Hurricane Bay (26 page)

“Kelsey, go back to the boat. Now.”

“But—”

He dived. She didn't stop him, but she couldn't turn and leave him, either. She surveyed the ocean floor beneath her.

She could see the coral, but the fish had all disappeared.

The old wreck sat like a silent sentinel, as it had for years. No activity was evident in or around it.

She couldn't see Dane.

Seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness, but she still couldn't see Dane.

Or any sign of life.

Minutes.

Minutes went by.

He was good. He could hold his breath for a long time.

She still couldn't see him. How far had he gone? Where had he gone?

She gasped, inhaling water along with air as she felt a hand on her back. She turned, coughing, treading water as she wheezed and struggled for breath. Dane. He had come from the other direction.

“I told you to get the hell out of the water!”

“Don't yell at me!”

“Kelsey, you idiot, I think someone was trying to kill you.”

“Here? With at least half a dozen boats around? Dane, it was some idiot tourist who should be arrested. You were in as much danger as I was.”

“We may still be in danger, Kelsey, and while I'm wearing a dive knife sheathed at my ankle, you haven't any protection but a blue bikini. So swim, Kelsey. Let's both get back to the damn boat.”

She turned and started for the boat, but she couldn't help thinking he was crazy. No one would want to kill her.

And yet…

Why would someone search for concealment in order to spearfish?

Unless they were fishing for a human prey.

W
hen they reached the boat, Larry was just climbing up the ladder. He was jubilant.

“Will you look at this? I got a dolphin fish—a big one. Cindy, Nate and Jorge got
nada.
Call me a weekender, will ya? Look at this baby. Hey, Dane, where the hell did you come from?”

“Where the hell did you catch that?” Dane demanded. Larry's smile faded, and he pointed north, away from the wreck. “Over there somewhere,” he said, scowling. “What the hell's the matter with you?”

When they reached the ladder, Dane urged Kelsey to go first, then followed her up.

Kelsey, sorry that Dane had been so curt when Larry was so excited, explained quickly. “Larry, someone was over by the wreck with a speargun, and they missed me by a matter of inches.”

“Damn!” He stared at Dane, who was dripping onto the deck. “Stupid tourists. Did you tell them to stop?”

“We couldn't find them,” Dane said. “But I'm calling the Coast Guard and reporting the incident. Where are the others?”

“Coming in.”

Dane, his hands on his hips, was staring toward the other boats still anchored nearby.

“It's gone,” he said.

“What's gone?” Larry asked, perplexed. The spear he had held so proudly, bearing his captured fish, was now lowered by his side.

“Izzy's boat. The
Lady Havana.
”

“It was out there?” Larry said.

Dane nodded, studying the fishermen still at anchor. “Jorge's boat is gone, too.”

“Jorge is with us.”

“I know. But his boat was here when I anchored.”

“So?”

“So we need to know exactly who was out here.”

“Those charters usually just do rod and reel fishing,” Larry said.

“I know.”

Jorge came climbing up the ladder, his spear empty. “Hey, Dane,” he said in greeting.

“Where were you?” Dane asked him.

Jorge frowned and looked down at his torso, glistening from the sea. He looked back at Dane. “In the water.”

“Where were you spearfishing?” Dane clarified.

“Toward the boats in the crescent there. Why?”

“Someone nearly speared Kelsey,” Larry explained.

“What?”

Cindy was on the ladder then, with Nate right behind her. “Maybe we should explain this to everyone all at once,” Kelsey murmured.

“I'm calling the Coast Guard,” Dane said, and headed below deck to use Nate's radio.

Kelsey wound up explaining. They were all indignant, and certain that anyone so careless with a speargun had to be a tourist.

“I mean, come on, Kels,” Larry said. “Why would anyone be aiming at you?”

She shook her head. “I don't know.”

Dane had come back topside.

“You really called the Coast Guard?” Nate said slowly, as if they might wind up getting someone in trouble for a piece of stupidity.

“What happened was serious,” Dane said.

Cindy was frowning. “Dane…how did you get here?”

He sighed and pointed. “My boat.”

“Oh. You were just coming out to join us?” Nate said.

“Something like that.”

“Cool,” Nate murmured. “Hey…they're all leaving.”

“Did any of the rest of you notice what other boats were out here?” Dane asked.

They looked at each other. “I didn't even notice that Jorge's
Free as the Sea
was out here,” Larry admitted ruefully.

“And I hadn't seen Izzy's boat,” Kelsey said. She hadn't paid the least attention to the other boats. She had been involved in the diary, and then she had gone in the water.

Dane looked at them all one by one. Kelsey could feel a certain tension rising. “You were all within sight of each other, right?”

A silence followed his words.

“Kelsey was right—we should have decided to order pizza,” Nate said, staring hard at Dane.

They heard the loud blast of a horn from a Coast Guard cutter, and a moment later the vessel was lining up with theirs and an officer hopped aboard the
Madonna.
He was young, and very serious and attentive as Dane told him that he had gone looking for Kelsey, only to see a spear go streaking through the water, nearly missing her.

“Well, who shot it?”

“I don't know,” Dane said impatiently, ruffling the feathers of the young officer. “She was nearly killed. There were at least two spears, maybe more. And whoever shot them was hidden somewhere. In the wreck, I imagine.”

Then the officer stared at them all curiously, since they had obviously been spearfishing.

“Every one of us knows how dangerous a speargun can be,” Nate said firmly.

“And we weren't anywhere near the wreck,” Cindy said.

The officer took information from each of them, then asked what other boats they'd seen in the area. Dane rattled off the names of at least five other boats anchored.

“We'll do what we can,” the young officer said, then shook his head. “If you'd only seen someone…”

“Yeah, I know that,” Dane said impatiently, “but when you're being shot at, you try not to swim right back into danger.”

“And you're sure,” the officer said, narrowing his eyes at the group once again, “that none of you was…careless in any way?”

“We're positive,” Jorge said with disdain.

“Right,” Larry murmured. He nodded toward Kelsey and Dane, and said, “Humans there.” He picked up his catch. “Fish here. We know the difference.”

Once again the officer stiffened. “You don't need to be sarcastic. We're on the water to save lives.”

“Of course. And you do an excellent job,” Cindy soothed.

“We deal with drug peddlers, modern-day pirates who would just as soon shoot you as look at you, refugees and—”

“Assholes,” Nate supplied.

The officer lifted a brow and at last cracked a small smile. “Yeah. So if I offended you with my questions, at least you'll understand why.”

“No one is offended. We appreciate your work,” Dane said carefully. “But you will check out everyone on those other boats, won't you?”

“Yes, we will. I know most of these boats. And you think there were a few more with names you didn't catch?”

Dane nodded. “Yeah.” He sounded angry with himself.

“You didn't mention that boat over there.” He pointed.

“She's mine,” Dane said.

“Oh? So you came out in two different boats?”

“I knew my friends were out here,” Dane said.

“And you just happened to dive in the water and found your friend in danger from an unseen spear fisherman?”

“Yes,” Dane said. Kelsey realized then that everyone was staring at Dane.

“Good timing,” the officer said.

“Yes, it was.”

The officer kept staring at him.

“I don't even own a speargun. I was never into spearfishing,” Dane said impatiently.

“All right. We'll do our best.” He handed Dane a card. “I've got your name and numbers. And you can contact me if you think of anything else,” he said.

Dane accepted the card. “Thanks.”

The officer returned to his boat, leaving them with a cross between a wave and a salute.

They were left alone, silent for a few minutes, staring at one another.

“I guess it's a pizza kind of night after all,” Cindy said, trying to break the spell of silence with a light tone.

“I think we should head back in,” Nate said stiffly, his eyes on Dane. “I'll bring you back to your boat.”

“What about my fish?” Larry asked sorrowfully.

“We'll clean him and freeze him at the duplex,” Cindy said.

“But it's fresh now.”

“It won't feed us all,” Cindy said.

“Well I can't exactly throw him back. He's as dead as dead can be.”

“All right, we can have dolphin tidbits with our pizza.”

Nate pulled in the anchor as they spoke and started the motor. As it roared to life, Dane leaned close to Kelsey.

“Come with me.”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“My things are all on board this boat. It'll take me ten minutes to get them all together.”

“Leave them, then.”

“I have things I can't leave.”

“Nothing is more important than your life, is it?”

She stared at him incredulously. “You know, I can see where you think I was an idiot for running over to Andy Latham's. And it might have been even stupider to go on board Izzy Garcia's boat alone with him. But this is a group of our oldest friends.”

“Yeah, great. We've barely seen each other in years.”

“I've barely seen
you
in years.”

“Kelsey, someone was shooting at you.”

“None of these guys.”

“Wouldn't it be nice if your belief in the goodness of man was a guarantee?” he murmured, then returned to the original topic. “What the hell can you have on board that's so damned important?”

She looked at him and hesitated for a moment, then said, “Sheila's diary.”

For once she took Dane completely by surprise. But he was able to mask his emotions almost instantly.

“Who knows?” he asked in a whisper so low she barely heard it above the hum of the motor and whipping of the wind.

“No one.”

Apparently Nate didn't plan on tying up with Dane's boat. He cut the motor about twenty yards away. Normally it would have been no big deal. The day was still beautiful, the sun hot. There was no reason why Dane shouldn't swim back. The problem was the reason why they'd stopped where they had.

Nate was wearing a resentful and stony expression.

“Dane, we're going to make it a pizza party tonight,” Cindy said cheerfully, speaking loudly, since Nate was revving the motor in a ridiculously impatient manner.

Dane smiled at Cindy. “Pizza party,” he muttered beneath his breath.

“Oh, yeah, it's going to be just great. A really happy, friendly occasion,” Kelsey said. She stared at Dane. The moments of fear she had felt beneath the water were quickly fading. This episode in her life definitely had a logical explanation. One they used often, to explain any aggravation.

Tourists.

They could be annoying as hell, but the Keys could hardly exist without them.

Dane walked aft to dive off the end of the boat. “Dane, you're coming over, right?” Cindy called hopefully.

Bless Cindy, Kelsey thought. Ever the peacekeeper. Just what
had
her relationship with Sheila been? Kelsey couldn't help but wonder.

She felt queasy. She wasn't going to go through life wondering about Sheila and everyone she knew.

Yes she was. Until they found Sheila.

“I wouldn't miss it for the world,” Dane assured Cindy.

He leaped over the hull and into the water. Kelsey could see him swim with clean, swift strokes to his own boat.

Nate didn't wait for him to board.

He gunned the motor, and they headed back for the marina.

 

As he headed in, Dane tried to keep a vein of rationality running through his head.

Kelsey was right. Their entire group of friends could hardly be conspirators in the Necktie Strangler cases. And Kelsey wouldn't be alone with anyone for the next few hours, not since they were all heading for the duplex to order pizza.

He'd never felt like quite such a madman in his life, not knowing what to do first. He needed to talk to the strippers again and find out if the girls could pick out anyone from the pictures he had brought to them. He needed to accost Izzy Garcia before he could get rid of Sheila's purse, and he also needed to be with Kelsey. The whole thing was getting crazier by the minute. Kelsey wasn't a stripper or a prostitute, so she shouldn't be in any danger. Except that she had been asking questions.

So why would anyone want to kill Kelsey, even if she had gone around asking questions of everyone?

Perhaps because she'd gotten too close to the truth.

He made his decision as he headed back toward the Key. Veer to the left, he brought his boat straight in to Hurricane Bay and made it as fast as he could to the duplex.

Or, veer to the right and head for the marina.