After I Dream

by Lee, Rachel

  “No problem. I overreacted.”

  Reflecting on how silent she’d been on the way home, she wasn’t sure he had, but she was willing to let it go for now, for the sake of peace. “Apparently,” she said, “we press each other’s buttons a lot.”

  His smile broadened. “Apparently. No big deal.” He took a long drink of his ice water. “And I’d better be heading home now. I want to get an early start in the morning.”

  “How early?”

  “Early enough to talk to some of the boat owners at the marinas before they set out for the day. I’ll pick you up at… oh, five-thirty? That ought to be early enough.”

  She walked with him out onto the porch. Jeff had turned off the porch lights on his way out, and Callie was relieved to feel the darkness close around her, as if it could conceal her failings from Chase. But he couldn’t possibly feel the same, given his fear of the night, and she felt guilty for the comfort she was taking from something that disturbed him.

  But if he was disturbed, he didn’t show it. He turned to face her, his face a pale blur in the starshine. “I had fun this evening,” he said. “It did me good to get out at night. Thanks.”

  “Sure.” But even as the humidity wrapped around her, dampening her skin, the warmth of the tropical night seemed to creep into her every cell. That heavy yearning was awakening in her again, that magic that Chase’s mere presence seemed to summon. Everything else, all her worries, seemed to fade into distant background noise as a deep, silent need filled her. “I’m sorry I was so flaky,” she said again, finding it hard to draw enough breath for speech.

  “No problem. Really.” But he didn’t move. The night coccooned them, and the sea sang a soft love song to rhythms as old as time. And to Callie, it suddenly seemed blindingly obvious that the best way to overcome a fear was to face it.

  So she faced it. It was as good a rationale as any for making herself step closer to Chase. It was as good a reason as any to reach out and take his hand, to feel his warm skin against hers. It was as good an explanation as any for why she was giving in to a magnetism she had been determined to fight.

  Then she stopped worrying about reasons. Because whether she liked Chase Mattingly or not, whether she had hangups and neuroses or not, all that mattered right now was the siren song in her blood, and it was calling her to the man who looked like a buccaneer.

  With a gentle tug of his hand, he drew her against him, until they met breast to chest and thigh to thigh. The whisper of the waves nearby seemed to grow until it was a rushing sound in Callie’s ears. Fear and hunger filled her until she was helpless to move.

  Then Chase kissed her. Some part of her realized he had meant it to be a gentle, friendly gesture, but it didn’t stay that way for long. She never knew who moved first, but suddenly she was wrapped around him and he around her, their arms straining as if they could meld by sheer pressure of will, their mouths hungry, almost hurtful as they sought to drink.

  This was need at its most elemental, and never in her life had Callie felt anything like it. It swept past her defenses, demolishing them as if they were made of air, and conquered every hesitation and resistance almost before she was aware of them.

  Her body came to pounding, throbbing life, telling her that nothing else whatever mattered. And she believed it. Believed for these few, insane moments that if she could just have this man everything would be all right.

  But then Chase released her, stepping back into the night. He was breathing heavily—or maybe it was her—and the sound seemed to keep time with the heartbeat of the waves.

  “Good night,” he said huskily, and went to get into his car. She watched him drive away, feeling raw and shaken to her very core by the violence of the feelings that had consumed her but had been left unconsummated. She felt bereft.

  Once again, said a bitter little voice in her brain, a man had walked away when she had most needed him. It always happened that way.

  Then she told herself not to be ridiculous. Chase had done what was best for both of them. Firmly, she closed her mind to the episode. She didn’t want to think about it at all. Thinking would only make it hurt worse.

  Across the inlet, a light shone in the window of his house. She wondered how it must be for him to get home after dark alone, especially with his fear.

  Then she went back inside and got ready for bed. Everything, she decided, could just damn well wait for tomorrow.

  Coming home alone in the dark was a bitch. Just as simple as that. All evening long he’d been fighting his awareness of shadows in the dark places along the streets in Key West, along the road as they drove, and now he was pulling into his own backyard and noticing how the shadows pressed inward, as if they wanted to swallow the car and its headlight beams.

  God, he had to beat this thing. It was ruining his life.

  The seaweed was still on his porch, he realized. He wondered if he would find more. And if he did, it meant he hadn’t put it there himself, because he knew exactly where he’d been since he had discovered it.

  That was a hopeful thing, he decided. Someone had to have put it there. It didn’t just crawl up out of the water by itself. And if it wasn’t him, it meant he wasn’t crazy. At least not that crazy.

  Suddenly buoyed, he switched off the ignition and lights, and climbed out of the car. Around him the night breathed. Something stirred in the brush to his right.

  He was being watched. He felt the gaze of someone or something boring into the base of his skull. Animals, he told himself. Just some animal.

  But it didn’t feel that way. Trees rustled in the breeze, and the forest seemed to come alive. A twig snapped somewhere. Something was out there.

  With his scalp crawling, he walked around his house to the door. The breeze gusted suddenly, and he could taste a storm on the air as the trees swayed and leaves whispered.

  He climbed the porch steps, fighting a powerful urge to look over his shoulder. The only way he could get over this, he told himself, was to face the night again and again until he could fear it no longer.

  At the top of the steps, he looked over to see if there was more seaweed. There wasn’t. In fact, there was no seaweed at all.

  Something, or someone, had carried it away. And that made him suddenly certain something or someone was watching him.

  A cold chill ran down his spine, and he moved swiftly, unlocking his door and hurrying inside. When he slammed the door behind himself, he locked it, holding the demons outside at bay.

  There was one lamp burning, but it wasn’t enough. Reaching out, he flipped the switch that turned on the rest of the lights, driving the shadows back into the darkest corners. Cold sweat dampened his forehead, and his heart was racing.

  Christ, who moved the seaweed? he wondered. The things he feared wouldn’t have done that. Hell, the things he feared didn’t even exist. He could see a prankster putting the seaweed out there, but coming back to clean it up?

  Had it even been there at all? For an instant he felt reality slip as he wondered if he had imagined the whole thing. But no, Callie had seen it, too. He hadn’t imagined that Callie was with him, and hadn’t imagined their discussion about it.

  He wasn’t that crazy.

  For an instant, he thought of Jeff, wondered if the boy had done it. After all, the kid had been home alone, and he’d been angry earlier. Maybe this was his way of getting even.

  But somehow that didn’t strike him as right, either. He might not know Jeff all that well, but he didn’t believe the young man would do this.

  So who did that leave? Demons out of the sea?

  The darkness was closing in again, pressing at the walls and windows of his cottage. He thought of the Beretta and went to get it.

  But where before he had sat up all night thinking about using the gun on himself, tonight he sat up with it for protection. Something was out there, and he was no longer sure it was a figment of his imagination.

  The night was endless.

  The day lighten
ed without fanfare. No blazing streamers of color arced across the sky. Morning simply came, dim and gray at first, brightening steadily. Chase and Callie waited at the Key West Municipal Marina, and with the light the docks began to stir. A few people who had spent the night on their boats appeared on deck. A few others pulled up in cars and walked to their boats. The day had begun.

  “Let’s go,” Chase said.

  He and Callie climbed out of the car and approached the nearest boat, where a man was standing at the stern watching the activity around him.

  “Morning,” Chase said when they reached the dock at the Osprey’s stern.

  “Morning,” the man replied. He was wearing shorts and a tank top, and needed a shave. A sign announced his boat was for charter. “You folks looking for a charter?”

  Chase shook his head. “Sorry, not today. I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

  The man scratched his chin. “Depends.”

  “Well, I’m trying to find out what happened to George Westerlake and Jimbo Rushman.”

  The man stared at him. Then he turned and spat over the side of the boat. Callie felt her gorge rise.

  “They know what happened,” the man said. “Them two boys killed ‘em.”

  Callie’s heart turned over, and she found herself wondering if Jeff could even get a fair trial around here, if this was the way everyone was thinking.

  “Actually,” said Chase, speaking in an easy tone, “they’re not real sure exactly what happened.”

  “Nobody’s ever gonna know exactly,” was the reply. “Ain’t nobody but those boys was there.”

  “Maybe.” Chase sat down on the piling and rested his elbows on his knees. “But we can sure find out more about it than we know already.”

  “You’re some kind of investigator.” It wasn’t a question and the man hesitated. “You ain’t from the paper?”

  “Nope.”

  He nodded slowly, thinking about it. A boat farther down pulled away from the dock, and the wake caused the Osprey to rock. The man hardly seemed to notice.

  “Maybe you can tell me what slip George and Jimbo used,” Chase said. “Then I can talk to the boat owners to either side.”

  “What are you aimin’ to find out?”

  “Who went out on the boat with them that day.”

  The man nodded again. “Nobody’s turned up missing?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Mmm.” He rocked back on his heels. “Come on aboard. I’ve got some coffee brewing.” He turned and went below.

  Chase stepped onto the stern and jumped down onto the deck. Callie hesitated. She hated boats. She hadn’t been on one since her father’s death, despite getting the Lily for Jeff so they could “go fishing from time to time.” Jeff had asked her more than once, but she’d always managed to come up with an excuse.

  There was no reason to be afraid, she told herself. The boat was tied to a dock, the water wasn’t deep, and it was mirror-smooth this morning, except for the diminishing waves from the other boat’s wake. Chase turned and held out a hand to help her, and it took all her willpower to reach out and grasp it.

  “You don’t look so good,” he said.

  “I hate boats.”

  “You don’t have to…”

  But before he could finish, she took the two steps that brought her aboard the Osprey. She might hate boats, but she wasn’t phobic. At least she didn’t think she was, although when she felt the deck bob beneath her, a tendril of panic snaked itself around her spine.

  She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and looked at Chase. “I hate boats,” she said flatly.

  Chase laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” she demanded, feeling annoyed.

  “Between us we got enough hangups for twenty people.” He laughed again.

  In spite of herself, she laughed, too. “A real pair.”

  He stood with his feet braced apart and drew a lungful of the fresh sea air. “It smells better here than any coast I’ve ever been on.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He took another deep breath. “God, I love the sea.” And feared it. And sometimes even hated it. But mostly he loved it. He felt the boat sway gently beneath him, and a fierce ache suddenly filled him. Maybe he should quit worrying about the dark, and face off with the sea again. Maybe what he really needed to do was take a boat out until he couldn’t see land on the horizon, and go one-on-one with the only thing he’d both loved and hated his entire life.

  “I don’t think I like what you’re thinking,” Callie said, drawing him back to the present.

  “What am I thinking?”

  “I’m not sure, but you look like an acolyte at the foot of an altar.”

  He shrugged. “The sea’s in my blood.”

  Another reason to keep clear of him, Callie thought. She wanted no part of a man who was having an affair with the water. Sooner or later the sea took everything.

  The boat’s owner returned to the deck carrying three mugs of coffee. “It’s black,” he said as he passed them around. “Got no milk or sugar. Sorry.”

  “I like it just this way,” Chase said, and Callie murmured agreement. “I’m Chase Mattingly, by the way. This is my… assistant, Calypso.”

  The man nodded to both of them. “I’m Ben Haverstock. Been running charters out of here for the last twenty-three years.”

  “That’s a pretty successful business.”

  “It does me well enough. Mainly it keeps me where I want to be.”

  Chase nodded. “It’s as good a reason as any to do something.”

  “Hell, man, it’s the best reason in the world.”

  Another boat pulled away from the dock, and Callie felt her stomach roll as the wake hit them, lifting, tipping, and dropping the deck beneath her feet over and over. She managed to keep her balance, though, and managed to keep her coffee from spilling. Apparently she hadn’t completely lost her sea legs.

  “So,” Chase asked, “where did the Island Dream tie up?”

  “Other side of the street. See that empty slip? That was George and Jimbo’s. They was doin’ okay. George was pretty much a landlubber, but Jimbo kept him straight. ‘Course, during the season, just about anybody with a decent boat can make some money.”

  Chase nodded.

  “Lotsa chickens to pluck,” Ben said. “Not that I think of them as chickens, mind. But some do.”

  “Was George one of them?”

  Ben shrugged. “Coulda been. Jimbo was, but he was fairly mad about the net ban. Had his reasons. It was the damn retirees and tourists, he claimed, who caused the net ban, wanting to be sure they could keep their sport fishing.”

  “Some think that’s true, all right.”

  “Maybe it is. I reckon Jimbo figured they’d screwed him so making money off taking ‘em sport fishing was a good way to make it even.” Ben turned and spat over the side again. “Not that he ripped ‘em off. He didn’t. Charged going rates for the usual trip. But he sure didn’t like ‘em.”

  “So the day he disappeared, was he taking some fishermen out?”

  Ben shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I was out on a two-day charter to the Tortugas. Left the day before.”

  Just then another boat pulled away from the marina, and when Chase saw it was one of the ones beside George and Jimbo’s slip, he cursed.

  Ben Haverstock laughed. “Guess you’ll have to talk to Ray another day.”

  “Guess so.”

  “So…” Ben said, drawing the word out. “You think them boys did it?”

  Chase shook his head. “I absolutely do not think those boys did it.”

  Ben nodded slowly, bobbing from the waist. “Well, maybe they didn’t. And if they didn’t, you’d better find out who was on that boat. Tell you what. Give me a number I can call, and I’ll ask around for you. Folks know me and might be more willing to talk.”

  Callie decided she liked this man, even if he did spit over the side. At least h
e was willing to keep an open mind.

  “What changed your mind?” Chase asked.

  Ben sucked air through his teeth. “The fact that the two guys who supposedly went out on the Dream ain’t turned up missing.”

  “A very good point,” Chase said to Callie a few minutes later as they waited at the light to cross Palm Avenue to the other side of the marina. “There ought to be a couple of fishermen reported missing by now.”

  “I’ve been wondering about that. But if the two guys were here on an extended trip and didn’t know anybody locally, maybe nobody knows they’re missing yet.”

  “Possible, I guess.” Chase sounded thoughtful.

  “I mean, everybody seems to know they took a couple of people out with them that morning, so it must be that nobody knows who they were yet.”

  “Or it could mean they’re not missing or dead.”

  “That would be too easy.” The light changed, and they started crossing the street.

  “What do you mean, too easy?” Chase asked.

  “Too easy. Things in my life never work out that way. If these guys aren’t dead, then they probably killed the boat owners. Too nice and tidy.”

  They reached the other side of the street and Chase halted, looking down at her. “You’re getting bitter.”

  “I guess so. Why not?” She turned from him and waved an arm toward the water. “Beautiful isn’t it? Look at it. Smooth and clear and peaceful-looking. But it’s a killer. One way or another it kills. I hate it.”

  Chase took a chance. “The sea didn’t kill George Wester-lake and Jimbo Rushman. And it didn’t charge your brother with murder.”

  “No, I realize that. Factually, that’s true. But emotionally…” She trailed off and tightened her mouth.

  Emotionally, he understood exactly what she was saying. The sea was at the root of it all. He had felt that way at times. But right now, standing this close to boats and the water in the daylight, all he could feel was the call of the ocean.

  A deep well of pain opened inside him, a pain that went far beyond what his body inflicted on him, far beyond the fears he experienced in the dark. It was a yearning for a lover that had been lost to him, and for a minute he could neither move nor speak.