Kingdom by the Sea (Romantic Suspense)

by Jill Winters

  Reluctantly, Lucius agreed and they disconnected.

  Time to track Lucius down, which involved calling in a major favor. Caleb had a friend who was a former detective, turned private. As such, he paid for a service that allowed him to “switch on” the GPS feature of any person's cell phone, and track their coordinates at a given time. It was not a service Michael wanted to get directly involved in—especially because, by default, it tracked the trackers. But now he needed it. This ploy with Lucius could go one of two ways: either Lucius would come to the diner to meet, or he would run to his partner with the seeds of doubt Michael had just planted. It was a good bet that Lucius trusted that guy, whomever he was, more than he trusted Michael.

  Michael waited half an hour before he placed the call.

  After ten minutes on the line together, Caleb’s friend told him, “He's still on the corner of Nevers Road. Nevers Road and Harbor Street. No movement from the spot.” He didn't bother asking questions or offering more help than that.

  “Thanks,” Michael told him. “You can lose that number, by the way,” he added, referring to Lucius's cell phone number.

  “I plan to.”

  The line disconnected.

  Nevers Road...the name was vaguely familiar.

  Quickly, Michael grabbed one of the tourist maps he'd picked up in town when he'd first arrived. He fanned it out and roughly smoothed the creases with a stroke of his hand. The map was illustrated and made Chatham look like a bubbly, cheery place of purple houses, white chapels, and trees shaped like clovers. He scanned the map for Nevers Road.

  Backhanded, he smacked the map when he finally found the intersection. It was a narrow, brief little road, no wonder he'd almost missed it; it was more like a paved inlet to the sea. Sharpening his gaze, he noticed the adjacent symbol—a blue house, which signified an inn or hotel—with the caption: SEA HORSE INN. Then Michael recalled a conversation. Hadn't the Finns once mentioned that the Cape Town Inn used to be called The Sea Horse?

  So now Michael knew two things: this was an old map and Craig Lucius was definitely up to something.

  ***

  “What was so urgent? You know I don't like impromptu meetings like this,” the man calling himself 'Alvin' said. “Especially here, by my home. It is far too risky considering the lengths I've gone to in order to remain inconspicuous.”

  “I just talked to Corso,” Lucius blurted. “He wants to meet later today. He says he's got new information—that I'm not being told everything by you.”

  Alvin said nothing.

  “Well?” Lucius demanded.

  In response, Alvin only raised his eyebrows in question, as if to say, Your point is?

  “Well, is he right? Are you pulling some shit over my eyes here or what?”

  Bizarre imagery aside, Alvin knew it was a reasonable question—and one that would yield an equivocal answer. What else? There was no honor code here. From his life before, Alvin knew full well that there really was no such thing as honor among thieves. And besides, he had so much more at stake here besides money.

  “Because if you're keeping me out of some bigger shit here!” Lucius went on. “If this is more than just a Demberto and you're fucking holding out on me!” Distastefully, Alvin noticed the vein in Lucius's neck throbbing spastically. He seemed at a loss for how to finish the inarticulate threats.

  Finally Alvin spoke. His words were measured, even. “Go to Nina Corday's house today. During the Parade.”

  At that, Lucius went from rant-mode to confused-mode. Scrunching his features, he said, “But what about discretion, like you've been saying from the beginning? What about how there can't be a break-in at that house because it would draw too much attention? What about—?”

  “Plans have changed; you need to strike now. You said that Corso wants to meet. So act as though you intend to meet him, and then go to the house instead. You know he won't be there. Do whatever it requires to get the painting and I will double your percentage on this.”

  Lucius's eyes grew wide at that. Alvin had initially promised him twenty percent of the Demberto, once it was fenced on the international market. The notion of forty percent was obviously sending Lucius into an avaricious tailspin. “There's nothing Corso could tell you that's worth more than that,” Alvin added.

  Though he kept his composure, Alvin was genuinely nervous now. If Corso was telling Lucius that there was more involved here...well, what else could he be referring to? He must have discovered the real truth about the painting.

  Time was an enemy now. Alvin was not going to let everything crash around him.

  Stupidly, he supposed now, he thought he could get the painting out of Nina Corday's house without much fuss or attention, and even if her niece noticed its absence, there would never be the slightest link to him.

  In theory, Corso would be long gone, his identity unknown anyway, Lucius would be eliminated, of course, because he knew Alvin's true identity, and then the painting would be destroyed. No one would be the wiser.

  Of course, the plan had spiraled in another direction. Now Alvin had to adjust to it. Surely he was smart enough to do that.

  “Without Mr. Corso there, and with the whole town on Main Street, enjoying the Harvest Parade festivities, the woman will be there alone. Or better yet—she won't even be there. She'll be at the parade, herself. What better time for you to break in and steal the painting?”

  “But I don't know where the painting even is.”

  “Realistically, if Corso has found it, it would be one of two places now. His boat or inside the house. If he could find it, couldn't you?”

  “You think he has it? He's lying to me? Of course! He's been bullshitting me! Okay, so what about the alarm system?”

  “Again—the town, including the local police force, will be focused on the parade. It will buy you a bit more time in all the confusion. Try his boat first obviously, but then get in the house and move quickly.”

  “And you're really gonna cut me in for forty now?” Lucius double-checked. “Even though that would only leave you with forty?”

  “Sixty,” Alvin corrected. “We'll just cut Corso out. It's not like he got the job done. Right?”

  With a sly snicker, Lucius agreed. “Nope, not at all. He was supposed to get the thing for us, not find it and try to double-deal.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So fuck him,” Lucius added with a brusque laugh.

  “Bring me the painting, whatever it takes, and you are looking at forty percent of five million dollars—cash. I think that should be worth a little extra risk, don't you?”

  “Don't worry,” Lucius said with a feral kind of smile. “I'll get it, one way or another.”

  “Today,” Alvin said, then reached into his pocket. He pulled out a quarter-sized pill case and handed it to Lucius. “You'll need these.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sleeping pills,” Alvin explained. “Somebody got her a dog.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  When Michael arrived at the Cape Town Inn, he found its shutters drawn and flowery curtains closed over the bay window.

  He had cut through the festivities on Main Street. Nevers Road was away from the center of town and close to the ocean. This was a woodsier part of Chatham, dense with trees, banded together like a fortress around the sea, where occasionally a rustic cottage appeared among the thicket.

  Now he stood on the front stoop of the inn. He kept an eye out for Lucius, though he figured he was probably gone by now. Still, Michael had hoped to find Lucius’s partner. Maybe work something out. Buy time to get the answer to the final riddle—“a place for princesses”—and then hand over the Demberto free of charge. To hell with the money. He just wanted them to back off. But the weather-beaten building appeared to be deserted.

  Of course, Michael realized. Everyone was in town for the Harvest Parade.

  What next?

  Somehow the notion of Vickie Finn masterminding any of this was too far-fetch
ed. He supposed she might be shady enough to know someone like Lucius, and she obviously craved excitement. But she just seemed too vapid. Granted, she could have been acting a part. And if not Vickie who Lucius had been meeting twenty minutes ago, then who? Todd?

  No...

  Michael brushed off the thought. That wimp could barely pull off his socks, much less pull off something criminal.

  Could it be someone who was staying at the inn?

  He pulled on the door handle. Locked. Definitely closed for business. Was that something an innkeeper would do if he had a guest lodging there? Lock up the whole building? Of course not, which led him back to his original question: were one or both of the Finns in league with Lucius?

  If you didn't take them at face value, Michael realized, it could make sense. The two of them had been together since high school, for chrissake. Their whole dysfunctional marriage shtick might be an act. To make it worse, Nicole trusted them in a sense. She might not like them, but she wouldn't think to have her guard up with them. Uneasily, Michael eyed the quiet, deserted property one last time before he left.

  ***

  “Todd, where the hell are you taking me?” Vickie demanded, her voice, as usual, the midpoint between a bitch and a moan. “You said you would give me a lift to the print shop. What the hell is going on?”

  Calmly, Todd repeated what he had said to her earlier, when she had first noticed that they'd passed the print shop. “In due time.”

  Vickie burst out a frustrated breath. His wife had always been a spitfire, but she had turned downright surly in recent years. Ever since she had lost all that weight, she'd gained a cruel kind of arrogance in its place. But Todd knew it wasn't the real her. The real Vickie was that chubby-cheeked girl he had first fallen in love with—the one with the braces and the mouthful of pink rubber bands, the one who had loved him back. He remembered the first time they had made love. It had been in her bedroom when they were both just seventeen. It had been a clunky, awkward mating; Todd had taken pains to be extra doting toward her, catering to her—damn it, he was always catering to her. It seemed a thankless job, especially lately. Why had she changed? Why did people have to change?

  After that first time, Vickie hadn't been all that interested in doing it again. Of course Todd had respected her wishes to make love only occasionally, despite his own desire for more. What worked sometimes was giving her an hour-long massage first. Sometimes that got her supple and interested. Whatever she'd needed, he'd tried to give. He had always tried to support her emotionally, but she didn't seem to need him anymore.

  Once Vickie had started dropping weight, she had begun craving sex more. At first, Todd had been thrilled, anticipating endless lovemaking with the wife he adored. But her desire hadn't lasted long. It seemed that they shared a brief bout of frequent sex, and then Vickie backed off again. Telling Todd that she was tired or that she wasn't in the mood. She would snap at him when he would push the issue, so of course, he’d tried to keep the peace.

  Todd had just assumed that was the way Vickie was. Not everyone naturally had a strong sexual appetite. So his wife didn't. It didn't change the fact that he loved her.

  It was only years later that Todd realized his wife...

  Unwittingly, now, Todd tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Even to him, his long slim fingers looked like crooked angry bones and furious joints. Vickie had always had her way. Everything done to please Vickie, he thought. And for what?

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, as fury boiled inside him. Then he glanced over at his wife in the passenger seat, sulking, with arms across her chest. With barely a side glance, she grimaced at him. In return, he smiled mildly; he had become a master at suppressing his anger by now.

  Seeing he was trying to ameliorate her with one of his bland solicitous smiles, his wife became more annoyed. “You know I hate when you do this,” she snapped. “I hate when you try to plan some stupid 'surprise,'” she quoted with her fingers, “that I have no interest in. Whatever it is, I don't care right now. Because I need to go to the print shop to pick up the new brochures. And here's another newsflash—after nineteen years of marriage, there is nothing you can do that's gonna strike me as all romantic, so why bother. That's just life, okay?”

  Angrily, she shook her head, her red curls flopping over her eyes, the ones she always let drop from her up-do. She made the hairstyle seem casual, but he could tell it was calculated. To look sexy, to look artfully messy and provocative. Well, he was going to be the recipient of that for a change. He was going to show Vickie that he was more capable than she thought. That he could provide her with the excitement she craved, provide them both with a rich, amazing life. Todd had been planning this for awhile now, and today was the day to bring his plans to fruition.

  Several months ago, he had sensed that he was losing Vickie, and he had decided that he would do whatever he had to in order to keep her. He might have lost that chubby cherub from years ago, but he accepted the short-tempered woman in her place—the skinny woman, obsessed with her looks—and he still wanted her. After all these years, he was the one who deserved her. She owed him. It was that simple.

  “Hellooo?” she snarled.

  Finally Todd spoke, his voice a few degrees cooler than usual. “You've always underestimated me. You've never realized what I am capable of.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  Sure, he was used to that surly tone by now, but the difference this time was that now he had something tangible to show her. Not a vague promise or a romantic platitude. Something big—something real. Todd gave her another one of his easy smiles. He so adored her. And soon she would see just how far he was willing to go for her.

  His warm smile of love—mixed with a hopeful eagerness to please—seemed to annoy her. She curled her lip, rolled her eyes, and turned to look out the window.

  In due time, he thought eagerly.

  Chapter Forty-four

  That morning when Nicole heard the rumble of Michael's dinghy, she'd peeked out the kitchen window and watched him come ashore. Once he’d walked across the strip of sand below her yard, taken the gravel path parallel to the water, and was finally out of sight, she’d grabbed her jacket and hurried outside. She didn't bother resetting the alarm, because she didn't plan to go far.

  As soon as she left, Puddle began to bark. Momentarily, Nicole hesitated on the porch, then ducked her head back inside. Her dog was up against the door jamb, wanting to come along. “Okay—come on,” Nicole acquiesced, snatching the harness and leash off the window sill. Latched loosely to the porch railing, Puddle seemed satisfied.

  Her aunt's note had read: Go to a place for princesses. The phrase had moved her—like a key in a lock—click. Nicole remembered.

  Quickly, she hopped down the porch steps and crossed the grass to the two towering oak trees, buried in their own colorful, overgrown foliage. From here she couldn't even tell if the tree house was still there. But it had to be; why else would her aunt be leading her there?

  Why had she not even considered the tree house sooner? It was the spot in which she, Alyssa, and Linda had spent much time playing. The place Aunt Nina had dubbed their “castle”—which, as Nina always said, was “a necessary place for princesses.” She always said it with this faux properness, right before she served them tea, A.K.A. apple juice.

  Once Nicole remembered that, the significance of various clues had come together. The poem, Annabel Lee with its references to a “kingdom by the sea,” and the allusions to the Three Sisters Lighthouse had all been part of an effort to jog Nicole's memory—to bring to mind this game she and her sisters used to play—pretending to be princesses, up in the tree house. Now it made sense: Nina's first note that remarked, “The treasure is the house.” She had meant this house, Nicole realized, as she came up flush against the thick trunk.

  Squinting up at the massive umbrella of leaves, she knew that the mystery was far from solved yet. What had Aunt Nina hidden up there and
why she had chosen cryptic messages to lead Nicole there? Had her aunt been anticipating her own death? Had Nina been so certain that she would not recover from her illness and that Nicole would be in Chatham prior to the Harvest Parade? These were pieces of the puzzle Nicole couldn't manufacture at this point.

  Now she wondered if the letters spelling out “behind you” had been a double play on words; not only referring to the picture reflected in the library mirror, but also meaning behind the house, in the backyard. It seemed, when Nicole thought about it, that her aunt had scattered various clues, not, in actuality, a linear trail, but assorted memory triggers. Perhaps Nina figured enough messages, references, and nudges in the right direction, would lead Nicole to the right place.

  Last night, before Nicole could think all this through, she had frozen up. She still wasn't sure if her withdrawal from Michael was reasonable. But the idea of him searching through her house, her things—her aunt's things, really—in order to discover where the treasure was, or perhaps what it was, had just seemed so secretive. Sneaky, even. And when she coupled that with her dream and the strong feeling that she’d seen him in Boston before…

  She hated not trusting him anymore, but the feeling dug in anyway and tangled through her like a weed—insidious, disruptive, ugly.

  Now Nicole reached up, grazing her palms over the rough bark of the tree, to try to feel for the rope ladder that had once led the way. Hoping to feel it coiled or tossed up—

  She felt something! Straining on her toes, her hand was wrist-deep in leaves, she was finally able to make a fist around the rope. She pulled hard, which sent the ladder swinging down, nearly batting her right in the face.

  Her pulse began to pound. Instinctively, she tightened her fingers into determined fists. Nostalgia blanketed her shoulders, as anticipation—even nervousness—shook her.

  The cord rocked unsteadily as she climbed. She closed her eyes as her head ducked into the mass of leaves—bringing her eye level with the tiny entrance to the tree house. The “door” was a metal gate, about three feet tall. She pushed the gate in. Stiff, rusty hinges screeched as they fought her. Even though today’s sun was bright, in this cave of tree shade, only slices of light found their way through.