to people is that they know they can’t get to him.”
Taylor was surprised to hear such a sober assessment from someone so high-strung he could hardly stand still on the pavement.
“I noticed that.”
“Look. Why don’t you let me give you a ride home? It’s late for you to be out here on your own.”
Taylor hesitated, and that made him fidget more than ever.
“I wouldn’t hurt you or anything like that. I could get you a cab if you don’t want to drive with me.”
Taylor glanced up and down the street. It was late. She didn’t see any taxis, but she could call one as Jethro said. She remembered the creepy guy in the pink cab from the airport, almost as scary as the shuffling bum had been. Her instincts told her Jethro was harmless. Besides, Aunt Netta had known his family.
“I’d like a ride, thank you,” she said.
“Great. My car’s right over there.” He pointed to a red Corvette at the opposite curb.
As they walked across the street, Taylor caught sight of a dark sedan parked farther down the block. She stopped short, but then she saw that the windshield was transparent, not black glass. She continued walking.
“Maxwell really did get to you, didn’t he?” Jethro said as he opened the car door for her.
She didn’t feel like explaining about the sedan. “Maybe,” she said. “Does he ever get to you?”
“As long as I’ve got my good luck going for me, nothing bothers me.”
Taylor couldn’t help smiling as he slammed her car door and hurried around to get in the driver’s side. She would have guessed that there was hardly anything that didn’t bother Jethro. He flipped the car into gear and made a U-turn in the middle of the block, causing a pickup truck to screech to a halt in the opposite lane. The truck honked noisily, and Jethro honked back before taking off southward on Duval Street.
“How did you know my guesthouse was in this direction?” Taylor asked.
“Guesthouse? I thought you’d be staying at your family’s place by the shore.”
“No. I have a room not far from here on Amelia Street.” Aunt Netta might have been able to live with the ghosts of Stormley, but Taylor wasn’t. “Your family must have known mine pretty well.”
“Just about everybody knows my mother.”
“That reminds me,” Taylor said, thinking of the question she’d had earlier, before her encounter with Des Maxwell knocked it out of her mind. “Exactly how old was I when you last saw me?”
“I’d say you were about six or seven.”
Taylor needed a moment to take that in. “I don’t see how that could be possible. I left Key West when I was three years old, and I haven’t been back since.”
“Oh, no. That’s not right. You were six or seven like I said. I remember you used to bring your library book with you sometimes. Three-year-olds don’t read library books. You were old enough to be in school last time I saw you.”
“Maybe you have me mixed up with somebody else,” Taylor said.
“It was you, all right. I wouldn’t get that mixed up. I had kind of a crush on you.” He smiled over at her. He looked embarrassed. “I used to watch you especially.”
Taylor didn’t feel entirely comfortable with Jethro’s infatuation story, whether or not he might be correct in his memory of her as the object of those affections. She was even less comfortable when he took a sudden right turn off Duval Street.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “I told you my guesthouse was off Duval.” She slid her hand onto the door handle and got ready for a fast escape.
“Amelia Street is one-way. I can’t turn onto it from Duval.”
“Oh, I see.”
Taylor relaxed some, but she kept her grip on the door handle. At the end of the block the headlights picked out white letters on a telephone pole. Vertically they read Whitehead Street. Jethro made another turn, to the left this time. It was definitely darker here, with far fewer people around than back on Duval. If Jethro Starling intended to do her harm, she was giving him every opportunity. She could hardly believe she had climbed into a car with a stranger, and a strange-acting stranger at that. She was about to make her move and shove open the door when the car slowed. The pole marker on the corner ahead said Amelia Street, and Jethro was signaling to make a left turn.
Taylor was about to breathe a sigh of relief when she heard sirens. A whirling light reflected in the sports car’s rearview mirror. She turned to see two police cars behind them. Jethro steered to the side of the road. The police cars sped past and around the corner onto Amelia and the block where she was staying. She was surprised by that. This had seemed like such a quiet street, not at all the kind of place she would expect screaming sirens.
Then, Taylor remembered the dark sedan and the certainty that it was stalking her down that same quiet block. A wave of apprehension swept over her even before she saw that the police had stopped in front of the Key Westian and were already headed toward the porch. Jethro turned the Corvette onto the same block and slowed to a stop near the corner.
“Which house are you staying at?” he asked.
Taylor didn’t answer right away.
She lowered the car window to get a clearer view. She didn’t like what she saw. Two policemen had stationed themselves on either side of the guest-house door, and their guns were drawn.
Chapter Three
Des turned out the headlights of his Jeep and coasted to a stop within sight of the scene. Following Jethro’s flashy car had been easy. Des hadn’t really decided to follow them. It just happened. She’d marched out of the place, twitching her hips in that white dress. Was she aware that he could see the outline of her body through the fine material? Had she planned to use her charms to get what she wanted out of him, whatever that might be? Then she saw him and lost control for some reason and went running off before she could put her plan in motion. Was that what happened all those years ago? Did she lose control back then too? That’s what everybody said at the time.
Des let out a deep sigh. For almost as long as he could remember, he’d been pushing the past as far out of his mind as he could get it, especially his memories of that night. The air heavy with smoke, the running, choking, eyes raw and red, his heart screaming with the pain of being left alone again. He had been the beachcomber boy. Desiree had been the lovely lady from the beautiful house who walked the beach alone. He made her laugh sometimes. She gave him a pair of jeans without holes in them and boots made of real leather. She had given him books, too, and helped him learn to read as well as the kids who didn’t have to cut school to do odd jobs for money to live on.
Most important, she taught him things about himself he never knew, such as that he was smart and had courage and could do anything he wanted if he put his mind to it. His Uncle Murph might have done those things himself after Des’s mother died when he was only a baby, but Uncle Murph was generally too drunk to
