At last she shifted against him and looked up to meet his eyes, a teasing, still-sexy look in her own. “I don’t usually have to work harder to win a guy’s interest than to turn him down, but you were definitely worth it.”
“Thanks—I think,” he joked back, grinning.
He kissed her again then, because he had to. She kissed him back, but finally they broke apart and she started to rise.
He pulled her back, shaking his head. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t want to impose and take up your entire night.”
“Get back here.”
“You want me to stay?” she whispered.
“All night. I mean, we’ve gotten past the awkward preliminaries.” He spoke lightly, even as he found himself smoothing back a lock of her hair. “Seriously, what do you take me for? Someone you can just use, then walk away from? Excuse me.”
“No, I just thought that you might like…sleeping alone. Actually sleeping, I mean.”
“Not tonight,” he told her. “So…my turn to beg. Yes, please stay. I confess I’m fascinated by the prospect of waking up beside you.”
“Is that all?” she murmured.
“Of course not.” She smiled
Maybe it was her smile that did it, that and the little dimple that formed in her right cheek. Or maybe it was the feel of her body against his.
He never wanted to move.
He never wanted her to move.
They were quiet for a while after that, almost dozing. But then she moved, just an adjustment of her body against his, but that adjustment hit him like instant lightning. He pulled her into his embrace, and they made love again.
Impossibly, it was even better the second time. He realized, as he fell asleep, that it could never be just sex with this woman.
They over slept, filling the morning with swear words when they finally awoke.
They took separate two-second showers, and then Luke insisted on watching Chloe until she was safely back in her own room, so she could dress. That took five minutes, and then they were back in the car, heading north.
They were lucky. The traffic was light.
At one point, Chloe’s phone rang. It was Leo, upset that she hadn’t called him to say that they weren’t coming home. Luke could only hear half of what Leo was saying, but he watched Chloe’s face as she first defended herself —“But, Leo, I didn’t say we were coming back last night!”—and then apologized up and down.
Luke found himself liking the fact that though she was twenty-seven, she still felt responsible to the man who had raised her.
She blushed as she closed the phone. “I don’t think I’ll forget to call him again,” she said ruefully.
“It’s good to be responsible to someone,” he said.
She nodded, watching the road. “Luke, seriously, what could Maria’s situation have to do with anything on the island?”
“I don’t know, but I think I’m going to start doing my own searches—more thorough than what the police were able to do—on the people involved with the agency. I think it’s more apparent than ever that Colleen didn’t just run away, but it’s still an island, and the only way off is by boat. That’s the trick—finding out how she was spirited away, and by whom.”
“Can it really have anything to do with the Church of the Real People?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s possible that someone knows Maria is here. Maybe they came for her and realized they weren’t going to get her back, but they spotted Colleen and targeted her instead, for some sick reason of their own. Whoever they are, they must have an in with the agency to have access to the island. All I know is that for the time being, I don’t want you going anywhere alone. Any woman associated with the agency and the island could be in danger. Unless…”
“Unless it really was a publicity stunt. Colleen could have arranged to slip away—but she still would have needed someone with a boat to get her off the island without being seen.”
“But there’s always a guard on the docks. The guy with the boat could have come in through the mangroves, though he would have needed to know the area well to make it without bottoming out. Anyway, it’s a possibility, but to be honest, I don’t think it’s probable. So you—” he smiled warmly at her “—need to be careful. Very, very careful.”
“I’ve spent my life being careful, trust me,” Chloe told him.
He laughed. “Oh, yeah, that was real careful, following me over that balcony and chasing me down in the sand when I was following Rene.”
She flushed. “I thought you were going to hurt her.”
“So you call security, or the cops. That’s what you do from now on, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“I shudder to think what you might have been up to in years past.”
“Nothing dangerous, I promise you.”
He got her to her gate by nine forty-five, giving her a shot at making it to work more or less on time. Despite her worry about being late, she didn’t get out of the car right away. He was afraid she was thinking that she had made a mistake, being with him. But when she spoke, she startled him.
“Colleen is dead, isn’t she?”
“I believe she is, yes.”
Chloe hesitated for a moment, then said, “Luke, I keep seeing her.”
“Remembering her, you mean?”
She shook her head. “No. Seeing her. Her…ghost.”
She was serious, he realized.
“Chloe, you’re involved in trying to find out what happened to her, you believe she’s dead, it’s only natural that your imagination is working overtime.”
She shook her head. “I know it sounds…as if I’m crazy—but I’m seeing her. For real.”
He hesitated. If there was one thing he’d developed in the time he’d spent with her, it was complete respect for her honesty and intelligence.
“Just when and where have you seen this ghost?”
She closed her eyes, looking miserable but unable to deny what she believed. “Twice in my room. And last night, at the docks. She’s all wet, as if she’s been in the water. But not as if she’d been swimming, because she’s wearing a dress, a white dress.”
She was simply under too much stress. One too many terrible things had happened in her life.
He didn’t want to mock her, but he did want to lighten her mind.
“So you came to me for sex because you were afraid of a ghost?”
She looked at him, eyes wide and clear and beautiful. “I came to you for sex because I’ve been dying to touch you ever since I met you.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.
“It terrified me at first, seeing her, but I’m not afraid now. I think she’s asking me for help,” Chloe went on, as if determined to ignore his silence in the face of her last admission. She inhaled deeply, still looking at him. “I wanted to give you an out. I mean, if you think I’m a nutcase, I don’t want you to think you have to see me again.”
He cupped her cheek in one hand. “If I thought that I’d never see you again, never sleep with you again, I’d probably implode here and now.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“But, Chloe…”
“What?”
“Ghosts don’t exist. I believe that you believe you’re seeing one. But what’s haunting you now is fear, and sadness for a young woman you knew, even if only casually, and your desire to find justice for her.”
She was suddenly all business. “Sure. Right. Well…I have to get to work.”
He hopped out and quickly opened the passenger door. She stood and kissed him by the car. Slowly, sensually. Too sensually for comfort. He stepped back.
“I don’t think we have time to make love again right now. Not to mention that I think we’d be arrested if I suddenly ravished you on the road in broad daylight.”
She grinned, broke away and hurried toward the house.
He waited until the gate was safely clo
sed behind her before driving away.
Feeling both touched and disturbed, he headed straight back to the Stirling.
Despite his best efforts, he was involved with her now. And he was worried about her. Every word she had spoken, she believed.
His boat was just as he had left it.
And yet it was different somehow. He searched the boat carefully, but everything was where it should have been, just how he had left it.
He realized then that no one had been aboard his boat. It hadn’t changed. He had. He’d liked being alone here, but now he wanted her here with him. He wanted to keep her from being haunted by ghosts, from being torn apart by both the past and the present.
Impatiently, he put on a pot of coffee and logged on to his computer.
He was willing to admit that he was worried about her, and he didn’t even mind. In fact, it was exhilarating to care for someone so much, to remember the scent of her perfume, the silken texture of her skin, the memories so real that he felt as if he could reach out and touch her.
But right now he had to put those tempting memories aside and get on with the search for the truth.
Because he couldn’t—wouldn’t—give her up, and that meant he had to learn to function normally with her in his life.
He set his mind on the task, and for an hour and a half, he surfed from site to site, looking for information on the Bryson Agency and everyone associated with it, though pretty much all he got was press drivel.
He went onto Facebook and MySpace, and read the pages of everyone he could think of.
A link to Myra led to an article about her accident, which mentioned that she hadn’t been with the agency long when it occurred, and that she was a very religious woman, whose faith in God had gotten her through her trials. She went to St. John’s every Sunday then, as she did now. In an interview, she mentioned that she had converted to Catholicism as an adult. “As converts, we believe exactly what we have sworn we believe. Those born or raised in a religion aren’t always as devout.”
She was a convert, he thought. But a convert from what?
He picked up his phone and put a call through to Stuckey.
“Hey, what’s up?” the lieu tenant asked.
“I’m looking for the police reports on the Church of the Real People.”
“From the Teen Massacre? You sure do have a burr up your butt, Luke.”
“I’d like to see everything you’ve got. Membership rosters, whatever else you have.”
Stuckey groaned.
“It will take me some time. Faxed or emailed?”
“Emailed. I don’t want papers lying around.”
“You got it, but go to lunch or something. This will take a while.”
Stuckey hung up, and Luke realized that he was in fact hungry, having skipped break fast as he hurried to get back to the city. He prowled around the kitchen, irritated to see that he hadn’t been shopping and his one option was peanut butter on stale bread.
He left the Stirling and headed over to the bait shop, where he would at least be able to get a burger.
The usual afternoon group of retirees was sitting around the picnic tables. He waved and called out his hellos, then went straight to the shack for a burger. When he reemerged forty-five minutes later, a bunch of the men were at the end of the dock, exclaiming over something someone had just reeled in.
Curious, he walked over to see what was going on.
“Don’t that just beat all?” Milton Beca demanded, offering him a near-toothless grin.
“What’s that?”
“Granger just pulled up an old waterproof canvas bag I lost over board about a year ago! It’s chewed up some, but I got my Swiss Army Knife back. It’s sure a funny thing, huh? The bag must have floated in with the weather.”
“That can happen,” Luke said. “Well, see you. Have a good day.”
“I make all my days good now, Luke.”
“That’s the way.”
As he headed to the Stirling, Luke wondered again about Colleen Rodriguez. Even if her body had been dumped, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t come back. It might be tangled in seaweed or stuck under pilings somewhere, but the current was a powerful force and could wash her to shore a day from now or a year. Or never, he reflected glumly.
He decided to make a point of doing a lot of diving off the island. He could take one of Brad’s boats and blend in with the crowd from the resort, maybe even have Bill come with him, since it was safer to dive with a dive partner even when there wasn’t a killer on the loose.
He paused for a moment, remembering Chloe’s description of the ghost of Colleen Rodriguez.
She was wet, and wearing a white dress.
Back aboard the boat, he went online again and found that Stuckey had been as good as his word and emailed the promised information.
He studied page after page, then stopped, stunned, at a picture of a woman. She was noted as having left the Church of the Real People years before the Teen Massacre.
Her name was Myrna.
Myrna Rae Edwards.
She had been young, and extremely beautiful. Shy and wide-eyed—the innocent type cults were so good at preying on.
It didn’t matter that she had been so much younger when the picture was taken.
And it didn’t matter what she called herself.
The woman in the picture was Myra Allen, head of the Bryson Agency’s Miami Beach operation.
NINE
Chloe had just finished a patient session when Victoria called. “Hey,” she said, recognizing the caller ID.
“Hey,” Victoria echoed. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know. You called me.”
Victoria laughed. “Were you able to talk to Mark last night?”
“Yes. He’s a really nice guy, and he’s still really broken up over Colleen.”
“Yeah.” Victoria was quiet for a moment. “He’s convinced that…something happened to her.”
“I know.”
“Okay, now tell me about the stud.”
“What?” Chloe demanded.
“Oh, please. I’m talking about Jack Smith. I know you’re not blind. Half the girls at the mansion were coming on to him the other night,” Victoria said.
“He—he seems like a decent guy.”
Chloe heard Victoria’s snort over the phone. “So you drove down to the Keys, you showed him the island—and you texted me to have Mark show up. But after that…it was a nice night?”
“Yes, it was a lovely night,” Chloe said.
“How nice?”
“Um…nice.”
“You’re not going to share the details, huh? But you like him?”
“Yes. I like him.” She wasn’t ready yet to admit just how much. Plus, she couldn’t even tell Victoria yet that his real name was Luke Cane. “I like him a lot.”
“I’ll make you spill the good stuff later,” Victoria teased. “Anyway, I really called to remind you that you need to go over to the mansion tonight.”
“Oh?”
“I signed you up for some fittings. Is it okay?”
“Sure, but I probably won’t even get home till around six-thirty or seven, and then I’ll need to change and stuff. Is that all right?”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Victoria assured her. “I’ll call Myra and tell her we’ll be there around eight or eight-thirty. I’m so thrilled they wanted you to be June—and that you agreed to do it. Call me as soon as you get home, and I’ll come pick you up. I thought I could get the guys to go with us, too, but Brad is busy with paperwork, and you know Jared. If Brad doesn’t go with me, it seems like Jared doesn’t, either.” She sighed. “Why do you think that is?”
Chloe hesitated, then decided just to say what she was thinking. “Because Jared is in love with you. If we’re all around, it’s kind of okay. He feels safe. I think he’s afraid if it’s just him and you, he’ll say or do something and you’ll figure out how he feels. And he’s afraid you don’t feel that way ab
out him, so he doesn’t want to take a chance on wrecking the friendship.”
“I should know better than to ask a psychologist!” Victoria said. “But you have to be wrong. We’ve all been friends forever. If he felt that way about me, I’m sure he would have said something by now.”
Chloe was bemused. Victoria really hadn’t noticed the way Jared looked at her.
“Trust me. I’m right about this.”
“Well, it’s ridiculous. Anyway, I adore Jared.”
“But do you adore him the way he wants to be adored?” Chloe asked, then was surprised by her friend’s answer.
“I—I don’t know, but…I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, I think that’s why he keeps his distance when it’s not going to be a group.”
“But—you’ll be there tonight.”
“Maybe he’s actually busy,” Chloe suggested.
“Maybe. He is a great guy. He’s smart, he’s charming, he’s easy to be with. He’s sexy. He’s…oh, my God, Chloe!”
“Slow down, this has been going on forever.”
“But—he really loves me. Really cares about me.”
“Vickie, bear in mind, there’s a world of men out there who think you’re hotter than a July barbecue.”
“That’s my point. I’m just an object to most people. All they see are my looks. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the fact that I was genetically blessed, but I don’t fool myself—ever—that people are in love with me, or even that they know me or really want to. But Jared really does know me, and I’ve known, even as friends, that he really cares about me. Thank you, Chloe. You’ve really opened my eyes.”
Maybe she should have spoken up before, Chloe thought. So much for her professional evaluation of the situation.
“I’m glad, but I still say, take it slow. He’s been like a drooling puppy for at least a decade. Make sure you treat him kindly.”
“Of course I will! And why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I guess I thought it wasn’t really my place.”
“Really? Well, I’m happy you said something now. Any way, I’ll let you go now and see you later. As soon as you call me, I’ll leave my place.”