Safe in Your Arms

by RaeAnne Thayne

  I don’t like that lady.

  That makes two of us, she thought, then was suddenly struck by a horrible, hideous thought.

  Alex.

  Oh, dear Lord. Maybe this all had to do with Alex.

  She could hear her pulse roaring like the sea in her ear, and the cabin suddenly seemed overwarm, airless. She started breathing in shallow, quick gulps and she felt light-headed, dizzy.

  No. She couldn’t panic, not when she had a child to protect.

  Think about Beau, she urged herself. How would he handle this situation? He would be calm and level-headed, to start with. And he would figure out a way to escape.

  She focused first on Alex. To her relief, the boy busied himself looking out the porthole for a while, then curled up on the bed and dozed off, rocked by the rough sea.

  For the next hour Elizabeth tried to make sense of what was happening. She was considering her very limited options when she heard a key being fitted to the lock and a moment later the door swung open. Her relief was short-lived. Leigh stood in the doorway holding an ugly black handgun.

  That wild panic fluttered back. Leigh with a gun didn’t strike her as a good combination.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “We’re not. We’ve just moved out of traffic enough that I can put her on autopilot. I just had to come down and make sure nobody’s puked on my bed. Neither you or the kid is seasick, are you?”

  She thought wildly about faking it and wondered if that would gain her any advantage but immediately discarded the idea. Though her stomach was queasy enough, she didn’t think she could manage to convince Leigh she was that sick.

  “No.”

  “Good. What do you think about my baby? She cuts through those waves like a bird riding the current.”

  How could she stand there with a gun in her hand and speak so casually about a damn boat? Elizabeth wasn’t good at small talk under the best of circumstances. Since this obviously wasn’t a social occasion, she wasn’t even going to try.

  “Leigh, what is this about? Have you gone completely crazy?”

  The other woman’s smile hardened. “No, I’m not crazy. I would have thought it was obvious what this is about. But maybe not to a half-wit like you.”

  “Yes. I’m stupid. We both know that. So spell it out for me in simple, easy to understand words. Why are you kidnapping us?”

  Leigh glanced over at Alex sleeping on the bed then back at her, and the angry set to her features sent that panic fluttering through Elizabeth again. “Tina should have kept her big, greedy mouth shut. If she had never written that letter to my father, everything would have been fine. He never would have known about the brat.”

  “This is about Alex?”

  “Yeah. My dear baby brother.”

  So Leigh knew about Tina’s affair with Andrew. How long had she known? Before or after Tina’s death?

  Her freewheeling thoughts suddenly jerked to an abrupt halt. Tina. Oh, dear heaven.

  “You killed Tina, didn’t you?” She didn’t know how she knew, but she had absolutely no doubt.

  Leigh didn’t bother to deny it. “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. Yeah, I killed the whore. She deserved it. She would have ruined my father. Completely destroyed him! If word got out that he had a kid with a junkie stripper, his reputation would have been shredded. I refused to sit by and let that happen.”

  Elizabeth barely heard her over the grief and shock rushing through her. She couldn’t breathe again, could barely think to sort through the hundreds of questions crowding her brain.

  “Why k-kill her?” she finally asked.

  “To shut her up.”

  “She wouldn’t have told anyone! Alex is five years old and she never asked Andrew for…for anything in all those years!”

  “She would have bled him dry eventually. I know she would have. Fifty-thousand here, a hundred thousand there. I’d be damned before I let some low-class slut of a stripper and her whiny brat take my share.”

  “So you shot her.”

  “What choice did I have? After she wrote to him, my father told me about his little indiscretion. He told me he planned to take full responsibility for the brat. My newfound little brother. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic. I argued with him—she knew exactly what she was doing when she chose to screw around, he didn’t need to pay the price for her mistake—but he wouldn’t listen.”

  Why had she never noticed how cold Leigh’s eyes could be? Elizabeth wondered.

  “I like my father’s fortune,” she went on. “I’ve never made a secret of that. I like having money and I don’t like having to share.”

  “How did you…kill her?” She didn’t want to hear the answer but she had to know.

  “I thought I was being particularly clever, if I do say so myself. She wasn’t expecting me to pay a little visit. It wasn’t hard to take her by surprise at the door and inject her with enough heroin that she was feeling no pain. It took a few minutes for it to kick in but she was too stupid to realize what was going to happen. She didn’t even put up a fight.”

  “You forced her to…to write the suicide note?”

  “Yeah. She was too dopey to do more than write those few words. I’m sorry. That’s all, and believe me, by then she was. Then I just held her hand on the gun and pulled the trigger.”

  Now she did think she would be sick, all over Leigh’s luxuriously appointed stateroom. She forced down the slick nausea. Later. She could be sick later. Now she had to survive.

  “What are you…” She drew several deep breaths, trying to gain control of her careening thoughts. “What are you planning for Alex and me?”

  “Since there’s nothing you can do about it, I may as well tell you. As soon as we get a little farther from civilization, you and the kid are going for a swim. Oh, did I mention you’ll be unconscious at the time? Knock-out drugs can come in so handy. I’m sure you’ve heard that drowning is actually quite a pleasant way to die.”

  Elizabeth stopped breathing. She wanted to curl up into a quivering ball of panic but couldn’t.

  “Someone will have…seen us come aboard.”

  “Who would have seen you? Luisa? Who’s going to take the word of a barely literate housekeeper over me?”

  “You won’t get away with it. I have a…a friend who’s a police detective. If Alex and I turn up missing, he’s going to figure out why.”

  “Ah, yes. Your good friend Mr. Riley. I spoke with him today, did he tell you that?”

  She gazed at Leigh, unable to answer. She couldn’t very well tell her she hadn’t spoken with Beau in nearly a week.

  “Of course he didn’t. Well, let me tell you, we had an interesting little chat. You’ve been a naughty girl, keeping secrets from your boyfriend, haven’t you, Lizzie?”

  The heat of her fear turned suddenly cold. “What do you…what do you mean?”

  “Did you really think a man like that would be interested in someone like you?” She gave a mocking laugh. “I told him all about our poor bumble-tongued little Lizzie. He had quite a strong reaction, I can tell you that. Then the two of us had a good laugh over you and your pathetic attempts to appear normal.”

  Bile again rose in her throat. It shouldn’t matter, not when she and Alex were about to die, but it did. Oh, it did.

  And yet…

  Her gaze narrowed as she studied the other woman.

  “You’re lying,” she said calmly.

  For an instant Leigh looked taken aback, as if the thick pile carpet under her feet had reached up and taken a chunk out of her big toe.

  Elizabeth had absolutely no doubt she was lying. Beau never would have laughed at her. Never. The man she loved with all her soul was simply incapable of showing the kind of cruelty Leigh and others of her ilk seemed to revel in.

  She’d been so stupid not to realize it before. Not to trust him enough to tell him the truth about her speech impairment.

  Beau cared for her. She knew it, had known it in hi
s arms, but she had been too frightened of rejection to trust her own instincts.

  She had to get them through this so she could tell him how wrong she had been.

  “You can believe what you want but your detective was as disgusted by you as your father always was. You’re an idiot and you always have been,” Leigh said with a sneer.

  The words should have stung her like a thousand jellyfish but Elizabeth suddenly realized Leigh was right. She had been an idiot. She had given cruel, tiny-minded people like this woman and like her fiancé far too much power over her.

  And her father. She couldn’t forget her father. She had built her life around trying to gain his acceptance, trying to mold herself into becoming someone she was not.

  But no matter how hard she tried, she could never be good enough for him—or for the Leigh Sheffields in her life—because she let them make her feel stupid and awkward.

  She couldn’t afford to be stupid now. She had to keep all her wits about her so she could figure out a way to get Alex to safety. She needed time and space to come up with a plan, and she could only think of one way to gain a little of both.

  Praying her acting skills would be up to the challenge, she pressed a hand to her stomach and moaned. The sea helped her out by tossing the yacht just a little more than normal, until she was only half faking.

  Leigh’s eyes widened in consternation. “If you’re going to hurl, do it in the head! That’s a fifty-thousand-dollar antique Persian rug.”

  “Ohhh,” she groaned.

  “Hurry! If you throw up on my rug, I’ll forget about the knockout drugs and just toss you overboard.”

  Elizabeth faked a gag and rushed to the bathroom. While she pretended to dry heave over the toilet, out of the corner of her gaze she saw Leigh give her a disgusted look for her weakness then leave the stateroom, locking the door behind her.

  When she was sure Leigh was gone, Elizabeth sat up, wiping her mouth as if she really had been sick.

  She had a little time now to come up with a plan but she didn’t have the first clue where to start.

  CHAPTER 17

  The sun was just beginning its long, slow slide beneath the horizon when Beau maneuvered the Mari to the Harbor View dock.

  He inhaled cool, moist air smelling of the sea and the sharp, citrusy scent of wet pine from the trees surrounding the estate.

  Under ordinary circumstances, he would be enjoying such a beautifully crisp autumn evening after the constant rain they’d had for the past few days, but he was far too nervous.

  He was nuts. He had to be. He had considered just driving out to Bainbridge on the ferry to talk to her. It would have been quicker and easier all around, but he was half-afraid Elizabeth wouldn’t open the gates of Harbor View for him.

  Coming in the back way from the water might be sneaky, but at least this way she couldn’t turn him away.

  He had some crazy idea of taking her out on the Mari to see the city lights, softening her up with wine and the dinner he’d picked up from his favorite restaurant before he left, then baring his heart to her. Nature hadn’t cooperated very well, though. The Sound was probably too rough for an evening pleasure cruise anyway.

  Beau glanced down at the items on the table next to him. He felt like a complete idiot. Did he really expect a bouquet of flowers—even if it was the largest one he could find—and a book of poems Griff promised would soften even the hardest hearts could make up for his cruelty?

  She would probably refuse to even talk to him. And then what would he do? Slink back into the night, he guessed. Figure out a way to go on without her in his life.

  He sat in the pilothouse for several more moments trying to figure out what to say to her. He wanted to stay right there where it was safe but knew he’d have to go inside soon. Someone inside the house must have seen the Mari dock, and they were probably in there wondering what the hell he was doing out here.

  Feeling foolish and unsure of himself, he gripped the flowers in one hand, the book in the other and headed toward the house.

  He heard Maddie inside as he approached the back door. She seemed to be just on the other side, barking up a storm. After he knocked, Luisa opened the door and the dog just about bowled him over in her frenzied rush toward the water.

  “Whoa. What’s your hurry, pup? Been inside a little too long?”

  The dog raced to the dock, still barking. He turned back to Luisa and found her studying him, her expression puzzled.

  “Detective.” She looked over his shoulder. “Where are Miss Elizabeth and my Alex?”

  “I don’t know. Should I?”

  Luisa’s frown deepened, her eyes dark, uneasy. “They are not with you? On your boat?”

  “No. I just arrived.” Something didn’t feel right here. His instincts suddenly started humming and sparking like a downed power line. “Why would you think they were with me?”

  “I saw them from the window earlier. They were going onto a boat, a white-and-blue one like yours. I did not have a very good look at the person with them but I thought it must have been you and that you all went for a ride like before.”

  “Elizabeth didn’t tell you where she and Alex were going and who they were with?”

  “No. She said nothing.”

  That struck him as very strange. Out of character, not at all something Elizabeth would do. Luisa must have sensed the same thing. She began to look distressed, frightened. He had a feeling she was just a few seconds away from wringing her hands.

  “What is happening? Where could they be?”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe a friend stopped by and they went for a quick cruise around.” A niggling little thought hovered at the edge of his consciousness but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  “They left Maddie. I found her barking outside on the dock. It seemed strange but I did not worry because I thought they had gone with you. I thought you would bring them home soon.”

  “How long ago did you see them?”

  She shrugged, her brown eyes wet now with unshed tears. “Maybe an hour, maybe more. I cannot say.”

  “What did the boat look like? Do you remember any identifying details at all?”

  “I did not see very well. Like yours, that’s all I remember. Blue and white.”

  “Did you happen to see a name on it?”

  “No. I am sorry, Detective.”

  She looked so distressed he didn’t want to push her but she was the only one who might have seen something so he had to keep at her. If he pushed hard enough, maybe she’d remember.

  “Did Elizabeth know anyone else who had a boat that color?”

  “No. No one. Just you. Her father, he had friends with boats but they do not come to see Miss Elizabeth. Something is wrong. I can feel it. She would not have left like that without telling me. I should have called the policia as soon as I knew they were gone.”

  He had to admit he was inclined to agree with her. The whole thing didn’t smell right. “Let’s not panic, Luisa. Since I have my own boat here, I’ll go back out on the water and take a look around while I make a few phone calls to see what I can find out.”

  He didn’t want to scare her further so he didn’t add that he planned to alert the Coast Guard as soon as he could get to the radio.

  “I’m sure they’ll both be back any minute.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but he had a feeling since she didn’t react that he wasn’t very convincing. “Why don’t I give you my cell number, and you can call me when she shows up?”

  She nodded and he quickly wrote down his number for her, then hurried back to the Mari, conscious of the tension rippling through him like relentless, storm-tossed waves.

  The cruiser roared to life, her twin diesel engines throbbing, and he pulled away from the dock. He didn’t have the first idea where to go. Puget Sound consisted of hundreds of tiny islands with two thousand miles of coastline. They could be anywhere.

  He was probably making far too much of this. She a
nd Alex were probably just fine, enjoying an evening cruise with a friend. But he couldn’t help remembering how on the day she had sailed out with him, Elizabeth had made a point of returning to the house to tell Luisa before they headed out, even though Luisa had probably known all about their planned excursion.

  Why would she break with routine this time and take off without a word to Alex’s grandmother, leaving Maddie outside unattended in the process? It didn’t make sense.

  He frowned, wishing he could put a finger on the niggling little thought still hovering just out of reach.

  He picked up the VHF and was tuning to the Coast Guard channel 16 when it struck him.

  Andrew Sheffield had a yacht, and so did his daughter, a new Italian-built yacht she was all too eager to show off. Both of them would be well acquainted with the waters around Harbor View and would know all about the deep-water dock.

  And Leigh had told him she planned to take her new yacht out that evening.

  He frowned. Leigh would never take Elizabeth and Alex up for a pleasure cruise. Not with the enmity between the two women.

  He carefully returned the handset to the radio back to the cradle, his mind racing. He stared at the horizon trying to make sense of his sudden suspicions as the moon began to rise above the shoreline.

  If Andrew Sheffield killed Tina to keep her quiet, killing the kid would be a logical next step to make sure the whole deep, dark secret stayed buried forever. But Sheffield had to know that anybody who wanted the kid would have to go through Elizabeth first.

  Damn it. He should have anticipated this.

  He quickly hit the speed dial on his cell phone to reach the night shift at the precinct. To his surprise, Griffin answered the phone.

  “What are you doing working so late?” he asked.

  “I’ve been going over the Hidalgo case file, trying to see if I can find something here we’re missing.”

  For a moment he didn’t know what to say about Griff’s diligence. Beau was passionate about his job but even he forced himself to take time off occasionally to protect against burnout.

  “Well, good job,” he finally said. “Listen, I need a favor. Can you get me Andrew Sheffield’s private line? I don’t have time to explain but I need it ASAP. Griff, it’s important.”