Below the Surface

by Karen Harper

  Her attacker half rolled, half jumped to a standing position and dragged her to her feet. She clawed at his wrist with the keys. He let her go but blocked her path toward the bar door. Knowing the woman was out in the back room, Bree tore around that way.

  She evidently took him by surprise and got a little lead. Behind the place were picnic tables, two big, shell-shaped planters for cigarette butts, and a crude bridge over the back part of the ditch. Thick, wet vegetation loomed ahead.

  Bree heard him coming, his feet fast, his breath loud. She cursed her acute hearing, because her pulse pounded in her ears.

  He got to her before she reached the back door. The building had windows here, too, but the louvered wooden shutters were down in the rain.

  “Hey, babe,” he said, his voice a low rasp, but the words screamed inside her skull and her soul.

  Babe? Could this be the man Daria had met here, the one who wrote on the coaster? Had their affair gone wrong, and he’d killed her? And now meant to silence someone who looked like her or someone asking too many questions?

  The last thing in the world Bree wanted was to run into the Glades, but he would be slowed by the standing water. She was used to it and could handle it, was more sure-footed, she was certain. Then she could go around toward the road, circle back to her truck, or maybe someone would come by. It was only about a half a mile to that little airport, and she’d seen a man there. And on the highway, there were plenty of people to flag down, people who would never turn down little Cypress Road.

  She veered away from him and sprinted toward the bridge. She made it that far. It was the first time it registered that she still had her heavy purse over her shoulder, pressed under her arm and that her cell phone was there. If only she could put a little distance between them, she’d call 911. And she had two beer bottles for weapons.

  But out on the rickety bridge, he had her by her wrist. Rain tattooed the water in the ditch and enveloped them in a gray, slanted curtain. Bree reached for one of the bottles and threw it at him. Beer sprayed over both of them as the bottle broke on his head, maybe dazing him, but his cap and the T-shirt that covered his face kept him from getting cut. If she could just yank that mask down! But then, if she knew who he was, he would surely kill her. She was hoping he might only mean to scare her. He’d done that, all right.

  But she felt power pump through her. She’d aim her keys for his face this time or swing her purse at him. Moving a little slower, he raised the wrench again.

  Bree swung her purse. The wrench went flying into the ditch, but he slammed into her. She opened her mouth to scream again, but they broke through the wooden bridge railing and splashed into the ditch.

  Water enveloped her with a surge and a smack. She hit her head against something. Was she diving? She’d gone off the boat backward. But no tanks, no regulator, no mask. She held her breath, so dizzy at first. Under the sea, under the sea, Bree and Daria, under the sea.

  But it wasn’t deep. Her bottom hit bottom, and she bounced right up for a huge gasp of air. A few feet from her, her attacker was trying to stand, sputtering, splashing. Dear God, she prayed, don’t let there be gators in here.

  She had the choice of either daring to pull down his mask or scrambling out to run.

  Clawing her way up the bank, she slid back twice while he reached for her ankles. His fingernails raked her leg. Amazingly, her purse, full of water, was back over her shoulder.

  She kicked the man away, lost a shoe, then clambered out and ran, dripping wet, her purse sloshing, her soaked hair flinging water. Gut instinct told her not to run back inside but to get out of here. She had a head start. Beat him to her truck this time!

  She glanced back once as she turned the corner of the building. Her attacker’s hat but not his mask had come off. He was floundering out of the water, shaking his head and spraying water off dark hair as if he were a dog. She didn’t even recognize him bare-headed, but she had water and her own hair in her eyes.

  Run!

  Gasping, she made it to her truck and steadied her right hand with her other to turn the lock and throw herself in. She slammed the door, locked it, praying he didn’t come, hadn’t found that wrench to knock out her windows. Could fingerprints be taken from a wet wrench, if it was found later?

  Her right hand, which had clutched the keys the entire time, seemed frozen into a claw. She was shaking so hard she almost couldn’t shift gears. With a screech, she turned the wheels to roar out onto the small road.

  She sped back toward civilization. Throwing water in the rain, the windshield wipers whipped across her vision, whap-whap, whap-whap. She should not have tried this alone. She needed Cole or Manny, even Ben.

  At the stop sign to the Trail, she didn’t see anyone following and had to wait for traffic again. She put her forehead on the steering wheel and sobbed. Maybe Daria, with her good sea legs, had not slipped and hit her head on the boat’s steering wheel, no matter how rough the water was. Maybe someone had boarded the boat and hurt her. No matter what Josh Austin reported or the coroner ruled or other people accepted, she had to look into that horrible possibility. Could the storm have cleverly been used to make a murder look like an accident?

  After hugging her, then holding her at arm’s length, Cole took to furious pacing while she told him everything, starting with the fact Manny had warned her that Sam Travers was as unforgiving as ever and then working up to the worst by blurting out about her attack.

  As he walked back and forth, Cole alternated between clamping his hands under his armpits or gripping them on top of his head. Bree could tell he was livid, not only with Sam and the man who’d attacked her, but also with her. She figured he kept his hands constrained so he wouldn’t give her a good shaking.

  She was just lucky she’d had time to clean up and change out of her wet clothes, so he didn’t see what a mess she’d been, but she hadn’t had time to shower or wash her hair. She’d toweled it dry but tiny flecks of green algae clung to it, pond scum like the bastard who had attacked her. After she’d dived into the depths of the Trade Wreck with the strobe, she’d seen Cole angry, but he was a lot angrier now. His dark eyes were narrowed; every muscle in his face looked chiseled from stone. A pulse beat at the side of his throat, and his big body seemed coiled tight, ready to strike.

  “You said you’d stay here, and that you’d be fine,” he interrupted. “Go ahead, tell me the rest.”

  “I’m sure I didn’t know him,” she concluded, still clutching a cushion to her breasts as she sat cross-legged on the sofa.

  “He was masked.”

  “I would recognize you in a mask—or Manny, Sam Travers, Ben, Josh Austin. Lots of people,” she protested.

  When he finally sat down beside her, his weight toppled her into him. He lifted and turned her chin to make her look at him. The cut inside her mouth made her flinch. That and the scratch on her leg were her only physical injuries, however achy and black-and-blue she might be tomorrow and for the funeral, two days away.

  “So,” Cole said, “it couldn’t have been someone from inside that place because you’re sure no one left after you entered.”

  “Unless he was out in the kitchen with Bess.”

  “Yeah, I want to talk to her.”

  “The thing is, my attacker fits the vague description of the man Daria was evidently meeting. He could be the one who wrote on the coaster. He called me ‘babe,’ too. It’s the only thing he said—‘Hey, babe.’”

  “It could connect, or not. Lots of guys are muscular and dark haired—including yours truly.”

  “He wasn’t as tall as you.”

  “Great, then it wasn’t me,” he said, his voice suddenly dripping sarcasm. “We’ve narrowed the suspect down to someone we know, such as one of Verdugo’s guards—they all look like that. Or Ric, Sam’s worker, though his choice of weapon seems to be a speargun, not a wrench. Then there’s Frank Holliman, for all we know, not to mention a gazillion guys we don’t know. And saying Hey, babe does
n’t mean much. I could say that to you, too, as a come-on and not a threat.”

  “Why are you tearing down everything I say?” she demanded, and threw the pillow at him. He swatted it away as if it were a mosquito.

  “I’m not. I’m just a little upset—you could have gotten yourself killed. And I don’t want you jumping to conclusions that just because you were attacked, Daria was, too. Don’t assume we have more answers than we do.”

  He’d said we again, she thought. As frustrated as he was making her, she loved that.

  “Cole, I admit I shouldn’t have gone in there, but you surely shouldn’t, either.”

  “Why the hell not? I’ll take Manny with me, talk to the bartender and Bess, check for that wrench, though you’re right. It can’t have prints on it if it’s in the ditch.”

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble over this.”

  “What’s the diff?” he muttered as if to himself, shaking his head. “I’m already in over my head with Verdugo—and you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. I’m furious with you—again—for losing your head, and here I’ve lost mine over you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh? Is that the best you can say?”

  His hands on her shoulders were more than firm. He bent to nuzzle her cheek, then dipped his head to trail his lips down her throat, which she mindlessly arched back for him. He kissed the hollow between her collarbones, then moved up the side of her neck to her left ear. He nipped at the lobe, then darted his tongue inside the shell of her ear, thoroughly, just once.

  Every nerve in her body jumped to attention, screaming for more. She sucked in a sudden breath, teetering on the edge of beautiful oblivion. She was acting like a schoolgirl, she scolded herself, as if she’d never had a man near her before. But this was so different. Cole’s merest touch set off a torrent of insane sensations clear down to the pit of her belly.

  “I know you hear things too well lately, so I’m whispering now,” he said, his mouth moving against her cheek. “And I’ll make it quick because, as luscious as the rest of you is, your hair smells like…gator water.”

  She almost laughed. Amidst all this terror, he had the power to take her on a roller-coaster ride of emotions, and that both scared and sobered her.

  “Two things,” he said, his voice deadly serious. “You stay put until I get back. And, however helpful he’s been, stay away from Sam Travers.”

  “He may come to the funeral. After he helped us look for Daria, I can’t tell him to stay away.”

  “I just mean you don’t go near him, okay?” he said, putting her back at arm’s length to look hard into her eyes. She wasn’t used to taking orders, but from him, she was starting to welcome them.

  “All right. I won’t go near Sam.”

  “Meanwhile,” he said, releasing her and frowning at his hands while he flexed them, “I’ll take Manny to cover my back and you can babysit his daughter. I feel the urge to go order a Mountain Brewed at the old laid-back, good-time Gator Watering Hole.”

  Bree tried to keep her mind off her own problems by listening to Lucinda’s woes, but she was really worried about Cole. With Manny, he was going to do her dirty work, to find out about the man who met Daria on the sly, but also, she feared, to pay someone back for attacking her. She couldn’t bear it if he or Manny got hurt.

  Lucinda seemed happy to have been rescued from sweeping the back room downstairs and from her father’s presence. After Bree showered and washed her hair, they sat at the table in the apartment eating shrimp salad and the brownies one of the church people had dropped off. Bree was too uptight to feel hungry, but Lucinda had a good appetite. She was a pretty girl with lively brown eyes, just on the verge of becoming plump, but that gave her a voluptuous figure. No wonder Manny was trying to keep an eye on her. She chattered on about things, then something she said brought Bree back from her agonizing with a jolt.

  “Swear you won’t tell my dad something, Bree?”

  “If it’s something bad or dangerous, you really shouldn’t put me in a position like that. Manny’s an employee but also a friend.”

  Lucinda’s sleek eyebrows lifted. “Yeah, but won’t he be a partner now?”

  “Yes, when everything is settled. I didn’t realize you knew all that.”

  “A bunch of stuff I overhear—like what that guy who brought your fins back said about you. But yeah, Dad told our whole family all that about the partnership a long time ago. It’s really a good thing, too, ’cause we can so use the money. Is it okay if I just ask you a general question then, not tell you a secret?”

  Bree knew the entire Salazar family. Lucinda was the only one who really sounded Anglo and that bothered Manny. In his opinion, his daughter was too much an American teen and Bree didn’t want to interfere with that, not considering how strict Manny was with his family.

  “All right, Lucinda, shoot,” Bree said, deciding not to quiz the girl about what else Manny might have said about becoming a partner.

  “First of all, you can call me Cindi if you want—with an i at the end. I like to dot both i’s with little hearts or happy faces, know what I mean?”

  “Sure. But in front of your dad, I might stick to Lucinda.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, rolling her dark eyes. “I mean, it’s so good to talk to a straight-up adult who understands me. So, let’s just say a friend—a Latina—falls for an Anglo guy—I mean, about as American as he could be. This guy is da bomb— blond, great body, tall, on the basketball team. A real hottie. Let’s say his parents are not real happy either, ’cause they think Hispanics are all a bunch of illegal immigrants—and Catholic, ’stead of Baptist, which is true. Anyway, I’m asking you for her, ’cause I know you dated Sam’s son in high school and Sam didn’t want you to.”

  “No, that’s not quite it,” Bree said, shoving her plate away and leaning back wearily in her chair to rub her eyes. “Sam Travers was all for me dating his son, even marrying him, but I broke it off when we were in college. Ted got really upset and enlisted in the marines and was killed in Iraq. Sam Travers blames me for the fact Ted was there—and got killed.”

  “Man, that bites,” Lucinda whispered, frowning and shaking her head. “You don’t blame yourself, do you?”

  “Ted Travers made his own choices, but I feel like I’ve got a big target on my back when I’m around Sam. Listen to me, Lucinda—Cindi,” she said, sitting forward and taking the girl’s hand across the table. “My sister dated someone in high school for a long time, too, but when he broke up with her, she just went on with her life. No one blamed anyone, ran away from home or did anything crazy. So trust me on this and just tell your friend not to think her relationship with this boy has to be the end of the world. If it works, it will have to take time, patience and understanding. If it doesn’t work out, life goes on and maybe there’s someone, Anglo or Latino, even better for her a little ways down the road of life.”

  “So you mean your sister—she got over the guy she dated in high school?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “And found someone else to love. She must have been so hurt by the guy breaking it off—even if she didn’t show it.”

  Bree frowned. Since Josh, Daria had dated several men and had been the one to break it off with every one of them. Was she afraid of commitment, or did she think she’d better break things off before they dumped her? Could that have been the fallout of her loving, then losing, Josh? And why hadn’t Bree thought of this when Daria was alive?

  “I know,” Bree went on, her voice shaky, “it’s hard to take advice from older people, especially parents, and especially when they get all upset and yell, but that’s only because they care about you so much. Cindi, please try to treasure the time you have with your parents and your sister, because you won’t have your family forever. And don’t be in too much of a hurry to give your heart—or your body—away. Sometimes, in a way, you might just not get either back.”

  Bree jumped up and took thei
r dishes to the kitchen before the girl could see she was going to cry. Time with parents didn’t last forever, let alone with a sister. Had Daria ever gotten over Josh Austin? Bree thought she had…she was sure she had. But now she wasn’t sure of anything, including the fact that she had known her identical twin sister, the person closest to her in the whole world, at all.

  Cole and Manny looked around the property of the Gator Watering Hole before going in. The sun had come out after all the rain, and they felt as if they were in a steam bath.

  They saw where Bree and her attacker had fallen through the railing of the bridge. They also saw a couple of gators sunning themselves near another part of the ditch, so they decided to fish around for the wrench later—a lot later. There was no way it was going to have prints, and no promise that the police would even try to ID them, if there were.

  Shaking his head, Cole muttered, “She almost drowns, swims with sharks around her during the storm, gets hit by lightning, then barely missed the gators.”

  “How many lives they say a cat got?” Manny asked as they headed around the bar toward the front door.

  “Nine, so I’d like to think she’s got five to go.”

  Manny just grunted.

  They ambled in and sat sideways at the bar so they could scan the entire front room, which was a lot busier than when Bree had been there earlier. From Bree’s description, Cole could tell the bartender was the same guy. He could tell the guy didn’t especially like Manny here, as if one Mexican would begin an onslaught of them here in redneck heaven. Just to get his attention, Cole ordered in Spanish. “Dos cervezas aqui—Mountain Brewed.”

  The man raised one shaggy eyebrow. “Don’t sell many of those ’round here, but get in a case now and then for a special customer.”

  “That right? Maybe a friend of mine. Dark-haired, works out all the time?”

  “Could be,” the guy said, nervous now. “Never comes in, sends a friend.” He grabbed a bottle opener and bent the first metal cap.