“You come see me as soon as you can. All I’ve been getting is secondhand information. I want to get the details of what happened out there straight from you.”
“Ty…Lanny told me that when the Cap came to see you yesterday, he was with Adkins and Bushnell,” Noah recounted, referring to the police commissioner and the deputy chief of police.
“You know these wounded cop things.” Tyson paused, his cough sounding painful. “They’re a real dog and pony show. Higher-ups have to get in on the act.”
“Did Bell see you alone at all?”
The airwaves went silent for several moments. “Now that you mention it, I think he did. Either that or I was dreaming. My memory is fuzzy. I was pretty stoned from all the pain meds, but I do recall him coming back by for a while.”
Despite the sun on his shoulders, the hair on Noah’s nape prickled.
“Why? What’s this about, Noah?” Tyson asked.
“Did you tell him where Mercer and I were?”
“No, man. I didn’t tell anyone but Remy when I called him.”
Noah frowned. “Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t do that, considering things.” Tyson hesitated, however. “At least I don’t think I would’ve. But I was higher than a Georgia pine.”
Noah paced a tense step, the phone to his ear. “Do you remember anything that you and Bell talked about? Think, Ty.”
Thoughtful silence ensued again. Then, “It’s real foggy, but it seems like we were talking about fishing.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Remember that time you took off in Dad’s speedboat?” Mark directed an amused look at Mercer as they sat at the long, mahogany dining table inside the Big House with the rest of the family. Samantha had prepared dinner in honor of Mercer’s safe return.
Mercer smiled despite the flush that she was pretty certain had crept onto her cheeks. Mark was preparing to tell one of his favorite stories about her, one of the few times in her youth that she hadn’t walked the straight and narrow line her parents had set. “Do you really have to bring this up again?”
“Oh, he does.” Carter smiled as Lily sat on his lap, nibbling on a yeast roll slathered in butter.
“And this wasn’t just any speedboat,” Carter recounted for the benefit of those who hadn’t heard the tale before. “It was Dad’s 1958 Riva Tritone. It was originally Grandpa Aiden’s. That thing was a work of art—twin six-cylinder engines, 170 horsepower, and seafoam green leather seating. It looked like something you’d see Cary Grant boating around in.”
“Mercer was fourteen.” Mark passed the large platter of handmade crab and shrimp ravioli in a rich cream sauce down the table. “We had three other watercrafts at our disposal, not to mention jet skis, and what does Mercer do? She loads Dad’s vintage boat up with her girlfriends, sneaks it out of the marina, and takes off down the coast.”
Laughter sounded around the room. Emily sat beside Mercer, and she played with a lock of her niece’s blond hair.
“It had the best deck for sunbathing,” Mercer argued. “And I’d had my boater education card since I was twelve.” She shot a look at her brothers. “You both know that I know my way around a boat.”
“Not that day, which makes the story even funnier,” Mark replied.
Handing Lily off to Quinn, Carter picked up the tale again. “Anyway, Mark and I get this panicked call from Mercer. The boat wouldn’t go. They had its engines running and straining, but they couldn’t get it back to shore.”
“We took another boat out and spent over an hour looking for them,” Mark said.
“Obviously, you found them.” Samantha smiled as she rearranged a stem in the table’s centerpiece that was comprised of bush sage and asters from the Big House’s fall garden. Ethan stood beside his mother, his head leaned on her shoulder. He had gotten bored with being seated and had been given permission to get up from the table.
“Merce and her friends spent the afternoon working on their tans,” Carter said. “When they got ready to head back, no one remembered that they’d dropped anchor. It’s a miracle they didn’t burn the engines out.”
Despite the ribbing she was receiving, Mercer warmly recalled how her brothers had tried to lecture her about the dangers of going into open water, but neither of them had been able to keep a straight face, in disbelief that she’d made such a rookie mistake. It had also been the summer before Mark had left for college in Atlanta, the last summer that he and Carter had been close before the rift between them that had ended up lasting more than a decade.
“We got the boat back to the marina.” Carter gave Mercer a wink. “She begged us not to tell Dad, since he had given all of us orders never to touch that boat. We didn’t tell him what she’d done, but we made her work for our silence. She was our personal maid and errand girl for the rest of the summer.”
Mark chuckled. “I’ve never had a car that clean since. I was having her wash it twice a week.”
“You children were terrible, keeping secrets from us! That boat was your father’s pride and joy.” Despite her feigned dismay, Olivia was laughing, too. Mercer’s heart lifted at the sound. Anders had driven Olivia here once she had been discharged from the hospital. Samantha had offered to move the dinner party to her and Anders’s home in Charleston, but Olivia had insisted that Mercer needed to be here on the St. Clair property tonight. And while Olivia was supposed to be on bed rest, she had stubbornly refused the bed in the guestroom, not wanting to miss the family get-together. “I swear, Harrison pampered that silly boat more than he did me.”
Laughing as he sat beside Olivia, Anders put his arm around the back of her chair.
“What happened to the boat?” Samantha asked. “I’ve never seen it.”
Quinn shook her head, her fork poised over the porcini mushroom raviolis on her plate that had been prepared as a vegetarian option. “I haven’t, either.”
“It’s on permanent loan to a museum in Charleston. It’s part of a decade-by-decade Yesteryear exhibit. It belongs there. It really is a work of art.” Mark wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, then replaced it in his lap. “They say Prince Rainier of Monaco had one just like it.”
As the group went back to finishing their meal, the conversation turned to other topics. But everyone at the table continued to avoid asking Mercer questions about what had happened during the time she had been missing. No one wanted to break the festive mood and she was grateful for it. All she wanted to do right now was be in the presence of her family. She looked around the table, trying to imprint these moments forever in her mind.
Perhaps someday, they would replace the darker things that had been embedded there.
“Come sit with me, darling.” Olivia patted the spot beside her on the camelback sofa in the home’s rear parlor. The children played nearby while Mark and Carter stood in rapt discussion in front of the French doors that led into a sunroom. Samantha and Quinn were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner. Mercer had done her best to pitch in, but she’d been shooed out, her sisters-in-law reminding her that she was the guest of honor and forbidding her to help.
“How’re you feeling, Mom?” Mercer asked, concerned that Olivia was pushing herself too hard.
“Much better, now that I have you back.” She slipped her fingers briefly inside Mercer’s. As always, Olivia’s hands were perfectly manicured and she wore several rings, including the large sapphire that Anders had given her. Mercer thought of her own wedding rings. She had made the thoughtful decision not to put them back on. Instead, they were tucked inside her jewelry box back at the bungalow. After returning home and having lunch in the hotel dining room, Mark and Carter had dropped her off there so that she could shower and take a long nap. But Carter had ended up staying with her, watching television in the front room while she slept as if he feared she might disappear again.
“You should be in bed, you know,” Mercer admonished her mother.
Olivia smiled. “And eat upstairs on a TV tray all alone? I
wouldn’t have missed this for the world—my family being together again after so much uncertainty.”
“We could have come to Charleston.”
Olivia shook her head, her silver bob swaying with the movement. “No. It feels right for all of us to be here in this house.”
Mercer’s gaze grew unfocused as bittersweet memories took over. It was little surprise to her that she was feeling emotional. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Where has Anders gotten off to?”
“He’s outside on the porch, taking a call from Mary Lynn.” Mary Lynn was Anders’s daughter who lived in Falls Church, Virginia. “They’re coming to visit over the children’s fall break. It’s going to time perfectly with the hotel’s oyster roast.” Olivia looked at her sons. “Carter’s going back to Hawaii tomorrow to finish up filming, but he hopes to be back in time for it, too. Quinn and Lily are staying here this time. All that flying back and forth with a little one is difficult. I also think Quinn’s starting to feel a need to nest with this pregnancy.”
“She told me they’re staying here.” Mercer was reminded of the way that she and Noah had made love without protection, but she quickly pushed the thought away. Based on where she had been in her menstrual cycle, the chances were small that she was pregnant.
“Quinn offered to run me through some exercises and give me a massage tomorrow. I’m still a bit sore from the car crash,” Mercer admitted. “I can always get a massage at the hotel spa, but it’d be nice to spend some time with Quinn and Lily.”
“Then that’s just what you should do.” Olivia appeared contemplative before speaking again. “Mark says that you’re not ready to talk about things. About what happened out there. In fact, he forbade me to mention it. He’s always been so protective of you, especially after your father passed.”
Mercer said nothing. Her mother didn’t ever need to know what had transpired out there with Lex Draper and those men. It would only upset her all over again.
“Detective Ford seemed like a very nice man when I met him,” Olivia said, referring to the night that Noah had been summoned to her and Anders’s home on the Battery. “I do hope I get a chance to thank him for your safe return. He’s quite handsome, isn’t he? I mean, if you like tall, dark, and rather intense.”
Mercer’s hands fluttered in her lap. Olivia must have sensed her discomfort, because she touched the pearls at her throat and leaned back in apparent surprise. “What? I might be an old woman, but I still notice.”
Anders appeared from the foyer. He held Olivia’s jacket that matched her outfit folded over one arm. Even after just being discharged from the hospital, her mother was nothing if not put together.
“You ready to go, Olivia?” As Olivia stood and went to him, Anders held out the jacket for her to slip into. “I looked the other way tonight, but it’s time for you to start obeying doctor’s orders and get yourself to bed.”
“Both of you can stay here tonight,” Mark reminded.
“Thank you, darling,” Olivia said to Mark as she guided her arms into the blazer. “But after that uncomfortable hospital bed, I want to spend tonight in my own.”
Mercer hugged Anders and her mother goodbye. Olivia, however, seemed reluctant to let her go. When she finally released her and stepped back, her clear-blue eyes shone with emotion. “I’ve prayed for you so much over these last few days. I’m so thankful we have you back.”
As Mark and Carter walked Anders and Olivia out, Mercer remained behind. For a time, she watched Emily and Ethan arguing over an iPad as Lily played nearby with a doll, lost in her own imaginary world. Lily rubbed at her eyes, reminding Mercer that it was growing later, and she suspected the toddler wouldn’t last another half-hour. Going down the hall, Mercer let herself out through the rear kitchen door, both Samantha and Quinn oblivious to her passage as they conversed while drying and putting away the last of the china and crystal.
Outside, there was a full moon. Arms wrapped around herself, Mercer wandered past the old carriage house and swimming pool to the children’s swing set that was nestled under the gnarled boughs of an ancient live oak. Its garlands of moss swayed in the breeze that carried in from the ocean and held the scent of brine. The cheerful glow of the house behind her, Mercer sat in one of the swings, staring out toward the tumbled rocks on the shoreline and the dark plane of ocean made visible by the moonlight. The waves crashed with a rhythm that had been the soundtrack for much of her life. It seemed surreal that after living on the edge of mortal danger for so many days, she was now returned to the safety and peacefulness of her home, as if none of it had ever happened. She was free to go about her life again.
She couldn’t help it. With a soft sigh of yearning, Mercer wondered what Noah was doing right now. Whether he was still working to finalize the investigation or was at home and recuperating as he should be.
She wondered when, if ever, she might hear from him.
The filmy glow from a streetlamp trickled in through the well-kept, suburban home’s picture window. His muscles rigid, Noah waited in a shadowed corner of the living room as the front door opened. Captain Walter Bell walked from the foyer with heavy steps. It was late, but he still wore his navy-blue uniform with its shield and commendation bars. Not bothering to turn on the lights, he removed his gun belt, placed it on the coffee table along with his cap, and moved to a credenza upon which a collection of liquor bottles sat. Placing a death grip on a glass tumbler, he splashed whiskey into it, gulped it down, and repeated the act. Exhaling heavily, he then hung his head and braced his palms on the credenza’s top.
Here, hidden away in his home, he looked like a guilty man.
As Noah clicked on the sofa lamp, Bell whirled and stumbled back a step, clearly startled.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Detective? How’d you get in here?” Bell’s face had paled with the shock. “I asked to see you at o-eight-hundred hours tomorrow morning and in my office, not here.”
Noah had listened to the voice-mail message that Bell had left on his home answering machine. In it, he had expressed his relief that Noah and his witness had turned up safe and relatively unharmed. Bell had encouraged him to get some rest, then requested to see him the following morning for a full debriefing.
Bushy brows clamped down, Bell’s eyes flicked to Noah’s sling. “I understand you’ve had a rough few days, but this is breaking and entering. I don’t care if you are one of my best—”
“How much did they pay you?” Noah’s voice was deadly quiet.
Bell’s jaw went slack.
Noah took a step closer, his hard gaze pinning the other man’s. “What does it feel like to be a traitor, Captain? I want to know.”
Bell faltered before trying to adapt an air of indignant authority. “Did you get a head injury out there in the swamps, too? Because I don’t know what you’re—”
“Cut the bullshit,” Noah snapped, an angry heat flushing through him. “I know you’re the leak. You were the one supplying information to Draper all along. You turned your own men and a state’s witness over for slaughter.”
Bell made a move toward the coffee table where his weapon lay, but Noah stepped in his path and drew his gun. “Don’t even think about it.”
The bluster appeared to go out of him. Bell’s eyes bugged with panic.
Holding the weapon in his unencumbered hand, Noah kept it trained on his superior. “What I want to know is why you did it. Start talking or I swear to God I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
Bell patted the air in front of him. “Okay. Okay! But you have to understand, it wasn’t like that!”
Disgust, like bile, rose inside Noah. “Then, how was it?”
“I…need to sit down.” Scrubbing his hands over his face, Bell sank slowly onto an upholstered wing chair beside the credenza. For several long moments, he didn’t speak, instead rocking back and forth in silence, despair spreading over his weathered features. Then his voice thickened. “I…didn’t mean for it to go this far. You h
ave to believe me.”
Noah waited tensely as Bell cupped a hand over his mouth. Slowly, he shook his head. “They found out from someone at the Fleur-De-Lis that there was a witness. They…came to me and offered money.”
“Why you?” Noah’s grip tightened involuntarily on his weapon. “Have you taken payouts before?”
The look on the older man’s face was telling. “A long time ago. Back when I was a beat cop, I took money from Orion Scott and Lex Draper knew about it. Draper had one of his men come to me.” He took a tremulous breath. “He offered me a lot of money. He said all I had to do was give them her name. That I wouldn’t be involved beyond that.”
Noah glared at him.
“You have to understand! I needed the money.” He leaned forward in the chair in a defeated posture. “Paula spent like a madwoman for years, trying to keep up with the Joneses. When she divorced me, she got half of everything, including my pension. I’ve put three kids through college. One through Harvard Law School.” His voice roughened as he looked around the room’s upscale furnishings. “All she left me is this house and that’s only because it has a mortgage and a mile-high equity line against it. I’m paying a shitload in alimony. I still owe on loans and I’m barely able to cover the interest. I’m up to my neck in debt. The money they offered would get me out from under things.” He jabbed his finger onto the shield pinned to his uniform shirt, resentment on his face. “I gave my life to this badge, and for what? Half a meager pension and some rat-infested, second-floor walkup when they foreclose on this place?”
His chin quivered. “All…he said I had to do was give them a name,” he repeated in a choked whisper.
Mercer’s name. Noah clenched his mouth tighter. “But this time, it didn’t stop there, did it? They owned you.”
Bell sighed heavily. “They knew she was gone from the St. Clair, that we’d hidden her somewhere. The man came to me again, wanting to know where she was.” Looking up at Noah, Bell held out his palms beseechingly. “I tried to put a stop to it! Why do you think I didn’t want to know where you were keeping her? Why I disregarded protocol and let you handle setting up her security your way? I-I thought if I didn’t know, I couldn’t tell them!”
In Dark Water (Rarity Cove Book 3) Page 22