In the Dark

by Heather Graham

They had their plan.

  David roused Alex. "Hey," he said softly.

  She jerked awake, eyes wide.

  "We're going," he told her. "Remember, you don't open the door to anyone once we've gone. Not John, and not me."

  "I don't like this," she protested. "The sheriff could be far more prepared than either of you think. He's not a bumpkin. You should both stay put, right where you are. That leaves us as three against one, remember?" She was pleading, she realized.

  "You'll be all right if you just stay locked in," David said.

  "I'm not worried about me, you idiot!" she lashed out. "I'm worried about the two of you. Going out as if you—"

  "Alex, let us do this," John said.

  "Don't forget no one—no one—comes in," David warned her sternly again. This was going to be difficult for Alex, he knew. She was accustomed to being the one in charge, accustomed to action.

  And they were asking her to just sit tight.

  "I've got it," she said wearily. "I heard you. But I still don't understand what the two of you are going to do."

  "We're going back together for the speargun," David said. 'Then John is going to watch the trail, and I'm going to wait at your cottage."

  "You know, whoever this is could come here and we could ambush him. Or them," she tried.

  "Alex, he—or they—may never realize we came to this cottage," David said. "In fact, we're praying that he doesn't."

  He got to his feet. John joined him. He reached a hand down to Alex, drawing her to her feet and against him. His voice was husky when he said, "No one." He moved his fingers against her nape, sudden paralysis gripping his stomach.

  Seymore looked away.

  David kissed Alex. Briefly. But tenderly.

  "Follow us to the door and bolt it immediately, don't just lock it," John told Alex. "If it's Jay, he's got a master key."

  "Bolts, on both doors," David said. "Front and back."

  "Yes, immediately," she said.

  They stepped out cautiously.

  The world seemed to be a sea of ripped-up palm fronds and foliage. Small trees were down all over.

  "Close the door," David told Alex.

  Her beautiful, ever-changing, sea-colored blue-green eyes touched his one last time. She went back in, and he heard the bolt slide into place behind them.

  "This way for the speargun," he told John Seymore.

  The other man nodded grimly and followed his lead.

  Alex's diving watch was ticking.

  Five minutes, ten minutes.

  Fifteen minutes.

  By then she was pacing. Every second seemed an agony. Listening to the world beyond the cottage, she could at first hear nothing.

  Then, every now and then, a trill.

  Already, the birds were returning.

  Her stomach growled so loudly that it made her jump. She felt guilty for feeling hunger when David and John were out there, in danger, and Len Creighton still lay unconscious on the kitchen floor.

  With that thought, she returned to his side. He hadn't moved; his condition hadn't changed. She secured the blankets around him more tightly.

  That was when she heard the shots.

  She jumped a mile as she heard the glass of the rear sliding doors shatter.

  Alex didn't wait. She tore through the place, closing doors so that whoever was out there would be forced to look for her. Then she raced into the front bedroom, opened the window and forced out the screen, grateful they hadn't boarded up the place. As she crawled out the window, she wondered if the shooter was Jay Galway or Hank Adamson.

  Then it occurred to her that maybe they didn't know the truth about John Seymore.

  And he was the only one of them who she knew had a gun.

  In the stillness of the morning, the bullets hitting the glass, one after another with determined precision, sounded like cannon shots.

  David had been waiting by the door of Alex's cottage. He'd left it ajar, standing just inside with the speargun at the ready as he watched the trail. No one would be coming through the back without his knowledge—he'd dragged all the furniture against it.

  But at the sound of the gunshots, he started swearing. What if John Seymore was the shooter?

  No, couldn't be. Gut instinct.

  Someone was shooting, though, and David felt ill as he left the cottage and raced dexterously over the ground that was deeply carpeted in debris.

  What if his gut instinct had been wrong?

  He'd left Alex at the mercy of a killer.

  Heedless of being quiet, he raced toward Ally's cottage, heading for the back door.

  Instinct forced him to halt, using a tree as cover, when he first saw the shattered glass. He scanned the area, saw no one, heard no one.

  Racing across the open space, the speargun at the ready, he reached the rear of the cottage.

  He listened but still didn't hear a thing.

  The broken glass crunched beneath his feet, and he went still. Once again he heard nothing. Slowly, his finger itchy on the trigger, he made his way in and moved toward the kitchen.

  There, lying under a pile of blankets, just as they had left him, was Len Creighton. Then, before he could even ascertain whether Len was still alive, David heard a noise, just a rustling, from the front bedroom.

  Silently, he moved in that direction.

  The door to her cottage was open.

  Alex had run like a Key deer from the other cottage and, without even thinking about it, had come here.

  Because David would be here.

  The front door was ajar.

  She hesitated, found a piece of downed coconut and threw it toward the open doorway. Nothing happened.

  Cautiously, she made her way to the door. She peered inside. No one. Logic told her that once he'd heard the bullets, David would have run to her assistance.

  She entered her cottage, thinking desperately about what she might have that could serve as a weapon. The best she could come up with was a scuba knife.

  She kept most of her equipment at the marina, but there were a few things here.

  She raced into her bedroom, anxious to pull open the drawer where she kept odds and ends of extra equipment, reminding herself to keep quiet in case she had been followed. But she was in such a hurry that she jerked the entire dresser.

  Perfumes and colognes jiggled, then started to topple over. She reached out to stop them from crashing to the floor and instead knocked them all to the floor with the sweep of her hand.

  The sound seemed deafening.

  She swore, returning attention to the drawer, but then something caught the corner of her eye.

  She paused, looking at the pile of broken ceramics and glass.

  The little dolphin had broken, and she could see that a piece of folded paper had been hidden inside the bottom of the ceramic creature.

  Squatting down, she retrieved it.

  Ordinary copy paper.

  But as she opened it, she realized just what had been copied. A map. The original had been very old, and there was an X on it, and next to that, three words: The Anne Marie.

  She stared at it numbly for a second, then remembered the day when she had found her things out of order. Someone must have hidden the map that day. Returning her mind to her predicament. Rising, she opened the drawer, heedless now of making noise. She found the knife she had been seeking and quickly belted it around her calf.

  Then she heard a noise as someone came stealthily toward the front of the house.

  Once again, she made a quick escape through a bedroom window.

  David burst into the bedroom of Ally's cottage, speargun aimed.

  But no one was there.

  He immediately noticed the open window and the punched-out screen lying on the floor.

  Silently, he left the bedroom, then the house, and hurried on toward Alex's place.

  Now the door was wide open. Cautiously, he entered.

  He hurried through the cottage.

  T
his time, it was her own bedroom window that was open. A punched-out screen lay mangled on the floor.

  He heard a shot.

  The sound had come from the area of the Tiki Hut.

  He raced from the house and toward the lagoons.

  "Stop, Alex. Stop!"

  She had simply run when she left her place. Away from the front door. Her steps had brought her to the lagoons and the Tiki Hut. She made it to the lagoon on the outskirts of the Tiki Hut, which was little more than a pile of rubble now. She spared a moment's gratitude that she hadn't spent the night under the bar after all.

  The voice calling to her gave her pause.

  It was John Seymore. And she knew he had a gun.

  She turned, and he was there, closing in on her.

  "Wait for me," he said. But as she stared at him, another man burst from the trees.

  It was Hank Adamson. And he, too, was armed.

  "Alex, it's all right!" Adamson called out. "I've got him covered. Seymore, put down the gun or I'll shoot you."

  "Alex, let him shoot me," John said. "Get the hell away from him."

  "Alex, don't be an idiot. Don't run," Hank Adamson insisted.

  At that moment, David burst from the foliage, his speargun raised. "Alex, get the hell away from here!" David roared, but then he paused, seeing the situation.

  "Hey, David," Hank Adamson called. "I've got him!"

  "Yeah, I see that," David said. For a moment his eyes met hers. Then they turned toward the lagoon before meeting hers again. She realized that he was telling her to escape. Shania had helped her once. The dolphin would surely take her away again.

  But she didn't dare move.

  "Yeah, you've got him, all right," David said, walking to Seymore's side. "Hank, where's Jay?" he asked. "It's all right, Alex. It's okay…Hank has got this guy covered."

  She knew from his eyes that he didn't mean it.

  But how was he so sure that John Seymore wasn't the bad guy?

  "Hank, where's Jay?" David repeated.

  "This guy must have gotten him during the night," Hank said, indicating John.

  And then Alex knew. Amazingly, David looked dead calm, and earnest, as if he were falling for every word Hank Adamson said. He was gambling again, she realized. Bluffing. In a game where the stakes were life or death.

  His life.

  She could see what he was doing. He was going to go for Hank Adamson and take the chance of being shot. He was risking John Seymore's life, as well, but she could see in that man's eyes that he was willing to take the risk. The guy was for real.

  "Now!" David shouted.

  His spear flashed in the brilliant morning sunlight that had followed the storm.

  John Seymore made a dive for her, and they crashed into the lagoon together.

  As they pitched below the surface of the water, Alex was aware of the bullet ripping through it next to them. She heard the repercussion as another shot was fired.

  In the depths of the lagoon, the bullets harmlessly pierced the bottom. She and Seymore kicked their way back to the surface. Heads bobbed around them. Dolphin heads. Her charges were about to go after John.

  "No, no…it's all right!" She quickly gave them a signal, then ignored both them and John Seymore as she kicked furiously to reach the shore.

  Two men were down.

  "Careful!" John was right behind her, holding her back when she would have rushed forward.

  He walked ahead of her.

  Hank Adamson, speared through the ribs, was on top. Blood gushed from his wound.

  "David!"

  She shrieked his name, falling to the ground, trying to reach him as John Seymore lifted Hank Adamson's bleeding form.

  "David!"

  He opened his eyes.

  "David, are you hurt? Are you shot?

  "Alex," he said softly, and his voice sounded like a croak.

  "Don't you die, you bastard!" she cried. "I love you, David. I was an idiot, a scared idiot. Don't you dare die on me now!"

  He smiled, then pushed himself entirely free of Hank Adamson and the pile of leaves and branches that had cushioned them both when they fell. He got to his feet.

  "She loves me," he told John Seymore, smiling.

  Seymore laughed.

  Alex couldn't help it. She threw a punch at David's shoulder. "That doesn't mean I could live with you," she told him furiously.

  "Actually, we have another worry before we get to that," David said, looking at John. "We've got to find

  Jay. And pray that help gets here soon, or we'll lose Len for certain."

  They found Jay near where Alex had stumbled into him the night before. He was groaning, obviously alive. From the doorway, they could see him starting to rise. When he heard them, he went flat and silent once again.

  "It's all right, Jay," Alex said, racing to his side. "It's over."

  He sat up, holding his head, fear still in his eyes as he looked at them.

  "It was Hank," he said, as if still amazed. "It was Hank…all along."

  "We know," Alex told him.

  "Len?"

  "He's alive. We have to get him to a hospital as soon as possible," John said.

  "Thank God," Jay breathed. He looked at them all. "Hank," he repeated. "How did you figure it out?"

  John looked at David. "How did you figure it out?"

  Alex stared at David, as well.

  David shrugged. "Two things. Seth Granger was killed. The man with the money, and Hank would fit into that category. That meant it had to be someone who didn't need money or backing. Someone who meant to get what he could, then get out."

  "You said two things," John Seymore told him.

  David stared at John. "Gut instinct," he said at last. He angled his head to one side for a moment, listening, and said, "There's a launch coming. Thank God. Nigel Thompson can take over from here."

  Epilogue

  She hurried along the trail. She knew she was being pursued, but now, the knowledge brought a smile to her face.

  They would be alone. Finally, after all the trauma, all the hours.

  Still, there was something she had to do first.

  Hank Adamson wasn't dead; he, like Jay and Len, had been taken aboard a helicopter and airlifted to Jackson Memorial in Miami. All three men were expected to make a full recovery.

  It was chillingly clear that the reporter had intended to use the storm as cover to kill them all, Alex last, so that he could find out what she knew by saving one victim for the end and pretending he would let him live if she would just talk.

  He would never have believed that she didn't know anything. Until the end, of course. Before Nigel arrived, she had given the map to David, then smiled in relief when he had turned it over to Nigel Thompson.

  She didn't give a damn about the whereabouts of the Anne Marie. And even if David did, people were still more important to him than any treasure.

  She reached the first platform, and fed Katy, Sabra and Jamie-Boy, aware she was being watched.

  As she sat down at the next platform, David, who had come after her, sat down beside her. "I have to butt in here," he told her. "I owe Shania, too. I owe her everything. Do you mind?"

  Alex shook her head, and watched him for a moment as he fed and touched every dolphin, talking to them all, giving Shania special care.

  "You know," she said softly, "I was jealous of Alicia, but I'm truly sorry that she's dead."

  "So am I." He looked at her. "You were wrong, though, to be jealous. We never had an affair."

  "She was just so…perfect for you," Alex said.

  "No, she wasn't. I was always in love with you. You were perfect for me. I was an ass. I didn't show it. You loved your training, I loved the sea. I didn't know how selfish I had gotten."

  "Well, since we're still married," she mused, "I guess we'll just have to learn how to compromise."

  "Alex?"

  "What?"

  "I lied," he admitted. "I saw you with Seymore, and I had t
o think of something. Because this much is true. I love you, more than anything on earth, with every bit of my heart, my soul, and my being."

  "You lied to me?" she said.

  He shook his head, looking at her. "Alex, I've learned to never, ever take someone you love for granted. We can compromise. I don't need to be in on the find of the century. For me," he added softly, "you are the find of the century. Any century. Don't throw us away again, please."

  "David, that's lovely. Really lovely. But are you saying we're not still married? That's what you lied about?"

  "Forgive me. I didn't know what else to do. Well?"

  She smiled. "Actually, I'm thinking that we should be remarried here. Right here. By the lagoons. A small ceremony, with just our closest friends here. I mean, we did the big-wedding thing already."

  He gazed at her, slowly giving her a deep, rueful grin.

  Then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  * * * * *