The Boyfriend by Thomas Perry

restaurant but would have gone through it. Till walked in and went through the empty dining room to the hallway that led to the kitchen. He went past it out the rear door and saw the place where the second car must have been parked. There were seven spaces outlined by white paint stripes, and an empty one marked RESERVED.
    Till went back inside. He endured the inquisitive stares of the cooks and waiters. He called out, “Did anyone see the unfamiliar car parked out back in the reserved space?”
    There were a few thoughtful looks and a few people who ignored the question, but a young man said, “It was a Toyota Camry, about a year old. White.”
    “Did you see the guy who came for it? He would have walked through the restaurant and out the back door.”
    “No. People come through doing deliveries and stuff all day. He was in my space when I came to work at five in the morning. Overnight they tow your car if you park on the street here, or in the mall. Maybe now I’ll go move my car to my space.”
    “Might as well,” Till said. “He’s sure gone now.”
    Till went back through the front of the restaurant and looked at the Jaguar again. The guy had been pretty impressive. Though he’d had no reason to imagine Till was after him, he had stopped in the supermarket to find out. But the restaurant had been a different sort of maneuver. He had left his car in the back of the restaurant overnight so he could switch cars. He had prepared, but prepared for what? What had he been worried about?
    Till got into his car and drove. He went back to Scottsdale Road, found the right housing development, and drove to Kyra’s house. There was no year-old white Camry parked nearby.
    Till had a worried feeling as he approached the front door of Kyra’s small, neat, adobe-colored house. He knocked loudly. He heard no movement, so he rang the bell and knocked again. No response. He walked around the house to the back, which was a small gravel garden of desert plants and a Jacuzzi under a roof. The curtains were open, so he looked in the windows. The dining room had a big old-fashioned maple table and chairs but looked as though nobody had ever been invited into it. He suspected Kyra had put the furniture there as a replica of something she’d been brought up with. A home had a dining room.
    He moved to the kitchen door and looked in. The cupboards were all open. Pots and pans had been taken out. In the sink were a couple of pint ice cream cartons that had been emptied. Till’s bad feeling intensified. He moved to the next window and looked into a bedroom. The closet was open; drawers had been pulled out of dressers; the mattress had been lifted and leaned against the wall. As Till walked toward the window of the corner bedroom, he prepared himself.
    He couldn’t see in, because the plantation shutters were closed, and behind them was a dark curtain. Apparently this was where Kyra slept in the daytime. Till went back to the kitchen door, picked up a stone from the garden of succulents, and smashed one pane of glass in the kitchen door. He reached inside and turned the knob to open the door.
    Once inside, he closed the door, then walked to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He found the corner room, pushed the door open, and looked. Kyra wore a pair of pajama pants and a tank top. She was lying in the bed under the covers with the air-conditioning cranked up to keep the room at around seventy degrees. The electric hum of the fan and the whisk of air must have been nice for her, like white noise. She looked peaceful lying there with her eyes closed, but when he took two more steps he could see that the boyfriend had shot her through the left temple. Most of the blood came from the exit wound on the right side of Kyra’s head onto the pillow.

9
    The boyfriend must have begun searching the house before Kyra returned from her night at the hotel, Till thought. The rooms that Kyra could be expected not to enter on her way to bed had