Chasing Shadows

by Karen Harper

  A PWN always went to sleep fast, especially with that powerful stuff. Thank heavens she had it, could block out her own ghosts. But her mind kept going, thinking about Nick... Jace...

  Until she suddenly stepped off the shore into the deep waters of sleep.

  * * *

  “You’re not running the Spanish Inquisition, Claire,” Nick told her the next morning as they drove toward Shadowlawn. “You do not turn the screws on someone until they scream that they’re guilty. It was bad enough to be alone with Cecilia, but you’re not confronting Bronco with all that. It’s looking like he’s guilty of something at least, and, therefore, dangerous. I hired you for information, not to pull a citizen’s arrest on someone.”

  “If he isn’t confronted, he’ll clam up and go back to his hillbilly Florida cracker routine—assuming it’s fake—if you or, worse, Sheriff Goodrich start to interrogate him. I can be nonthreatening.”

  “It’s amazing we got away with that open-line trick with Cecilia, but it won’t work with him.”

  “How about this? I’ll get him to sit with me on that bench and you can watch him as he may have done us when we sat there. There’s thick foliage all around there. If things get out of hand, you’ll know it or see it and step in. Nick, I don’t want to overrule you, but I’m our best chance. I want to get this over and get home.”

  “I know, I know. Me, too. But I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Then we’re agreed.”

  “I’m agreed you’re a velvet steamroller and I hardly knew what hit me from the first time I saw you in court. It’s only gotten worse—and better.”

  “And we don’t want to go to court, defending Jasmine.”

  “Right. You know, all we’ve done lately is argue, almost like we’re married.”

  “Very funny. What do you know about being married?”

  “True. I made myself a promise I wouldn’t consider it until I got Clayton Ames off my back and where he belongs—either in prison or off the face of the earth.”

  “So you can understand wanting to erase an enemy? Losing control enough to strike out?”

  “Yeah, I can understand a murderer, a crime of passion, at least. Which Francine’s death could have been. But whose passion? And it’s so tragic what you said about her ancestor—and Bronco’s.”

  “I plan to use that on him, too, probably start with that. Nick, this can all be wrapped up today, if you let me talk to him alone—no Heck, no you.”

  “But I’ll be close,” he muttered. “Real close.”

  * * *

  Jace hated to admit it, but he was really missing Naples. Actually, he was probably missing Lexi. But it was Claire he could still not get out of his mind.

  He’d come alone to Sentosa Island near Singapore’s main island. It was one huge amusement park here, but he wasn’t amused. He’d bought Lexi a bunch of things, sat on the white sand beach, walked through the oceanarium and watched the musical fountains with their laser light show. The cable car ride over here he’d enjoyed before, but this time it had just bored him. It made him feel lonely since families and couples seemed to be having so much fun. The water between Singapore’s version of a theme park and the main island as well as the beach only made him recall happy times with Claire. He had the weirdest feeling, especially after getting those three bizarre photos in the mail, that he had to get home to protect her.

  Okay, okay, he told himself. You still care for her. Want her. Need her.

  But would she ever trust him to let him try with her again? Maybe not so fast this time, not sweeping her off her feet but steady on their feet. He would prove to her that he wouldn’t just fly off the handle. He’d try not to be so self-centered and expect her to bend to his crazy schedule. He’d help her through her narcolepsy, encourage her with her desire to go with more natural cures, and if that didn’t work, support her when she took those strong medications. All that not just because Lexi needed them both. Because he’d learned the hard way he needed Claire, faults and all. God knows, he had them, too.

  He headed back toward the cable car area through the crowd of happy, noisy people. The mix of nationalities and races here made Singapore seem like a great melting pot, the same claim America had made for years. But he could see why Claire didn’t want Lexi raised here or in LA. Singapore touted its values of harmony and the family as the basic unit of society, but that would never salvage his broken marriage. He had to get back to Florida, to Claire and Lexi, even if it meant taking unpaid leave for a while.

  He ducked into a jewelry store, one that had great-looking bracelets in the windows. He’d bought enough stuff for Lexi. He wanted a peace offering for Claire, a love gift.

  “You like bangle bracelets?” the attractive Asian saleswoman asked with a smile and a clatter of metal as she raised her slender arm to show him her shop’s wares.

  “No, something more...well, conservative. Something very nice. Something gold.”

  * * *

  Claire was amazed the setup with Bronco was so easy. That must be a good sign, she thought. When he took a break from helping Win arrange his equipment in Francine’s bedroom—Rosalynn’s room—the next morning, Claire told him she’d learned something from Francine’s writings that might throw light on his ancestor. He’d readily walked out to the river with her.

  But Bronco didn’t sit on the bench. Instead, he started fussing with his airboat. He’d obviously been out in it or was going soon since it was headed upriver and not pulled up on the bank. She wondered if he’d thought to make a quick escape if she said something he didn’t like. He kept coiling the mooring line in the square prow of the boat and wasn’t looking her in the eye.

  “I recall,” Claire said, “you tried to learn why William Richards was hanged.”

  “’Specially since he was important ’round here.” He stepped out of the boat and put one foot up on the edge of the bench. “You found somethin’ on that?”

  “Yes. And it ties to Rosalynn Montgomery’s suicide.”

  Jaw clenched, hands fisted, Bronco looked as if he’d go ballistic. She was glad they were not in a closed interview room and that Nick was nearby.

  “He didn’t kill her, no more’n I hurt Lola!” Bronco insisted. “He didn’t get hanged for that. No way!”

  “I didn’t say that,” she said in a steady, quiet voice, hoping that would calm him. His voice level would sure help Nick, hiding not far down the way, to hear him. She realized she should keep her voice louder, too, but keeping Bronco under control was more important right now. She hoped she hadn’t made a mistake to try this.

  “As a matter of fact this story is about love, not hate,” she tried to assure him.

  That seemed to settle him some. “Like Lola and me. Why can’t people get that’s how it was for us? Sheriff Goodrich sent a detective out to talk to me early this morning, crack a dawn. Lola’s sister been accusin’ me of fightin’ with Lola, maybe hurtin’ her.”

  “But you didn’t. You wouldn’t, right?”

  “’Course not! Why won’t folks believe me—’bout William’s ghost, ’bout Lola and me gettin’ on, not fightin’?”

  She actually thought the big bear of a man was going to cry.

  “Tell me, then, ’bout Willliam,” he said.

  “So Sheriff Goodrich’s man told you that Lola’s sister is saying Lola made you a marionette and an old-fashioned outfit to hang in the tree to take pictures of, posed as William’s ghost? Can you tell me why? Was it so others would believe that your ancestor was important here, so you could stay?”

  Bronco just stared at her—past her—glassy-eyed. She felt she’d been so close to his admitting something. She had to refocus him, get some answers for Nick.

  “Bronco, he was important but in a tragic way. Francine’s diary says that William and Rosalyn
n Montgomery were lovers and she was pregnant with his child when her husband came back from the war. She evidently killed herself rather than face him, then William killed him in some sort of duel, so—”

  She didn’t see it coming. Was he even listening? He muttered, “I din’t kill Lola, don’t say I did,” and lunged at her.

  It all happened so fast. He picked her up, wedged her facedown into the airboat under his elevated seat there. The motor behind them roared to life. She tried to right herself, she screamed, but the sound drowned her out. Bronco put a foot on her back so she couldn’t get up. She thought she heard Nick’s voice, a distant shout.

  She yelled, “Bronco, stop! Don’t do this!”

  The boat lurched, the propellers roared, and they were off on the river.

  24

  Nick shouted, but the airboat noise drowned him out. It also disturbed a pair of gators who scuttled into the river. He ran along the bank but the boat with Bronco riding high and Claire unseen, flitted behind tree limbs heavy with Spanish moss, then disappeared. The roar of the boat echoed in his ears and head, then muted to a distant hum.

  “Damn it! Damn!”

  His heart pounding, he saw she’d dropped her purse. He scooped it up and ran for the house, pulling out his cell, dialing 911. It must have been Bronco all along, at least who killed Lola. And now Claire had stepped over the edge, but Nick had let her.

  “Heck!” he shouted inside the house. “Bronco’s got Claire!”

  “What?” Neil cried as he appeared from his small apartment at the back. Heck ran out of the library.

  Nick shouted, “He’s got her prisoner in his airboat, heading south.”

  “Dear God, he must have broken,” Neil said. “He’s been so obsessed with the ghost and losing Shadowlawn, and then with Lola’s death—”

  Nick held up a hand for silence when an operator answered. “If this is not an emergency, hang up and...”

  “It’s an emergency! At Shadowlawn Estate, southeast of Palatka, just beyond Devil’s Elbow, a woman’s been kidnapped and is in an airboat, heading south on the St. Johns River. Can you scramble a chopper? I’ll pay for it or air patrol, though it’s thick along the river there where cars can’t get in. We don’t have a boat here to give chase, so can they bring an airboat?”

  “Please keep calm and talk slower, sir. Your name is?”

  He gave all the pertinent information, then handed his phone to Heck to fill in other details. He turned away and checked in Claire’s purse. The diary was there, her cell phone—and her medicine, some liquid in a bottle, a vial of pills.

  Jasmine came downstairs wearing a robe, looking like she just got out of the shower with her hair wet and no makeup on.

  “Bronco’s snapped,” he told her, closing the purse but keeping a hold on it. “He took Claire in his airboat when she told him about William Richards fathering Rosalynn’s child and that being the reason she killed herself.”

  Jasmine gasped, pressing both hands over her mouth. “But that’s—that’s horrible.”

  “It was in your mother’s diary with who knows what else.”

  Neil had come close and was hovering, but Nick ignored him. “I was nearby,” he plunged on, “but couldn’t get to them in time. I’m not even sure if he knew I was there.”

  Neil put in, “Outside, he has eyes in the back of his head.”

  “She thought he might confess to harming Lola at least,” Nick said. “There’s more to tell but not now. I’ve called for a search party, but is there a place to access the river, if I drive that way down the road?”

  Neil said, “If Bronco hurt Lola, maybe he hurt Francine...”

  Jasmine grabbed Nick’s arm. “I can’t believe it. But he’s got a lot of spots out there where he gigs frogs or gators. Best let the authorities search and—”

  “I can’t just sit here. It’s my fault!”

  Win appeared from upstairs. “What’s all the ruckus?”

  Heck interrupted everything by shouting, “They’re sending the only chopper they have, and officers will be here soon. Cops in patrol cars are coming, the sheriff, too.”

  “Sorry, Jasmine,” Nick said, pulling away from her grip. “The last thing I wanted was the cops—maybe the sheriff—out here, but if Bronco... Hell, we’ve got to find Claire fast.”

  Win spoke up. “I know some spots along the river where you can walk down. What say I drive you and Neil can take Heck, so that will give us two pursuits, plus the authorities whom Jasmine can fill in from here. If they make this a staging point, don’t let them near my equipment. But Bronco?” he said, shaking his head. He stared at Neil. “I would not have suspected him.”

  “All right, let’s go,” Nick ordered, stepping between Win and Neil before the personality politics took over again. “It’s been barely ten minutes, and he can’t get far.”

  “Sorry,” Win said, fishing his car keys out of his pants pocket, “but the St. Johns is the longest river in the state.”

  Nick felt coiled tight inside, like his head would explode. He wanted to break things. He should have sent or taken her home after that plunge in the water-filled ditch. And now she was out there without him. She was maddening when she got the better of him, but she mattered, suddenly, so much.

  * * *

  Claire wasn’t sure how far they’d gone or for how long. Everything blurred. The roar of the motor. The bouncing, turning. The rush of air, even here in the bottom of the boat. Sometimes she felt and heard scraping sounds as they went over vegetation and sped on. She was shocked she had misjudged Bronco and he had either set this up or just panicked. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Had she ruined things for Nick? Would he ever forgive her, hire her again—if she got out of this? But she had to, for him, for herself—for Lexi. And then she had to go home and be safe forevermore.

  Safe on the South Shores forevermore. Wasn’t that what Nick said his father had written just before he died?

  She tried to wriggle free to get to her purse with her cell in it, but she realized she must have left it—dropped it—on the bench or the ground. Her phone. The diary. Her meds!

  So it was just her and Bronco, and she was going to have to use all her skills to talk him down and make him let her go, whether or not he was the one who hanged Lola just the way his ancestor had ended up hanging from a tree. He obviously felt trapped, panicked, but so did she.

  Worse, if he decided to get rid of her out here, there must be a hundred walls of tall grass, of gators to clean up a body, of places to wedge someone under a cypress knee.

  Oh, Lexi, sweetheart, sorry. Darcy, Jace, Nick, too, so sorry.

  As they raced along, her brain threw at her the image in Neil’s museum of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, taking the frightened woman down into his dark, underwater lair.

  * * *

  As Nick and Win raced for Win’s SUV, Jasmine got a call that Sheriff Goodrich himself would be here soon to set up a command post. What a disaster, Nick thought. One of his goals had been to keep Goodrich away from Jasmine and Shadowlawn—and another had been to keep Claire safe.

  He wasn’t sure why, but he kept Claire’s purse with him. When he found her, she might need her meds. He wanted to keep an eye on the diary. Her phone was here, though what good would that do? Truth was, he just wanted to have something of hers with him.

  Win Jackson drove fast, but not fast enough for Nick. He was glad to get out on the paved road, heading the way Bronco had taken her. Heck and Neil were somewhere behind them. They were going to hit the places closest to the house, the ones Neil knew.

  “In places the river twists away from the highway,” Win told him, “but I’ve set up shots in a couple of spots I know.”

  “Speaking of shots, wish I had a gun,” Nick admitted.

  “She’s more to you than an employee
,” Win stated. It wasn’t a question. “You rely on her to help find who killed Francine. I can tell she’s running herself ragged over this. She’s on edge, and you two are getting so desperate that you misjudged.”

  “I ought to hire you as a psychologist.”

  “Hold tight on these next curves. At least this road has little traffic out this far. We’ll probably have the cops on our tail here, but—all right, I see the first turnoff I was thinking of. It’s a good lookout for a distance up and down the river.”

  He drove into a bumpy turnoff spot on the west side of the river. The track was muddy, and Nick heard thunder rumble in the distance. That was all they needed, a downpour. And a strange mist—almost a low-lying fog—hovered over the river here.

  “We’ll have to watch for gators,” Win warned, pointing. “They’re fairly thick along here as I recall.”

  Nick almost dry-heaved. He’d never forgive himself if Claire was harmed. Though she’d been adamant about setting up the interview with Bronco, he’d agreed. But, from the first, she’d insisted on doing things her way, and he didn’t want to come on like the boss from hell with her. Now he wished he had and that he hadn’t compromised things by falling for her. But too late for that. Hopefully, not too late for Claire.

  Watching where they walked—the only gators they saw were on the opposite bank—they leaned out and looked up and down the river. Nothing. No sounds of an airboat. Nick would never forget the roar as Bronco took off with Claire. Now, just bird calls and more thunder. Nick could have cried.

  But then they heard a sound. “An airboat?” Nick choked out.

  “Helicopter,” Win said, pointing up.

  Thank God, Nick thought, at least help was here.

  * * *

  Claire knew she was going to have to get herself out of this mess she’d made. She lay still until Bronco stopped the motor, and they coasted under a screen of trees into a small cove along the west side of the river. He gave her a hand up. She fought to keep calm when he touched her, even to steady her.