But Kelsey wasn’t staring at his boats. She was simply looking down at the wood of the deck. She wasn’t seeing anything at all.
Dane sat next to her on the dock, where she dangled her legs over the edge. The wary look in her eyes as he joined her was disturbing.
“Hey, it is my dock.”
She nodded. “You’re right. It is your dock.” She hesitated for a moment, staring at the water. “Your dock. I was actually just wishing that there was still something here, in the Keys, that was mine. It’s strange, not having a place here. You know, the house doesn’t even exist anymore.”
“I know. So…how are your folks?” he asked.
“Good, thanks. Doing really well. You knew that they moved to Orlando?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I knew.”
“I guess you weren’t very far from them when you were up in St. Augustine.”
“Probably not. Just a few hours.”
“You never saw them?”
He shook his head. “I was always afraid that I would just be…well, a reminder of Joe.”
“They’d probably really like to see you.”
“I don’t know. It was hard on them.”
“It was hard on everyone.”
“Joe was their son. And your brother.”
“Your best friend.”
She was actually looking at him again, and the mistrust seemed to have faded from her eyes for a moment. He found himself looking ahead at the dazzle of the sun on the water, rather than at her.
“Actually I thought that it was harder on you than anyone else.” He paused for just a moment. “Do you remember feeling that—”
“I don’t want to remember,” she said. There was an edge to her voice. He knew what she didn’t want to remember.
“Don’t go getting your hackles up,” he said. “I’m talking about the break you had with your parents. Joe worried about it.”
“Oh,” she said, her cheeks growing bright. “You mean…the way I thought they preferred their son?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. He was treading on personal ground. She would either get furious and walk away, or else they would have a chance to bridge the gap that lay between them.
She kicked her feet in the water like a kid, watching the waves she made. “I felt, after Joe died, that I didn’t quite come up to what he had been in their eyes. And that my folks really had loved him more, and that I wasn’t anywhere near as important.” There was a curious, wistful expression on her face. Kelsey was beautiful. Her hair had dried in the breeze and was wafting around the perfectly molded contours of her face. Her eyes reflected the water. She was still in shorts and a bathing suit top. Her throat was long and smooth, and her breasts rose high and tight against the bikini bra. He had taken a seat close enough that their skin nearly touched. Something was stirring within him.
So much time yawned between them. She’d been his best friend’s kid sister, so the instinct to protect and defend had always been there. The instinct to touch her, to have her, had only pushed to the surface once. Now both waged war within him. She brought out something protective in him. He realized, as he had on that long-ago night, that she also brought out a hell of a lot more.
Odd that something so brief could be remembered so long. So clearly.
He tamped a lid on the urge to reach out and touch her.
He lifted a hand. “Your dad was gung-ho military. Joe followed in his footsteps. Naturally he was interested in every move Joe made.”
She laughed. “You’re being kind. To my father, the sun rose and set on Joe. And I still remember feeling totally inadequate because I didn’t seem to be able to do anything to make my brother’s loss any easier for my parents. For so many reasons, I was in such sorry shape then, and I did such sorry things—”
She broke off. He could feel the warmth emanating from her.
He was sure that he had been one of those “sorry things.”
He decided to ignore that for the moment.
“They always loved you equally, you know. Like I said, Joe just had a lot in common with your dad.”
She smiled, and the curve of her lips was both rueful and nostalgic. “Hey, it’s okay, time has gone by, and I don’t need any assurance. Actually the past is one of the reasons things are so good between us now. Dad called me a couple of years ago and asked me to come up and spend some time with them. I did. We sat together one night, and he apologized to me, told me that he probably had set more store in Joe, and that it had been shameful of him not to realize that he had shown so much favoritism. We both cried, drank too much, talked about Joe all night, and fixed everything that might have been wrong. I see my folks often now. It’s only a four, four and half hour drive up to their new place. They’re not on the water. They have a couple of acres in an area zoned for horses. Dad and Mom have started riding together, and they’re thinking about buying a couple of horses of their own.”
“I’m glad to hear they’re doing so well.”
“Thanks.”
The silence stretched out between them. Not a comfortable silence. She drew her knees in, rested her chin on them and looked at him. “So what happened in St. Augustine?” she asked him.
He felt himself stiffen. “Someone died.”
A frown tensed her brow. “And it was your fault?”
“Yes. No. Look, it’s not something I like to talk about.”
“Hey, you came out and sat down next to me.”
“Yeah, I did. So how is your life? No marriages after Nate over there?”
He heard the sound of her teeth grating. “No. No marriages. How about you? Is it true? Have you and Sheila been getting close again?”
He shook his head, aggravated, trying not to lose patience. He stared at Kelsey, and she stiffened where she sat, not turning from him, but definitely tense. “What is it that you still haven’t figured out? Sheila was looking for something, and it wasn’t me. Yes, we hung out together at the bar. Yes, she came out here. But I wasn’t in the best shape to try to solve her psychological problems, and she certainly wasn’t any kind of a balm for me.”
“But you were the last person to see her.”
“No, I’m certain that someone else saw her.”
“Who?”
“Dammit, Kelsey, that’s what I don’t know.”
“You think she’s dead,” Kelsey said, watching him.
“Kelsey, I’ll find Sheila.”
“Hey, out there!”
They were interrupted by the call from the yard. Looking back, they saw Cindy, Larry, Nate and Jorge standing and waving.
Dane got to his feet and instinctively reached down to give Kelsey a hand. To his surprise, she accepted the lift and didn’t wrench away immediately.
“We’re going to take off,” Nate called. “I’ve got to go by the bar.”
“I need a real shower,” Larry said.
“I may have a hot date,” Cindy contributed.
“I am someone’s hot date,” Jorge said.
Dane walked back along the dock and reached the yard. Cindy took a step toward him before he could reach the group, rising on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for letting us invite ourselves over.”
“Thanks for everything you brought.”
“Just call us dial-a-party,” Nate said. “Hey, come by the bar later, if you can. I’ve got a new band starting tonight. They do everything. Pop-rock, jazz, reggae, calypso…you’ll like them.”
“I’ll try to make it.”
“I’m off,” Jorge said, lifting a hand with his keys in it. “Thanks, all of you. It’s good to get together.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to do it again,” Larry said. “We’re heading back to the duplex,” he said to Kelsey. “Are you coming?”
“I’ve got my own car. I’ll be along.”
“You sure?” Larry said.
“I’m sure that’s my car,” Kelsey said, smiling.
“No, I meant—”
“Kelsey will be right along,
” Dane assured him. “I have plans tonight.”
He thought that maybe her cheeks reddened, but she replied smoothly to Larry, “I’m just going to make sure we picked up any messes we made in Dane’s place.” She turned and started for his house. The others took off for their cars, waving their last goodbyes.
Dane looked at the dying sunset. Strip clubs didn’t get going until later anyway. He followed Kelsey into the house.
She was in the kitchen, rinsing out the last chip bowl.
He leaned in the doorway, watching her. “Are you sure you don’t want to go through the rest of my papers?”
She turned and looked at him innocently. His gaze slipped to her breasts. He forced it back to her eyes.
“I have my own computer, you know.”
“What?”
“I don’t need to go through your papers. I can download old newspaper articles just the same as you can.”
He clenched his teeth with aggravation. “Kelsey, leave it, please.”
“I just want to know what you’re going to do to find Sheila.”
“I will do everything in my power. Kelsey, please, trust me on this. Let me do the investigating.”
“There’s a little coffee left. Do you want more, or should I just pour it down the drain?”
“No, I’ll drink it.”
He walked over to the coffeepot.
“I’ll get it for you,” she said.
He paused. Kelsey was suddenly being far too nice.
“You know…I think I left my lighter outside. Why don’t you join me for coffee? I’ll meet you in the living room.”
He walked out of the kitchen and through the house. Outside, he leaned against the support wall and looked in through the dining-room window. He watched as Kelsey came out of the kitchen, set the cups down on the coffee table and looked around the room. She was headed back toward the dining room when something caught her eye. He frowned, seeing Kelsey get down on the floor on her hands and knees.
He walked back in. She jumped up as he did so, her cheeks bright red. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
She stared at him in silence for a moment. “Just friends,” she said. “There was nothing hot and heavy going on? There was nothing serious?”
“What are you talking about now?” he asked, aggravated.
She dangled something in front of him. An earring. Sheila’s earring.
He crossed his arms over his chest, staring at her. “So?”
“This is Sheila’s earring.”
“You know that?”
“Of course I know that.”
“How?”
“I gave her these earrings. The stones are emeralds. They were my gift to her when she was the maid of honor at my wedding.”
“So Sheila lost her earring. What does that mean? She’s been in this house many times.”
“Right. But her earring was here, on your living-room floor. If you look at the way the loop closes, these aren’t the kind of earrings that just fall out.”
“Kelsey, what the hell are you saying?”
“You two were…you were having an affair again.”
He walked over to where she stood, staring into her eyes as he plucked the earring from her fingers. “All right. One more time, Sheila was here. I never said to anyone that she wasn’t. Were we having an affair? No. We honestly were not having an affair. Nothing so grand. Did we have sex one night? Yes. One night. We both knew that even what we’d had as kids was long over. Did I do something horrible and evil to Sheila? No. Pay attention here. No. There it is, the truth. And I really don’t give a damn whether you believe me or not. Take it or leave it.”
Kelsey’s teal eyes lit hard on his for a long moment. Then she brushed past him. He didn’t move and didn’t turn.
He heard the sound of the door closing as she left his house.
CHAPTER 7
Kelsey was surprised to arrive at the duplex and find that neither Larry nor Cindy had gotten back before her. They had probably gone with Nate to the Sea Shanty. Or else the hot date Cindy had mentioned was with Jorge. She had no desire to follow them and have a more social night, and was relieved at first to be back alone. She wanted to shower, huddle into bed and sleep. It was unlikely that she would sleep easily, but at least she could shower, get into bed and mull over her thoughts of the night.
Strange, though, the minute she turned off her car’s engine, she felt her solitude. The night wasn’t still; there was a soft breeze blowing. But the trees and shrubbery seemed to hang heavily around the driveway and create a host of shadows. The short distance from the driveway to the house became very long. Darkness almost seemed to whirl in pockets of ebony, constantly changing the shapes that were nothing but illusion but appeared to be sinister creatures lurking in the night.
They had forgotten to turn on a porch light. It was only the street lamps, standing high and at a distance, that gave any glow to the night and turned the lengths of branches into bony fingers, stretching out over the yard.
Kelsey realized she was just sitting in her car, staring at the house.
She told herself she was ridiculous, opened the car door and started for the duplex. None of the shadows jumped after her, though breezes rustled the branches, seeming to create a whisper on the night air. To her annoyance, she fumbled with the key while getting it into the lock. Once she had gotten the door open, she burst in, then turned and closed the door as if there were a tiger on her tail. She locked it quickly, then stood in the entry feeling like a fool. Shadows. She didn’t tend to be afraid of them, or of darkness, or of the night.
Yet as she walked through the living room to the kitchen and dining area, tossing her purse on a chair, she felt uneasiness creep over her.
The strange sense that she wasn’t alone.
She found herself retracing her footsteps to the front door, as anxious to get out again as she had been to get in. But before she reached the door, she managed to tell herself she was being absurd. The duplex had been locked. There was nothing out of order that she could see. There was no reason to think she was anything but alone.
Still, with the uncanny sense of something being off persisting, she decided that her first course of action had to be an inspection of the apartment. Living room. Definitely no one there, unless it was an ant-size person. She opened the door to the second bedroom where Larry was sleeping, going to the bath and looking behind the shower curtain, then checking out the closet.
She was feeling silly again when she thought she heard a sound…like a thumping, coming from the back. Standing in a closet that held nothing but a few of Larry’s shirts, she felt a chill sweep through her. Great. She was inspecting the house like a sane person, but if there did happen to be an intruder, she had nothing with which to defend herself other than a tailored shirt and a hanger.
Great.
She looked around the bedroom. Nothing. She stepped back into the living room and decided her best bet for protection was one of the heavy pewter candlesticks on the coffee table. She grabbed one and walked toward the back.
Great. The porch light wasn’t on but the lights inside were. If there was someone lurking in the shadows in the back, they would be hidden in darkness. She might as well be on wide-screen television.
Kelsey hit the switch on the wall, pitching the main room into darkness. She inched into the dining area and quickly hit the lights there, as well.
Now the world seemed a pool of darkness.
She stood still, listening. Night sounds came to her, almost imperceptibly. The breeze against the house, the rustle of branches. The longer she stared out through the plate glass, the more her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes seemed an eternity. She realized she wasn’t breathing and exhaled a long stream of air, then inhaled. She neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary. After a while she once again felt like a fool. She left her silent vigil at the back window and walked into her bedroom.
Sheila??
?s bedroom.
The drapes were open in there, as well. She could see out to the back. A long palm frond dipped low over the pool, as if it were a bony hand with pointing fingers, indicating some horror within the water. She chastised herself for her ridiculous imagination and total cowardice. She still had a death grip on the candlestick.
The moonlight showed little more than shapes in the room. She was almost frozen with the fear that one of them would move. Again she stood still and waited. She almost screamed aloud when she heard another thumping sound from the back, not by the pool, but by the fence to her right.
Nine-one-one, nine-one-one, nine-one-one, just call the police! her mind raged. But call the police and tell them what? That she had heard a thumping noise from her backyard?
So much for being alone, for being grateful for solitude. Where the hell was Larry?
Cindy?
Anyone?
Dane had been looking up information on murdered strippers. He had gone to bed with Sheila. He had caught her snooping through his work. Maybe she was getting too close to the truth. Maybe he had followed her home, and now he was out there, thinking she should share Sheila’s fate.
She formed the thoughts in her mind, but she didn’t believe them. Dane couldn’t have followed her so quickly. He certainly couldn’t have been here before her.
Besides, she didn’t want to believe evil of Dane. How insane.
She kept staring out into the darkness, watching, fighting the sense of panic. The shadow-shapes in the room seemed to loom larger. The bed, she knew. The chair. The wing shape was merely the jacket she had tossed over the back of it.
Nothing was changed, she was certain.
And yet…
She had the oddest sensation that someone other than herself had been in here.
Sheila…
She almost said the name aloud. Was she fine, perhaps in hiding for some reason, slipping in and out of her own home without telling a soul, simply because she was afraid?