Hurricane Bay (8 page)

Dane shrugged. “It's not likely that a slasher would become a strangler,” he said. “In this case, though…well, I just hoped you might have some insight. You saw the body in situ and all.”

“I told you—I called in the specialists the minute I found her. I mean the
minute.
I knew damn well that I didn't have the manpower or equipment to investigate a crime scene like that, to protect every little hair and fiber that might turn up.” He was quiet for a moment, studying Dane. “So why your renewed interest in the case?” Jesse asked.

“Sheila's missing,” Dane said. He was comfortable saying that much.

One of Jesse's dark brows arched against his forehead. “What do you mean, missing? Sheila is always off somewhere, and she always turns up again. Why are you worried and connecting her to this case? She doesn't fit the victim profile. Or has she started wearing pasties and dancing?”

“No. But…she was running pretty wild.”

“She may still be running wild. Sheila's taken off for long periods of time before, hasn't she? I don't think she came back to Key Largo much before you showed up down here again. And before that, if I understand it right, after her divorce from Larry, she took off for Europe for a while, came back and gambled in Vegas, then hopped around some more before settling into renting that duplex with Cindy. Why would you suspect she might be a victim just because she didn't share her plans with anyone? Cindy told me that even after they rented the duplex, Sheila often went off for a few nights. Cindy would start getting worried, and then Sheila would suddenly call her from the Bahamas or somewhere to say she was all right.”

“She hasn't called anyone this time.”

“Still…well, you're talking about Sheila.”

“Call it a hunch,” Dane said.

Jesse stared at him. “It's more than a hunch, but, hey, you'll tell me when you're ready.”

“I'm still dealing with it myself,” Dane said.

“Have you been to the local cops?”

“No, but Kelsey is down. She was supposed to meet Sheila here. And she said something about having gone to the cops.”

“I'm sure they mollified her and filled out a report. And that's about all you're going to get. Not that you haven't got decent guys working the Keys. It's just that Sheila is a grown woman, a woman known to leave her home for long periods of time without giving notice to those around her. She's over twenty-one and doesn't really owe explanations to anyone.”

“She hasn't just gone off. I have to find—” He paused, wondering if he was being an ass, if he shouldn't just bring Jesse in on it now. But he wasn't ready. It was just this morning that he had seen the photograph. “I have to find her myself.”

“If there's anything I can do, let me know.”

“Thanks. How are you doing out there?”

“I'm doing well,” Jesse said, swallowing the rest of his beer. “And I'm going to get going on this one beer. I don't think it would make for good public relations if a Miccosukee cop was stopped for driving under the influence. Come out and see me sometime. I'll show you where I found the girl, and I'll let you see the file I have on the incident.”

“Great. Thanks. I'll take you up on that.”

“Let me know when you're coming, so I can be available.”

“You've managed to get your hands on a cell phone that can find a signal in the Glades?”

Jesse laughed. “No, not really. But the office can rouse me on the radio if I'm not around.”

“I'll be out soon.”

Dane walked Jesse out through the front of the house. A broad hallway stretched from the living room to the front foyer, a formal room decorated according to his mother's era, with a library to the right and a breakfast room to the left directly behind the kitchen. A curving stairway led to the two big bedrooms that took up the entire second floor of the residence.

They all used to slide down the banisters when they'd been kids. It had driven his mother crazy.

Jesse left by the front door, and Dane went along with him as he got into his car—his own, a beige Jeep, and not the patrol car he used when he was on duty. Jesse preferred his Jeep, though he was free to use the patrol car when he chose. There had been some torrential rains lately. Maybe he'd been afraid the road to Hurricane Bay would be badly rutted.

And sometimes he liked his own car when he was off the reservation because he got tired of tourists pointing at him as if he were Tonto on a pinto.

“You know, when you feel you're ready for my help, I'm there,” Jesse told him.

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

Jesse drove away.

Dane started back to the house, but hesitated, looking at the eaves over the porch that led to the roadside, the official entry, of the house. He mentally placed a security camera in the eaves. He'd get on it tomorrow.

He walked back in, heading for his computer. He sat down, keyed in some entries and followed them. For an hour, he gave his attention to every detail he could glean from the news articles he was able to call up online.

After a while, mind churning, he logged off, stretched and walked out back. He stared at the dock and walked around the angular corner that brought him from the dock and the deeper water to the spit of shallows and beach.

That was where she had been.

Rain, surf, sand, time. Nothing. The area looked as peaceful as ever.

He walked back into the house and looked around the living room, feeling a renewed surge of fury, sorrow and anger.

In his own room, he threw open the closet door, looked at the organized rows of clothing. The space where an article was missing. He'd been through it all in his head, over and over. He'd searched the house.

He went over it again.

The entire house, top to bottom. Out back, he trod lightly over the small dock, hopped aboard the Urchin and once again went slowly and minutely over every detail of his boat.

At last he went back to the house, locked both doors and made certain that his .38 special was loaded and beneath his pillow.

Still, sleep eluded him.

Someone had been in his house. And they had done a lot more than eat his porridge or sleep in his bed.

Only one thing had been taken.

He told himself he couldn't be sure. The house was filled with the accumulation of years.

Still, he knew in his gut that there was definitely one thing missing.

And that one thing could damn him.

 

Kelsey jerked up and nearly screamed at the sound of loud pounding at her door.

She hadn't wanted to admit it, but going out to Andy Latham's had spooked her. And Dane had been acting strangely, too. It was weird how life could change. She had adored him so much once; it had almost been hero worship. Then there had been the years when she kept a polite and civil distance at those few social occasions when they were at the same place at the same time. They'd gone from being best friends to stiff acquaintances. Then they hadn't seen each other at all for…two years, at least. Since the last time she had seen Sheila.

And now…

She could still hear Sheila's voice in her mind. She hadn't seen her in a long time, but she had known Sheila well. Known her when she was angry, caustic and careless of the feelings of others. Known her when she was depressed and down on herself. She knew the way Sheila sounded.

And this time, she had sounded…

Scared.

Kelsey had found herself upset when Dane left. And oddly frightened and unnerved when Cindy left—and she was only on the other side of the wall. Face it, she was actually feeling scared, though of what she didn't know, when she'd locked the door and gone to bed for the night. And she hadn't really slept. She'd dozed and awakened, dozed, and awakened again. She hadn't really been asleep when the knocking had sounded; it had just been so loud and sharp against the dark and quiet that it had startled her.

Bolting to a sitting position in the bed, she took a moment to tell herself that the noise was just someone knocking at the door—and thieves and psychos rarely knocked.

She crawled quickly out of bed. Since her night attire consisted of a long, heavy cotton, one-size-fits-most T-shirt with a frazzled duck saying something about needing coffee, she walked through the darkened house to the front door without a robe, not bothering with slippers, either.

Her mom still got mad at her for walking around without shoes all the time. Even in the Keys. Walking around barefoot and getting your feet dirty made you look like white trash, or so Jennie said.

Amazed at the thoughts that came to mind in a darkened house in the middle of the night, Kelsey reached the door and looked out the peephole. The yellow porch light beamed down on two men: Nate Curry and Larry Miller.

She opened the door, no longer at all frightened, but quizzical and irritated. “What the hell are the two of you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Nate, a true beach boy, tanned to pure gold, blue-eyed, blond-haired, seemed taken aback. “It's not the middle of the night. It's just after two.”

“It's 2:00 a.m.,” Larry said, his expression somewhat rueful. Even when he was standing in cutoffs in the sand, Larry Miller looked like an executive. His dark brown hair always gave the appearance of a neat, fresh cut. Kelsey didn't think she'd ever seen him anything but clean-shaven—five-o'clock shadow didn't dare darken his door. He was dressed casually in a polo shirt and knee-length Dockers, but both were pressed and clean. His boat shoes didn't have a scuff. The overnight bag he carried, which should have looked as laid-back as a duffle, bore a designer name. He had the profile to fit the image, as well. Features chiseled like a classic Greek statue.

“I don't close the bar on weeknights until 2:00 a.m.,” Nate said. He stared from Larry to Kelsey. “Okay, so maybe to some people that's the middle of the night.”

“I was just going to go to a hotel,” Larry said, looking at Kelsey, still apologetic. “But I went by Nate's. He reminded me that this place has two bedrooms. And if Sheila shows, I can just bunk over with Cindy.”

Kelsey stepped back, letting the men enter. “Larry, you're more than welcome here—as much as I am, surely. You'll have to take the spare room. I'm in Sheila's—I know it sounds silly, but it makes me feel closer to figuring out her moves somehow. But what are you doing down here at all?”

He shrugged. “Two things. You sounded upset on the phone, and I didn't want you to go getting all worried about Sheila. She's been known to take off before. Second…I don't know. You'd been to see Nate, Cindy was here, Dane had come over…I guess I was seized by a rush of nostalgia and decided I had to come down, too. My nostalgia was tempered with reason, of course—I didn't want you to be alone and upset.”

Nate made his way past both of them. Unlike Larry, he unmistakably belonged here. His tan was straight from the beach, not acquired in any artificial bed. He had a complete ease of manner in cutoffs or swim trunks, a T-shirt or his bare chest. He could dress well when he needed to and looked like a million bucks. But an hour or so with a tie on, and Nate went crazy. He'd been born in the islands, and he loved them. He'd never had the least desire to leave. He'd gone far enough north to get a degree from Florida International University in hotel and restaurant management, just so he could further improve the Sea Shanty. A vacation to Nate meant taking a boat over to the Bahamas. He had no desire to head for the snow and couldn't care less if he ever saw a country that didn't offer a good reef for diving, sun, sand and warmth.

“You got coffee, Kelsey?” he asked, heading straight for the kitchen.

“Yes, I have coffee,” she said, glancing at Larry with a shrug and following Nate. “But it's 2:00 a.m. You'll wind up staying awake all night.”

“Nope. I never stay awake all night,” Nate assured her. He was already digging through the cabinets.

She walked behind him, caught a prying hand and said, “If you want coffee, let me make decaf, and that way Larry and I can join you.”

“She's in her mid-twenties, and already her spirit of adventure has departed,” Nate said to Larry, over Kelsey's head.

“My dislike of lying awake all night unable to sleep has kicked in, that's all,” Kelsey said. Giving Nate a little push out of the way, she found the decaf and began preparing the coffee.

“You got anything to eat in here?” Larry asked.

“You just came from Nate's place—why didn't you order food if you were hungry?” Kelsey asked. She didn't want to say that she was actually glad to see them, as annoying as they might be. They were giving her a pleasant sense of security.

“His late-night menu doesn't offer a lot,” Larry said.

“Hey!” Nate protested. “Conch fritters, conch chowder, snapper sandwich, veggie burger, hamburger. What are you expecting at this hour of the night? A sissy fruit and yogurt salad, or some alfalfa sprouts?”