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“Have you ever met her?”
“Nope. I think she’s friends, kind of, with Alex. She’s worked with David Denham. I’m pretty sure Jay Galway has worked with her, too.”
“She hasn’t been here, then, in the last couple of weeks?”
“Not unless she’s been hiding in the bushes.” Laurie was actually enjoying her conversation with him now. She’d had a few Tiki Hut specials, but she always watched her drinking here. And she could stand up to a grilling by a man like Hank Adamson. “Is she supposed to be here?”
“There was a rumor she was going to be, but I guess it wasn’t true.”
“I guess not.”
“You’re sure she’s not here?” he persisted.
“There are private cottages here, twenty of them. Eight of them belong to the staff, and twelve are rented out. But this is an island. Room service is the only way to get food. There’s a little convenience shop in the lobby, a boutique…but, honestly, I think it would be pretty hard for someone to hide out in one of the cottages. Maid service is in and out, engineering…I’m pretty sure she wasn’t here. We’re off the Middle Keys, and there are lots of secluded places on the other islands. Maybe she’s on one of them. I’m sorry to disappoint you—were you really trying to get a story on her?”
“I am doing an article on Moon Bay,” he told her. “You know how it is, though. Lots of times, reporters get wind of a bigger story while they’re in the middle of something more routine.”
“So if you’d run into Alicia Farr here, that would have been nice, right?”
“It would have been interesting,” he said. “You do know what she looks like, right? You’d know her if you saw her?”
“Sure. I’ve seen lots of articles on her. And I’ve seen her on television,” Laurie said with a shrug.
She yawned suddenly, and quickly covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry.” She was. He was appealing in his lanky way, but he wasn’t interested in her—only what she might know. And she had no intention of telling him anything. She’d been ordered not to mention Alex’s certainty that she’d seen a corpse, and she wouldn’t.
She rose. “Please excuse me. Saturdays are very long here. People coming down from Dade County, locals who just like to come eat at the restaurant. The place is always busy.”
He had risen along with her. “Thanks,” he told her quietly.
“Sure. This place really is wonderful. I’m not lying, or just trying to keep my job by saying that. And Alex…well, there’s no one better.”
“So they say,” he murmured, then asked politely. “Can I walk you to your cottage?”
“I don’t rate a cottage—not yet,” she told him with a shrug. “I just take the trail back to the fork in the road and head for the staff quarters. I’ll be fine.” She grinned to take the sting out of her next words, moved a step closer to him, and whispered, “Feel free to go question another employee. You’ll find out every word I said was true.”
He had the grace to flush. She gave him a wave and made her way past two couples on the dance floor, both a little inebriated, but heck, they weren’t driving anywhere. If you were going to feel the influence of alcohol, this was the place to do it.
She could hear the band long after she had left the Tiki Hut behind. She started off thinking nothing of the night or the shadows, the trails were lit by torches—not like the ones at the Tiki Hut, which were real, but electrical torches made to give the grounds an island feel. Still…
Once the Tiki Hut was well behind her and the noise from it had dimmed, she thought the night seemed especially dark. Strange, because her dad had shown her once before how the glow that radiated from Miami—sixty or seventy miles away, still extended this far when the sky was clear. But clouds were out tonight. It was storm season, of course. They’d had several nice days in the last week, though, she mused.
Nice days. A few with calm seas, a few others when the water was choppy. But then, the water didn’t have to be wild to carry something—like a corpse—to the shore.
She stopped dead suddenly and instinctively, some inner defense aware of a rustling noise. She felt the hair rising at her nape.
She spun around. Nothing. But the bushes seemed to be very, very dark.
She had a sudden, vivid and ridiculous image of a corpse stalking her along the trail…
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said aloud to herself.
But then…a rustling in the bushes…
She stared in the direction from which the noise had come, her heart racing a million miles an hour. Slowly, she made a circle where she stood, looking around.
The noise came again. She spun sharply, staring into the brush once again.
Then…a fat possum waddled out from the bushes and moved slowly across the path.
She let out her pent-up breath and giggled.
Then she turned, ready to set out along the path again. Instead she plowed into something dark and solid, and before her numbed mind could react, arms reached around her.
“Alex, for the love of God!”
David’s voice was muted by the glass, but his impatience was evident. She was so relieved to realize that he was the figure on the porch that she didn’t really think. She opened the sliding-glass doors, but she had to yell.
“You son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing out there? You nearly scared the life out of me.”
He pushed his way in. It was dark, only the lights in front of the house illuminating the area around them. She could see that he still looked like a million bucks, dressed in dark chinos, a red tailored shirt and a light jacket.
She rued the fact that she was wearing a tattered T-shirt with the words “Moon Bay” embroidered in powder blue against a deep aqua background. She was equally sorry that it was very short. Silly. Even if they hadn’t been married and she didn’t have every inch of his anatomy etched into her memory forever, they spent their lives in bathing suits. She wondered why the T-shirt made her feel so naked. And vulnerable.
He walked through the cottage, checking the front door, looking around. “Is there any other way in here?” he asked, turning around slowly and studying the living room.
“Abracadabra?” she suggested.
“Cute, Alex. Is there any other way in here?”
“Front door, back door, as you can see.”
He ignored her and headed for the small hallway that led to the bedrooms and bath.
“Hey!” she protested. She started to follow him, then paused, determined that the last place she wanted to be with him was a bedroom.
A moment later, he was back.
She frowned slightly, realizing he looked as if he had been running his fingers through his hair. She turned on the kitchen lights and stared at him once again. He looked tense. He reminded her of a shark, giving the impression of deceptive ease, while eyeing his prey to strike.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
“There was someone walking around your cottage, looking in the windows. I chased him around one side…and lost him,” he told her.
“If there’s anyone slinking around here,” she said softly, “it’s you.”
He threw up his hands. “Alex, I’m serious.”
“And I’m serious, too.”
“Get this straight—I’m concerned.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she said firmly, “David, get this straight. You don’t need to be concerned about me. I don’t care about a technicality. We’re not married anymore. I might not have been here alone.”
“Actually, knowing you, you do care about a technicality,” he informed her.
He was far too relaxed. “You followed me,” she accused him. “You followed me when I was with another man, who was more than capable of taking care of me if I’d been in any danger.”
“Alex, I don’t really know that guy, and neither do you, and most important,” he said very softly and seriously, “we are talking about a life-and-death situation.”
She suddenly saw the man she knew from television, interviews and even, once upon a time, her personal life. The ultimate professional. Reeking of authority and command. Absolute in his conviction.
And for some reason, she shivered.
The woman on the beach had been dead. No matter what anyone tried to tell her. There had, beyond a doubt, been a corpse.
And it had disappeared.
“Maybe you’d like to explain it to me,” she said.
He stared at her for a long moment. “I keep thinking you’re better off, the less you know,” he said quietly.
“Why? You already think I’m in some kind of danger.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“You found a body on the beach. A body that disappeared.”
She shook her head, watching him warily. “We’ve been through this. Jay and the sheriff were both certain I was duped.”
“But you know it was true.”
She wished so badly that she didn’t feel such a desperate desire to keep her distance from him at all costs. Because she did know him. And she knew that he believed her. It wasn’t necessary for him to have been there—he believed her.
“If you’re so convinced, there must be a reason,” she said flatly.
“Want to put some coffee on?” he suggested.
“No.”
“Mind if I do?”
“Yes.” Even as she spoke, she knew he would ignore her. He gave her a glance as if she was behaving like a spoiled child and moved into the kitchen. His arm brushed hers as he strode past her, and she felt as if she’d been burned.
Apparently he hadn’t even noticed. He was heading for the cupboard above the coffeepot.
“Would you stop making yourself at home here, please?” she said, walking past him and shoving him out of the way. “I’ll make coffee. You talk.”
“What did she look like? The woman on the beach. What did she look like?”
She turned around and stared at him. “Like…a woman. Blonde.”
“You didn’t recognize her?” He stepped past her, impatiently taking the carafe and starting the coffee.
“Recognize her?” Alex said, startled.
“Yes, did you know who she might be?”
“No. She was at a strange angle. And she had long…or longish hair. It was covering her face. I touched her throat, looking for a pulse. And then…I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but there was no way not to know she was dead.”
“But you let them convince you that she couldn’t have been, that you were wrong, and she just got up and walked away?” he demanded.
There was a note of disappointment in his tone.
“The sheriff was there,” she told him sharply. “He doubted me. There was no body. What the hell was I supposed to do?”
He turned his back on her, opening a cupboard door.
“Cups are over here,” she said impatiently, producing two from another cabinet.
He poured the coffee. He drank his black, so she was startled when he went to the refrigerator, absently taking out the milk to put a few drops into hers.
She accepted the coffee, watching him, feeling again an embarrassed awareness of his crisp, tailored appearance and her own tattered T-shirt. Ridiculous to think about such things when they were talking about a corpse, she told herself.
“Did you mention your discovery to lover boy?” he inquired, sounding casual as he put the milk back in the refrigerator.
“I don’t like your tone,” she told him.
“Sorry, I don’t like what’s happening.”
“Are you actually jealous?” she demanded.
“I’m not trying to run your life, if that’s what you mean,” he assured her. “I just don’t like what’s happening here.”
“You haven’t explained a damn thing yet, David.”
“Did you tell him?” he persisted.
She let out a sigh of irritation. “No, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. For tonight…tonight I’m waiting. The sheriff will get back to us, let us know if anybody’s missing from one of the ferries or the Middle Keys. He and Jay might have made me feel a little foolish today, but Nigel Thompson is a good man and no fool. And I could accuse you of many things, but being a total idiot isn’t one of them. So get to it. What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid I might know your corpse,” he said quietly, his eyes a strange cobalt by night, and steady upon her.
Her heart seemed to skip a beat.
“Who?”
“Alicia Farr.”
