Hurricane Bay Read online

  They’d all grown so far apart over the years.

  Well, except for the fact that she worked with Larry, who had been instrumental in getting her into Sherman and Cutty, the advertising and promotions firm where she worked in the conceptual design department. Then, of course, Cindy and Nate were still close friends. And maybe she hadn’t really been that far away, because she had kept up with Cindy. And Nate. Despite the fact that she and Nate had been married and divorced in the blink of an eye. Oddly enough, though totally unsuited to be husband and wife, she and Nate had made it as friends. When she thought back, she was angry with herself for what she had done, marrying him. Of course, she had felt empty then, hurt and very alone. The void in her life had seemed like a bottomless pit. There had been nothing she wanted more then than to get away. And Nate…Nate had never been going anywhere. He’d loved Key Largo and known he was going to stay from the time he’d been a boy. Maybe she had thought of marriage as a means to run away. Whatever her thinking, it had been wrong, and she had done nothing but hurt Nate. Still, it seemed he had forgiven her. And he was happy. He loved his Sea Shanty. Loved fishing, diving, boating and just being in the sun. He had never talked about anything other than living his life right here.

  Just as Sheila and Dane had talked about nothing but moving on.

  She understood why with Sheila. And with Dane…maybe she understood him, too.

  But they’d both come back.

  And now she was back here, as well, especially to see Sheila. Except that Sheila had invited her down, sent her the key to the duplex and never appeared herself.

  “Have you been out to see Sheila’s stepfather yet?” Cindy asked cautiously.

  Kelsey experienced a slight and involuntary shudder. “No,” she said, her admission rueful.

  “Well, neither have I,” Cindy murmured. “And he’s actually the man we should be asking about her.”

  “I’m surprised she keeps in any kind of contact with him.”

  “She has to. They’re connected by her mother’s trust fund.”

  “You know what?” Kelsey said, suddenly decisive. “I’m going out there right now.”

  “Wait a minute! Why?” Cindy asked. “We’re going to have beer and quiche. Kelsey, you have to eat, you know. You can go out and see Andy Latham anytime. Go tomorrow in the daylight.”

  “It’s still daylight now,” Kelsey said. She was already at the door, slipping her sandals back on. “I suppose I really should have gone out there to see him first.”

  “Why? Sheila hated him, you know that. If she had plans, she’d never have shared them with him. Not that she really made too many long-term plans. I lived in the other half of the same building, and I never knew what she was doing.”

  “You just said she had to keep in contact with him because of her mom’s trust fund. He still might know something,” Kelsey said.

  Cindy sighed. “Kelsey, her car is gone, so she obviously drove somewhere. Maybe you should start by looking for the car instead of with her stepdad. Though I still think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

  “Cindy, she knew I could only take so much time off. And she really wanted to see me. She was worried about something.”

  Cindy was silent, which made Kelsey aggravated—with herself and with everyone else. Maybe they were right. She hadn’t seen Sheila in forever. A sense of guilt had brought her here, but the fact that she was feeling guilty didn’t mean that Sheila had suddenly become responsible, or that she wouldn’t forget her plans with Kelsey the same way she forgot plans with anyone else. Sheila might have talked to her, sounding desperate, then forgotten the plans they’d made just a few minutes later.

  “Want to come with me?” she asked Cindy.

  “No,” 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 t
he 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 2

  “Help me, Dane.”

  Sheila’s voice was an echo in his head. A ghostly reproach.

  He didn’t need to keep hearing it. He’d already damned himself a hundred times over.

  He’d been sitting here that night, just as he was now, the last time he’d seen Sheila arrive at Hurricane Bay.

  But before that…

  Would things have been different if he hadn’t seen her in action just that day?

  He’d been at the Sea Shanty just before she had come over. He’d been drinking soda water with lime, discussing surveillance cameras with Nate. Nothing big had happened. Nate thought that maybe one of his bartenders had decided he wasn’t quite making it on tips and was helping himself to the till. Dane didn’t intend to work for Nate, and he had no intention of charging for the advice he gave. Sheila had been there, too. She came almost every afternoon at about five.

  She never bought her own drinks.

  Maybe she hadn’t known he was there. Maybe she had known and hadn’t cared. Once upon a time, way back when, he and Sheila had been something of a twosome. But he had to admit, he’d never been in love with her. From the time he had been a little kid, he’d had a path in mind for himself, a plan for his life. A lot of that had come from Mr. Cunningham and Joe, but whatever the reason, his future had been the burning essence in his mind.

  He hadn’t wanted to wind up a fisherman in Key Largo, hoping for a catch, dodging the tourists, sucking up to the tourists, watching restaurant managers come and go.

  If anything, he’d been determined he was going to own the restaurants.

  And Sheila…

  Well, at one time she might have loved him in her way. But she’d been just as intent on her own path. She’d wanted out. And getting out had meant more to Sheila than attaching herself to a man with no specific prospects, even if he had ambition. She’d spent her high school years sizing up the tourists and the weekenders—Floridians who usually lived fairly close to Key Largo, where they kept condos or vacation homes, and left their prestigious jobs in the city on Friday after work and returned Sunday night, ready to go back to work on Monday morning.

  But he’d always thought he was her friend. They’d had their occasional thing together, even after their passionate breakup way back when. But not in the last few years. Not since he’d finished his military obligations, settled in the St. Augustine area, opened Whitelaw Investigations…and fallen in love with Kathy Malkovich.

  He’d seen Sheila a few times since he’d retreated back home. Only with other friends, mostly, or sitting around the bar. She’d even shown up at his place once with Nate when they’d made a major dolphin fish haul a few weeks back and barbecued it on the grill at his place. Because of their past history, people were making more of it than it had been.

  Nate had talked about Sheila’s current activities, then cut himself off, remembering that she and Dane had once been more than friends. The usual guy talk had sounded too coarse, even for Nate.

  So he should have known. Sheila had always been a flirt. And she was soundly of the opinion that most people fell out of love in life, and that some guys were good in bed and some guys weren’t, so going to bed with a man because he could offer her something was in no way a sin. Look at the jerks most women slept with because they thought they were in love, or thought the guy was decent, she always said.

  Sheila gave new meaning to the term “jaded.”

  That afternoon, though, just a week ago, he had really seen her in action for the first time. Seen her work her “magic” at the bar.

  So he was a little jaded himself. Not exactly sunk in despair, but then again, not ready to go out and tackle the world. And when he had watched Sheila, he’d experienced some strange sensations. Relief, for one. He was thankful they’d never gotten serious or—God forbid—married each other. He felt sorrow, too, remembering the kid she had been. And he had also felt a bit of disgust, wondering what the hell she was doing. There she was, a beautiful woman, doing things she didn’t need to do. She was young, with the world in front of her, and she had seemed to be on the path of self-destruction.

  Her sole purpose was apparent from the minute she climbed on a bar stool next to a guy. First there had been the middle-aged Hispanic man sporting the loud jewelry. Heavy gold chains had hung around his neck, and his fingers had been bedecked with gold and diamonds. Sheila had crawled atop a chair with a cigarette, asking for a light. They’d started talking, and he’d bought her a drink, but he hadn’t stayed long. There had been a woman waiting for him out on the patio. Before he’d left, however, Sheila had written something on a piece of paper and given it to him.

  Then there had been the younger guy, maybe twenty-five. His cutoffs had carried a designer label, and his sandals were straight from the pages of GQ. His T-shirt had sported a label, as well—not just designer but top designer. Even if he ever got as rich as Croesus, Dane couldn’t see spending that kind of money on a T-shirt.

  Sheila had been studying her drink when the young guy had walked in. She must have had some kind of natural radar, because she’d turned around immediately, seen her new quarry, squashed out her cigarette and knocked another out of the pack in front of her.

  They’d talked for a long time. And again Sheila had given him her number.

  No one had appealed to Sheila after that. She’d noticed Dane at the back of the bar by then. She might have colored just a little, seeing him there
. Then she’d tossed her long dark hair and come over.

  “So…it’s the long-lost home boy nursing his woes at the shanty bar, huh?”

  “Hi, Sheila.”

  She’d lit her own cigarette then and tapped her matches on the bar.

  “See, old flame, men do still find me attractive,” she’d said softly.

  “Sheila, you’re beautiful, and you know it.”

  That had brought a smile to her lips. “But it isn’t enough, is it?”

  He remembered lifting his hands with a certain aggravation. “It depends on what you want. What the hell are you doing?”

  She looked at him. “Do you remember when you liked me, Dane?”

  “Sheila, I still like you. You’re a friend.”

  That brought another smile. “You never loved me.”

  That seemed out of the blue. “You never loved me.”

  She looked ahead. “We both wanted to get out, and here we are again. You loved her, though, huh? That woman in St. Augustine.”

  He didn’t answer because she didn’t allow him to, rushing back in. “What’s wrong with me, Dane?”

  “Sheila, there’s nothing wrong with you. We just didn’t have the commitment, the shared interests, the right whatever.”

  She shook her head, staring ahead. “I couldn’t stay with Larry, either. Why not? I should have. It’s like I’m always looking for…I don’t know.” She stared at him. “Hey, want to sleep with me?”

  “Sheila—”

  “Oh, yeah. I heard. You’re still in mourning. I wish you weren’t. I’d feel…secure if I were with you.”

  “Sheila, feeling secure isn’t a reason to sleep with a guy. Any more than money is.”

  She turned to look at him with amusement. “Money is as good a reason as any. Come on, Dane, aren’t you feeling just a bit of the old magic?” She reached out beneath the bar, long delicate fingers light on his thigh, then zeroing in.