In Dark Water (Rarity Cove Book 3)

by Leslie Tentler

  “Ethan, why don’t you go watch TV with Emily?” Mercer gave him a gentle nudge and he skipped over to join his sibling, climbing onto the bed beside her. Touching Samantha’s arm, Mercer said, “I have to go. Mark will explain what’s happening.”

  Her voice faltered as she spoke, causing another spark of guilt inside Noah. He stared at the fire exit plan posted on the back of the door, feeling as though he were intruding on a private family moment. Mark embraced his sister.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he told her. “They’ll take you to your bungalow so you can pack a bag. I promise that I’ll see you soon.”

  Appearing defeated, she gave a small nod.

  Mercer watched from inside Noah’s Ford Explorer as he entered the bungalow from the covered front porch, his gun poised in front of him. Detective Beaufain, who had trailed them from the hotel in his own sedan, now stood guard outside the SUV. Her mind wrestled with anxiety as she imagined hearing a gunshot and seeing a flash of light through the bungalow’s windows, but it remained dark inside. Relief filtered through her when, a minute later, Noah reappeared. Detective Beaufain opened her door.

  “Detective Ford will wait inside with you while you pack,” he said as he helped her from the SUV. “We weren’t followed, but just the same, I’ll stay out here to make sure we don’t get any unwanted company.”

  Noah had gone back inside the bungalow. As Mercer entered, she saw him walking through the darkened rooms and closing the plantation shutters.

  “You can go ahead and turn on a few lights, but stay away from the French doors,” he told her when he returned. She reached to the pull chain on a Tiffany lamp and turned it on, bringing him into focus.

  “You should change into something a little warmer while you’re packing,” he advised. “There’s a cold front coming through. It’s unusual for this time of year, but it’s supposed to drop into the low fifties overnight.”

  Mercer pushed up the sleeves of the too-large, navy Charleston PD windbreaker she wore over her running clothes. It belonged to Noah, who had insisted that she put it on before they’d escorted her from the hotel through a rear service door and into the SUV.

  “How’s your leg?” he asked.

  “It’s just a scrape.” She glanced down at the bandage on her shin. The town’s lone ambulance had arrived at the hotel along with police, and although she hadn’t thought it necessary, a paramedic had cleaned and treated the minor injury.

  “I’m sorry that I had to take you down like that.”

  She stirred uneasily at the memory of his hard, male body on top of hers. “Don’t be. I’m alive because of it.”

  Their gazes held in the lamplight, until she looked away, seeing her computer on the kitchen island. “Am I allowed to take my laptop? I have a hotspot device in case there’s no wireless access where I’m going.”

  “I’d prefer that you don’t.” His dark eyebrows slanted downward in seriousness. “But if you do, I want to be absolutely clear on this—no posting on social sites and no sending emails. And I don’t want you using your cell phone at all. It stays turned off.”

  Despite her nod of acceptance of his rules, another wave of anxiety washed over her. Mercer wondered for how long she might be away. She had drawn so much strength from her family since Jonathan’s death, but it seemed that now even that support system was being stripped from her. Her emotions were running high and a lump formed in her throat at the unfairness of it all. Turning away, she walked to the fireplace, not wanting Noah to see the mist in her eyes. She stared up at the silver urn on the mantel, an ache inside her, until she became aware of Noah’s presence close behind her.

  “You can take that, if it’ll help,” he said, his voice low.

  She shook her head, her heart heavy. “There’s nothing inside it anymore. I scattered his ashes last weekend.”

  She wiped at her eyes, embarrassed, before turning to face him. His expression held sympathy. “Your brother told me that your husband died a year ago.”

  She felt the lump in her throat grow larger. “I…guess I’ve had a hard time letting go.”

  “He was quite a bit older than you.”

  Defensive, her chin lifted faintly. “Did Mark tell you that, as well?”

  “I Googled you, too, remember? There was a photo of you with him in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution from a few years back. It was taken at an awards ceremony at the university where he taught.”

  Mercer felt a pang at the memory. Jonathan had received the Dalmouth Award, a high honor for professors of English.

  “We were married five years,” she said quietly. “The last nine months of our marriage were…difficult. Jonathan was very ill prior to his death.”

  As his somber gaze held hers, Mercer was again made aware of the vitality he exuded. She imagined that women found his alpha-male take-chargeness and dark, brooding good looks deeply appealing. Unsettled by the observation, she glanced down at her hands.

  “You should go pack,” he said.

  A short time later, she had changed into a sweater and jeans and was zipping up her large travel bag in the bedroom when Noah knocked on the door.

  “You can come in,” she told him. Once he entered, she handed him his jacket. “You’ll probably be needing this tonight.”

  He accepted it and shrugged into it. “Let’s go. If you’ve forgotten anything, we can buy it or send someone back for it.”

  Mercer picked up her own jacket from the bed and put it on as Noah placed the bag’s strap over his shoulder to carry it outside. She followed him into the living area. With their pending departure, however, her anxiety spiked again. “Where’re we going? To some kind of safe house?”

  “This is a fast-moving situation and we’re still working on that,” he said as he turned to face her. “But I have a place where I’m leaving you while Detective Beaufain and I meet up with the SWAT team.”

  “I need to know where I’m going, Noah.”

  “You’ll be with my sister, Corinne, and her husband. They live in the same general direction we’re headed, so we’re dropping you off before traveling to the compound. Two of my friends—both former military—will stay outside to watch over the place. They’re more than likely already there. My brother-in-law will sit guard inside. He’s a civilian now, but he served in the Coast Guard for five years, working in its Drug Interdiction unit.”

  “Your sister and her husband agreed to this?”

  He frowned slightly at her questioning. “Yeah, they did. They’ve sent their son to stay at a friend’s house, so it’ll be just the three of you inside. As long as we’re not followed there, and we won’t be—Detective Beaufain and I know how to spot a tail—there’s not a chance they’ll find you. If I thought there was, I wouldn’t endanger my family.”

  Her chest tightened. She didn’t want to be left alone with someone she didn’t know. And for all she knew, Noah had strong-armed their cooperation. Nor did Mercer understand why he was having friends watch over her instead of police.

  “I don’t want to be an imposition on anyone. Can’t I just stay at the hotel for the night? We can ask the Rarity Cove Police to keep guard. You can come back and get me once—”

  “We need to do this my way and we need to go now, Mercer,” he said with forced patience. “I want you off this property as soon as possible. Don’t fight me on this, all right?”

  At his tone, she bit down hard on her lower lip. Noah released a soft breath of resignation. Putting down her bag, he came to stand in front of her. “I’m sorry. What happened has me on edge, too. I trust the men who’ll be watching over you completely. Until I know who leaked the information about you, until I can rule out that it came from somewhere inside my own department, I’m not leaving you with just anyone. I need time to figure out who I can trust. You’ll only be at my sister’s place for a few hours. At the most, until morning.”

  She nodded mutely, unwilling to tell him the truth: that the prospect of being without him frightened
her. Her hands trembled faintly as she closed her laptop on the kitchen island, put it in its carry case and picked it up along with her purse.

  Hoisting the large bag over his shoulder again, Noah moved forward, then halted at the door with Mercer behind him, waiting until Detective Beaufain gave them the go-ahead to proceed.

  “I want you to slink down in the seat like you did when we left the hotel. The local police have checked the peninsula road to make sure there’s no one waiting to ambush us, but I still want you to keep down until we get outside the property and off that road,” Noah instructed once they were both inside his SUV. Snapping his seatbelt, he started the engine. The twin headlights of Detective Beaufain’s sedan flared to life behind them.

  A few minutes later, sitting huddled low in the seat, Mercer’s heart constricted as they left the St. Clair behind.

  Chapter Ten

  “So, this is where Noah grew up.” Mercer made nervous small talk as she accepted the mug of decaffeinated coffee that Corinne Salling handed her. They stood in the tidy kitchen with its patterned, linoleum flooring and white appliances. Her husband, Keith, a big bear of a man, sat in the adjacent living room in front of the television, a shotgun across his lap, which he had calmly told Mercer was just a backup to the men who were stationed outside.

  “The very place.” Corinne was dark-haired like her brother, although she appeared older than him, her locks streaked faintly with gray and fine lines on her face that suggested she’d had a hard life. She indicated one of the wooden chairs tucked around a well-used dining table, and Mercer sat. Corinne sat across from her, her intelligent brown eyes assessing.

  “I’m sure this house doesn’t look like much,” she remarked, although the comment seemed to be made without malice. “But as our Mama always said, it keeps us dry and warm in the winter and cool in the summer—at least as cool as one gets in South Carolina.”

  Mercer figured that Noah had told Corinne that she was a St. Clair and his sister had made assumptions about her.

  “I like your house,” she assured her. “You can tell there’s a lot of love here.”

  When she had entered with Noah a half-hour earlier, Mercer had noticed the multiple groupings of family photos and the shelves that held cheerful knickknacks, including several homemade items that looked like a child’s school art projects. There were also photos of Noah in uniform, both police and military. The home was modest—an aging ranch with a low-slung roof—but it was well cared for and appeared to be on several acres of property. As she had been ushered inside, Mercer had also noticed the shadowed structure of a large greenhouse behind the home.

  “I saw the greenhouse,” she mentioned, still trying to keep conversation flowing. “What do you grow?”

  Corinne took a sip of coffee. “Oh, this and that. I supply nurseries with shrubs and plants. Local sourcing is a thing now, so I also sell seasonal organic vegetables to a few restaurants in Charleston.”

  “Is that what you’ve always done? Horticulture?”

  She smiled wearily. “I’ve had more jobs than you’ve had birthdays, honey. But I always liked gardening. It wasn’t until I met Keith and we had our Finn that I started taking it seriously, though. The money Keith makes driving made it possible for me to start a business so I could be at home when Finn was little. It’s grown from there,” she said, a note of pride in her voice. “I’m not getting rich by a long-shot, but doing something you love and making some money along the way isn’t too bad.”

  Mercer nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry about being left here. I know this is an inconvenience. Noah told me that your husband’s away from home a lot. I must be ruining one of your few nights together.”

  “Keith does most of his driving at night, so he’s okay with staying up. And he’s no slouch with a gun, I promise you.” Corinne pressed her lips together before speaking again. “I heard you call my brother Noah, not Detective Ford. I heard him call you by your first name, too. That’s unusual.”

  “Oh…” Self-conscious, Mercer cupped her hands around the warmth of her mug. “It looks like he might be stuck with me for a while, so I convinced him to dispense with the formality.”

  Corinne arched an eyebrow. “But Ty’s still Detective Beaufain?”

  “Well, I just met Detective Beaufain today,” she tried to explain, aware of the implication. She attempted to make light of things. “You’re as observant as Noah. Are you sure that you don’t want to change your line of work to law enforcement, too?” Her eyes moved to the small handgun that lay on the table between them. “You also seem pretty comfortable around that.”

  “Noah says we’re safe with his friends outside, and I believe him. But like Keith said, a little extra precaution never hurts.” Corinne toyed pensively with one of the whimsical, ceramic salt and pepper shakers on the table. It was in the shape of a rooster, the other a hen. “It was just Noah and me for a long time. Things have grown up some around here, but back in the day this house was truly out in the middle of nowhere. We learned to protect ourselves, including knowing how to use a gun.”

  “Just you and Noah? What about your parents?”

  “Our father walked out on us when Noah was eight. Good riddance—he was a drunk who couldn’t hold down a job and liked to knock us around. Noah especially, since he’d try to defend Mama and me. Our mother died when Noah was thirteen. I took over after that.”

  A swell of sympathy inside her, Mercer shook her head. “My goodness. You couldn’t have been much more than a child yourself.”

  Corinne got up to reach for the carafe that sat on the coffeemaker’s burner. She brought it to the table to top off Mercer’s mug. As Corinne returned it, Mercer paused thoughtfully before speaking. “Your brother seems like a good man. He’s definitely a brave one. He saved my life tonight.” She fidgeted with the spoon that she had used to stir milk into her coffee. “I…know about his military history. About his time as a prisoner of war.”

  “He told you?” Corinne turned back around to her.

  “I brought it up,” she admitted. “I’d read an article online. Noah told me a little, but he seemed reluctant to say much.”

  Corinne sank back down at the table. “If he didn’t walk out on the conversation, you’re ahead of most everyone else. He’s told me a little, but I only know the details because the Marines offered counseling to family members to help them deal with the trauma the men brought back.” For a time, she stared down at her hands that were folded on the table in front of her. “He came home with three broken ribs, a fractured jaw, and scars on his chest and back. He’d lost twenty-two pounds. For several years, he had recurring tinnitus in one ear because of how badly he was beaten. But I think the mental strain was worse. The Taliban was using their captors to try to get some of their own men released from our prisons. When the U.S. wouldn’t budge, they started executing their prisoners, one by one, to show that they meant business. Noah never knew if he’d be next.”

  Mercer’s heart beat almost painfully at what she had been told.

  Corinne shook her head. “He stayed here for a while after his medical discharge from the military. He’d have some pretty bad dreams.” She lifted her chin faintly. “Noah’s tough, though. He managed to move on from what happened, but it pretty much finished off Allie and him.”

  “Allie?”

  “His fiancée,” she supplied. “Although truth be told, I don’t think they were ever really right for one another. When Noah got called up again, Allie couldn’t handle it. I think that she might’ve even slept around on him, but I don’t know for sure. Once Noah got back home, he just became more and more distant, and they called things off. She married someone else less than a year later and moved to Missouri. Noah’s stayed single ever since.”

  She rose from the table and poured the remainder of her coffee into the basin before turning around again, her expression pained. “I’ve said too much. Noah wouldn’t approve of my big mouth. It’s just that I worry about him, and…you seem
like you might care.”

  They stared at one another in silence, until Corinne glanced at the wall clock. “You very well might be here for the night, Mercer. You can sleep in Finn’s bedroom, if you like. It’s the second one on the right. I changed the sheets. I’m going to go get ready for bed myself. Do you need anything?”

  “No, but thank you for your hospitality.”

  Corinne smiled softly. Taking the gun with her, she headed down the hall.

  Mercer remained in the kitchen.

  You seem like you might care.

  And Mercer did care. Of course, she did. Just as she had told Corinne, Noah seemed like a good man. But any spark of attraction she felt to him was purely physical, she assured herself.

  Still, guilt flickered inside her.

  “He’s not up there,” the point man on the SWAT entry team announced as he jogged back down the wooden flight of steps in the main building inside the gated compound. Like the others on his team, he was outfitted for war, his AR-15 rifle pointed downward at his side.

  Frustration gnawed at Noah’s gut. Draper’s bedroom was believed to be the last one on the second floor.

  “It’s been cleared, Detective. You’re free to go up.”

  Noah holstered his firearm. Around him, SWAT team members had a dozen people—men as well as women—prone on their stomachs, fingers laced behind their heads on the floor. Many of them shouted slurs at the law enforcement officers standing over them, but there had been no exchange of gunfire, at least not yet. Leaving the chaos, Noah took the stairs two at a time, aware of the yelling, the cries of frightened children, and the splintering of wood coming from the outside, indicative of the other buildings that were simultaneously being breached. Although The Brotherhood’s compound was some eighty miles outside the city, the warrants gave the Charleston Police Department authority for the raid outside its jurisdiction. Still, they had given the local county sheriff’s office notification of their plans.