonder his subconscious had fled the known universe yet again this night?
Still, problems of his own or not, he’d always been a sucker for damsels in distress. He got his sorry ass in gear, headed downstairs and out the front door.
Heavy summer air hadn’t headed south yet despite a turn of the calendar into early October. The thick atmosphere could have fogged a mirror and provided every indication the evening’s pyrotechnics hadn’t ended. The rain had stopped for the moment, but its damp odor lingered in the heavy air. A second storm flashed strobe-light glows in the western sky, accompanied by so many individual rolls of thunder they combined into a single low growl.
He hesitated. A seemingly helpless woman might have an accomplice waiting in the shadows. Together they could take him down, break into his house and…what? Handle some of those annoying emails from his workaholic office manager? His priceless art collection amounted to a few cheap prints he’d picked up at local fairs, and the strongbox in his bedroom closet—an oversized flowerpot full of loose change—weighed in at about a hundred bucks.
He gazed beyond the cul-de-sac down a winding street lit here and there by driveway lamps. Nothing about the scene struck him as suspicious. He left his porch, followed the short sidewalk cutting across his lawn to the curb, and stepped around a puddle into the street. “Are you okay?”
The woman looked up at him with a foggy expression at first but returned to planet earth with remarkable speed. She scrambled to her feet and brushed her hands down a dress as dark as her hair. “I’m fine.”
She could have leapt from the pages of a failed Brewster DeLay novel—a quirky heroine dressed for a cocktail party but wandering the rain-slick streets after some misfortunate event cast her into the midnight shadows. Her spicy perfume intoxicated him. He lost himself in her shaggy hair, gray-green eyes, high cheekbones, half smile, then drifted his gaze down a longish black dress tight enough to reveal all the right curves. He plunged lower still and discovered wildly impractical three-inch heels.
Then came the inevitable fit of insecurity. How would he measure up under her scrutiny? He kept himself reasonably fit, although halfheartedly, but he didn’t dress well, and he seldom bothered to use a brush or comb. Hopefully she’d agree light hair looked best in a state of mild disarray. He’d been getting away with the excuse for years.
Brewster dragged his gaze back up her figure. She’d arched her brows by then, evidently having recovered sufficiently to notice him undressing her with his eyes. He tried to feign innocence with a shrug. “Sorry, I’m not all the way awake yet.”
Her smile widened to full amusement. “That’s one of the better excuses for leering I’ve ever heard.”
She had him there.
“You need to be more gentlemanly on our first date,” she added.
“Is that what this is?”
She glanced down at herself. “I am dressed for a date, but we’d probably know each other’s names if we were on one, wouldn’t we?”
“I’m Brewster DeLay.”
“Carla Summers.”
“How’d you keep from getting drenched in the storm that blew through here?”
She motioned toward a house with a wraparound front deck. “Those people have an old-fashioned porch swing. I might have been tempted to spend a little time on it even in good weather.” The thunder in the distance grew louder, closing in on them, although she didn’t seem hurried by it.
“I’m always looking for ways to slow the world down, too,” he said.
“You’re fine. I’m the one who was sitting in the puddles.” She looked down at her dress again and ran a hand across a damp patch by her hip.
“Yeah, what’s with that, anyway?”
“I got lost taking a walk. Your streets are twisty.” She shifted her gaze to the wet pavement. “I decided to sit there until I evaporated with the steam of leftover rain.”
He couldn’t write a line that good if his life depended on it.
“You’ve got a she’s crazy look in your eyes,” Carla said.
“I’m clumsy on first dates.”
“How are you with directions? Can you tell me which way Sanders is?”
“The road?” He pointed west. “It’s miles from here.”
“That’s where I live.”
“You sure took a hike.”
“Tell me about it.”
Lightning flashed. A sharp crack of thunder soon followed, and a fat, chilly raindrop struck the back of his neck. “We need to get you out of this weather. Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Thanks, but I’m meant to be alone tonight.” She turned away and headed back across the street.
Carla had wandered into his cul-de-sac, probably without any ID—she didn’t have a purse—and wearing shoes that didn’t fit her story of having walked three or four miles. A scam of some sort was certainly possible. Maybe the most sensible action would be for him to head back into his house, grab his cell phone, and call the cops. They’d hustle her out of his life, taking her drop-dead looks, her easy humor, her air of mystery… “Wait.”
She stopped and turned. Another splat of rain came down, and another. The skies threatened to open at any moment.
“Come on in and wait out the storm.”
“You won’t try to…”
“Believe me, the most I’ll do is offer you a drink.”
“That’s a slippery slope,” she said.
“Just coffee then.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“How about tea?”
CHAPTER 8
While midnight rain soaked the neighborhood
Brewster swirled a glass of