“I tried to go to Sam, and I would have come to you. I came out to talk to you both earlier, but…”
“But what?”
“Well, damn it, Adam, you were both busy—with each other.” Hank looked down, embarrassed.
“Oh, God!” Adam groaned. So Hank had tried to see Sam earlier. Instead, he’d seen…
“Hank, don’t you think of leaving this house. You don’t know who’s working for the people who kidnapped you. You have to stay hidden here and try to think of anything at all that might help us, any little detail. Sam will understand once she’s had a chance to talk to you.”
“Maybe I should go look for her,” Yancy said. “Talk to her.”
“Oh, God,” Adam said suddenly.
“What?” Yancy demanded.
“She’s alone!” Adam hissed.
“We’re on an island. Where can she go?” Hank asked.
“Oh, God, I’d forgotten!” Yancy breathed.
“Forgotten what?” Hank demanded.
“I told you that she’d been attacked!” Yancy said to Hank. “Adam—”
Adam was already heading out of the house. “Damn, but we are fools! Hide Hank, Yancy, he’s in tremendous danger now. Sweet Jesus, she’s alone!” He swore, swiftly following in Sam’s wake. By the time he reached the porch, he was calling her name. By the time he reached the lawn, he was running, fear igniting inside him like wildfire.
What fools. Someone had surely just been waiting for them to make a mistake!
And they’d made it. Oh, God, they’d made it.
Water…
She could feel it. Not touching her, but around her. Rocking her. Her head was spinning painfully with the kind of spiraling sensation that made her afraid she was going to be sick.
As the whirling mire within her head began to subside, Sam realized that she was on a boat. She was feeling the rise and fall of the surf lifting the vessel, letting it fall again, lifting it once more.
She listened for the sound of a motor.
There was none.
She tried to open her eyes and realized that she was blindfolded.
She tried to move.
Her wrists were bound to something.
Oh, my God, Adam, what a fool I was to forget. Why didn’t you talk to me? Why didn’t you trust me? Why did I get so angry at seeing Hank when I’m so happy he’s alive? Why didn’t I realize my danger even when I was ready to wring your neck? Do you really love me, Adam, or were you after something else all along?
Will it ever matter?
She swallowed hard. Adam wasn’t here to help her. She would have to save herself.
She inhaled deeply, trying to remain calm, to keep some sense of reason. Trying to picture her position in her mind’s eye. She was lying on her back, head slightly propped. Once the spinning subsided a little more, she could even appreciate the fact that her head was on a pillow. Her legs were free, stretched out on a boat bunk. She had the sensation of close confinement and imagined that the boat had to be some kind of sport vessel, somewhere between twenty and forty feet, with perhaps a master’s and a guest cabin. The movement that rocked her made her think that she was in the aft of the boat—the guest cabin, perhaps? The bunk was center of the aft section, bolted down.
She struggled to free her wrists. She was bound with some material that wasn’t rough, like rope, but that seemed even stronger than rope might be. The more she struggled, the tighter her bounds seemed to get.
“I tie good knots.”
The strange, husky whisper startled her. She went dead still, listening.
Breathing. Slow, easy, even breathing. Near her. Very near her.
“Who are you? What do you want?” The words should have been forceful, adamant. Show no fear, she told herself.
But, of course, she was terrified. And the words were neither forceful nor adamant. They were a bare whisper.
“Who the hell are you?” That was better. “Other than a complete ass, because you can’t possibly get away with this.”
“I can, easily, because that storm is moving in much more quickly than you might imagine. And let’s see…”
There was a sibilant hiss to the words. They were drawn out, spoken very low. Deep. They had an edge that seemed to creep right beneath her skin.
“Let’s see…you fought with your lover, Miss Carlyle. Silly girl. So things aren’t always perfect with the ex-cop. But he’s a good lover, eh? Strong fellow. You should have stayed with him. He was trying very hard to protect you. But you know what, Miss Carlyle? The good guys don’t always win.”
“Who are you and what do you want?” she asked stubbornly. Her throat was bone dry. She was afraid to move. She was shivering, and yet she was surely dripping sweat. Her arms were beginning to feel painfully numb. She was beginning to feel a rise of absolute hysteria, desperate to get the blindfold off her eyes.
“I want you to dive, Miss Carlyle.”
“Why?”
“To take me to the Beldona.”
“I don’t know where she is.”
“I know you can find her.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know where she is.”
“Well, then, Miss Carlyle, you can find the ship, or you can rest with her. Do you understand?”
Sibilant laughter seemed to touch and surround her.
Fear crept along her spine. Like a crawling maggot. One maggot, two maggots, dozens of them….
“Who in God’s name are you?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you dive.”
“Dive—like my father?” she said. “Dive and wind up dead just the same? You can kill me now.”
No, no, no, she didn’t mean that. She didn’t mean that at all. In seconds she would start crying, begging for her life. She wanted to live. She wanted to run to the house and the bar. Maybe take another good swing at Hank, and then one at Adam. Then she would stand her ground. Find out just what was going on. Demand to know what had happened, who had known what, where Hank had been…
What Adam had known.
And why Adam had come. What was real and what was not.
“Kill you,” the voice mused.
She felt him come closer. Felt his breath. She started to twist and kick. Hard. She lashed out with her feet and caught some body part.
He swore.
Then something was slipped around her feet and pulled tight. A belt? It was lashed to something at the foot of the bed, and she could no longer move her legs.
“This is going to be a difficult position to dive from,” she managed to say sarcastically.
“We’re not ready to dive yet. Besides, didn’t you suggest that I just go ahead and kill you now?”
“I—”
“But I’m not going to kill you. Yet. You’ve got to bear in mind, Miss Carlyle, that there are many things that are worse. Much worse than death….”
Husky, warm laughter fanned her cheeks.
Then she felt a touch on her bare thigh, moving upward along it.
“There are much, much worse things….”
Adam burst into Sam’s cottage.
“Sam!”
No reply.
He ran through the house quickly, calling her name. “Sam, please, for the love of God, talk to me!”
Silence.
He came running out on the lawn just as Yancy ran up to him worriedly. “She’s not here?”
“No.”
“We can’t just panic.”
“We have to panic. I’m going to keep looking. You get Jem and Matthew out, tell them to search everywhere.”
Yancy nodded and hurried toward the other cottages. Adam looked at the house, his heart pounding. She was upset, furious with both him and Hank, he told himself. Just because he couldn’t find her that minute, it didn’t mean something bad had happened.
He started around the main house, feeling the coolness of the wind.
It was rising already, though the storm wasn’t actually due for another day
. That was what Yancy had said.
But storms were moody. They didn’t always do what the weather forecasters said they were supposed to. They could quicken without warning. Their velocity could rise.
The air was cool. Definitely a portent of a storm coming.
“Sam!” He shouted her name. The sound of it was carried on the rising wind. The damp air brushed against his cheeks; the breeze lifted the hair from his brow. “Sam!”
No answer. He started jogging toward the path that led to the docks.
The night was dark. The grounds were illuminated by spotlights, but bushes, trees and the angles of the main house and the cottages cast huge pools of shadow and blackness here and there, Stygian voids like black holes in time and space.
“Sam!” he called again.
Where the hell had she gone? Adam swore to himself. He should have told her earlier, but he hadn’t really understood a damned thing himself, except that Hank had been taken and held in a warehouse for nearly a year. Communicating a hundred feet beneath the water when he had been half in shock hadn’t been easy, even with a dive slate. Besides, Hank had begged his brother to keep his secret until he’d seen Sam.
And now this.
He was a fool, an ass….
Too late. Where the hell was she?
He heard footsteps, feet running on the grass behind him. He swung around.
Jem and his young cousin, Matt, a slimmer version of Jem, were running toward him, Yancy following a little breathlessly behind.
“Have you seen her?” Adam demanded.
“No,” Jem said.
“The only thing we can do is go from cabin to cabin,” Adam said.
“Yancy said she was upset,” Jem said calmly. “Maybe she just wants to stay away from you, Adam.”
“I—” he began, then broke off.
He bent down and picked up a shoe. A slim black heel, nine double A. He could remember her slipping into the shoes just before they had left her cottage earlier. A slim black heel to go with her short silver cocktail dress.
“Oh, God!” Yancy breathed.
“What do we do?” Jem asked.
“We go from cottage to cottage,” Adam said.
“Where do we start?”
“Avery Smith,” Adam said grimly. “But then, what the hell? Everyone on this island is living some kind of a lie.”
“I really don’t know about the Beldona!” Sam gasped. The fingers that had moved over her flesh went still for a minute. Then patterns were again being drawn on her skin. She felt the knit dress shoved up against her thighs, bunching at her hips. Felt the touch resume, circles being drawn higher and higher.
“What a waste to kill you, Miss Carlyle. You really are quite a phenomenal woman. Tell me why your father was so interested in the Beldona.”
She moistened her lips. “My father thought that—that some unique Spanish gems had been stolen and were aboard the ship.”
“Yes, and…?”
“He thought maybe there was something about the way the ship went down—perhaps a different reason than a storm that caused it to sink that might help in the finding of it.”
The fear was mounting in her again.
Maggots. Creeping all over her. Oh, God. His fingers felt like horrible crawling creatures. Just touching her. Not hurting. Just touching. Going up and down her leg. Now…oh, God. A finger slipping beneath the elastic of her black satin panties.
“What a waste it will be if I kill you….”
He spoke so close to her. The whisper directly above her lips. The breath fanning her flesh. His face coming closer and closer to her own….
“No, please…”
Oh, God, she sounded so pathetic. Like such a whimpering coward.
There had to be a way to fight. Hands tied, ankles bound, she could scarcely move.
She couldn’t see….
There was hope. As long as she was living, there was hope.
But, oh, God, oh, God…
The sound of that very husky laughter again.
And another touch. On the bodice of her silver dress.
She heard another sound. A ripping.
Her dress coming apart.
She opened her mouth to scream.
A hand clamped down over it, nearly smothering her.
And once again that wretched whisper fanned her cheek. “Let’s play chicken, Miss Carlyle. I want to hear you talk. While you talk, I’m distracted. I need to be distracted.”
Slowly the hand moved from her mouth.
“Don’t scream,” he warned her.
She inhaled raggedly.
She felt a rounded fist fall lightly against her heart. “Where life beats! Right there, your heart, Miss Carlyle. To kill you quickly, I could slip a knife right through you, there. But then, I would never want to kill you quickly.”
“Don’t kill me. Please.”
“Then tell me what I want to know.”
The whisper again brushed her cheeks with deadly menace as the fingers fell upon the bare flesh now exposed at her navel. “Don’t scream, Miss Carlyle. Just talk. Talk to me. I’m dying to listen. And surely, surely, my lovely Miss Carlyle, you must be dying to talk….”
Adam knew who was in each cottage; he had made a point of determining just who was staying where during the first hour he had spent on the island.
The door to Avery Smith’s cottage was locked.
No matter. He didn’t wait. He hefted a shoulder against the door.
“Damn you, you bastard!” he cried out.
The door gave, and he went flying into the darkened parlor area of the one-bedroom cottage, Jem, Matt and Yancy following behind him. “Astin, you bastard, get out here!” he shouted, striding toward the bedroom.
But before Adam could reach the hallway, James Jay Astin, alias Avery Smith, came walking out of the bedroom, tying the belt on his robe. He’d obviously been sleeping.
“Young man, just what the hell is your problem?” he demanded.
“I want Sam Carlyle.”
“I’ve been under the impression that you already have Miss Carlyle.”
Jem, apparently afraid that Adam would take a swing at the older man, stepped up behind him.
“Where is she?” Adam demanded.
“Mr. O’Connor, I’m well aware that your opinion of my means and methods is not high. And I admit, as well, that I came here to find out just what Miss Carlyle knows about the Beldona and the disappearances that have occurred in the search for her. I want that ship. I am the one who’s best suited to solve the mysteries regarding her, to bring up her treasures, to show her in her very best light.”
“Do you want that ship badly enough to threaten Sam?” Jem suddenly demanded from behind Adam. “Enough to kill?”
“No matter what the rumor might be, I’ve never killed anyone, nor caused anyone to be killed. And take a look. Do you see the young lady here?” Astin demanded. Hands on his hips, he stared at Adam. “You’re looking in the wrong place, and you should damned well know it!” he snapped.
“What’s he talking about, Adam?” Yancy asked.
Adam and Astin stared at one another. Adam realized that Astin must know the truth about Jerry North, just as he did himself. Justin Carlyle had been out with Astin several times before his disappearance. If Astin was as legitimate in this as he was claiming, the two men might even have been friends.
Justin Carlyle might even have shared some information with Astin regarding a possible reconciliation with his ex-wife, Jerry.
Justin wouldn’t have told Sam about Jerry. He wouldn’t have told her anything that might hurt her. And unless Jerry was definitely going to become a part of their lives again, there wouldn’t have been much of a reason to tell Sam about her.
“She couldn’t have come to hurt Sam,” Adam said.
James Jay Astin threw up his hands. “There are different ways to hurt people, aren’t there, Mr. O’Connor?”
“She wouldn’t put Sam’s life in danger.”
“There are different ways to do that, as well. You can endanger someone’s life without ever intending to.”
“I’m going to see Jerry North,” Adam said to Jem, Matt and Yancy. “You go over to the Walkers’.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Adam spun around to stare at Astin. “Why not?”
Astin exhaled, shaking his head. “As I said, I have been looking for the Beldona. I wanted Justin Carlyle’s help looking for it, and I think that Justin would have taken on my company to do the actual salvage. Samantha Carlyle hates the ship—she wasn’t willingly going to help anyone, so I had to try to find out what she did know, and where she’d go if she was diving herself. I’m too old myself for the kind of diving required to find the ship. I hired the Walkers to tail Samantha Carlyle, to get her diving around the Steps, to try to discover just what was down there.”
“Then—” Adam began.
“I’m telling you, the Walkers are guilty of a certain deceit in their reasons for being here, but that is it. They are innocent of any wrongdoing. Judy Walker is extremely fond of Miss Carlyle, who has been very kind to her children. I can promise you, the Walkers would not harm Sam. You will not find Miss Carlyle with them.”
“God help you if you’re lying to me, Astin!” Adam said. Then he turned on his heel and exited the cottage.
It was time for a showdown with Jerry North.
He kept touching her.
Fingers moving over her flesh like maggots.
But she did want to live.
“The English captain of the Beldona was still in love with his Spanish mistress. She and her new fiancé were both aboard the Beldona. The rubies and other Spanish gems were aboard the ship, as well, and my father believed…”
“Yes, what did your father believe?”
His fingers stroked her thighs.
“That…that…”
“Yes?”
Oh, God. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe.
He was straddling her.
She could tell that he was lean, tightly muscled.
And he was nearly naked. Shirtless, barefoot, he wore bathing trunks and nothing else at all. He sat over her own barely covered hips. The hair on his legs grazed vulnerable flesh.
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