hurried to the edge of the porch and peered down the street in the direction the car had been headed. The roadway was empty, except for a few parked vehicles along the nearer curb. Could the dark car have slipped into hiding among those vehicles? Taylor moved down a step, as if she were about to run to the street and check the parked cars. She hesitated. Did she really want to do that? Her heart was still pounding from the fright her stumbling flight had given her.
“Wait up, hon.” The tall woman was beginning to sound concerned. She crossed the porch to Taylor. “Where are you dashing off to?”
“There was a car....” Taylor gestured down the street.
“I didn’t see any car. I didn’t hear one, either.”
Taylor dropped her arm to her side. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t heard the car herself. Maybe she couldn’t have heard anything above the thumping of her heart. Or, maybe the car’s engine had purred too smoothly to be noticeable. But would that still have been the case after it picked up speed?
“You just flew in from up north. Right?” the woman asked.
“What?” Taylor looked up at her. “Yes, that’s right. I flew from New York State.”
“Well, that explains it.” She took Taylor by the arm and urged her back toward the door. “You snowbirds sometimes get a little rattled when you first wing it down here to the tropics.”
“Snowbirds?” Taylor bent to pick up her bags, but the tall woman beat her to it.
“I’ll get those,” she said. “Paradise can be disorienting, you know, especially at first.”
Taylor glanced back toward the street one more time before stepping through the doorway. “I’m not so sure about this being paradise,” she muttered.
“I didn’t catch that.”
“It’s not important.”
“Whatever you say, hon.” The woman set Taylor’s bags down in front of a high registration desk that looked as if it must be a valuable antique—oak, aged to a reddish grain, topped with a slab of white marble veined by rose-colored streaks. The woman walked behind it and extended her hand across the marble. “My name is April Jane Cooney. I run this place.”
April Jane was tall, all right. Taylor hadn’t imagined that part at least. However, she was beginning to question her perceptions about the dark car. Maybe April Jane was right. The drastic transition from driving through a northern New York blizzard this morning to stepping into this land of exotica tonight might be enough to distort anybody’s perceptions.
“Now, let’s get you checked in so you can settle yourself down and take a nice, long bath. That’ll have you a hundred percent again in a jiffy. There’s even some stuff in your room that makes heaps of bath bubbles. Look in the cupboard under the bathroom sink. Or maybe you like showers best. Lots of New Yorkers don’t like to take the time for a bath.”
“I’m not from New York City. I’m from rural New York State,” Taylor said, feeling she was being put on the defensive. “There’s a big difference.”
“I suppose there is,” April Jane said, turning the leather-bound register toward Taylor. “Sign here. We do it the old-fashioned way at the Key Westian.”
Taylor managed a thin smile. She did want to get to her room. Whether she would shower or bathe once she got there wasn’t important to her right now. She did not want to hear anymore about how uptight snowbirds are or what a paradise this place was supposed to be. She was even beginning to resent the golden-brown tan above the curve of April Jane’s peasant-style blouse. Her hair was streaked with blond as further evidence of how much time she clocked in the tropical sun. Suddenly, Taylor was more aware than she wanted to be of her own hair clinging to her neck, the damp wrinkles staining her jacket, the perspiration trickling between her breasts. Suddenly, she wished she could will herself back to this morning’s frigid blizzard. She would be comfortable there, where the chill made her feel sharp and alert the way she liked to be. Aunt Pearl’s warnings about what happened when you strayed too far from home echoed in Taylor’s brain as she scrawled her name in the register. She dropped the pen and grabbed her bags from the floor.
“Let me help you with those, hon,” April Jane drawled.
“I’ll get them myself,” Taylor said a little too harshly.
“Suit yourself.” April Jane sounded amused again. “Second floor.”
Taylor hoisted the bags as best she could and struggled toward the stairs. She knew what a pathetic, bedraggled sight she must be right now, but she didn’t care. She told herself that if she could just be alone, she’d be able to sort everything out. She’d know what she was or was not seeing. She would be able to tell the difference between a harmless illusion and real danger. And, there would be no more overwhelming urges to run back home like a frightened child. She chose not to remind herself that it had been an overwhelming urge that had brought her here in the first place.
* * *
IT WAS LESS THAN AN HOUR later when Taylor wandered out onto the terrace of her second-floor room two blocks off Duval Street. She had taken a shower after all and put on a sleeveless cotton dress. The night air rested on her bare arms, warm and slightly moist and unbelievably warm. The fronds of a tall coconut palm brushed the terrace railing. The scent of night flowers surrounded her, as soft and shimmering as the silver light from the haloed moon or as a whisper of romantic memory. She understood how someone might be so seduced by this place that they could never leave. April Jane might be right. This could possibly be paradise after all. Taylor walked back inside where a circling ceiling fan had cooled the room to a pleasant evening temperature. The shower had revived her from her previously overheated state. What couldn’t be so easily cooled was the reason for her visit to the Keys. She had come here with a burning need to find out why this place haunted her so, and she had very few clues to go on—except for three names.
She had already unpacked the leather portfolio and slipped it between the bed and the nightstand. It contained a copy of Aunt Netta’s will and descriptions of the three heirs she had mentioned in addition to Taylor. There were two relatively small and perfectly understandable bequests, one to Violetta Ramone who had cooked for Netta and kept house at Stormley, where Netta had lived after it was rebuilt, and another to Netta’s longtime friend Winona Starling. The third bequest was larger and more mysterious. Netta had left it to a man with the unlikely name of Destiny Maxwell and the enigmatic instruction “he will know what it is for.”
The description of Mr. Maxwell was not so mysterious, but it was definitely troubling. He was in his late thirties, a lot younger than Aunt Netta had been. Yet, he had apparently been her frequent companion both socially and privately. He owned and operated a Key West saloon called the Beachcomber on lower Duval Street. Had he been Aunt Netta’s young lover? Was that what she meant by his knowing what the bequest would be for? Taylor wasn’t really bothered by that possibility. Aunt Netta had been free to spend her time with whomever she chose and to leave her money to them if she wished. Taylor respected that, though she didn’t like to think that her aunt might have been taken advantage of by an opportunist.
What Taylor was more curious about, however, was if Netta might have confided in Mr. Maxwell. Had she told him things about the Bissett family and its history in Key West? If so, Taylor wanted to know those things, along with whatever Violetta Ramone and Winona Starling might have to tell. It was too late at night to go calling on either of them right now, but a Key West
