Dark Water (3 page)

A few moments later the officer came back out, giving her a curious stare as he moved toward his car. Sarah looked away, unwilling to meet his gaze, and began gathering up her purse and keys. She got out as he drove away. When she walked into the station, the dispatcher behind the glass looked up.

“Can I help you, miss?” he asked.

“I need to talk to Sheriff Gallagher. He's expecting me.”

“He's not in.”

Sarah frowned. This wasn't going exactly as planned.

“When will he be back?”

“I can't say for sure. Leave your name and a number where you can be reached, and he can call you.”

“I don't have a place to stay yet. Is there a hotel here?”

“No, miss, just a bed-and-breakfast on the outskirts of town, but Miss Hattie, who runs it, is in the hospital having her appendix out.”

“Oh great,” Sarah muttered, and looked around for a chair. “Maybe I'll just wait here until the sheriff comes back.”

The dispatcher frowned. “No telling when that will be. He's still out at the lake.”

Sarah turned abruptly. “Flagstaff Lake?”

The dispatcher nodded.

“Where they found Franklin Whitman's body?”

Suddenly the dispatcher realized he might be saying too much.

“Who are you? Are you with the press? If you are, you're wasting your time.”

“My name is Sarah Whitman. Franklin Whitman was my father.”

The frown deepened on the dispatcher's face. “I can't help you.”

Sarah accepted the rejection. It was nothing she hadn't prepared herself for.

“I didn't expect help from anyone in this town,” she said shortly, and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” the dispatcher asked.

“None of your business,” she muttered, letting the door slam behind her as she went.

By the time she got to the car, she was shaking with anger. She had vague memories of the lake but no idea how to get there. However, she hadn't come this far to be put off by a recalcitrant dispatcher. Making herself calm down, she unfolded the map of the state of Maine, then found the lake and the nearest highway. She was going to assume that once she was on the right road, there would be signs telling her where to go next.

 

Sheriff Ron Gallagher was just getting out of the motorboat when he saw an unfamiliar car drive up. He glanced at the bank of film crews a short distance away and figured one of the reporters had gotten impatient.

“If that's another journalist, get rid of him,” he snapped.

“It's a woman,” his deputy said.

“I don't care who it is, Red. If she's a reporter, I want her on the other side of the yellow tape with the rest of them.”

“Yes, sir,” the deputy said, and headed for the woman who was approaching with purpose in her step.

“I'm sorry, miss, but this is a crime scene. You're going to have to leave.”

Sarah stood her ground. “I need to talk to Sheriff Gallagher.”

“The sheriff has already given a statement regarding the case. He has nothing more to say to the media.”

“I'm not with the media,” Sarah said. “I'm Sarah Whitman.”

Red Miller knew he was gawking, but he couldn't stop. “I remember you,” he said softly.

“I don't remember you,” Sarah said, and lifted her chin, as if bracing herself for a verbal blow.

“My name is Steven Miller, but everyone calls me Red. I was four grades ahead of you in school.”

Sarah looked for the child in the short, balding man, without success. “I'm sorry. I don't remember you.”

Red ducked his head. “That's all right. It's been a long time.” Then he looked up at her and added, “I'm real sorry about your father.”

“Really?”

Red flushed. He'd been old enough to remember the treatment Sarah Whitman and her mother had received. He also remembered that her mother had committed suicide and that Sarah had been the one to find her. He couldn't imagine what that must have done to her and could hardly blame her for holding a grudge. Aware that there was little he could say that would make up for the past twenty years, he pointed at the sheriff.

“If you'll wait a minute, I'll tell Sheriff Gallagher you're here.”

Sarah sighed, more than a little disgusted with herself as she watched him hurrying away. She'd been rude. It wasn't like her to behave this way. If she was going to find out what had really happened to her father, she was going to need some help from the authorities, and alienating the first person who'd been friendly wasn't going to help.

Then her gaze moved past the deputy to the massive body of water beyond. Despite the picturesque beauty of the autumnal offering from the trees surrounding the lake, she shivered. The water was motionless—a black mirror with a smooth surface that was deceptive, showing none of the horror that had been hidden beneath. She moved closer, pulled to the truth of what her father had endured, trying to envision what he'd gone through. Suddenly the pain of it made her breath catch. Her vision blurred as an onset of tears burned the back of her throat.

God. Oh, Daddy…who did this to you?

“Miss Whitman?”

Sarah shuddered as her concentration was broken. She turned, unaware that tears were rolling down her face.

“Sheriff Gallagher?”

It wasn't the first time in Ron Gallagher's life that he'd wished to be tall, dark and handsome, but right now he might have bartered away his soul for a chance to win this woman's heart. She was stunning, and it bothered him to see the weary, fragile look on her face. He wanted to slay dragons and find killers and make the tears go away. Instead, he offered her his hand.

“Miss Whitman. I'm very sorry to have had to give you this news.”

Sarah shook his hand briefly, because it would have been rude to do otherwise, but truthfully, she was finding it more and more difficult to be cordial. There was a rage growing inside her that was beginning to hurt. Her family had been destroyed because of a murder and a lie, and someone needed to pay.

“Thank you,” she said, and then clutched her hands against her stomach to keep them from shaking. “I've come for my father.”

Ron sighed.
Well, hell.
The one thing she'd asked that he couldn't give.

“I'm sorry, Miss Whitman, but I can't release him…at least not just yet.”

“What can you tell me that I want to hear?”

“At this point, not much…but it's early stages in the investigation, and you've got to understand that I'm working on a twenty-year-old case, with the crime scene under about eighty feet of water.”

Sarah's fingers curled into fists as she looked past the sheriff at the surface of the lake. She swallowed twice before the words would come past her lips.

“I need to ask you something,” she whispered.

She looked so hurt and so lost that Ron wanted to put his arms around her and pull her head onto his shoulder.

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Do they know if—” She shuddered, then took a deep breath, making herself focus on what she wanted to say instead of screaming aloud at the thought. “My daddy…do they know if he was alive when…”

She couldn't say the words, but Ron knew what she was trying to ask.

“I can't really comment on that.”

“Oh God,” Sarah muttered. Fresh tears spilled and rolled down her face.

Ron stifled a groan. What he was going to say was against everything he'd been taught about law enforcement, but seeing her misery was too painful.

“Look…don't quote me on this, and if you say I said this, I'll deny every bit of it. However…if I was a betting man, I'd say your father was probably already dead before he was put in the trunk.”

“Why do you say that?” Sarah asked.

“When we opened the trunk, the first thing I noticed was the crack in his skull. Whether he was still alive or not, I doubt he ever regained consciousness before he was dumped in the lake.”

Sarah exhaled, then nodded slowly. “Thank you for that.”

Gallagher shrugged. “Yes, ma'am…Well, as I said—”

Before he could finish what he'd been going to say, a van pulled up beside them and three people jumped out.

“Sarah Whitman? Sarah Whitman? What do you have to say about your father's body being found in Flagstaff Lake?”

Sarah recoiled as if she'd been slapped. It was a nightmare straight out of her past: watching as her mother had been confronted in just such a manner, standing helplessly by as the people she loved were dragged through disgrace.

Gallagher reacted with an angry curse.

“Get out now or I'll have you all arrested,” he yelled, but it was to no avail. The reporter saw his chance and was too persistent to let the threat of an arrest stop what would be his big scoop.

“Tell us, Miss Whitman…do you believe your father was killed by his accomplices?”

Sarah spun and tried to make a break for her car, but they followed her, getting between her and her chance for escape.

“Leave me alone,” she said, and tried to push through them, but the reporter shoved a microphone in her face while the other two had cameras turned on her, capturing her every reaction.

“Do you have any hard feelings toward the people of Marmet?” the reporter asked. “Is there anyone you blame for—”

Suddenly the sound of a powerful engine drowned out the rest of the reporter's question. She turned just as a black sports car came to a sliding halt beside her. She stared, too surprised to comment, when the passenger door opened. Someone inside yelled at her to get in. She reacted before she thought, and was in the seat and slamming the door shut just as the car began to move.

“Buckle up,” the driver said.

Sarah reached for the seat belt without question. It was only after she'd buckled up and they were flying out of the area, leaving a tornado of autumn leaves flying in their wake, that she looked at her driver. For a moment she stared, trying to figure out why the profile was so familiar, and then he turned to her for a brief moment and smiled. At that point her heart skipped a beat. It had been twenty years since she'd seen that smile, but a girl never forgets her first crush.

“Silk?”

Tony grinned. “I go by Tony most of the time now, but…yes, Sarah Whitman, it's me.”

I
n the short space of time that Sarah had been in Tony DeMarco's car, she had come to the conclusion that it was as sleek and seductive as the man behind the wheel. While trying not to stare, she'd still noticed the expensive cut of his clothes, the Rolex watch on his left wrist, the diamond ring on his right hand and the go-to-hell glitter in his eyes. She was grateful that he'd come along when he had and rescued her from the reporters, but she couldn't wrap her mind around the reason he'd given for being here. He'd come all the way from Chicago for her? As much as she would have liked to believe him, it didn't ring true.

“Silk…I mean, Tony…may I ask you a personal question?”

He stifled a sigh as he steered the car around a sharp bend in the road. She didn't trust him. He'd seen it in her eyes. He understood it, but he was still surprised that it hurt his feelings.

“Yes, of course.”

“Judging by your appearance, you've become a very successful man. What do you do for a living?”

He arched an eyebrow. “It's legal, I assure you.”

Sarah blushed. “That's not what I—”

Tony laughed. “Ease up…I was just teasing. I own a nightclub in Chicago…actually two, although the second one is about a month away from the grand opening. The first one is called Silk.”

Sarah looked at him fully then, judging the very cosmopolitan man against the boy she'd known. She knew firsthand that it cost a lot of money to start a business, especially one like that. She was still paying off the loan she'd taken for the renovations on her own restaurant. Silk's family had been poor—from time to time almost homeless. She thought of the million dollars her father had been accused of stealing and then looked at Silk De Marco anew. Could he have done something like that? Possibly. But the more pertinent question was, would he?

“How old were you when my father disappeared?”

“Sixteen,” Tony said. “I'd just finished my junior year in high school.”

“Too young,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. She couldn't see a kid pulling off a million-dollar bank heist, then being smart enough to pick a scapegoat and make him disappear in order to point suspicion in another direction.

“Too young for what?” Tony asked.

Sarah blushed. She hadn't realized she'd spoken.

“Nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking aloud.”

Tony frowned as he turned off the main road and took a narrow one-lane road that led to his lakefront home. What could she possibly be…?

Then it hit him, and the shaft of anger that came with that understanding was quick and hard. He slammed on the brakes and then turned to her. Startled by his behavior, Sarah's first instinct was to reach for the door, but Tony grabbed her by the shoulder before she could bolt.

“My uncle Salvatore loaned me more than half my start-up money, then co-signed my first loan. I paid him back within two years of Silk's opening. I didn't steal the million dollars, and I didn't kill your father.”

The anger in his voice made her flinch, but she wouldn't apologize for what she'd thought. Until she knew the truth about what had happened to her father, she trusted no one.

“I was ten years old when my world fell apart. Within three months of my father's disappearance, I'd become an orphan. If it hadn't been for Aunt Lorett, I would have become a ward of the state, and there wasn't one person in the entire town of Marmet who would have been sorry it happened. I'm not going to apologize for what I asked you. You were the first one I questioned, but you won't be the last. I didn't come here just to claim my father's bones. I'm not leaving until I find the person who killed him.”

The determination on her face was matched by the fury in her eyes. Sarah Whitman had grown up, all right. She was no longer the helpless, innocent kid he'd last seen crying at her mother's grave. But what she was proposing was not only foolish, it was dangerous.

“You can't be serious,” he said.

“Just watch me,” she muttered.

“What do you do for a living?”

“What's that have to do with anything?”

“Just answer me,” he said.

“I own and run my own restaurant.”

He sighed. “What makes you think you can do something the police haven't been able to do?”

“For one thing, I'd be pursuing the evidence, which is something they never did.”

Tony frowned. “You have no qualifications to solve a murder. Besides that, whatever evidence there might have been was underwater for the past twenty years.”

“If I don't care, no one else will,” she said shortly, then looked away, unwilling for him to see her tears.

Tony stared at her profile. Not only had she grown into a very beautiful woman, but she'd become tough. He guessed he could understand why. It was easier not to be hurt when you didn't let anyone get too close.

“It isn't that,” Tony said gently and cupped the back of her head, forcing her to face him. “What if the killer is still here? What you're proposing could be dangerous.”

She shrugged. “If you're afraid, all you have to do is take me back to my car.”

He looked at her for a moment and then grinned. “Maybe I should have waited just a little bit longer before I came speeding to your rescue.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm thinking that, despite your fragile appearance, you could have taken all three of them apart with one hand.”

Sarah watched his face, seeing laughter and forgiveness in the quick grin he gave her.

“I'm sorry.”

“For what?” Tony asked.

“For thinking you were no angel.”

This time his grin turned absolutely wicked. “Oh, lady…don't apologize for that one because you were absolutely right. I'm no angel. Never have been. Never will be.” Then he gave her hair a gentle tug. “But I'm also not a crook. So can we call a truce?”

His hand slid from the back of her head to beneath her chin, and Sarah found herself shaking from the heat of his gaze.

“Yes,” she said quickly, anxious that he get back to driving. At least then he had both hands on the wheel.

“Good,” he said. “Then it's a deal.”

He grabbed the steering wheel and pressed down on the accelerator again, taking them deeper into the maze of trees.

“Exactly where are we going?” Sarah asked.

Tony began slowing down as he pointed.

“There.”

She looked up, more than a little startled by the opulence of what was obviously just a vacation home. If he could afford a place like this, he was even more of a success than she'd imagined.

“This is yours?”

He nodded.

“It's beautiful.”

He smiled as he turned onto a graveled driveway and stopped in front of the house. For a moment he let the car idle as he stared through the windshield at the scenic beauty of what was before them. The sprawling lake house blended into the trees as if it had sprouted and grown from where it was standing. It was a two-story structure of cedar and glass that reflected the scenery around it.

“Yes, it is, isn't it?” Tony said, and then jumped out of the car and ran around to her door. He bent down to help her out, then teased a smile from her when he added, “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

Sarah was still smiling as she got out of the car, but the smile quickly died when she realized that the dark waters of Flagstaff Lake were visible through the trees.

“You're really on the lake, aren't you?” she said.

Tony saw the look on her face and knew what she was thinking.

“There are no ghosts here, Sarah.”

She gave him a doubtful look and then turned her attention to the house once more.

“All my things are in my car.”

“I'll have someone get it and bring it here.”

“I can't stay here indefinitely,” she said.

“Why?”

She was a little startled by his intensity.

“Well…for starters, we don't really know each other, and I have an agenda of which you don't approve.”

Tony cupped her face, and for a moment Sarah thought he would kiss her. Instead, he took his thumbs and smoothed the frown lines at the corners of her mouth.

“We knew each other once. We will know each other again. Besides, you forget what I told you about why I came. If making sure you have a place to stay while you're here is the only way I can repay my debt to your father, then so be it.”

Then Tony slid his hand beneath Sarah's elbow, and she let him lead her into the house. The interior was warm and welcoming, and as they passed through the foyer she could smell the familiar scent of burning wood. As he led her into the living room, the scent intensified, because a great log was burning in a massive fireplace against the north wall. An oxblood leather sofa and two matching chairs were arranged in a casual semicircle in front of the hearth, while a bank of filled bookshelves on the opposite wall promised good reading on long, cold winter nights. Several paintings had been hung about the room, the choice of subjects eclectic. There were two Native American paintings on either side of the fireplace, another that was similar in style to a Renoir, and two Wyeth-like landscapes, haunting in their simplicity. She moved closer, her eyes widening as she saw Andrew Wyeth's signature and realized they must be originals. She pivoted sharply, looking at Silk with distrust.

“Your nightclub must be very successful.”

He saw the mistrust on her face and knew they were back to square one.

“I do all right,” he said shortly, refusing to explain himself any further. “If you'll follow me, I'll give you the nickel tour of the house and then show you to your room.”

Sarah followed him, making polite remarks about the homey feel and the style of decor.

“Thanks,” Tony said. “There's no real rhyme or reason to it. It's just stuff I like.”

Sarah looked up at him then as they paused in the hallway. “Well, you have very good taste.”

“That I'll take as a compliment,” he said.

Sarah sighed. “I've been rude.”

He looked at the dark circles under her eyes and the slight trembling of her lower lip. The discovery of her father's body had obviously put her through hell. The least he could do was allow her the leeway to be pissed.

“Yeah, you have,” he said softly, then lifted a stray lock of hair from the corner of her eye and pushed it back in place.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't apologize to me until you've tasted my cooking.”

She laughed.

Tony stared at the transformation in her face. He'd thought she was beautiful before, but now…
hell.
Her laugh should be declared lethal. Ignoring the urge to pin her against the wall and kiss the smile right off her lips, he restrained himself by remembering to play host. He cupped her elbow.

“Your room is down here, last door on the left.”

His grip was firm but gentle, and Sarah had to hurry to keep up with his long stride. Moments later he opened the door and then stepped aside.

“This will be your room for as long as you need. It has its own bath and sitting room. The phone is there on the table, in case you need to make any personal calls.”

“Thanks, but I have my own cell phone.”

“We don't always get a good signal up here, so if you need it, it's there.”

She smiled tentatively as she glanced around the room. It looked as warm and inviting as the rest of the house. Finally she turned around. It was time to make peace.

“Silk…I mean, Tony—”

He interrupted. “You can call me Silk.”

“But you said no one calls—”

“Some do,” he said. “Besides, I like the sound of it on your tongue.”

Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He was still smooth, maybe too smooth.

“Whatever,” she said shortly.

He grinned, then pointed to the bed. “Why don't you rest while I make a few calls? I'll have your car and your clothes here within the hour and do a little damage control with the media.”

Sarah looked startled. “What do you mean…damage control?”

“You think they're going to leave you alone now that they know you're here? No way, baby. Whether you like it or not, you're news…again.”

“God,” Sarah muttered, and dropped onto the bed with a thump.

“Don't worry, Sarah, you won't be bothered while you're in my home.”

“But how—”

“Trust me,” he said.

The tone of his voice was suddenly different. That sexy smile was gone. She could still see the angry young man he'd been, but with twenty more years of living to hone the passion and fury.