Hurricane Bay (9 page)

“Your eating habits will give you a heart attack one day,” Larry said. “I can already hear your arteries choking.”

“You're going to be one of those health freaks who does marathons and drops dead running down the block,” Nate told him.

“You have cereal?” Larry asked Kelsey.

“Raisin bran. Help yourself.” She was measuring coffee.

Larry had no problem helping himself to food. “Ah-ha! She has yogurt and fruit. I knew it.”

“And beer,” Nate said, taking one.

“You just left a bar.”

“I never drink when I'm working my own bar.”

“You just asked me for coffee.”

“The coffee and the beer will cancel each other out.”

Kelsey shook her head and let the coffee perk. She crawled up on a bar stool next to Larry. “What about work? We're both gone now.”

“Tomorrow is Friday. I left a message with my secretary that I was working at home. I'll drive back in on Monday sometime,” Larry said. “Don't worry, I'm a golden boy at work, you know that.”

It was true.

“Um. Let's hope you're not so golden that they don't get the idea to cut my vacation short,” Kelsey told him.

He laughed. “You're the golden girl. The idea lady. The creative genius. You're safe.”

“Is that coffee done, Kelsey?” Nate asked.

“Looks like it. Why don't you pour me some, too?”

Larry jumped when the phone on the counter in front of the coffeepot rang.

“Who the hell would be calling at this hour?” Larry asked.

“Yeah, two o'clock in the morning,” Kelsey murmured. “Answer it.”

Larry did so. Even from where they were sitting, the others could hear Cindy's voice over the phone. She had recognized Larry's “Hello?” But she wanted to know what he was doing in Kelsey's place in the middle of the night.

“Time is relative,” he told her. “Actually when I talked to Kelsey earlier, she sounded a little down, and I thought seeing you and Dane sounded really good, so I decided to play hooky from work and drive on down. For the weekend, at least.”

Cindy said something Kelsey couldn't quite catch. Larry hung up the phone.

Kelsey and Nate both stared at Larry.

“She's on her way over,” Larry said.

“Why not?” Kelsey said. “Time is relative.” She got off her bar stool to walk to the front door and let Cindy in when she appeared in just a minute's time. It didn't take long to get from one side of a duplex to another.

“Hey!” Cindy said when Kelsey opened the door. She swept on in. Larry had come from the kitchen and greeted Cindy with a big hug.

“Wow!” he said as she hugged him back. “Little but powerful. I feel like I just got a hug from an anaconda.”

“Sorry, too tight?” Cindy said.

Larry shook his head. “Hugs are never too tight. I just never realized before how powerful you are.”

“It's a short thing. Being small, I work out a lot, so the big guys can't push me around. Kelsey, you should come to the gym with me tomorrow. I have a membership over at the new hotel. They've got all kinds of machines, a pool, a sauna…. If you work out, you'll feel better about everything.”

“If Sheila shows up, I'll feel better about everything,” Kelsey said.

Nate had joined them in the passage between the living room and kitchen. Along with Cindy and Larry, he stared at her. They were all looking at her as if they were adults and she was a child still convinced there was a Santa Claus.

“She's gone off for more than a week before,” Cindy said.

“She left me for lots more than a week,” Larry said. There was no pain in his voice. He was matter-of-fact about Sheila.

“She acts on whims,” Nate said softly.

They still had that look in their eyes as they watched her. Kelsey shook her head. “Come on, now, we're her friends. We've got to be concerned.”

Larry cleared his throat.

“Okay, so I was barely in touch with her for a couple of years. But you know what it's like. We all grew up together. We have a bond. At first Sheila just e-mailed me, and I e-mailed back. Then we talked. Then she said that she really needed to see me, because I knew her so well, and she could trust me with her deepest, darkest secrets. Then she told me she was feeling desperate, and please would I make arrangements to spend time with her. So, you see, don't you, why I'm so worried?”

Larry groaned softly. “Kelsey, don't you remember how pissed off Sheila was when you took my side during the divorce?”

“I didn't take your side. Larry, I don't take sides in the breakup of a marriage, which is always a very sad thing.”

“Okay, you didn't take sides,” Larry said. He stood staring at her for a moment, then groaned. “Well, great, I'm glad we're all best friends because it's still kind of embarrassing to admit all this. Don't you remember? She cheated. I was hurt. Really hurt. You were cool to her. I remember her standing in your office, and you telling Sheila that she had owed it to me to say the marriage wasn't working, that she shouldn't have hurt and humiliated me the way she did. She said you were her friend, so you should have understood whatever she had done. And you told her that she was a grown-up and could live the life she wanted, but she needed to start watching out for crushing other people.”

Kelsey remembered the day well. Larry had just found out about what his wife had gotten up to. He'd blown an important presentation because of it, and she'd been worried about his job.

And it was true. Sheila
had
been angry with her, and she'd flounced out of the office. Next time they had made a date—at Sheila's insistence, because she had wanted to tell her side of the story—Sheila hadn't shown. The next time Sheila had tried to see her, Kelsey had still been angry herself. She'd come up with an excuse. And that had been it until just about six months ago, when Sheila started e-mailing her, and then the phone calls began.

“Sheila is our friend,” Nate said quietly. “But she's kicked us all in the teeth.”

They were all silent for a minute.

“So what are we supposed to do?” Kelsey said.

“You went to the police, right?” Nate said.

Kelsey nodded.

“Then we let them handle it. What else are you going to do?”

“Track her down,” Kelsey said.

They all continued to stare at her. She let out a sigh of exasperation. “We follow her footsteps, talk to anyone she might have seen.”

“Great,” Nate said. “That would include the entire populace of the Keys. And let's not forget Miami.”

“Dane has an investigations firm,” Cindy said with impatience. “The smartest thing is to let him handle it.”

“The problem with Dane is the same problem with you all,” Kelsey said. She didn't know why she was reluctant to point out to Nate the fact that he had been the one to tell her he was pretty sure Dane and Sheila had been seeing each other as more than friends, and that then the two of them had argued at the bar, and that Sheila had implied she was heading out to Dane's place the last time he had seen her. “No one seems to be really worried,” she said.

“Except you,” Larry pointed out.

“All right, here's the deal,” Cindy said. “Kelsey, tomorrow morning you come to the gym with me. I swear, it will make you feel better. Then we'll all go to see Dane. We'll have that barbecue at his place.”

“He didn't exactly invite us for a barbecue tomorrow,” Kelsey said.

Cindy waved a hand in the air as if being invited was entirely immaterial. “We'll bring all the stuff. We'll just show up at Hurricane Bay in the morning with all the fixings. He won't mind.”

“Wait a minute,” Nate said. “What time?”

“I don't know. Sometime in the morning,” Cindy said.

“Morning is relative. It's morning now. Closing in on three,” Nate said. “I wasn't planning on waking up too early.”

“How about one?” Larry suggested. He yawned. “I'll sleep, Cindy and Kelsey can go get buff, buy the food, come back, then we all meet here and head over at one.”

“There. We have a plan,” Cindy said. “Good night. Kelsey. Will nine be too early for you?”

Kelsey had the feeling the last thing she was going to want to do in the morning was go to the gym.

“Sheila came with me sometimes,” Cindy said. “You can ask around and find out if she said anything to anyone.”

“Nine, then,” Kelsey agreed.

“Night, guys,” Cindy said. Walking past them, she let herself out.

“I should go, too,” Nate said. He looked at Kelsey. “This seems strange,” he told Larry.

“What's that?”

“Leaving you in a house, sleeping with my ex-wife.”

“He's not sleeping with your ex-wife,” Kelsey said.

“She won't sleep with me,” Larry told Nate.

“No?”

“I've asked her,” Larry said, winking at Kelsey. “She rebuffed me kindly, but with determination.”

“She's like that.”

“Hell, she married you.”

“She married me because she was a friend who liked me. It was a mercy marriage, and that was all.”

“She likes me, and she still won't sleep with me.”

“Nate,” Kelsey said firmly, “let's face it, you're just too pretty to be tied down by one woman. And, Larry, you're sleeping with one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, and she seems to be nice, on top of it. Nate, go home. Larry, the extra bedroom is right there. Cindy is going to get me up in a matter of hours and make me do painful things to my body, so go away, both of you.”

She pushed Nate toward the door. He protested playfully, “I can do painful things to your body, if that's what you want.”

“Out!”

She shoved Nate out the door.

“Lock it,” he told her from the outside.

“You bet,” she said.

She knew that Nate was waiting to hear the sound of the bolt sliding into place. She obliged him. “It's locked.”

“Good girl. Good night.”

“Good night.”

She turned around. Larry laughed, putting up his hands. “I'm on my way into the spare bedroom this minute.”

To prove it, he turned and walked through the doorway and across the living room.

Kelsey returned to the kitchen for a moment and unplugged the coffee machine. She decided to set it up for the next morning. She'd gotten Cindy and Nate out, and Larry off to bed. She could go back to sleep.

Except that now she was restless.

The day had been busy. She was really exhausted. She wanted to lie down, close her eyes and black it all out.

But now, in the silence that came in the wake of the others' departures, she felt wired.

So tired, but wide-awake.

She gave the kitchen a thorough cleaning. When that was done, she looked around the living room. It was already clean. Sheila wasn't the type to keep bric-a-brac lying around. Nor did she pile up magazines or bills. Of course, she would have to have some kind of paperwork lying around. Utility bills, if nothing else. Kelsey made a mental note to go through every drawer in the place the next day and really start prying into Sheila's business. With that determination made, she returned to the bedroom at last. Sheila's room.

She lay down again, got up, washed her face, brushed her teeth, turned the television on to a cable movie. An old mummy movie. Black and white, with no computer or high-tech gimmicks, it was just a darned good movie. Good acting, lots of suspense.

She warned herself that she would fall asleep and dream about bandage-wrapped creatures rising from the grave to come after her.

But she didn't.

She dreamed about the past.

And hours later, when she awoke again to the streaking pink and gold colors of a new dawn, haggard and still exhausted, she wished that she
had
dreamed of ancient monsters.

They were far less unsettling than the memories of a not so distant time.

A
n endangered American crocodile had somehow made it into the waters just off Coconut Grove, so close to the marina that those who made a living scraping barnacles from the hulls of the many pleasure craft had been afraid to go into the water. But the wily reptile had been caught and brought back to a crocodile reserve. Two accidents had tied up US1, and a woman had been arrested for aggravated child abuse after bringing her injured baby to a local hospital. Another Hollywood star had been arrested on Miami Beach for DUI.

Waking early, Dane listened to the news on the television, then scoured the morning paper.

No bodies had been discovered in the last twenty-four hours. And it was daylight. Time to take the offensive. He owed it to himself—and to Sheila.

He left the house and started out with a visit to Gary Hansen at the local police station. Gary had come down from Minnesota. In the sun, his blond hair had turned to a platinum that was almost white. He always wore very dark sunglasses, mainly because his eyes were nearly as light a blue as his hair was a blond. The sunlight hurt him. He was fair-skinned, as well, and despite the amount of sunblock he used, he was usually burned to a shade of brilliant pink most commonly found on tourists unaccustomed to the sun. But despite his body's seeming protest against the climate, Gary loved Key Largo. He was never leaving.

He was a decent guy of about forty, the kind who would slap a drunk driver in the can overnight without mercy, but who would deal mercifully with minor infractions of the law. He gave the appearance of moving slowly, of being a leisurely guy, but in the few cases that had brought them together since Dane had opened up shop in the area, he'd proven himself to be sharp as a tack.

“Hey, Dane, what's up? Caught any thieves on video?” Gary asked him.

“No, I just came in to ask you a few questions.”

Gary groaned. “You're not going to ask me for files that aren't public domain, are you? There are laws to protect the criminals out there, you know.”

Dane grinned at the joke despite his lack of humor at the moment. He took a seat on the edge of Gary's cluttered desk. “No, I think a friend of mine was in here yesterday. Seems we have another friend who hasn't been seen for a while.”

Gary nodded, eyeing Dane closely as he leaned back in his swivel chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. He'd known exactly why Dane had come.

“Kelsey Cunningham. She reported that your friend Sheila hadn't been seen in a while.”

“Have you done anything?”

“Filled out the papers. Asked a few questions.”

“That's all?”

Gary hesitated, then shrugged. “Actually I would have come to see you today. Miss Cunningham said that Nate Curry out at the Sea Shanty told her Sheila was heading for your place the last time he'd seen her.”

“She did. She came to my house. Left early the next morning. I haven't seen her since.” That was God's truth. He hadn't seen her.

Not in person.

“Did she say anything to you about going away?” Gary asked him.

“No. Not to me.”

“Well, there are some other locals she hangs with, who we might want to question…just for being questionable locals. Still, Miss Cunningham says that her friend's car is gone, as well. We'll treat the situation as a missing person, but from past history…this lady comes and goes as she pleases. Look, Dane, I know Sheila Warren, too. Not like you old-timers here know her, but I've met her, and I know about her. She isn't employed and lives off that trust fund left by her mother. She island hops, continent hops…seems to me she's a free spirit. Sorry, Dane, I know the woman is your friend. Maybe she's still a lot more, from what I've heard from a few people. But, hell, she's a grown woman. Apparently she…likes making new friends and traveling with them. Have you been hired by someone to look for her?”

“Yeah, myself.”

“Great. We'll help each other. But…this isn't a big city like Miami or anything, but still, we had a big drug bust the other night, I've got to find a husband who broke his wife's jaw at the new hotel the other night…there's a string of burglaries, and…well, you know the routine. It's hard to get too concerned over a woman who regularly goes off with whomever she pleases whenever she feels like it.”

“I understand your position. But I have a suggestion. Talk to Andy Latham, Sheila's stepfather.”

“Yeah, I'd intended to do that.” From his tone, Gary Hansen obviously considered it an unpleasant proposition. He eyed Dane for a minute. “I heard around town that Sheila was getting into drugs.”

“To the best of my knowledge, she wasn't into anything heavy,” Dane said. “She wasn't shooting up, if that's what you mean.”

“How do you know?”

“Okay, she wasn't shooting into her arms, at any rate. I know because she was always bare-armed when I saw her.”

“You did have a relationship with her for years, right?”

“Yeah. I wouldn't say high school sweethearts, because neither one of us was particularly sweet. After high school, I went away to college, and then into the service. Sheila went her own way.”

“So it had all cooled down by now?” Gary said, still studying him. He didn't wait for Dane to answer. “Yeah, I guess it couldn't have been much of anything now. Heard about what happened up in St. Augustine. I'm sorry about that.”

“Thanks. And as to Sheila, whether or not she was buying weed or pills on the street, I don't know. She might have been. It's an angle I wouldn't rule out.”

“The problem with searching for Sheila is that there are miles and miles of angles that have to be checked out,” Gary said.

“Keep me posted, will you?”

“Sure.”

Dane stood and started for the door.

“Hey,” Gary called.

“Yeah?”

“You keep me posted, too, huh?”

Dane nodded. He felt an uncomfortable rise of tension in his throat. It might be the best thing in the world if he did keep the cops posted with the truth.

The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

No, he'd thought it all out. There was nothing he knew that could help the cops do anything.

Except charge him with murder.

 

Working out with Cindy made Kelsey feel like a novice climber trying to scale Everest next to the pros.

She had never considered herself to be in particularly
bad
shape—she did slide on into the gym in Miami now and then, she loved to go bike riding on a decent day, and she spent at least several late afternoons a week in her condo pool.

But watching Cindy on an exercise bike was like watching a tornado set down. She seemed to pedal close to a mile a minute.

They shared no conversation at the cycles. Kelsey was lucky to be able to breathe while trying to appear to keep up with Cindy's speed.

From the cycles, they went on to free weights.

Cindy could apparently press more weight than most of the men. Two-hundred-something pounds. Kelsey didn't need to spot Cindy while she was lifting—something that probably wouldn't have done much good anyway, since she couldn't begin to lift the weight that Cindy could—because there was a roomful of muscle-bound guys more than ready to help out.

Kelsey played with the five-pound weights she used in her own exercise routine, said hello to all the lifters to whom Cindy introduced her, and decided that her own meager workout was done. Cindy, true to her word, asked if anyone had seen Sheila in the gym lately.

No one had.

Three guys—Jim Norris, Ralph Munroe and Ricky Esteban—apparently knew Sheila. And knew her fairly well.

None of them seemed in the least concerned about her whereabouts. Ralph was short and, with his muscles, seemed as wide as he was tall. Killer pecs. Jim was the opposite, so tall that the scope of his muscles seemed smaller, though certainly as well honed. The man didn't seem to have so much as a quarter inch of body fat. Ricky Esteban came in a body shape right between the other two; standing about six feet even, he had a very attractive build. He told Kelsey that he and Sheila had spent a night on the town about two weeks earlier, and he hadn't seen her since then.

He watched Kelsey with curious amber eyes, then told her, “You know…Sheila's the kind of girl who doesn't believe in double standards.”

“Meaning…?” Kelsey asked him.

Ricky shrugged, dragging damp hair back off his forehead. “What's good for the gander is good for the goose. I guess I'm trying to say that she does whatever the hell she wants to do. It aggravates her that men seem to think nothing about going to a strip club, or that they can go to a bar at night in hopes of getting lucky with a total stranger, and that women generally get labeled—not nicely—for doing the same thing. She told me once that she was a voice for her sex.”

Kelsey stared at him blankly as he went on. “What I'm trying to tell you is that you shouldn't be too worried. If Sheila met a guy and liked him, and he was heading to Alaska for the week, she wouldn't think twice about going with him.”

“She would have called me,” Kelsey insisted.

Ricky shrugged. Then his expression changed, and he asked her what she was doing with her vacation time in the Keys.

He was flattering—and damned good-looking.

She hesitated and wondered why she did. Dinner with him would probably be nice.

She gave him a vague answer, though, escaped out to the entry area and bought a bottle of water, then sat in one of the comfortable spa chairs to wait, breathe and hope the pain she'd incurred by trying to keep up with Cindy would go away.

She damned the fact that Dane Whitelaw had returned to Hurricane Bay. She wondered if, had she not seen him, she might have gone out with Ricky.

Ricky had admitted to dating Sheila.

Then again, she wasn't sure she had met a guy yet who hadn't dated Sheila. Everything she was learning was disturbing. And yet people kept telling her these things so she wouldn't worry.

Unfortunately, all these tidbits about Sheila's wild lifestyle only made her more concerned.

The bottle of water went quickly.

She wanted coffee.

The gym was very nice—Cindy had spoken the truth. There was the gym itself, along with a complete spa in the west wing of the new hotel. The spa sold all kinds of juices and herbal teas. Healthful offerings.

She just wanted coffee. Strong, caffeinated coffee.

As she debated heading out to the hotel area, she was startled to hear her name called.

“Kelsey? Kelsey Cunningham? It
is
you, isn't it?”

She twisted in her chair to see a man coming from the free weight room. He was a good six foot two and wearing a tank top, so it was apparent that he was muscular. He had hair so dark it was almost ebony, able to defy the effects of the sun that had tanned him to such a deep shade that he was nearly brown. His eyes were just as dark as his hair. Within two seconds she recognized him and smiled. “Jorge!”

He walked over to her, about to give her a hug, then backed off, apologizing. “Sorry, I'm sweating like a pig. If pigs really sweat. Quick kiss on the cheek. How are you? I haven't seen you in ages. Actually, I should have expected you—Sheila mentioned that you were coming down for vacation.”

She rose and gave him a hug, despite the sweat. Jorge Marti hadn't been one of their intimate crowd, but he had been a friend. While they had all taken various jobs throughout their high school years, Jorge had really worked. His folks had come over during the Mariel boat lift from Cuba, and for many years had barely eked out an existence. Jorge hadn't spoken a word of English when he had arrived as a nine-year-old. Now his accent was barely discernible. They'd all liked him, and on those few occasions when he hadn't been studying or working, he'd spent his free time with them.

In high school, though, he'd had a period where he'd mixed with the wrong crowd. Only the intervention of Dane's father had kept him from going to jail and acquiring the kind of record that would have stayed with him all his life.

“Jorge, it's wonderful to see you. And yes, I came to meet Sheila, but it seems that she stood me up.”

“Stood you up?”

“She isn't here. Have you seen her in the last week?”

“Sure…wait…no, I haven't. The last time I saw Sheila…was at the Sea Shanty. She'd been making the rounds, then ended up sitting with Dane. I think they had an argument or something. He left…and she left right after. Hey, have you talked to Dane?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Well, you know Sheila.”

Did she really know Sheila anymore?

“So how have you been?” he asked her.

“Great, thank you.”

“Still doing commercials?”

“Commercials and print advertising.”