Hurricane Bay (20 page)

“I followed you out to your car. Hell, you saw me. You turned around and looked right at me.”

“I saw
someone.
I didn't know it was you. Why the hell were you following me like that?” she demanded.

“That's not the question of the hour,” he told her, voice harsher than he had intended. It was disturbing, though, to realize how easily he had been able to accost her.

And the way that she had screamed…without anyone noticing at all.

“Why were
you
following
me?
” he demanded, his words sharp.

She stared at him where he leaned against the open car door.

“What makes you think I was following you?” she asked.

“How about the fact that you jumped up the minute I left dinner, and then you followed me.”

“Maybe not. Maybe I just decided to check this place out on the same night you did.” She didn't intend to admit a thing.

“Kelsey, you suck as a liar.”

“Say that I actually
did
follow you. Maybe my reasons were entirely innocent.”

Dane felt himself growing impatient. “Entirely innocent? Right. You followed a man to a strip club. What were your innocent reasons? You decided to get your jollies by watching me get a lap dance?”

Kelsey looked away from him, hating the flush that filled her cheeks. “Don't be ridiculous.”

“Then what do you think you were doing?”

“Trying to figure out what
you
were doing.”

“Stuffing money into G-strings. That was obvious, I'm certain. But then I know I don't have to tell you anything, because you were watching me from the minute you walked into the club.”

She looked startled. “You didn't see me. I was in the—”

“Kelsey, I knew you were following me all the way north, and I saw you the minute you tried to walk in without paying.”

“I didn't know you had to pay!”

“Kelsey, I don't know what the hell to do with you. I've told you often enough that you have to trust me. All you do is get yourself into trouble. So far, you've had a confrontation with Latham, and you've gotten me into a fight with Izzy Garcia. One would think you would have gone home tonight. Will you please listen to me now? I want to find Sheila just as much as you do. More. Dammit, Kelsey, let me handle it.”

She looked straight ahead again. “I can see how you were handling it.”

“Did it bother you?” he inquired, amazed that he could feel amused.

“Your sex life is your own concern.”

“I don't know, Kelsey. You're looking like a disapproving schoolmarm at the moment.”

“I don't give a damn if you fu—” She cut herself off, fell silent, then said, “I'm just not real sure that your current…techniques will do anything to help in your investigation.”

“Kelsey, this
is
a strip club.”

“A strip club where a murder victim worked,” Kelsey said.

Dane exhaled a long breath, shaking his head. “Isn't that the point? I'm here, therefore you don't have to be.”

“I do have to be,” she said stubbornly. “You're following the tracks of a murderer known as the Necktie Strangler.” She looked at him then with a certain naked anguish in her eyes. “You think that Sheila is dead, don't you?”

He was silent for a long time. Then he told her, “Move over.”

“Move over? You don't need to ride with me. Your Jeep is here.”

“Yeah, and we'll just leave it here for now. I don't particularly like the idea of you riding back down to Key Largo alone.”

“Dane, I drive alone all the time. I'm a career woman, living alone in Miami, a fairly street-smart kid.”

“It's almost an hour's drive back. Move over.”

“You know, I don't have to go back to Key Largo tonight. My condo is fifteen minutes away, just down US1, on Brick-ell. I'll be fine.”

He straightened and quickly walked around to the passenger side, then opened the door and sat before she could think to lock him out.

“Go. I'm just dying to see your condo.”

“You're not going to stay at my condo. Certainly not tonight,” she told him.

There she was, he thought. The imperious Kelsey.

“I touched a stripper? Does that make me diseased?”

“You didn't need to touch a stripper to be an unwanted houseguest, Dane,” she said flatly.

“You want to talk, Kelsey? Get to the bottom of some things? Then drive.”

She stared stubbornly at the windshield, jaw clenched. He was sure she was mulling over the possibility of dragging him out of her car.

Evidently she thought better of it.

She twisted her key in the ignition. The car roared to life.

“I hope they tow your Jeep,” she said.

“Oh, I doubt it. The club stays open until 5:00 a.m., and by then the coffee shop is open, so there's no reason why there shouldn't be a car parked in the lot.”

“Sounds like you know the place well,” she said, eyes on the road as she pulled out on to the highway.

“Well enough.”

“I see.”

“Just drive, Kelsey.”

I
t felt strange, having Dane come into her condominium with her, Kelsey thought. He always seemed to be observing everything, dark eyes watching as she flashed her pass to the guard on duty at the gate, looking over the parking beneath the building, noting the security cameras in the lobby as they walked to the elevators.

He didn't speak, and neither did she, as they rode to the fifteenth floor. He gave his attention to the hallway again as they left the elevator and walked to her unit.

“How many apartments on each floor?” he asked.

“Four. There are actually four towers,” she told him, opening her front door. “Four apartments on each of sixteen floors per tower. In the center of the building, there's a rec room, and out back, a pool.”

He followed her into the condo. She turned on the lights, wondering why it felt so odd to have Dane here.

Because, she decided, this was
her
life now. Her life in which she had moved forward. It wasn't part of the past.

The past was what should bother her. But it had been comfortable, being back at Hurricane Bay, though maybe it had been comfortable in a bad way. She had experienced a proprietary feeling at Hurricane Bay that she never should have felt. The place was his. Just because she had been welcome all the time as a child, that didn't give her any right to feel as if she were home when she was there.

She stood in the hallway, waiting as he surveyed the entry, living room and kitchen. He walked to the large plate-glass window and looked out on the bay.

“Nice view.”

“Yes.”

“Small rooms.”

She shrugged. “It's an expensive area. This is what I could afford. I took it because I do like the view.”

He stared out the window for a moment, then turned to her. “Aren't you going to offer me something?”

“You want a drink?”

He laughed. “You sound as if you've joined the Temperance League. No, I don't mean a drink. Coffee or tea would be nice.”

She walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Regular, flavored or decaf?”

“Regular.”

He remained by the window, just staring out, as she measured coffee and poured water. While the coffee brewed, she came around the counter, leaned against the wall and watched him.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“We're here so you can tell me why you're trying to track Sheila down at a strip club,” she reminded him.

He turned and looked at her, studying her in silence for a minute. “Kelsey, I keep telling you to stay out of this. And I mean it. You're dangerous to yourself and everyone else. But I have the feeling there's something you're not telling me. That you have an insight into the whole thing that I'm missing. From just about the minute you showed up, you were on
my
tail over Sheila's disappearance.
Mine.
”

“That's not fair. You're the one who followed me over to Latham's, and you were the one who went ballistic when I went to Izzy's boat to question him about Sheila.”

“That was
after
you stormed after me. I was first. Why?”

She shrugged. “Come on, Dane. You know the reason. I got in, there was no Sheila. Cindy hadn't seen her since she'd been at Nate's place. Cindy suggested that I talk to you. She said you and Sheila had been talking at Nate's. She was convinced you two were doing a lot more than talking. And she was right.” He didn't argue with her; just kept standing by the plate-glass window, watching her. “Cindy told me that you'd been different since you got back. Bitter in a way she'd never seen you before. And prone to, well, like the song says, wasting away in Margaritaville.”

“There's more to it than that,” he told her. “Unless you've really been carrying a grudge all these years. Andy Latham is downright slimy and scary, but you immediately decided to come after me, forgetting all about him until later that day. And Izzy is a pure sleaze, but you only decided that you just had to go talk to him today.”

She was startled by his words, which were spoken dispassionately, as if he wasn't judging her, wasn't feeling offended.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said. “You were the last one seen with Sheila, that's all.”

“That can't be all,” he said, shaking his head, dark eyes on her intently, giving her the impression that she was a book being read. “When you were making plans to meet Sheila, she must have said something to you, implied something. And anything she said could be important now.”

“She never said she was going to strip clubs, if that's what you mean.”

Her comment didn't perturb him in the least. “So what did she say?”

“You mean…after she e-mailed me the first time?”

“Of course.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did she write something else?”

“No,” she lied.

He didn't know about the diary. But the diary hadn't really given her anything yet.

“Dammit, Kelsey, give me something to go on here.”

“Why were you in that strip club?”

He stared at her for a long time. “Because I
am
trying to track down the Necktie Strangler. I didn't go in the back for a lap dance, Kelsey. I was showing the girls pictures of people.”

“People? Who?”

“Andy Latham, Izzy Garcia…”

“And?”

“The cowgirl was good friends with the murdered girl. She's going to study the photos I gave her and see if she can remember anyone.”

“She couldn't tell you now?”

“She wasn't sure. She wanted to take time to look at all the faces. And I couldn't stay.”

“Why?”

“You were leaving.”

“I was only going to drive home.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Where did you think I was going?”

“God knows. After your visit to Izzy, nothing would surprise me. Kelsey, will you please tell me about Sheila? What she said on the phone or in her e-mail. Anything that might help.”

Kelsey hesitated, then shrugged. “I heard from her for the first time in ages when she e-mailed me after renting the other half of the duplex where Cindy was living. She said that being back as a permanent resident was strange. You were different and distant. One time she'd write that you needed help, the next time she'd write that
she
needed help. She was chatty about Nate and Cindy, and she wrote about Jorge and Izzy, as well. She admitted to drinking quite a bit, and I think—well, now I know—she was doing drugs, as well.” Kelsey paused for a minute. “She wrote that she was having some strange problems, but that she didn't want to go into them. That her past was catching up with her. She said she really needed to see me. And that was why I decided to come down and spend a week with her.”

“And that's it? That's why you were all over
me
first thing?”

Kelsey stared at him for a long moment. His dark eyes never wavered in their intense perusal of her.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“She said that she needed to talk to you. Really talk to you. Because she was nervous.”

“If she was nervous about something, and the something was me, why would it be me she wanted to talk to?” he demanded.

Kelsey threw up her hands. “I don't know. But everything led to you. Her e-mails led to you, Cindy and Nate both told me about Sheila being with you at the bar, then going off after you. And that's the last time anyone saw her. And you admit to having a relationship with her.”

“It wasn't a
relationship,
” he murmured, looking away from her for a moment and staring out at the lights of the city again.

“Okay, so you slept with her.”

“Once. And she couldn't have written to you about that, because that was the last time I saw her. And I told you how it happened.”

She threw up her hands. “It's just that Sheila always implied something about you. And your name came up first with everyone. That's it. Really,” she said.

Dane never seemed to give anything away in his voice, or with his eyes, his face. Yet she thought he looked relieved.

“So you aren't still bearing a grudge?”

She lowered her eyes. “We were one night, ages ago, in another lifetime.”

“Yeah, well, we're feeling the same thing now.”

“Oh? What?”

“That we both failed Sheila. But I'm begging you, Kelsey—please be careful. Don't follow me to strip clubs. Don't go to Latham's. Or to Izzy Garcia's. Give me a chance. Believe in me.”

She watched him for a long moment. “Dammit it, Dane, I want to. But I want to know…things.”

“Such as?”

“To start with, I want to know what happened in St. Augustine.”

For a moment Kelsey thought he was going to remain silent, rejecting the question as totally irrelevant, but then he shrugged. “You really want to know? Right now?”

“You want me to trust you. To believe you really want to find Sheila. So let's start with what happened in St. Augustine.” She was silent for a moment, then added, “Please. I'd really like to know.”

“I'm not sure what you've heard,” he said.

“Nothing, really. I suppose I was so determined to find Sheila that I didn't ask many questions. I know that something went wrong.” She hesitated. “And that one of your clients was killed.”

“Yes, a woman was killed. And she was more than a client,” he said.

Kelsey thought he was going to end it there, he paused for so long.

“You'd been in St. Augustine for a while, right?” she asked, prodding despite the fact that he might turn around and inform her curtly that it really wasn't any of her business. He was silent again for a minute, then seemed to decide it didn't make any difference. He was still wary of her, and probably with good reason. It was true—she had gone after him, when she had first seen him at Nate's, as if he were the most detestable being alive, something she hadn't quite understood herself.

Or maybe she did. Better to go in attacking than be dismissed as an annoyance from the past. No, that wasn't quite it. Better to go in attacking than wonder how you could still want someone after so many years, still care so deeply when there had been so much so wrong.

“Right,” he said, eyes on her as if he could see the soul beneath the flesh. “You really want the whole story?”

“I do.”

“All right. I had been working up there for a couple of years. Nice life. I liked it. The ocean was still at my fingertips, but it wasn't Key Largo. And…I just didn't want to go back to Key Largo.”

Kelsey understood what he meant.

“I'd heard you were up there,” she murmured. She suddenly felt warm and uncomfortable, remembering the morning when he'd left. Three days after her brother's funeral. She hadn't seen him off at the small airport. She'd fled his house as if all the demons of hell had been after her. She could remember hearing his voice, calling her name. And she could remember seeing him standing at the top of his driveway, a towel around his hips, watching as she gunned her car and drove away.

He'd flown back to his base, and a week later, he'd been back overseas. His father had been dead by then, and Joe was gone, as well. He'd never called or written. The way he was watching her now, she knew they were both remembering that time.

“I knew the minute I went back after my leave that I wasn't going to become career military like my father. And St. Augustine seemed pleasantly tame after I'd gotten out of the service. Not that I hadn't opted for the kind of work I was doing in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Joe loved to fly, and he was good, really good. I loved to filter into a different society and find out about the way people thought, and why, how they were likely to react to a situation. I liked the prospect that I could save lives by finding out about terrorist activities or ethnic purges before they could take place. My knowledge of a number of languages was useful, and with my strange coloring—both so dark and so light—it wasn't easy for anyone to figure out my ethnic background. I was young, and despite some of the horrors I had seen, I still believed in my own immortality. After Joe died, though, things just changed. I wasn't so sure that I was anything more than a grain of sand on an endless beach. I wasn't as sharp as I had been, and twice, I almost got myself killed. I had some money, so I found an agency in Key Largo to see to the maintenance of Hurricane Bay so I could wander around a while. Finally I knew I still wanted to live in Florida. Not too far south. Not too close to home. St. Augustine had history and a certain charm. The city was small, but not too small. It was on the water, but far from Hurricane Bay. Joe was gone, my father was gone, God knew what steps Sheila was taking to get where she wanted to go…and you had run.”