Hurricane Bay (6 page)

“Just tell Sheila to get ahold of me if you hear from her. She'll know where I am.”

“You're staying out at her place, eh?”

“Mr. Latham, you did raise Sheila. You must have some feelings for her.”

“Yeah, I hate the little bitch.”

“I'm worried, and she's missing. And the police will be around to talk to you,” Kelsey said, her sense of both uneasiness and indignation rising within her.

“The cops?” Latham said, then he repeated the words, his voice seeming to rise to a roar. “The cops! You called the cops on me because that little twit of a girl has gone off with some poor Joe she intends to milk for all he's worth?”

At that point he was almost upon her. Dignity and courtesy be damned, Kelsey was getting out. She turned and headed for the door. She heard him following after her. She felt his breathing.

His hand clamped down on her shoulder. She almost screamed as he spun her around. “Don't you go causing trouble for me, you hear? You mark my words—Sheila is off with some man—a fool with money, with any luck. Getting the police involved is just going to get her into trouble. Maybe she'll even see some jail time, understand? Don't go getting the cops involved with Sheila and me. Don't you do it over that riffraff girl!”

He had powerful fingers. They were digging into her shoulder. His face was taut with tension, and his eyes had a hard yellow gleam about them.

The stench of fish wafted over her.

“Let go of my shoulder.”

He smiled. The man had amazingly good teeth. Very white. It could have been a good smile, but instead it was full of menace and pleasure at the fear he was sensing in her.

“You came to my house to throw accusations in my face, little lady,” he said quietly, not releasing her.

“Accusations?” Kelsey said. “I didn't accuse you of anything. I asked you if you had seen Sheila, and if you could tell her I'm looking for her if you
do
see her.”

“If you didn't accuse me of anything, why are you calling the cops on me?”

His grasp had a definite biting quality. He was strong, or, at least, stronger than she was.

Cindy had been right. She shouldn't have come here. Alone. At night.

Alone at any time, she thought.

She wanted to remain calm and rational; she also wanted to scream and jerk away from him. She tried to remember all the movies she had seen, all the programs she had watched about dealing with dangerous situations. Don't show fear? Or scream like blue blazes, push away with all her strength and run like the wind?

She didn't have to make a decision. She heard the slamming of a car door and a man's voice. “Hey, what's going on there?”

Latham's hand fell from her shoulder. They both recognized the voice. Latham shook his head with disgust, his eyes moving from the newcomer back to Kelsey once again. “There he is, the big military man, ready to knock my lights out,” he said. “I wasn't about to hurt you, little girl. And you want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”

She'd known from hearing him, without turning, that Dane Whitelaw had arrived. She'd been relieved.

But Latham's words gave her a chill.

She turned, Latham's words echoing in her mind.
“You want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”

Dane was coming up the path. He wasn't looking at Kelsey; he was staring at Latham.

His hair was combed back, freshly washed, a little long at the collar, but off his face now. He was in khakis and a short-sleeved blue tailored shirt. Dane wasn't exactly a half-breed. His grandfather had been a Miccosukee Indian who had married a Swedish tourist. The two had set up shop in the Keys, died together in an automobile accident and left his father with ownership of Hurricane Bay. His dad had made a career out of the military, retired, turned to fishing off his peaceful property for an extra income, and then married Mary Smith, a woman who could claim ancestors all the way back to the Mayflower. Kelsey could just barely remember Dane's mother. She had welcomed every kid in the world into their house. She had been quick to laugh, to entertain, to love children. She had wanted twenty, she had told them once. At least a dozen little sisters and brothers for Dane. But both she and Dane's father had married late in life, and complications had set in when she'd finally gotten pregnant again just before Dane's tenth birthday. She had died months before the baby was due. Dane's father had never remarried. He had always been a wonderful man when the kids were around, but he had seldom left his own little island, except to sell his catch.

Dane Whitelaw seemed to have inherited the best to be had from his background. He had dark eyes, a chiseled face with slightly broad cheekbones, dark-wheat-colored hair that was always sun-bleached to a lighter shade, and the height and stance of a Viking. She had adored him growing up. He'd been her brother's best friend. But then Joe had been killed, and their little world had changed for everyone.

Dane reached the open doorway, still staring pointedly at Andy Latham. His dark gaze had never wavered once.

“What the hell are you doing here, Whitelaw?” Latham asked.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Dane said, an obvious lie. There was nothing in the immediate neighborhood that could have drawn him.

“You're trespassing on my property.”

“Don't worry. I'm getting off it.” He stared at Kelsey.

She was tempted to stay just because she didn't want Dane helping her, not when he was top on her list of…well, not suspects, but highly suspicious people. And not when he had been such an ass that afternoon. Maybe she had approached him badly. But he should have cared. He should at least have frowned with worry and tried to say something good about Sheila.

Then again, maybe she just disliked Dane because of what had happened after Joe had died.

“Kelsey, were you staying?” Dane asked when she didn't move.

“No, I have a dinner engagement,” she said.

She turned to walk down the overgrown path, certain this time that creepy things were touching her flesh when the overgrown brush swept over her legs.

She reached her own car. Dane was right behind her, Andy Latham still standing at his door. Dane waited until she had gotten in the driver's seat, closed her door and started the engine.

Then he walked to his own car, a Jeep with oversize tires. Necessary, she knew, for living out on Hurricane Bay. The road to the little island was private, not state or county. Dane's grandfather had built it; his father had improved it. Now Dane kept it up. It still wasn't much of a road. During a heavy rain season or after a storm, it was often underwater, sometimes so deep that the only way on or off the island was by boat.

Dane started up his car but didn't start moving until she did. She drove away with Dane just a short distance behind her.

In the rearview mirror, she could see that Latham was still standing in his doorway. Watching.

 

Andy Latham muttered as he watched the cars go. Then he walked back into his house, cursing his stepdaughter and her friends. In the kitchen, he reached into the refrigerator for another beer. There was a big fat palmetto bug, a winged cockroach, sitting right next to his beer, waving his antennae.

He cursed the cockroach and reached for the can, then splatted it down on the roach before the filthy creature had a chance to move.

He thought about cleaning the carcass out of the refrigerator, but it seemed like too much of a project for the moment. He hadn't really wanted another beer; he'd wanted to get going. He liked nightlife. No, he loved nightlife. Nightlife took him away from his hell of an existence and made him feel like a man. He'd been ready to go when Sheila's little buddy had shown up. Kelsey.

Drinking his beer, he decided to make a pit stop. In the mirror over the sink, he surveyed his features. Good. He was still looking pretty good. He really wasn't old at all; those kids just didn't realize it, because he had made the mistake of marrying an older woman.

Well, she'd had some money. A virtue. She'd had her faults, as well. A hell of a lot of them. Who would have thought that she considered herself a match for any man?

And worse, who would have thought she'd leave the money tied up in a trust that could only be accessed little by little, and then only by him and Sheila at the same time.

He picked up the comb sitting on the sink and ran it through his hair. The face that greeted him in the mirror pleased him. He had good features and fine eyes. His skin was tanned and creased, but women seemed to like the weathered look. He was built just fine. Not muscle-bound, but tight as piano wire. Sleek, hard-toned. He was in good physical shape. The whole package was still just fine.

Funny. Once upon a time he'd had a thing for older women.

Now he liked them younger.

Yep, that Kelsey was looking darned good. Too bad he'd been saddled with Sheila. The girl had poisoned everyone against him. Hell, if it hadn't been for Sheila, he might not have known Kelsey at all as a kid. Who knows? She might have let him buy her a drink at a bar.

She might have let him do more.

He tensed, remembering the way she had looked around the house. As if he were lower than a pig.

Lower than the cockroach he had crushed in the refrigerator.

He shrugged. Imagine that. The damned thing had been in the refrigerator. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to kill. Maybe it had already been cold, shaking in its little cockroach boots, frozen right to the spot.

He looked around the bathroom.

Hell, maybe he should get a maid.

Of course, it would have to be someone who wasn't afraid of cockroaches.

He exited the bathroom, humming to himself. He started to leave the house, then paused and looked around, damning Sheila once again, thinking of the way Kelsey Cunningham had looked around his house. Fuck them both. Fuck them all. Everyone knew that Sheila took off whenever the hell she felt like it. Everyone but Kelsey, coming back here as if she were something special, raising all kinds of trouble.

Still…

He looked around his domain. Strange, once it had been clean. Sheila's mother had been good for something. She had cooked, too.

But he couldn't really remember what the place had looked like back then. There had been food in the refrigerator, and not so many beer cans. The cockroach would have died a lot happier if he had come all those years ago.

Now the place was a dump. Nothing but fast-food wrappers and beer cans. So what if the police came? They would probably leave damn quick.

He left the house, not bothering to lock his door. No one ever came out this road. There were only two other houses, and a bunch of mangrove roots and water. Angus Grier lived in the closest house, and he was ninety if he was a day. And the kids who had rented the other place…they were stoned out of their minds most the time. There wasn't much reason to lock up his place. If a thief came by…well, hell, he was welcome to steal anything in the place.

Because once he drove away from it, Andy Latham knew that he was a different man.

D
ane followed Kelsey back to the duplex.

She was probably going to accuse him of stalking her, but he still wanted to see that she got home safely. Besides, he could just knock on Cindy's door after he made sure Kelsey had gone on into Sheila's side.

He knew Kelsey was aware that he was following her, but she pretended not to see him as she parked, exited her cranberry Volvo and entered the house. Dane parked the Land Rover and took the steps up to Cindy's door. As he tapped on it, Cindy appeared at the door to the other half of the duplex, Sheila's half, now Kelsey's.

“Dane! Hey, we're over here.”

“Hey, Cindy.”

He walked across the tiled concrete front porch and greeted Cindy with a quick peck on the cheek. She never changed. Sweet and smart, Cindy always expected the best from everyone. But then, she'd never met with much personal adversity. Both her folks were still living just down the highway. She had two younger sisters and a ten-year-old brother. Her father, a transplanted Yankee, owned one of the largest charter fishing boat companies in the area.

Cindy had called to tell him that Kelsey was on her way out to talk to Andy Latham. Dane hadn't at all liked the idea of her being out there alone. Of course, he'd known that Kelsey wouldn't be particularly glad to see him out there—she would hardly think of him as a knight in shining armor—but he'd made tracks to get out there as soon as possible anyway.

“Come on in,” Cindy said. “We were about to have quiche and beer.” She wrinkled her nose. “Reheated quiche and beer. But it's still good. I can cook. Well, kind of, anyway.”

“Sounds great, Cindy, but I already ate.”

“Come in for a beer, at least. I mean, you're here, aren't you?” she demanded, blue eyes wide.

“Sure.” He needed to talk to Kelsey, and it was damn certain
she
was never going to invite him in.

He followed Cindy into Sheila's side of the duplex. Kelsey was seated on a bar stool, a plate and a beer in front of her. Her shoes were off, one ankle curled around a leg of the stool. The sunglasses were gone, and he could see her eyes. Blue-green. Like a color that had been plucked right out of a shallow sea on a sunlit day.

He could see that she was surprised and definitely not pleased that Cindy had invited him in.

“Look who's here,” Cindy said pleasantly.

“Surprise, surprise,” Kelsey murmured.

“You're sure you don't want some quiche, Dane?” Cindy asked.

“No, thanks.”

Cindy reached into the fridge and produced a bottle of beer. “But you'll have a beer with us, right?”

“Sure.”

“Right. He hasn't had enough to drink today,” Kelsey said.

For a moment Cindy looked as if she was going to try to ignore the obvious hostility between them, then she sighed, putting her hands on her hips. “Hey, kids, we're all grown-ups here.”

“All right,” Kelsey said. “Hi, Dane. Have a beer. You
are
all grown up. If you want to spend your life drinking the days away, I guess that's all right.”

He stared at her and took a long swig from the bottle, ready to tell her that she hadn't seen him in years, she had no idea of what he did with his days, and she sure as hell had no right to judge him.

“That's right, Kelsey. If I want to be a drunk, it's my prerogative.”

“Dane isn't a drunk, Kelsey,” Cindy said.

“Sorry, then,” Kelsey said. She made a point of yawning. “You know what, guys? I haven't had much sleep since I got back. Maybe you want to move your little party over to Cindy's half of the place.”

“Maybe, but not yet,” Dane said. He walked to the counter where she was sitting and set his beer bottle down. She tensed, and for a moment he thought she was going to jump up and try to escape.

But that would mean having to touch him because the way he was standing, at her side, hands on the counter, she would have to push past him to get by.

“So now you want to talk,” she said.

“I'd have been happy to talk earlier—if you hadn't come on as such a bitch,” he said.

She blinked, and he could hear her teeth clench. “You were drunk, and I was worried. And Nate had just told me that you and Sheila were…that you and Sheila had a big argument the last time he'd seen her, and that she'd told him afterward she was going out to your place. He said you weren't very nice to her.”

She wasn't apologizing. She was still accusing him. And she sure as hell wasn't about to thank him for coming around when she might have been in trouble at Latham's. Of course, as far as any of them had ever known, Latham was just like a cockroach. Nasty as all hell, and germ-carrying, certainly, but not physically dangerous.

He inhaled a long breath before replying to Kelsey.

“Kelsey, I'm glad that your life is going so great that you feel you can judge everyone else. Although I'm curious as to how you got to be such a good judge of a man's level of alcohol consumption.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I know you've been lying as low as pond scum, Dane, because Sheila told me.”

“She did, did she? Kelsey, you need to listen to me. You haven't been around, and you don't know anything about anyone here anymore. What you've got is a bunch of hearsay and assumptions. Maybe you don't like what you think I've become, and maybe there's even some truth to it. But what you're doing here is dangerous. What do you think you are suddenly? Some kind of a crusader? Leave it alone. Quit running around accusing everyone of doing something to Sheila. You're going to get yourself into trouble.”

Kelsey stared at him, eyes cool and hostile. “Dane, you didn't want to talk to me this afternoon, and now you're suddenly here telling me to keep my nose out of things. This is ridiculous. Apparently I'm the only one who's really concerned about Sheila. And since I
am
concerned, my nose is going to be everywhere until I know where she is. And I know you were seeing her.”

“You're not listening to me. You're going off half-cocked and making a lot of assumptions. You know I was seeing Sheila because Nate told you so. Sheila hung around the Sea Shanty. So do I. So do Nate and Cindy—Cindy because she keeps up with old friends, Nate because he owns the place. And guess what? Lots of other people around here go there on a regular basis. It's the in place for the natives. Sheila saw dozens of people at the Sea Shanty. Big deal. But Andy Latham doesn't go there anymore, because Nate barred him. He got to be a little too obnoxious with some of the women customers. That's why Cindy called me when she knew you were going to go over and start throwing accusations at Latham.”

Kelsey's eyes instantly shot toward Cindy with recrimination. Cindy flushed but shrugged, still feeling she had done the right thing.

Kelsey took a sip of her beer. “Latham is a horrible man. We all know it. He's a filthy, mean bastard—but that's all. He's scuzzy, not dangerous.”

“How the hell do you know he isn't dangerous?” Dane demanded, wishing he weren't feeling his own temper soar. Kelsey knew he was right; she just wasn't about to admit it.

“He's been around for years,” she said, waving a hand as if dismissing his words. “I used to go to that house when I was a kid. So did you, so did Cindy. He yelled, he was rude, and he created an environment no kid should have grown up in, but he never hurt anyone.”

“Really? And here I thought you were Sheila's great friend. He sure as hell hurt
her.
”

He had her on that one, and she had the grace to flush. “When he was angry, he beat her a few times with a belt. He'd be arrested for child abuse now, but back then…parents used to spank their children.”

“Strange. Mine never beat me with a belt. And neither did yours. Or Cindy's.”

“Okay, he's a horrible man!”

“Listen to what you're saying. He
beat
her with a
belt.
”

“When our folks were in school, the deans used to walk around with big paddles.”

He shook his head, growing angrier, fighting his rising temper and trying to tell himself that Kelsey wasn't his concern. If she wanted to be a stubborn idiot, there was nothing he could do.

But she was
his
concern.

He had to keep her from acting like a stubborn idiot. She would understand that—if only he could tell her the truth about Sheila.

But that was one thing he couldn't do. Kelsey would have his ass in jail so fast his head would spin. And then…

Then there would be nothing he could do.

“Don't go out there again,” he said, forcing his jaw to unclench and allow him to form words. His voice came out ragged and rough.

Her eyes narrowed further still, and she replied with cool, “who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” dignity.

“Look, Dane, no one around here is really paying any attention to me. Don't you understand yet? Someone needs to be concerned. No one else is. Therefore, in my opinion, I have to be.”

“It's not that we're not concerned,” Cindy murmured.

They both ignored her. Dane spoke firmly. “Don't go out to Latham's again.”

“Dammit, Dane!” she said, losing her composure at last, her eyes sizzling, her fingers tightening on her beer bottle. “Don't come on to me like the gestapo. You're not my father,” she said.

He caught her eyes then, held them hard. “Let's hope not,” he said.

She flushed slightly. Her gaze fell from his, and she studied the quiche she'd been pushing around her plate, the grip she had on her beer bottle becoming white-knuckled.

“Kelsey, I'm not trying to come on like anything or act like a father. It simply isn't a good idea to visit a man like that alone. Okay, maybe I am sounding like the gestapo. But he's not just mean and nasty, he's damned scary. Pay attention to me. Don't go near him again.
Please.
” He would try anything. It was imperative that she understand Latham was dangerous.

She looked up at him, then looked down again quickly, silent for a moment.

“Kelsey, listen to him. He's right,” Cindy suddenly pleaded.

Kelsey threw up her hands, almost knocking over her beer bottle, barely catching it. “Okay, look, both of you, I'm sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn't have gone out there, and I won't go visiting Latham alone again. Actually I wasn't planning on visiting him again anyway. It's not like it was a social call. But the trust funds mean that there's a connection between Latham and Sheila. I was just hoping that maybe she had said something to him. I want to believe with all my heart that Sheila is just being rude and careless, forgetting all about me. I'd love for someone to tell me she's on vacation in Switzerland with a wine baron. But I just don't believe it. And asking Andy Latham if he had seen her, if he knew where she was, seemed like an intelligent move to make. She may hate him, but whether she likes it or not, they're connected through her mother's will.”

“He'd be the last person Sheila would go to,” Cindy murmured.

“Yes, but because of the money, she might have told him if she was going to be away, or she might have made an appointment with him regarding the trust or something. Look, he's never been my favorite person, either. But I still don't think he's actually dangerous,” Kelsey said, defending herself.

From somewhere a muted ringing sounded.

“Excuse me,” she said, looking pointedly at Dane. He was still blocking her way. “Cell phone.”

He backed away. Just a hair. She didn't want to touch him, but she was going to have to brush by him.

She did. She scraped by his taut form. She still carried the aroma of a subtle perfume.

Once past him, she dug into her purse, which she had tossed on the far end of the bar. She glanced at the caller ID and said a cheerful, “Hey!” into the phone. She listened to the voice at the other end, then spoke again. “No, she hasn't shown yet.” She looked across the kitchen at Cindy and Dane, who were both staring at her. “I'm not alone,” she said into her phone. “Cindy and Dane are here.”

Cindy arched a brow to Dane, but her question was quickly answered.

“Larry says hello to you both,” Kelsey said.

Larry Miller. The weekender who had almost been one of them. Dane had heard that Larry was around now and then, but he hadn't seen him. Larry's father had passed away, and his mother had moved somewhere up north. They had sold the condo they kept on the Keys, as well, so even Larry's little place was gone. Maybe property was what made a place home. He had Hurricane Bay, so perhaps it had been inevitable that he would come back.

Larry hadn't really been an islander, but he'd still run with their crowd. Good old Larry…

Poor Larry.

He had fallen in love with Sheila, married her, tried to give her the world. A decent guy. Studious, cautious, a talented artist.