Page 92 of Putting Out
She nodded, but Kenny was biting his lower lip. She hadn’t seen him do that since he was seven.
“Kenny, you can’t freak out on me.”
“I’m not. I’m not,” he said, although by repeating it, he made himself a liar. “It’s getting so close.”
“Two weeks,” she stated.
“Two weeks,” Odie repeated. “You’ll be ready.”
“Hello, there!”
The threesome turned at the sound of a friendly voice coming toward them on a golf cart. Pete was wearing a cap on his head and spikes on his feet. The man, it seemed, was a perpetual golfer.
He stopped the cart and walked over, noting the condition of his precious green. He whistled low and long. “My, my, my, will you look at that.”
“I made it a little faster,” Odie hedged. “Water and time will take care of it in a few days.”
“I should say so. This looks like it’s faster than a jackrabbit on speed.” Pete took a ball out of his pocket and dropped it at the top of the green and watched it roll all the way to the water. He chuckled when he turned to Odie. “Although it could be fun to watch a few fellows try to hole this one come Saturday.”
“Pete!” Reilly cackled. “You criminal. Who knew you had such a dark side?”
He shrugged. “I’m an old man, Miss Carr, and we must have our entertainment. How are you getting along?”
“Fine.”
“My wife, Georgia, and I will be watching you. We’ve got tickets to the event. Hardest ticket in all of sports, but we got them some years back and haven’t let go of them.”
“Well, good for you. I hope I provide some excitement.”
Pete smiled. “Oh, I don’t doubt that. I was a Doubting Thomas at first but I have put my hands on the wounds and have been converted. You are a fine golfer. It doesn’t shock me at all people have come to our little island to watch you play. Might be the only chance they’ll have to see you in person.”
“What do you mean?” Kenny glanced around the course and saw nothing but short grass lined with clusters of oak trees, palm trees and azalea bushes. “No one’s here.”
“Why sure there was,” Pete countered. “For weeks now. Maybe the one fellow is too shy, or thinks he has to sneak around, I don’t know, but there’s been someone off in the woods between holes 2 and 3 where you’ve been working.”
Reilly followed Pete’s crooked finger to where the oaks and azaleas clumped together to form a wide dense thicket. She saw nothing but nature for a second and then…
“What the hell was that?” Kenny shouted.
“Looks like light hitting off glass,” Pete told them. “Not surprising. The man I saw was carrying binoculars.”
Kenny didn’t stop to listen to the rest. He grabbed a club and started running full speed for the thicket.
“Stop it, Kenny! It could just be a photographer taking a picture!”
“A photographer wouldn’t need to hide in the woods!” he shouted back over his shoulder. “What if he has a gun?”
Several paces in front of her, his long legs eating up the ground, Kenny didn’t stop in his pursuit. Reilly dug harder, but running in spikes on grass was like trying to swim in water with two weights attached to her ankles.
“More important, what if you ruin my driver!?”
* * *
Kenny pulledup for a second to assess the situation and heard before he saw the rustle of someone running from him. The person was bolting out of the thicket and sprinting across the fairway to another cluster of trees. He pushed himself harder and managed to make out a short figure in what appeared all black with dark hair just as he was lost in the trees. On the other side of the thicket, Kenny knew there was a fence that marked the out-of-bounds line.
Beyond the fence was a parking lot.
There was no way he was going to catch him in time. Not if he had a car.
