Fat Tuesday(124)

Basile! He must be alerted that their strategy had backfired. But before she could even place a telephone call, she must get out of this room. She pitched herself into finding a way.

Her mother's john had taught her how to pick most standard locks.

But technology in door locks had advanced along with everything else, and Pinkie insisted on having state-of-the-art everything. When the house was renovated a few years earlier, the master bedroom had been made into a safe room, a place to take refuge should intruders penetrate the other security system. On the outside doorjamb was a numerical keypad. One had to know the sequence of numbers in order to unlock it. A key would dismantle it from the inside, but Remy's exhaustive search of the suite, including Pinkie's dressing room, didn't produce it. In desperation she tried manicure scissors, a nail file, a hairpin, but, as she suspected, the lock was too sophisticated for an amateur with makeshift tools.

She considered the windows next. Drawing open the drapes and shutters, she was dismayed to see that the exterior shutters had been closed.

Only once before, when there had been warnings of an approaching tropical storm, had they been closed. But now they'd been battened down.

Daylight was struggling to leak through.

Not that it mattered. The locks on the windows were ordinary, but the alarm system wasn't. Lven if she unlocked a window and opened it, the security alarm would beep intermittently to alert the staff of an interruption in the circuit. Someone would report it to Pinkie.

Dismissing the windows as a means of escape, she paced the rooms, racking her brain for another possible outlet.

Through the air-conditioning ducts? She removed the grill over an air-intake vent. Too small.

Up through the fireplace chimney? Hardly.

She couldn't walk through walls or seep beneath doorways like smoke.

Smoke!

The house was equipped not only with an anti-intrusion security system, but also with smoke and heat sensors, which were linked to the alarm company's monitoring service as well as to the local fire department.

Once an alarm went off, fire trucks were dispatched. It was an irrevocable signal, none were considered false alarms. Under no circumstances could the fire trucks be recalled until every sensor in the house was checked by an official.

There was a smoke detector above the door leading into her dressing area. She removed the drawers from the night table, set the lamp on the floor, and dragged the piece of furniture into position.

She lit a scented candle, kicked off her shoes, and scrambled onto the nightstand. Stretching her arm up, she managed to bring the flame to within inches of the detector.

"It won't work, Remy."

Startled, she dropped the lighted candle, which immediately singed a hole in the carpet. Pinkie crossed the floor and stamped out the candle, then looked up at her with censure and amusement.

"You look rather silly, Remy, but I must say I'm impressed by your ingenuity. You've exhibited more sagacity in the last half hour than in all the years I've known you."

In a courtly manner, he extended her his hand to help her down.

When she disdainfully ignored it and climbed down from the nightstand on her own, he chuckled."I wouldn't have overlooked something as elementary as the smoke and fire alarms, my dear, although I confess to being pleasantly surprised that you were clever enough to think of them yourself."

"I've always been smarter than you gave me credit for, Pinkie."

"You were smart enough to conceal a pregnancy and miscarriage from me, I'll concede that. Surprised, Remy? Dr. Caruth was more than willing to confide everything when I presented her with some rather compromising snapshots of her and her lover, who, coincidentally, is her nurse.

Her female nurse.

"While I'm tolerant of the sexual preferences of others," he continued mildly, "I think it's safe to assume that the society mavens who smugly tout Dr. Caruth over any of her male colleagues would be aghast to learn about her private life. Even if they suspect such they would rather their suspicions not be confirmed, which would, of course, necessitate their boycotting her.

"Now, what were we talking about? Oh, yes, your IQ. Intelligence is wasted on women like you, Remy. I'd venture to say that even Basile agrees. I seriously doubt that he engaged you in stimulating conversation before he f*cked you. And he did f*ck you, didn't he?"

"He made love to me," she said defiantly."For the first time in my life, I made love with a man."

He backhanded her across the face, her cheekbone catching most of the thrust. She reeled from the impact and the blinding pain. Her knees buckled. She went down.

"You're a cunt, Remy. That's all you ever were, and that's all you'll ever be because that's what spawned you. You may have romanticized the time you spent alone with Basile, cozy in your little cabin, just the two of you in the wilderness. But don't delude yourself. Basile is a man, and all men recognize you exactly for what you are. He f*cked you, but only to insult me. Now, where is he?"

"I don't know." He kicked her in the kidney. She almost fainted from the pain, but she clung to consciousness and staved off the waves of nausea "Where is he?"

"He dropped me off at Dredd's. Then he left."

"By boat or car?"

"Boat." Her tears were genuine as she recalled those last few moments they'd been together, both wishing there were another way out of their dilemma."I didn't want to be left behind, but " Pinkie's snicker interrupted her."Just as I told you, Remy.