Cindy said with a shudder. “And I really don’t think you should go out there, either. You should wait. Get Nate or someone to go out with you. Dane would go. Dane has actually opened an investigations firm here. This is the kind of thing he does for a living. If anyone can find Sheila, it should be him. Make him go see Andy Latham with you.”
Kelsey shook her head, still feeling the burn of her encounter with Dane. “Hire one drunk to go see another?”
“You don’t understand about Dane,” Cindy said.
“Cindy, you’d champion Dane if he’d just robbed the National Bank.”
“Not true. He’s just…I don’t really know the story, but one of his clients was killed in St. Augustine.”
“Murdered?”
“Not exactly. According to the police, it was accidental manslaughter, or something like that.”
“All right, so something bad happened,” Kelsey said. “Bad things happen in the world. It shouldn’t have changed Dane into a vegetable. Anyway, I certainly don’t want his help now. He was like a slug this afternoon. I’ll be fine by myself. Andy Latham is just scuzzy, not dangerous. I’ll be back soon. Throw some quiche in the refrigerator and I’ll microwave it when I get back.” She was at the door.
“Great dinner companion you turned out to be,” Cindy called.
“Sorry.”
Kelsey, glad to feel that there was something she could actually do rather than sit around and wait for Sheila, let the door close behind her and headed quickly for her car.
She was startled when the door opened in her wake and Cindy came out. “Hey!”
Kelsey paused. “Yeah?”
“Kelsey…he might have been drinking this afternoon at Nate’s, but…why did you call Dane a drunk?”
“Let me see…Nate says he comes every afternoon. He’d had half a dozen beers by the time I got there. He was just sprawled out on a lounge chair when I arrived, looking like his mind had been fried for years. Nate said he’s been back here for several months, and that he’s opened a business so he can look like a solid citizen, but that his heart isn’t really in it.”
“That doesn’t make him a drunk.”
“He sure looked like one today.”
“He goes to Nate’s and drinks club soda most afternoons,” Cindy said.
“Trust me, he was reeking of beer.”
Cindy shrugged. “Okay, maybe he was drinking today. I’ve been known to have a few too many myself on occasion. Whatever. If you want to think he’s a drunk, fine, think he’s a drunk. I still think you’d be better off bringing a big drunk with military training out with you to see a scuzzbag.”
“I’ll be all right. I’ll keep my distance.”
“Honestly, Kelsey, you should wait,” Cindy said.
But Kelsey was already on her way.
“Help me, Dane.”
He could remember her words so clearly, and now, with the lowering sun bringing the onset of evening, he found himself hearing their echo over and over again.
There were things he should be doing. But he had searched the beachfront over and over again, and he had found exactly what he had expected: nothing. The “near storm,” as they were calling it, an exceptionally bad spate of weather that had never actually formed into a hurricane, had come through about a week ago before petering out when it moved north and west over Homestead and the Everglades. There had been no damage to the house, but palm fronds had come down with a vengeance, and the beach had been flooded for twenty-four hours before the water receded.
His first response upon examining the photo shoved under the door had been to search, regroup, search again, then think it all out and search for a third time.
No, his first response had been shock. Then sorrow. Deep, gut-wrenching sorrow.
Then had come the knowledge that he was being framed, and that no matter how hard he searched he wouldn’t find fingerprints or proof of any kind that anyone but he had been on his private beach—with Sheila.
The time for emotion was past. No, maybe it could never be past. But he sure as hell didn’t have time for the luxury of pity, self or otherwise. Nor could he fly off in anger.
Now it was time to spread out further, to figure out what the hell was going on and who the hell had hated Sheila viciously enough to kill her. Who was cunning, cruel and psychotic—and held such a deep and maniacal sense of vengeance against him?
With Kelsey in town, acting like the FBI, he was going to have to move more quickly than he’d imagined. Thankfully he had friends in the right places. But since he was withholding evidence, he’d also been aware that he would have to take everything very carefully. But now…
Now it was different.
He had an almost photographic memory, which was going to stand him in good stead right now. After the initial shock of seeing the photo, he had known just where to begin, starting on the most logical path to carry him in the direction of the truth. Except that, with what he did know, the path didn’t make any sense. He shouldn’t be wasting time, except that sitting here had never really been wasting time.
The water and the peace that could be found on a spit of dock on a little island called Hurricane Bay were always good for rational thinking and reasoning.
And remembering.
The long summer day was ending; at last the sun was beginning to set. This was the time when the world was most beautiful. He remembered, thinking as a kid, that his dad was just crazy. They’d had no air-conditioning, but his father had pointed out that the breeze always came through. The house had seemed a shack, but his dad had pointed out that they didn’t need any art on the walls, because they had the most beautiful vista anyone could ever imagine, every night. All they had to do was sit on the rustic porch and watch the sun set, watch as colors came out over the Atlantic, pinks, reds, golds, yellows. Sometimes the skies would be clear and the blue would turn slowly to strange pastels, then indigo, and then night would fall. Sometimes there would be clouds in the sky, and they would become a billowy cobalt before turning into dancing shadows against the moon. When storms came, it was just as beautiful, if different. The lightning would strike the water like bolts cast down by a furious god, and the trees would whip and bend in the wind.
Everything his father had said was true. Now he knew. Just as he knew that no meal in the world was better than fresh fish, just pulled from the sea and thrown on the grill. Odd that he would come to love this place, Hurricane Bay, when he had been so blind to its charms as a kid. Back then, he’d had no idea how great it was to own a private island.
He was glad he’d had the time to let his dad know how much he appreciated the place and had come to love it.
Sitting on the wooden dock, staring out over the water, he closed his eyes and heard her voice again.
CHAPTER
