Kelsey’s eyes instantly shot toward Cindy with recrimination. Cindy flushed but shrugged, still feeling she had done the right thing.
Kelsey took a sip of her beer. “Latham is a horrible man. We all know it. He’s a filthy, mean bastard—but that’s all. He’s scuzzy, not dangerous.”
“How the hell do you know he isn’t dangerous?” Dane demanded, wishing he weren’t feeling his own temper soar. Kelsey knew he was right; she just wasn’t about to admit it.
“He’s been around for years,” she said, waving a hand as if dismissing his words. “I used to go to that house when I was a kid. So did you, so did Cindy. He yelled, he was rude, and he created an environment no kid should have grown up in, but he never hurt anyone.”
“Really? And here I thought you were Sheila’s great friend. He sure as hell hurt her.”
He had her on that one, and she had the grace to flush. “When he was angry, he beat her a few times with a belt. He’d be arrested for child abuse now, but back then…parents used to spank their children.”
“Strange. Mine never beat me with a belt. And neither did yours. Or Cindy’s.”
“Okay, he’s a horrible man!”
“Listen to what you’re saying. He beat her with a belt.”
“When our folks were in school, the deans used to walk around with big paddles.”
He shook his head, growing angrier, fighting his rising temper and trying to tell himself that Kelsey wasn’t his concern. If she wanted to be a stubborn idiot, there was nothing he could do.
But she was his concern.
He had to keep her from acting like a stubborn idiot. She would understand that—if only he could tell her the truth about Sheila.
But that was one thing he couldn’t do. Kelsey would have his ass in jail so fast his head would spin. And then…
Then there would be nothing he could do.
“Don’t go out there again,” he said, forcing his jaw to unclench and allow him to form words. His voice came out ragged and rough.
Her eyes narrowed further still, and she replied with cool, “who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” dignity.
“Look, Dane, no one around here is really paying any attention to me. Don’t you understand yet? Someone needs to be concerned. No one else is. Therefore, in my opinion, I have to be.”
“It’s not that we’re not concerned,” Cindy murmured.
They both ignored her. Dane spoke firmly. “Don’t go out to Latham’s again.”
“Dammit, Dane!” she said, losing her composure at last, her eyes sizzling, her fingers tightening on her beer bottle. “Don’t come on to me like the gestapo. You’re not my father,” she said.
He caught her eyes then, held them hard. “Let’s hope not,” he said.
She flushed slightly. Her gaze fell from his, and she studied the quiche she’d been pushing around her plate, the grip she had on her beer bottle becoming white-knuckled.
“Kelsey, I’m not trying to come on like anything or act like a father. It simply isn’t a good idea to visit a man like that alone. Okay, maybe I am sounding like the gestapo. But he’s not just mean and nasty, he’s damned scary. Pay attention to me. Don’t go near him again. Please.” He would try anything. It was imperative that she understand Latham was dangerous.
She looked up at him, then looked down again quickly, silent for a moment.
“Kelsey, listen to him. He’s right,” Cindy suddenly pleaded.
Kelsey threw up her hands, almost knocking over her beer bottle, barely catching it. “Okay, look, both of you, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have gone out there, and I won’t go visiting Latham alone again. Actually I wasn’t planning on visiting him again anyway. It’s not like it was a social call. But the trust funds mean that there’s a connection between Latham and Sheila. I was just hoping that maybe she had said something to him. I want to believe with all my heart that Sheila is just being rude and careless, forgetting all about me. I’d love for someone to tell me she’s on vacation in Switzerland with a wine baron. But I just don’t believe it. And asking Andy Latham if he had seen her, if he knew where she was, seemed like an intelligent move to make. She may hate him, but whether she likes it or not, they’re connected through her mother’s will.”
“He’d be the last person Sheila would go to,” Cindy murmured.
“Yes, but because of the money, she might have told him if she was going to be away, or she might have made an appointment with him regarding the trust or something. Look, he’s never been my favorite person, either. But I still don’t think he’s actually dangerous,” Kelsey said, defending herself.
From somewhere a muted ringing sounded.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking pointedly at Dane. He was still blocking her way. “Cell phone.”
He backed away. Just a hair. She didn’t want to touch him, but she was going to have to brush by him.
She did. She scraped by his taut form. She still carried the aroma of a subtle perfume.
Once past him, she dug into her purse, which she had tossed on the far end of the bar. She glanced at the caller ID and said a cheerful, “Hey!” into the phone. She listened to the voice at the other end, then spoke again. “No, she hasn’t shown yet.” She looked across the kitchen at Cindy and Dane, who were both staring at her. “I’m not alone,” she said into her phone. “Cindy and Dane are here.”
Cindy arched a brow to Dane, but her question was quickly answered.
“Larry says hello to you both,” Kelsey said.
Larry Miller. The weekender who had almost been one of them. Dane had heard that Larry was around now and then, but he hadn’t seen him. Larry’s father had passed away, and his mother had moved somewhere up north. They had sold the condo they kept on the Keys, as well, so even Larry’s little place was gone. Maybe property was what made a place home. He had Hurricane Bay, so perhaps it had been inevitable that he would come back.
Larry hadn’t really been an islander, but he’d still run with their crowd. Good old Larry…
Poor Larry.
He had fallen in love with Sheila, married her, tried to give her the world. A decent guy. Studious, cautious, a talented artist.
“Tell him hello for me,” Cindy said.
“Ditto.”
Kelsey nodded. “Cindy and Dane say hello.” She listened while Larry spoke, staring out the sliding glass door from the kitchen to the patio. “Yeah, I know, everyone is saying the same thing.” She gazed at Cindy and Dane again. Her look said that phone calls should be private. But she didn’t move away, and Dane wasn’t about to be courteous and suggest he and Cindy go somewhere. Kelsey kept talking into her phone. “Maybe she’ll show up, maybe she won’t. Anyway, I’m still going to spend the week at the duplex. With Cindy. Yeah, she’s right next door. Nate’s in good shape—hey, he said he saw you a couple of weeks ago. You didn’t mention that you’d been down here.”
Whatever he said next, Kelsey didn’t answer. “Listen, I’ll call you as soon as I hear from Sheila or find out what she’s up to, okay?”
She touched a button on her phone and returned it to her purse, then slid back up on the bar stool. “Larry is concerned,” she said.
“Poor thing. He never fell out of love, did he?” Cindy said.
“Maybe not,” Kelsey said. “He still cares about Sheila, but he’s certainly gotten over her. He’s been doing all right. He’s great to look at, smart, has a good job. He was dating one of our models. Beautiful girl. But a man can move on and still think of his ex-wife as a special person. He doesn’t get down here that often, but he still thinks of the old gang as his friends. Funny, though. He said he’d been down about a week ago and heard that Sheila was around, but he couldn’t track her down. When I told him what I was doing with my vacation time, all he said was that he’d been down on business and hadn’t had a chance to really do anything or see anyone.”
“Maybe he didn’t think it was worth mentioning. He must have come and gone really
quickly. He didn’t see me, either,” Cindy said.
“He said he was down here with a client, just long enough for a drink and dinner,” Kelsey said. “Apparently he saw Nate, though. But Nate didn’t mention to me today that he’d seen Larry. That was strange, don’t you think? Especially when he knows Larry and I work together.” Kelsey had been musing aloud. She didn’t seem to mind that she had spoken in front of Cindy, but when her eyes touched Dane’s, she seemed to stiffen again.
Somehow he had become the enemy. Things hadn’t been right between them for a long time. He hadn’t expected hugs and kisses, but even so, he didn’t want to be the enemy, not when it was so important that she listen to him. But she was in no mood for that now, so he might as well get going.
Dane set down his beer bottle. “Gotta go,” he told Cindy, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“You have to go? It’s early,” Cindy said.
“I have an appointment.”
“A date?” Cindy asked hopefully.
“An appointment,” he repeated.
“At night? Does it have anything to do with an exciting investigation?”
Dane laughed. “Cindy, so far I have surveillance cameras looking for disappearing bait and a few other jobs that are equally mundane.” Well, that was both true and not true. He had taken a job with the principal of a local private school to tail a few of the rich teenagers who seemed to be getting their hands on a fair amount of drugs.
He was pretty sure he had the answer to that one. It had been at the top of his list of jobs to pursue…until this morning.
“Wow, Dane, you’re just full of fire and energy,” Kelsey said. She was speaking to him but studying her beer bottle as she peeled the label from it.
“See you, Kelsey,” he said.
“Sure.” She looked at him at last. “It’s been great.”
“Hey,” Cindy said thoughtfully, as if she were totally oblivious to the last exchange, “you know, I’ve got a great idea, Dane. Why don’t you have us over for a barbecue?”
“Cindy,” Kelsey protested. “That’s rude. We can’t just invite ourselves over. And think about it. Dane likes his mundane lifestyle. I’m sure that’s just what he wants to do. Get out of his lounge chair and cook for a group.”
Dane had the feeling that he could turn into Emeril and Kelsey still wouldn’t want to show up at his place to eat.
But Cindy was persisting. “Remember in the old days, when you and your dad had those great cookouts. Maybe Larry can come down for the weekend, and maybe Sheila will even have shown by then. Nate can get another bartender on and come, and who knows who else might be around.”
“We’ll see, Cindy,” he said.
He was startled when Kelsey suddenly seemed to rouse herself and let go of her hostility. She slid off her bar stool, approaching him, but pausing a distance away. “Actually, Dane, you know, it would be nice if you had a barbecue and had us all over.”
“You want to come visit ye olde town drunk?” he said, staring at her.
Cindy must have felt as if lightning were crackling around her, because she suddenly seemed anxious to get away from the two of them. “I’m going to wash the dishes,” she said.
Kelsey stared at her. “We used paper,” she reminded her.
Cindy gave Kelsey a little shove that almost sent her into Dane. “Look, you two, I don’t know what’s going on here, but good friends are hard to come by. Both of you, shape up. Kelsey, you’re being a real bitch. Walk Dane to the door and tell him you don’t think that he’s a washed-up, inebriated has-been. Go on.”
There was something going on in Kelsey’s ever-calculating little mind, Dane knew, or else she would just have turned away with that air of superiority she could don like a cloak, walk herself into the bedroom, and shut the door.
“I’m being a bitch?” she said.
“Oh, yeah,” Dane said. “Beyond a doubt. You’re being a super bitch.”
“And Dane is Mr. Nice Guy?” she said to Cindy.
“Actually I’ve been damned decent, considering the way you accosted me today.”
“Go on, Kelsey. Walk Dane out.”
“I’m sure Dane knows the way through the living room to the door, but what the heck. Come on, Dane.”
He thought she was going to touch him, take his arm, but she apparently decided against it, crossing her arms over her chest as she walked to the door.
“You should have that barbecue,” she said, opening the front door and leaning against the wall as she waited for him to exit.
He wasn’t sure what the hell she was up to, but he was determined that she understand how dangerous any reckless course of action might be. She might have been unnerved earlier tonight, but she hadn’t been nearly scared enough.
“Kelsey, promise me you’re going to stay away from Andy Latham.”
She shrugged. “I told you both, I was wrong, you were right. I only went to talk to him and find out if he knew anything about Sheila. I’ve talked to him. I have no reason to go back.”
“All right.” He hesitated. “Kelsey, seriously, get your nose out of this.”
Her eyes seemed as opaque as clouds, hooded. “I’m the only one determined to find Sheila. I have to nose around.”
“Look, I’m telling you, I am concerned. I swear to you…” He hesitated for a moment, thinking of the irony. “I swear there is no one more anxious than I am to find Sheila. I have a P.I. firm, Kelsey. Let me do this.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So you do think there’s a reason to worry about Sheila.”
“Let me do the worrying—and the question asking.”
She shrugged. “You’re the P.I. Go for it.”
He started out the door, aggravated and exasperated. He wanted to shake her. Make her understand. He also needed to get the hell out. He had to make that appointment.
“Kelsey…”
“I mean it. Go for it. I’ll even hire you. Is that an inspiration for you? I assume your rates are high, but I can pay them. No slacking off, though. I want her found.”
“Kelsey, I don’t want your money. I told you—I want to find Sheila myself. You stay out of it.”
She didn’t agree that she would. Instead she persisted with her original question. “Are you going to have the barbecue?”
He froze where he was, half out the door. He turned back to her, suddenly realizing just why Kelsey was pushing so hard when he was certain she wanted to be nowhere near him.
“Kelsey, you want to come over and search my place? You don’t need a special occasion for that. Come on over anytime.”
There was the slightest flood of color to her cheeks, but she didn’t flinch.
“If I wanted to search your house, you wouldn’t care?”
“Not in the least.”
“You should still have a barbecue.”
“So you could have lots of help while you searched?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Bye, Kelsey.”
He strode away down the walk.
“What time do you start work in the mornings?” she called after him.
“Whenever the hell I feel like it!” He stopped, turning on his heel, staring at her. “You know…once I rise from my drunken stupor. And I lock my doors when I leave, so you’ll have to call if you want a personal guide while you try to find incriminating evidence against me.”
Kelsey had come out the doorway behind him and was standing on the porch.
He was about to walk away, aware that he would slam his way into his car. Instead he strode back to her so quickly that she didn’t have time to back away.
“What the hell is it, Kelsey? What did I do to you that makes you mistrust me—yet you run out alone in the dark to see a man like Andy Latham?”
He hadn’t touched her—he had managed not to do that. But he stood a breath away from her. He saw the flash of fire in her eyes and the tightness that gripped her from head to toe. He thought she was about to deny that there was any reason at all
. But she didn’t.
“You know what you did to me,” she told him. Then she gritted her teeth, turning pale, and it was painfully apparent that she was horrified that the words had come out of her mouth.
“What I did to you?” he repeated. “I didn’t do a damn thing to you, Kelsey. In fact, I should be angry for what you did to me. So that’s what this is all about?”
“This is all about the fact that I came to see Sheila, but she’s nowhere to be seen, and Nate said I should ask you because you had an argument with her and then she took off to your house. And she hasn’t been seen since. And because you could have done anything with your life and you’re spending it drinking yourself into some kind of oblivion in a lounge chair. It’s because there’s something going on, and you’re the only one with the knowledge and the training to deal with it, but instead you’re wasting your time in self-absorbed flagellation.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Kelsey. Nothing at all. Not anymore. Maybe I should have a barbecue. Let you tear up my place while I have friends around. Maybe I shouldn’t trust you alone at my house.”
With that, he made his way to his car. He managed to open the door without ripping it from its hinges and even closed it without slamming it.
In fact, he made it halfway down the block before punching the dashboard.
CHAPTER 4
Jesse Crane was standing out by the dock when Dane returned.
Dane didn’t particularly mind darkness himself, but he kept a floodlight trained on the front and rear entries to the house and the dock. The last thing he wanted was someone stumbling onto his place despite the huge Private Road notice on the turnoff to Hurricane Bay and taking an accidental dive into the water. He’d never had a fear of thieves; the value of Hurricane Bay was in the island itself. Most of what he had that might be considered of value had more of a sentimental worth, though he supposed some of the collections his folks had gathered were good ones.
Still, out on Hurricane Bay, he’d never even locked his doors—until today.
“You’re late,” Jesse called to him.
“Yeah, I know. Sorry.”
“No big deal. I would have watched the TV, except the house is locked.” Jesse was tall and gave the appearance of being lanky. He wasn’t. He was honed to a T. His hair was nearly black, dead straight and worn short. His eyes were a light hazel, almost yellow, and he had a way of looking at a person as if he already knew everything they might be trying to hide. He’d been with the Metro-Dade force until his wife, also a cop, had been killed. At that point, he’d left the force and joined the tribal police.