Free Drifter's Blues (Erotic Noir) by P.J. Tallis Page B

balled it tightly around his gloved fist and pressed firmly against the window pane. The glass was tough, but began to creak under his unrelenting pressure. With a sharp crack it gave. Kyle used his covered fist to hammer at it until he’d created a hole big enough to put his arm through. Then he reached in and unfastened the latch.
    He glanced around briefly at the room where only a couple of weeks earlier he’d sat and been interviewed by the woman he was now risking his freedom for. Donna had talked him through the layout of the house, or in any case as much of it as he needed to know. He went through into the entrance lobby with its marbled floor, marveling silently at the sheer luxury of the wealth that was being flaunted. Turning left, he began to ascend the great main staircase, which swept to one side in an arc.
    He reached the second floor and got his bearings. Identical doors led off a corridor running left and right. The one he wanted, Blair’s study, was the third on the right. He stepped up to it, tried the handle, again expecting an alarm to go off which it didn’t. Pushing the door open, he entered.
    The tall windows had shutters which weren’t completely closed, and moonlight spilled in. Two walls were covered with leatherbound books – Kyle wondered if Thurgood had actually read them or if they were just for show – and a gigantic mahogany desk took up most of a third side of the room.
    Above the desk, instantly recognisable from Donna’s description even in the dim light, was the painting.
    Kyle didn’t know much about art, but he kind of liked the picture. It was of a small village sloping down to a beach, fishing boats hauled up onto the shore and fishermen unloading their catch. He stood gazing at it for a moment, aware that he was about to take hold of the single most expensive thing he’d ever touched.
    ‘Hello, Kyle.’
    The shock of the adrenalin surge was like electrocution and Kyle almost fell off his feet. Whirling round, he saw the dark shape in the chair behind the door. The man was in silhouette, but Kyle recognised him as Blair Thurgood.
    In the dimness, his teeth gleamed white. Something else glinted, and Kyle realised what it was even before Thurgood flicked on a table-lamp nearby and the room was flooded with brilliant light.
    In his hand Thurgood held a semiautomatic pistol, and it was aimed straight at Kyle.

Six
     
    Donna floored the accelerator of the Mercedes, sending stumbling merrymakers scurrying for their lives as she tore through the streets. It was Saturday night and the bar crowds were in full flow, which made driving exceptionally difficult.
    Shit , she thought, biting her lower lip so hard she tasted blood. Shit, shit .
    The dashboard clock said it was eleven fifteen. Kyle had planned to break in at around ten. So if he’d followed his plan, he was probably already on the run, or even in police custody.
    Donna had tried to appear as relaxed as possible during dinner, smiling and nodding politely at the banal conversation around her, but all the while she’d been unbearably tense inside, hoping against hope Kyle would bring it off. She’d felt her cellphone buzz twenty minutes ago and had felt an instant stab of exultation. Had he done the deed already and made his escape? She excused herself and went outside in the balmy summer evening air to take the call.
    But it wasn’t Kyle.
    She listened, the horror expanding in her stomach and chest. Her fist gripped the phone so tightly she heard the metal and plastic creak.
    Blair wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He’d left the conference in Atlanta some hours earlier.
    Which meant he was either on his way back home, or had arrived there already.
    She ended the call, took a long second to center herself and try to slow her hammering heart, then went back in to the dinner. She told her hosts she was a little tired and had to get back. It was late enough that she didn’t think she raised any suspicions, and she kept