Free The Boyfriend by Thomas Perry Page A

When she turned into one and pulled into a driveway he went past. He turned around in the next one and drove out of sight, waited for a few minutes, then drove out onto the larger street and coasted slowly past the cul-de-sac where she had gone. The door of a two-car garage was open at the house where she had pulled in, and he could see the silver Jaguar.
    As he drove on he considered how to watch her without being seen and how to pick out the man who had given her Catherine Hamilton’s necklace and bracelet. Kyra was clearly a girl who would have no trouble attracting customers. For all he knew, she might have ten a day.
    From the way she had spoken, he was almost certain that the male friend had stayed in her house last night. She’d been up most of the night with Till. The friend, presumably, had gone to sleep. Till was tired, but he didn’t want to miss a chance of seeing the man. A day from now, he might have no way of distinguishing the boyfriend from one of Kyra’s customers. This morning, the only man who would be coming out of the house would be the boyfriend.
    Till parked his car two blocks from Kyra’s cul-de-sac, and began to walk. When he’d hastily dressed in his hotel room he had thrown on a polo shirt, khaki pants, and rubber-soled loafers. Now he had added a baseball cap and sunglasses. As he walked toward Kyra’s street, he kept his mind unfocused and his eyes moving, scanning the area while he listened to the sounds. The birds here had different calls from the ones in Los Angeles, and they seemed to be much more active in the morning before it got hot. From here he could hear no sounds from the major road outside the gate, and inside the gate there seemed to be nobody driving yet.
    Kyra’s house had surprised him. He had pictured her living in an anonymous apartment in a large complex, not a freestanding house in a middle-class neighborhood. It indicated to him that she was probably making lots of money, and that she had wanted an investment. Secondary thoughts floated in. She must have a good cover story. Banks didn’t like to approve mortgages for young women who didn’t have jobs and were vague about where the money for the down payment had come from. It occurred to him that she might not have applied for a mortgage. She might have paid in cash.
    He finally came to the conclusion that he had misinterpreted the place. She didn’t do business here. The neighbors in this little village of quiet tangled streets would never put up with male visitors arriving at all hours, slamming car doors and rapping on Kyra’s front door. He had made a mistake. He turned and walked briskly back toward his car. He managed to get inside behind the tinted glass and put his key in the ignition before he saw the silver Jaguar again. He kept his head low and caught a glimpse of the driver in profile as the car slid past his. It wasn’t Kyra. It was a man.
    Till couldn’t tell much about him. He appeared to be in his early twenties, with dark hair that was wavy rather than straight or curly. He wore the sort of wraparound sunglasses that major-league baseball players wore. It was frustrating to Till that he couldn’t tell whether the man was tall or short, thin or fat. And he hadn’t really seen the shape of the face from that flash of a side-view glance.
    In his rearview mirror he watched the Jaguar glide a couple of blocks into the distance, then swing toward the gate. The car reached the gate at Scottsdale Road and turned left before Till pulled away from the curb, made a U-turn, and followed.
    Till was even more wary as he followed the Jaguar a second time. Kyra had been exhausted and lulled into a calm, end-of-the-shift mood. This man had probably been awakened when Kyra came in. She would probably be going to sleep now in her house. He was up and alert and out in her car.
    Tills mind was generating theories, but he was not able to eliminate anything he thought of. He knew only that he must learn the man’s