His heart rate and sense of unease escalated when he saw Izzy on deck again, releasing his mooring lines.
“Shit!” Dane swore, suddenly at a sprinter’s pace as his feet hit the dock.
The Lady Havana was already pulling away from her berth.
“We’ll just take a little spin out on the water,” he’d said, again offering his smile of amusement at her obvious mistrust. “Twenty people just saw you get onboard,” he’d reminded her. “And I have another charter in less than an hour. But that way no one will be able to interrupt us. I can talk to you.”
Then he’d left her in the cabin and gone up top. She was still nervous, but he was right—she had gotten on his boat in broad daylight, in front of plenty of witnesses. And Izzy had never done anything to her or to anyone she knew.
Unless, of course, Sheila…
She could swim, she reasoned with herself. If she didn’t like what was going on, she could just jump overboard and swim to safety.
Besides, she wanted a few moments alone in the cabin. Time to snoop. Not a lot of time, but she was willing to use anything she could get.
Of course, not only was she looking for a needle in a haystack, she didn’t even know what needle she was looking for. But she’d found Sheila’s earring at Dane’s, and though he’d had a reason for it, she’d learned something.
Actually, more than she’d wanted to know. But it was important to know everything.
And here, in Izzy’s boat…
Charts by the radio. And Izzy’s cell phone. She glanced up the steps to see him busy on deck and hit the phone book key on Izzy’s phone to get his stored numbers. She was carrying a small knit bag, so it was easy to find a pen and paper. She started writing, keeping her eyes on the steps. He was going to have to steer out of the marina area. That would take at least a few minutes.
She found the number to the duplex and the number to Sheila’s cell phone. And others that startled her. Cindy’s number, Nate’s…Dane’s. Dane’s number at the house and at the office he had rented on US1. More numbers. Even the number to her house. She was so surprised that she froze for a minute, then started writing again. She didn’t recognize half the area codes.
She heard his footsteps overhead. He was still maneuvering the boat out of the channel.
In a frenzy, she wrote down every number she could. She wondered if she would be able to decipher her own chicken scrawl later. She heard the motor idling down and quickly set down the phone and looked around the cabin. A simple place, loaded with fishing gear. A refrigerator, a small cooktop, a door reading Head. A small archway to an aft bunk. Cushioned seats lined both sides. She lifted the seats, knowing there was storage beneath. More fishing gear. A couple of metal boxes holding…what? A woman’s bikini, neatly folded. Sandals on top. Sheila’s? A purse…
Kelsey glanced back toward the steps. Listened. The motor was still running. She opened the purse. Lipstick, pen, small plastic bag holding a greenish-brown tobacco-like substance. She sniffed it. Grass. A compact initialed with the letters SEW. Sheila Elizabeth Warren.
The motor went still.
Kelsey dropped the purse back in the seat, closed the cushion lid. Sat. She was breathing as if she had just run a marathon. She willed her heart to stop pounding.
Izzy came down the steps. “Soda or beer?”
“Just a soda, please.”
She was amazed to hear her own voice. It was low, calm, polite. It should have been a squeak.
“Cola or lemon-lime? Store brand, I’m afraid. Fishing charters don’t pay enough for me to supply the tourists with anything better. Besides, out in the heat, on the ocean, what do they care? If they catch fish, they’re happy. Half of them don’t even eat fish. They just like to catch them, watch them struggle and say they caught the biggest one. What do you think that says about people?”
“I think it says most people realize that the big fish are born to hunt the little fish. That they rip apart their own kind at the first sign of weakness,” Kelsey said.
“Not like people, eh?”
“Is it your opinion that people rip other people apart when they sense weakness?” Kelsey asked him.
“Me? I’ve seen it happen, if that’s what you’re asking. I saw the revolution in Cuba, the good and the bad. Little children helping old people, old people sacrificing themselves for the children. I saw a man jump into the sea and drown so that the overloaded raft he was on would make it across the sea. And I saw another man knock his wife from a raft so he could survive himself. All this I saw as a child. Yes, I would say it formed opinions in my mind.”
“So whatever you do to anyone is all right, so long as it helps you survive?”
Izzy laughed, bringing Kelsey a soda and sitting at her side. Close. Brown legs against hers. “No. I think what I do is all right when I fulfill other people’s needs. I told you, I fulfilled many of Sheila’s needs. But look at you, Kelsey. Such a pretty girl. And a sweet girl, mostly. But you’re so stiff. This is right, and this is wrong. I bet you’ve never even jaywalked. And now you work for an uppity advertising agency. You go to long lunches with clients at the best restaurants, silly places where they take ten words to describe a piece of lettuce. I bet you live in a gated complex, up high, looking down at the world.”
“Are you going to tell me about Sheila?”
“You know Sheila.”
“Not like you know Sheila.”
“Right. And I like Sheila. There’s no pretense about her. She knows how to have fun. And while she’s having fun, she takes what she wants. If a man appeals to her, she goes after him and enjoys him. If he has money and gives her beautiful jewelry, all the better. If he’s jealous, she laughs. She’ll order filet mignon or a hamburger, drink champagne or a beer, have sex on the sand, in the mud…wherever.”
“How deep into drugs was she?” Kelsey demanded.
Izzy smiled, white teeth flashing against his bronze skin. “Did she shoot heroine? No. Did she enjoy some good pot or hash? Sí. And ecstasy? Oh, yes, Sheila is a woman of the senses. You see, I didn’t have the diamonds to give her, but I had something else. A world of fantasy—and, of course, myself. What I offer is good. Safe drugs.”
“Safe drugs?” she inquired.
“See, there you are, Miss Moralist, Miss Purist, perfect little nose in the air. You’ve got to learn to have fun. Let your hair down.” He set a hand on her knee.
She moved it, staring at him.
He was amused. “You married Nate. He runs a bar. You think drunks are safer than people who’ve smoked a few joints?”
“Izzy, it doesn’t matter what anyone’s moral opinion is, it’s legal to drink and it’s illegal to do drugs.”
“I still think you need a joint. You should chill out a little.”
“Izzy, I don’t want to chill out. I want to find Sheila.”
He frowned suddenly. “I told you. Sheila comes, and Sheila goes. Except that…”
“Except that what, Izzy. Please, help me.”
He shrugged. “Sheila did tell me that she had been a fool. She said that when a man was part of the past, he should be kept in the past.” He hesitated, then looked at her squarely. “You know, Sheila saw a lot as a child, too. Maybe that’s why we understand each other so well.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She never talked to you about her mother?”
“Her mother? Her mother died.”
“She did. But she was a busy lady before that. She and old Andy Latham, they were two of a kind. She had the money, but she was willing to do a lot of things for old Andy. And that included looking away.”
“Looking away from what?”
Izzy suddenly stood, shaking his head. “Talk to Sheila. I’ve said too much. It’s not my business to share.”
“Izzy, please, that’s why I’m here. What exactly are you saying? That Sheila’s mother ran around after she married Latham?”
“She ran around with Latham is what I’m telling you.
He needed more than…more than just one woman. Maybe two women. Maybe just watching. And Sheila…she saw a lot.”
“Izzy, please, stop talking in riddles.”
He walked back to her suddenly, arms braced on the wall to either side of her, his face just inches from hers. “Sheila has done too much, but you…you haven’t done enough. Kelsey Cunningham. I always liked the sound of your name. Good Kelsey, beautiful Kelsey, prim and proper Kelsey. Take a chance, Kelsey. Life is to be lived. I can show you why Sheila couldn’t stay away from me.”
“Don’t you have a charter this afternoon?” she asked him.
“Screw them.”
He moved closer, but Kelsey wasn’t afraid, just impatient. She wanted to get back to talking about Sheila and what Izzy knew about her. She wanted to know what Sheila had meant when she told him that the men in her past should remain there.
“Izzy—”
“Sí?” His dark-lashed eyes were half closed; his face was barely an inch from hers.
She was about to respond when an explosive slam suddenly sounded in the cabin and Izzy was jerked away from her as if by the hand of God. A too-familiar voice rang out in fury.
“Get the hell away from her, you drug-dealing asshole!”
Izzy had gone flying and crashed against the door to the Head. In the middle of the cabin, dripping sea water, stood Dane Whitelaw. Dark hair was plastered against his head. His feet and chest were bare, but his cargo shorts dripped like a leaky hull.
“Dane, what the hell are you doing here?” she asked angrily.
Izzy had recovered from his impact with the door. He shook off the blow, stood and pulled a switchblade from the pocket of his cutoffs.
“Izzy! Drop it. Dane, what the hell is the matter with you?”
Both men ignored her. Dane’s face was set, harsh. Izzy looked ready to kill. He came forward in a rush.
She had never seen what Dane was capable of before, and he scared her. Izzy was a well-built man, muscled and lithe. But Dane sidestepped him in a second, smashing the arm with the blade and capturing him in a headlock.
“Stop it!” Kelsey screamed, leaping to her feet, grabbing Dane’s right arm.
“Get the knife, Kelsey.”
She picked up the switchblade, shaking, and realizing she didn’t even know how to close the weapon.
Izzy swore in Spanish, a spew of venom, frightening. But Dane’s headlock kept him from moving.
“Topside, Izzy,” Dane said. “And get this rust bucket back into her berth.”
Izzy kept swearing, but Dane was dragging him toward the steps. Dane determinedly forced Izzy up, then out to the open deck. Kelsey followed behind, shouting at Dane. “What the hell are you doing here? He was just talking to me about Sheila!”
“What the hell are you doing here? Trying to meet the same fate?” Dane countered. He shoved Izzy toward the helm. The two of them stood like a pair of game cocks, tension knotting them so tightly that they seemed like a display of bulging neck veins and wet muscle, like a pair of fighters about to be photographed for an anatomy class.
“You have no right to be here, Whitelaw,” Izzy said. “Kelsey chose to come aboard. I can have you arrested for breaking and entering, and assault and battery.”
“Izzy, I can have you arrested for so many felonies, your head would spin.”
“You can’t have me arrested for what you think, Whitelaw, and you have no proof of anything.”
“You might be surprised at what kind of proof I have, Garcia.”
Kelsey didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on, but Dane’s words gave Izzy pause. He turned around, cursing Dane in Spanish. She and Dane were both well enough acquainted with the language to know what he was saying, but the words had no effect on Dane, who didn’t move, just stood stolidly watching as Izzy raised anchor and gunned the motor. The sound of it suddenly filled the air, and he walked to the helm, guiding the Lady Havana back toward the marina.
As the boat moved, the breeze picked up. Other boats filled the horizon, sailboats, fishing boats, dive boats. The sky remained blue, lightly touched by clouds. Oddly beautiful.
As the Lady Havana slowed into the “No Wake” zone, they all remained stiffly silent. When they reached the berth, Dane leaped from the boat, ready to tie her to the moorings. As the two men secured the boat as naturally as men who had been working together all their lives, it seemed impossible to believe that they had just been at each other’s throats. The moment the boat was tied, Dane reached down to help Kelsey onto the dock. She ignored his hand, hopping out. She had been around boats just as long as the two of them had.
Izzy’s afternoon group, five men of varying ages, all pale, two with the paunchy bellies of the weekday-business-warrior-weekend-couch-potato, were waiting on the dock, confused because there had been no boat waiting for them.
Dane spoke softly. “Don’t even think about taking Kelsey out again, Izzy.”
“Why? You afraid of what I’ll say to her?”
“I’m afraid of what you’ll do to her. You want to discuss this more now, or do you want to carry on your business and take your tourists out?”
Izzy turned his back on Dane. His easy smile back in place, he approached one of the waiting party with his hand extended. “Señor Huntsville. Good. You’re on time.”
As Izzy kept talking to his group Dane started walking down the dock, toward the path out to the parking lot.
Kelsey ran after him, tapping him angrily on the back and forcing him to turn around.
“Look, I don’t need a bodyguard. I could have taken care of myself with Izzy.”
“You think so?”
“We were talking.”
“Kelsey, you can’t even close a switchblade.”
“So? Izzy wasn’t going to rape and kill me.”
He looked at her with disgust and turned, ready to walk away again.
“Dane!”
“What?” He turned back with aggravation.
“What the hell just went on back there? How did you get on the boat? Why were you so convinced I was in danger, and what is it that you think Izzy has done?”
“Izzy is scum. I can just about prove that he’s the supplier behind the drugs being sold at the local high school. He’s dangerous, Kelsey, whether you want to believe it or not. As to how I got there, I hitched a ride on a dive boat, dove in and swam across. I destroyed a shirt and lost a good pair of boat shoes in the process, too. And what the hell kind of thanks do I get from you? None. You’re too busy telling me that you didn’t need a bodyguard.”
“I’ve known Izzy most of my life.”
“So? Did you know he has a rap sheet for assault? Or that he was also accused of date rape? The girl refused to prosecute, probably because she was paid off. I just didn’t want to see you in her position. You don’t want to believe me? Talk to Hans at the sheriff’s office.”
Kelsey could feel her cheeks going red as he spoke. Maybe she had been crazy. Really crazy. She had found a purse that definitely belonged to Sheila, but then again, he hadn’t denied that he saw Sheila frequently.
Sheila’s earring had been at Dane’s. Her purse had been on Izzy’s boat.
Then there were all the numbers she’d found on Izzy’s cell phone.
It was true that for a few minutes she had been afraid. But now she found herself inclined to believe that Izzy wouldn’t have hurt her, nor would he have forced her into anything. He had pushed, but pushing was his way.
“Lots of people saw me get on that boat. Only an idiot would have harmed me.”
“Or a guy so aggressive and confident he believes himself immune to the law. But hey, Kelsey, what the hell? I’m the last person you want help from, right?”
“It’s not that, Dane, but you really don’t have to follow me around.”
“I wasn’t following you around, Kelsey. I simply happened to be there at the same time you were. But what the hell, you’re right. You’re free and over twenty-one. I can’t stop y
ou. Just keep on seeing every psychotic scumbag in town. I’ll do my best to quit trying to keep you from putting yourself in harm’s way.”
“Excuse me, but how the hell am I supposed to know you’re not a psychotic scumbag?”
He turned and started walking again. She found herself following him, regretting her words already.
“Okay, I don’t think you’re a psychotic scumbag.” He was still moving. He either didn’t notice or didn’t appreciate the light touch she had tried to give her words. “Dane, I’ll buy you a new pair of shoes,” she told him.
He kept walking.
“And I’ll replace your shirt.”
He was still walking. She could have kicked herself for following him, but she couldn’t stop herself. “He told me things I didn’t know, Dane. And he might have told me more.”
He stopped at last and turned back to face her. “You’ve known Sheila forever. What could he have told you that you didn’t already know?”
“That…well, I always knew Andy Latham was a creep, but according to Izzy, Sheila’s mother was just as bad.”
Dane studied her for a long moment. “That’s a surprise to you? And you think it will help you find Sheila now?”
“Everything I learn is a help, Dane. And—” She broke off. Dane wasn’t telling her everything, so she wasn’t going to tell him everything.
“And what?”
She shook her head. “I just feel that if I could have talked to him long enough, he might have said something that would have helped. I think Sheila was spending a lot of time with him, off and on.”
He looked down at the ground for a minute, then met her eyes again. “Kelsey, if you were going to spend time with everyone Sheila had been seeing, you’d need way more than a week’s vacation.” He waved a hand in the air. “Sheila was…it was almost as if she was on a quest to prove that she could have whoever she wanted whenever she wanted him.”
“But why? If we knew, it might lead us to her. Or to whatever…happened to her. We have to find out why.”
“I will find out why. I told you that.”