Drowning Tides

by Karen Harper

  That night was their last at the Crayton Cove Marina in Naples before Bronco and Juanita moved aboard and they set out to anchor at Goodland. Claire finally got around to what she thought of as “deposing Lexi.” The child had obviously overheard some scary and maybe important things when she was eavesdropping on Clayton Ames’s phone conversation in Nightshade on Grand Cayman. Yet Claire hesitated to bring up anything to do with Lexi’s abduction again because she didn’t want the nightmares to return—Lexi’s or her own.

  So, rather than making her questions seem important, she talked to Lexi while the child was sitting in the bathtub in soap bubbles, one of her “most funnest” and relaxing things to do.

  Claire sat on the side of the tub, laughing when Lexi blew clusters of bubbles from her hands. Now she had to set the scene with words before mentioning Ames again.

  She picked up on some earlier groundwork she’d laid with the child. “I’m so glad you’re safe with Nick and me and your new friend Nita, and I know you are going to like Bronco when he comes to stay on the boat tomorrow. He’ll work on the boat and drive us around in a car if we get off.”

  “Mommy, is that because Nick is rich and likes people to work for him?”

  “Nick works hard for his money helping people, but he’s busy so he does need to hire some other people to help him.”

  “And this guy Bronco, Mommy. If he has a horse, could he bring it on the boat?”

  “He doesn’t have a horse, but he does sound like a cowboy, doesn’t he? Where he’s from in northern Florida, people used to herd cattle, just like out west. Listen, I was hoping before you forget, I could ask you just two questions about something you said you heard Mr. Kilcorse say. We won’t be seeing him again, but I’d just like to know.”

  Lexi stopped flipping suds and wrapped both arms around herself as if she suddenly was cold—typical self-protective body language. “He said a bunch of things, I guess.”

  “Okay, but one thing is that he might want to hurt Nick, just the way Captain Hook wanted to hurt Peter Pan—something like that.”

  “But if we don’t see him anymore, he can’t hurt Nick, can he?”

  “No, but did he say something like that?”

  She nodded her head. “Yes. Because Nick was cross with him.”

  “Or could it be he said Nick crossed him?”

  “Well, maybe. I think so. Mommy, this water will get cold if we keep talking.”

  “Just one more question then, and I don’t want you to be a bit scared to tell me. Did Mr. Kilcorse mention something about a man in the water?”

  Lexi nodded again. The tub water seemed to shiver with the child, though Claire knew it was still quite warm.

  “Lexi, can you tell me what you heard, what you remember, then we won’t mention any of that anymore, and there will be no bad dreams. Only good ones.”

  “Some man in the water who was a problem is dead. Shot. He must have been very bad. Mommy, if he was in the water dead, did he drown too?”

  Claire knelt beside the tub and leaned over to put her arms around Lexi, however wet she got. Of course, there was no proof Lexi had overheard Ames talking about Mark Stirling’s death, but it could be. The man seemed to know and micromanage everything, despite the fact he had lackeys galore working for him. At least, since the child had apparently not overheard more, Claire didn’t feel so bad about not telling Nick all of this—not yet anyway. She did not want Lexi to be questioned by others and would never let her testify in court. But she was sure Nick had thought of Ames pulling the strings—and had, at least, hired someone to pull the trigger on the missing murder weapon—that put a bullet in Mark Stirling’s brain.

  * * *

  Claire had no intention of even hinting at all that tonight, or Nick might surmise it came from something Lexi said. As she’d tucked the child in this evening, they’d hooked little fingers and promised they would not talk about scary things again because they were all done with that. When Jace called Claire and asked to speak to his daughter, she let him, going in to pick up the wet towel and sop up water from the bathroom floor while the two of them chatted. Just think—would Juanita now give Lexi her baths? No, not if her own mother was around to do it, Claire decided.

  She took the phone from a sleepy Lexi and said a quick goodbye to Jace before he could ask where they were again, then went into the lounge in the middle of the boat where Nick, sitting on the leather couch with his papers spread out on the glass coffee table, had a Miami Dolphins football game on the large wall TV.

  “Hey,” he said. “She in bed? I can mute this game so you can hear her if she calls.”

  “Good idea, if you don’t mind. So, you want to look at the Fresh Dew cosmetics Maggie gave me?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said, muting the game, then leaning back on the couch and throwing both arms along the back of it. “I’ve seen and tested the Youth Do water, even the fruit-flavored kind, but I’d like a close-up and personal look at the women’s line items.”

  She went to her stateroom and brought Maggie’s blue box of cosmetics back in, putting it on a space he made on the coffee table. She liked this area on the boat, except for one thing. It was the room where a woman had been murdered. Claire had meant to view again the Nancy Grace show where she had highlighted the murder, but thrust that thought aside for now.

  “I haven’t tried these products, but I guess I should,” she told him. “They smell good and probably are good, though I wouldn’t bet the farm on their rejuvenation properties.”

  “This anti-aging stuff is a global industry worth about $292 billion, according to what I’ve read,” he told her, leaning closer as she opened the bottle of body lotion. The seat cushions were soft; she tilted toward him so their shoulders and thighs touched. Like the other items, this one was beautifully packaged, in a clear plastic bottle with pale blue and green tinting that suggested the supposed youth water in it.

  As he leaned closer, Nick said, “Here’s another factoid I can use in court if it comes to that—60 percent of Americans ages sixty-five and older are pursuing anti-aging interventions of one kind or the other, externals like this or surgery. I think a jury, even a judge, would lean in favor of the public having access to these products—if they’re not one big rip-off. And if they are, Ames has us in a tight position where we’d have to decide risking our necks to say so.

  “And, that smells great,” he admitted, as his dark eyebrows shot up. “Speaking of necks, put a little on, like maybe on your throat.”

  She opened the bottle and poured a bit into her palm. The liquid too suggested crystalline water, shimmery and silvery. “They’ve done a great job with this,” she said, and arched her neck to smooth some on.

  Nick leaned closer yet. He not only breathed the scent in deeply but nuzzled her hair that spilled loose between them. His breath warmed the shell of her ear.

  “Yeah, I could like this,” he whispered and dropped his arm behind her to tug her tighter while he inhaled again and gently, slowly trailed two fingertips down her neck toward her fluted collarbone. His big hand circled her throat like a warm necklace, then skimmed lower to rest his palm on the cleft between her breasts.

  Every inch of her skin leaped alive.

  “You know,” he whispered, “that stuff is really seductive. Or something is. Claire, this is really our last night alone here. I was thinking we could negotiate some terms for our precious time together—the two of us—before things get even more crazy and complicated. Terms about not just being partners, but husband and wife.”

  He lifted her onto his lap and tipped her back in his arms. The scent of the lotion on her warming skin enveloped them. Her mind went absolutely blank but for wanting this man, though she made a grab for sanity. Nick didn’t choose me, court me. He had to marry me, because so much was at stake. Shotgun wedding. Talk to him, Claire. Tal
k. Reason. Not this rush of drowning feelings or you’ll be lost. And you wouldn’t belong to yourself anymore because you’ll be his.

  13

  Nick’s touch and kiss smothered any protest, and she kissed him back wildly. Somehow he tilted her and turned her. Though he kept his weight off her, she was under him on the couch as he covered her face and neck with kisses.

  “That stuff tastes good on you. Must be an aphrodisiac too,” he murmured and took her lips again.

  Oh, no. She wanted Nick Markwood, but in her head and heart, this wasn’t a real marriage. They’d been forced to wed and by a horrible man. They had not chosen each other. And if he wanted to go his own way or she did, this would make it all too impossible. And if she got pregnant...

  “Let’s go to my room and figure this all out,” he said as his lips plunged lower in the damp cleft between her breasts.

  “I want to—I want you, but...”

  He turned them again, pushing her into the back cushions of the sofa, skimming his free hand along the bare skin of her waist and ribs under her T-shirt, up and down, pressing, kneading, rubbing his thumb under the bottom of her bra. “But what?” he asked, breathing hard. “We’ve got to trust each other in this, all the way.”

  “I know,” she said, almost panting as he cupped her bottom through her slacks, “but we—this—was forced on us.”

  His marauding hands stopped, and he lifted his head. It was a Nick she’d never seen, tousled, starry-eyed, totally turned on. She felt the lure and the power of that, but it scared her too. Did she look that way, somewhere between loving and lustful?

  “I don’t like that word forced between the two of us,” he said, frowning. “I want only the best things, shared things.”

  “Yes, yes, me too, so—”

  “So hands off for now at least, Mrs. Markwood?”

  “Nick, don’t be angry.”

  “Just crazed and crazy. I didn’t mean to push, and yet I’d like to.”

  “You weren’t pushing—exactly. I think we feel the same way about each other, kind of, so far.”

  “Now there’s a ringing approval. Big difference between men and women. I’d think of this—this—” he thrust his hips tighter to hers “—as bonding, not bondage. We don’t know where this ‘arranged marriage’ will take us, do we, my favorite psychologist?”

  “No, my favorite counselor, we don’t.”

  “Well,” he said, sitting up with a groan and pulling her to an upright position beside him, “we’ll see how it goes, but you are my ultimate temptation. Even when we have the rest of our makeshift staff here and get busy with interviews and depositions tomorrow, don’t think I’m all business with you. Just say the word—that you care enough to trust me—and I’ll prove to you it’s not just that devil’s bargain we made in Grand Cayman keeping us together. Now, if it’s okay,” he said, clearing his throat and gripping his hands between his spread knees, “I won’t walk you to your bedroom door.”

  She had more to say, but words wouldn’t come. The way he’d handled this made her care for him and want him even more. Her legs were shaking, and she felt his intense look down to the pit of her belly. But she scooped up the cosmetic bottles on the table. She whispered, “Good night, Nick.”

  “Good and lonely,” he said with an almost cute pout that nearly swamped her senses. “Beat it, sweetheart,” he added and reached out to pat her bottom.

  She did, before he could see her tears of relief and regret.

  * * *

  As if to roil Claire’s emotions even more, Jace showed up on the dock the next morning and came aboard like a storm trooper. The gangway was down because Juanita had just arrived and they were waiting for Bronco.

  “Jace, what are you doing here?” Claire called to him and put down the duffel bag she was carrying for Juanita.

  He came right up to Claire and tugged her closer to the rail. “You or your better half should have told me where you were! After all we’ve been through, I had to figure out where you two were hiding from talking to Lexi. Last night on the phone she said you were near that restaurant we used to like called The Dock, on a boat called Silver. Well, she was off on this big yacht’s name, but I figured it out.”

  “Would you please keep your voice down? Why tell you we were here when we’re setting out? You could have come here, and we’d be gone.”

  “Exactly. An extended honeymoon?”

  “We need to be on the move and closer to Goodland, and you know why. We’ll certainly let you know where we are so you can visit Lexi.”

  “Claire,” he said, grasping her upper arms, “I get it that you and Markwood need to deal with this murder case and keep Lexi safe from, shall we say, the powers that be, but it’s only fair that I know where she is—therefore, where you are—and that I can visit her or have time with her.”

  “She’s still sleeping.”

  “Okay, not right now, but—”

  Claire gasped as a man behind Jace yanked him away from her. It wasn’t Nick but—

  Bronco Gates! He shoved Jace against the glass windows of the salon before he could even fight back. “This guy shouldn’t be here, Mrs. Claire?” Bronco bellowed. “He hurting you?”

  “No, Bronco! It’s okay!” she shouted just as Nick appeared on deck. “It’s a man who works for Nick, for us.”

  Bronco stood back from Jace, who looked like he wanted to slug Bronco. “Oh, sorry,” Bronco began, “but Nick said...”

  “Said to keep her ex away?” Jace demanded, rounding on Nick.

  “Said we needed protection from strangers,” Nick put in, stepping in to separate the two men, although Bronco, at least, was obviously standing down.

  “It’s just a misunderstanding,” Claire put in and came closer. “Jace, this is a friend of ours who’ll be working aboard, Bronco Gates from St. Augustine. And I think you have all scared off Juanita, Lexi’s nanny, who just went below.”

  “Lexi has a nanny now?” Jace bellowed. “Oh, that new friend she told me about. I thought she meant a girlfriend.”

  “Jace,” Claire said, “we will be in touch.”

  “Yeah? What if your cell phone or mine doesn’t work when you lovebirds are out on the briny?”

  “You know how all this happened!” she said. “All of us were blessed to get away in one piece.”

  “Enough,” Nick said. “Save it and we’ll all talk later. We need to head out now.”

  As they used to say, if looks could kill. Jace’s stare felt like hurled daggers at her and Nick before he stalked down the gangway and down the dock. It scared her how she wanted to run after him, to explain more, to say she was sorry it had to be like this right now. No matter what had happened between them, he didn’t deserve to be in the dark like this, thinking she’d chosen to move so quickly into marriage with Nick. At least he was still on his daughter’s side, but evidently he wasn’t on hers and Nick’s.

  * * *

  After their captain docked the Sylph at the Mar-Good Marina on Goodland, Claire was on her own while Nick went to spend more time with Haze. Actually, he said he wanted to get some time with Maggie, after what Claire had told him about the woman’s intense dislike of Mark Stirling. So Claire walked toward the house of the Hazeltons’ neighbor, Ada Cypress.

  Claire had researched the woman a bit and not found much except that Cypress was a common Seminole last name and Ada was a longtime widow. Her married last name had been Corby, but she evidently kept her tribal name to market her handiwork of weaving Spanish moss. She must have been named for her grandmother, because Claire found an old Miami Herald photograph from the 1930s online, showing a woman named Ada Cypress who had also kept alive the old art of spinning Spanish moss into yarn and weaving beautiful blankets, shawls and saddle pads that were collectors’ items and very expensive. It wa
s a lost art now, the article said, but so much of the past seemed that way in South Florida lately. The good thing about Ada Cypress was that her grandmother had lived in the same house on Goodland, so surely this Ada knew the area and the people. Claire thought she would be a great resource for her investigation of possible suspects and motives for the murder.

  But to her disappointment, the woman was apparently not at home in her small, framed house on stilts. It had once been a bright blue but was now greatly faded. Standing on the second-floor deck, Claire knocked yet again to give Ada time to answer if she was sleeping. Her last rap on the door made it bounce open. Here on Goodland, maybe people kept to the old way of not locking up.

  Claire called in, “Ms. Cypress, are you here? I’m a friend of your neighbors and just wanted to meet you!”

  Claire glimpsed the inside of the front room: a wooden floor cluttered with big baskets heaped with the silvery Spanish moss. Draped over long pegs on the wooden walls, spills of shawls or blankets seemed to catch the dim, dancing bars of light through the louvered windows.

  She sighed, closed the door and stepped onto the deck that overlooked the canal below, and from that, beyond, the green puzzle pieces of the Ten Thousand Islands. Clumps and trails of the moss hung on the railings or racks out here too, drying in the autumn breeze. A single rocking chair and a ladder-back chair were the only deck furnishings, and the rocker moved in the breeze as if someone unseen sat there.

  Claire fingered the fine, spongy texture of a piece of moss. It reminded her of the live oaks at Shadowlawn Manor in St. Augustine where she and Nick had worked together just last month.

  Well, she’d better get to work now. Another person they’d decided to interview was Fin Taylor, who had a charter fishing boat down by the marina and knew everyone around here, but Nick had suggested they first see him together. Apparently the man had a raucous reputation, but surely his boat, Reel Good Time, would be easy to spot and she could at least pick up one of his brochures if he was out with clients fishing.

  But as she started down the steps, she noticed a woman in a woven palmetto hat, poling a dugout canoe down the canal. Yes, standing up in it and poling! She wore the long, distinctive bright geometric patterned skirt typical of Seminole style.