Below the Surface

by Karen Harper

  “I’ve never seen Okeechobee from the air,” Bree said, marveling at the stretch of blue water that ran through the Glades to the gulf. She wondered if people ever scuba dived in Okeechobee. “What does that name mean?” she asked.

  “Seminole for big water.”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  It was also starting to make sense to her that the wealth of King Sugar, as she’d heard it called, had a very long reach in the state. Not only to satisfy America’s sweet tooth, as Mark had mentioned, but, as Cole had said, to fill political coffers. And maybe even reach deep into the gulf to erase evidence that would help prove pollution from these cane fields played a part in poisoning gulf water.

  Bree stared in awe when Nikki and Josh’s home came into view at the end of a lane, lined with live oaks, about a mile from her father’s plantation home, which they’d already passed.

  “It’s beautiful,” she told Nikki, who sat beside her in the backseat of the Humvee Mark drove. “Tara from Gone With The Wind!”

  “Just don’t be looking for Rhett Butler inside,” Nikki said with a laugh. “You know, I always hated that movie for its unhappy ending. That stupid woman loved the wrong man.”

  “That’s what I always thought about it,” Mark put in, “but then, despite the fact that it takes place right in the middle of the Civil War, it’s really a woman’s movie.”

  Rolling her eyes at that, Nikki said, “Actually, I patterned this house, a wedding present from my father, after one Josh and I saw on our honeymoon in New Orleans. But to make it look right, I had to import live oaks and Spanish moss and get rid of a lot of palms and all those air plants that usually cling to trees around here.”

  A sort of phony Tara, Bree thought. If she’d gone to all that trouble with tiny details, Nikki Austin, like Amelia, was a control freak of the first, and worst, order.

  As they pulled up, Bree saw that the big-pillared porch was a sort of false facade, too, for the house wasn’t as large as it looked. With a promise to show her around after she rested, Nikki escorted Bree up the sweeping central staircase to the guest suite and left her alone.

  Bree put her small overnight bag on the padded bench at the foot of the big four-poster bed and stared out the window. The view, probably the same on all four sides, overlooked miles of densely planted, twelve-foot-tall sugarcane, which began just across the small lawn and narrow garden. In a way, it made her feel claustrophobic. The sugarcane had waves like the sea, but even from this height, she felt enclosed rather than enraptured.

  On the oak table by the bay window awaited a silver tray with a pitcher of iced tea, surrounded by small cut-glass bowls with packets of Grand Sugar, lime and lemon slices and extra ice. On a flat crystal plate, with a yellow hibiscus bloom in the center, was an array of exotically hued hard candies. Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and famous, she thought, and wondered if the allure of any of this could have turned Daria’s head while Josh flip-flopped her heart. But the money behind everything here was from Nikki’s family, not Josh’s. Even if he’d tried to leave his wife for Daria…no, she was being ridiculous.

  But that secret teeth-whitening appointment. Nikki Austin had teeth that almost glistened. Did Daria feel the need to compete with her rival’s beauty? What about those extra cosmetics in her drawer? Did Daria discover the only way she could win out over the stunning, wealthy, married Nikki was by having Josh’s baby? And, if so, how was Bree ever going to get the truth of a secret liaison out of Josh?

  To Bree’s surprise, Nikki’s father drove over in a golf cart to join them for a late lunch. He spoke again of her loss, asking if there was anything they could do to help ease her pain and grief.

  “Nikki’s been very kind and helpful—Josh, too,” she assured him.

  Despite the fact it was delightfully cool with the air-conditioning inside the house, the three of them sat out on the warm, screened-in back veranda and were served cold raspberry soup and crab salad by a middle-aged, Haitian-born housekeeper-cook named Lindy who spoke with a French accent. The table was set with linen and silver; the centerpiece was a charming combination of blue plumbago blossoms floating in a dish that had hard candies in the bottom, which Bree thought at first were marbles.

  As Cory Grann played host in Josh’s absence, Bree could certainly understand how Marla Sherborne had become involved with him, even though he must have started out as enemy number one to her beliefs and political platform. The wealthy widower was not only conversational and handsome, he focused his complete attention on anyone he spoke to, whether it was the housekeeper, Bree or his daughter. But it didn’t take Bree long to wonder if she’d been brought here for a purpose, just as she’d come for one.

  “Big sugar’s been blamed for years for everything that goes wrong in the Glades, and now we’re also the major whipping boy for gulf pollution,” Cory Grann said, somehow working that into their conversation and looking intently at her.

  “Which is ridiculous,” Nikki put in, “since the cane farmers no longer use heavy fertilizers and toxic pesticides. There’s big cattle farming north of Lake O, and they seldom go after them.”

  Cory nodded. “Lee and Collier county officials should stop blaming us for their poor river and gulf water health and tackle pollution sources in their own backyards. Same with the ecofr—folks,” Cory amended. She was sure he was going to call them ecofreaks, as some of their opponents did. “It’s just that we’re an easy target for anything that goes wrong. And it’s very difficult and dangerous to be a target,” he added with a decisive nod at her.

  Bree felt a slight shiver race up her spine, but she tried not to react visibly. Were those words a subtle threat, disguised by all this luxury, kindness and politeness?

  “I know you’ve converted Senator Sherborne,” she said.

  “Marla knows how much money we’ve donated for cleanup.” He leaned slightly closer across the table. “And for this state’s other green causes.”

  Bree had read that big sugar had donated twenty-two million dollars to various Florida election campaigns and to fund lobbyists, as well as to sponsor some down-home television ads that were pro-sugar. Despite their lack of nutritional value, what would Americans do without their sweet fixes? She and Daria had always loved candy.

  And then it hit her that, more than once, Daria had brought candy home she’d said she’d bought, and it was just like the citrus-flavored, brightly colored hard balls displayed in nearly every room of Josh Austin’s house.

  Yes, as pretty and sweet as everything seemed here, she was certain these people meant to play hardball with her.

  20

  Bree was surprised to find she’d fallen asleep on her bed.

  “But,” Nikki said when she knocked on her door to tell her Josh would be here in a half hour and they’d have drinks before dinner, “that’s why you’re here—to relax. Believe me, I know it takes a long time to deal with such losses. For me, it helped to get busy—to fight back, in a way.”

  Bree thought she would say more, but she darted down the hall.

  Bree showered, changed into slacks and a carefully selected blouse and headed for the stairs. The door to the bedroom next to hers stood ajar. She hesitated a moment before walking past it and downstairs. It was—or was meant to be—a nursery, with pale yellow walls and rainbows on the wallpaper, and yellow carpet, too. But it was bare of furniture, an empty box of a room, like a present that was never opened however bright the wrappings.

  Daria must have been right. Nikki and Josh had lost two pregnancies, and if they’d had a nursery ready, that might mean Nikki had been pretty far along. Was it as devastating to lose a hoped-for baby you never knew—twice—as it was to lose a sister who was the person closest to you in the world, even if you didn’t know her as well as you thought?

  Bree’s stomach knotted as she went downstairs and heard Josh’s voice mingled with Nikki’s, but she couldn’t tell what they were saying. When she joined them, she saw she’d interrupted a private moment,
for he had his arm around her, though she had her outside arm propped on her hip as if she’d been trying to make some point.

  “Bree, glad you could join us for some R & R.” Josh greeted her and pecked a kiss on her cheek before stepping back. She saw his eyes fill with tears he blinked quickly back as he turned away. Either he was very glad to see her, or he and Nikki had been speaking of something emotional. Or maybe he was taken aback by the fact she looked like Daria. She had intentionally chosen a blouse she knew her sister had worn more than once, supposedly to her accounting class, but evidently to meet a man at the Gator Watering Hole. Bree was dying to challenge Josh about that, but she had no idea if he was the one with the information she needed.

  “All right, ladies,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “we are going to make our own caipirinha drinks with home-grown cachaça before dinner.”

  “Our own what, with what?” Bree asked. “Something Mexican? My Latino business partner—” there, she’d said it “—drinks a pick-me-up called yerba maté all the time.”

  “This is the national drink of Brazil,” Josh said, taking each of them by the arm and steering them outside and down the front steps, “and it’s catching on here, especially in Miami. Who says exhausting statewide campaigning doesn’t have its perks?”

  Bree could tell he was forcing his light tone. He walked them over to a wooden table set up on the lawn at the edge of the eastern cane field. Several trays held three tall glasses, and bowls of lime wedges, sugar and ice. From the grass below, Josh picked up a thick stick, a sharp knife and a huge, curved machete with a wooden handle.

  “It looks like someone’s about to declare war,” Bree observed, but her voice sounded shaky. She jumped behind Nikki when Josh picked up the machete and swung it in a wide arc. It whistled in the hot, humid air.

  “This,” he said, “is the way they used to cut cane.”

  With a tremendous swipe, he sliced through two cane stalks, toppling them toward the women.

  “Timber!” Nikki cried, and Bree smelled liquor on her breath already. Each woman caught one of the twelve-foot stalks, despite being half-buried by its leaves.

  “Man, using this thing makes me feel good,” Josh said, and with a quick laugh, started to decapitate the heads of other stalks, then swung lower to make yet others crash down.

  “Be careful, or you’ll cut yourself!” Nikki cried. “You don’t need to be all bandaged up at your alma mater tomorrow.”

  That’s right, Bree thought. Josh was speaking at Lely High School tomorrow. If she could just risk getting him alone, that might make a good entrée into getting him to reminisce about Daria.

  Josh walked back toward them, the huge arched blade still in his hand. He bent down, took the cane Bree held and dropped it onto the ground, then hacked it into three equal pieces at its lowest joints.

  “Sugarcane school, lesson number one,” he said, holding up one of the joints for her to see. He dropped the machete on the grass and, with the knife on the table, peeled back the husk to reveal what looked like hundreds of wet straws inside the piece of cane. “Bite on this,” he told Bree.

  Keeping an eye on the machete and knife, Bree touched the severed straws with her tongue. Sweet juice flooded her mouth.

  “Spit out the rest,” Nikki said. “The chewy stuff is the bagasse. But the liquid’s a great source of energy—and of sugar.”

  “Now, lesson number two,” Josh said as he peeled another piece, then put it on a plate and chopped it even smaller before he jammed it in one of the glasses. He took the big wooden stick from the table—it was over a foot long and barely fit in the glass—and mashed the cane.

  “Obviously,” he said, “the best bartenders across America do not carry on like the madman demo you’ve just seen. The sugarcane distillate we just made by hand comes in a variety of brands, some of which are aged in cognac barrels or oak casks in France, no less. But I think we should start bottling and aging our own cane into this cachaça.”

  He mixed three drinks with the ingredients and then tapped Nikki’s and Bree’s glasses before they drank. “To the future of cane and a great senatorial election,” he said. “Now watch it, because this stuff can sneak up on you, just like rum. Here, I’ve got some extra made.”

  “Before dinner, let’s show her our secret getaway from our big-house getaway,” Nikki said as Josh took a swig of his drink.

  “And she doesn’t mean our little pied-à-terre in Tallahassee. Sure, let’s go.”

  “Lead the way,” she said. “Lindy will ring the bell for dinner.”

  “Onward! Ever onward! Josh Austin for senate!” Josh cried, and raised the machete before him as if it were a flag they could follow. Nikki just shook her head and picked up the tray with more mixings for the drinks. Bree thought the caipirinha was delicious—sweet, yet tart and refreshing—but it had such an alluring kick that she silently vowed to furtively pour hers out along the way. She had no intention of getting drunk and then being questioned by Josh about how much she knew. No, she was hoping he’d have too much so she could set him up for a heartfelt talk and, maybe, a confession. Besides, she had to keep her wits about her, since they seemed to be leading her into the labyrinth of deep cane, and Josh still had that massive weapon.

  Amelia was grateful that the doctor hadn’t asked her to lie down on a couch, although there was one in the room. “So this doctor-patient information is entirely privileged, like with a lawyer?” she asked Dr. Scott Nelson. Ben had assured her of that, but she was double-checking. The man had a kindly face and soft voice that exuded compassion.

  “Absolutely,” he said, folding his hands on one crossed knee. They sat in facing chairs as if they were just here for a friendly chat, but she had no intention of falling for that. Oh, no, she fully intended to keep up her guard.

  “I could be subpoenaed,” he explained, “but I’d refuse to testify and my records would stay sealed. I’d go to prison before I would betray a trust from a patient.”

  Testify? Go to prison? His mere word choice evoked horrible images of his clients being arrested. And Ben was the prosecutor who would be responsible for bringing a murderer to justice.

  Ben had not exactly answered the question of how close he was to Dr. Nelson, to get her an appointment this quickly. She decided not to ask the doctor if information was also kept private from a family member. More than once, she’d seen Ben worm things out of his own clients or other lawyers. She’d already told him too much. She could only pray that he—or Bree, in her crusade, as Ben called it, to find out who had hurt Daria—would not check around the marina and discover that Amelia had rented a boat.

  Despite her fears of open water, she’s gone out into the gulf until she’d spotted Mermaids II. She’d cut the motor and let the boat drift closer, because she figured if Daria heard her, she’d order her to keep away. The rental motorboat was almost on top of the dive boat when Daria had seen her and helped her grapple the two crafts together so Amelia could climb aboard, telling her off the whole time.

  And then, it had all happened so fast. More arguing, the push that made Daria slip and crack her head against the steering wheel in the dive boat’s little wheelhouse. Daria had said she’d been nauseous and a little dizzy, and now Amelia knew why. Daria shouldn’t have slipped from that little push. She must have been dizzy from the first trimester of her pregnancy. Maybe the nausea was why she really hadn’t dived with Bree. Everything was really Daria’s fault, not hers, Amelia assured herself.

  She had scrambled off the boat, back to her own vessel, panicked that Daria might be dead and she’d be blamed for what was an accident. Because she was afraid Bree might surface if she heard a motor, she let the boat drift away again before starting it. She had to get back in, because the storm was starting to kick up. Surely Bree would surface and help Daria. They had always stuck together, so let them take care of each other now.

  But to the kindly faced, soft-voiced psychiatrist, she was saying nothing. Even if he were
a trusted Catholic priest—and there were fewer of them than ever lately—in a soundproof confessional booth, Amelia would never tell him or anyone else. Despite the fact that Daria’s death had been ruled a drowning, despite the fact she blamed Daria for her predicament, Amelia feared she had killed her own sister. And no one—not even Ben, trial lawyer extraordinaire—could ever defend that.

  Although the sugarcane was planted in rich-looking, mucky soil, they followed a twisting, narrow gravel path. The song “Follow The Yellow Brick Road” ran through Bree’s mind as she walked behind Josh and Nikki into their own land of Oz, hopefully one with no flying monkeys or wicked witches.

  Bree felt curious but nervous. The leaves of the thick cane rustled and rattled; the field seemed to sigh as if it had a life of its own. As startled birds burst into the air, Bree startled in turn. She scolded herself that she was getting paranoid. Insects buzzed around her and she swatted them away. When she was certain no one was looking, she dribbled some of her drink, as delicious as it was, on the ground.

  She’d argued with Cole that she was certain the Austins would not harm her. If Josh had not been involved with Daria, there would be no problem with her visit, she told him. And if Josh had been involved, he’d try to keep a low profile. That certainly would include winning Bree over and not harming her. Daria’s death had become her life insurance. But where were they leading her?

  “Fear not,” Nikki called over her shoulder, as if she’d read Bree’s mind while they walked the path between towering, endless stalks of sharp-shaped leaves. “We just want to show you our private waterfront property.”