by Celia Ashley
Raleigh was slow getting up. When he did, she spotted blood streaming from his head. She also saw the knife lying in a rippling puddle of seawater half a dozen feet away. She lunged for it. Chilled and wet, her fingers slipped off the handle and caught the blade. Blood clouded the standing water. Grabbing the carved grip with her left hand she rolled onto her back as Raleigh rushed her. The ship rose and dropped into a huge trough, throwing the man off balance. Paige lashed out, slicing into the tendon at the back of his ankle. A crippling blow, Raleigh went down.
On her knees, Paige scrambled over to Liam. Behind her, she heard Raleigh screaming for someone to stop her. She doubted anyone could hear it over the freight-train noise of the wind. Breathless, shaking, she cut through the duct tape on Liam’s limbs, struggling with the wet rope.
A hand reached to take the blade. Liam, who had been ripping the tape from his wrists, looked up. So did Paige. “Oh, God, you.”
Not a gardener after all, but Raleigh’s crewmember. No wonder he’d been watching her. She wrestled him for the knife. Rain lashed across her face with the sting of sleet.
“Let him have it,” Liam shouted in strangled tones. Paige turned and followed his wide gaze to the ocean rising toward them. She released her grip on the handle.
The stranger snatched the knife before it fell and sawed through the rope. “No man should be forced to die when he has even the smallest chance to live.”
Paige’s attention snapped back to the man beside her, to his red, burn-scarred face, familiar features and recognizable voice. Oh, God, oh, God. “Dad?”
The monster wave hit, flinging them all into the sea.
* * * *
She couldn’t move. Every bone in her body had been broken and badly glued back together. Water flowed through her head and pounded each nerve into screaming confusion. The black, black sea was going to claim her, suck her down into a place where she’d never be found. And that was okay. She wanted to go. If only someone would release the chain around her wrist.
“I’ve got you, Paige. I’ve got you. Stop fighting me.”
She relaxed her body, gave in to this new pressure, allowed herself to be pulled up and out and onto something cold and unyielding. Hands rolled her onto her side. She puked out salt water like bile.
“Paige, honey. We can’t stay here. With the storm surge, high tide will fill this cave to the ceiling in minutes.”
Thrashing, she managed to get into a sitting position. Her bones still hurt but at least now she understood why. Raising her head, she looked into her father’s eyes.
“Dad, Dad, you’re alive.”
He nodded, his scarred face creasing into a smile. “Later. We’ll talk later. We’re not out of danger yet.” He tugged her hand. Her muscles shivered in protest.
“Wait. Where’s Liam? Where’s Liam, Dad? Where is he?”
“Not here. That’s all I know. And we can’t be, either.”
Paige gaped at the crashing waves. No beach remained. Soon, the cave floor would disappear beneath the surging tide. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Liam!”
“There’s no time. He wouldn’t want you to die here, waiting for him. We were lucky. I don’t think anyone else on that ship survived.”
“No, Dad. No. Liam!”
Wind rushed into the cave, carrying with it salt spray and a cacophony of sound. Water followed. Paige pulled herself away from the retreating surge. Next wave would drive even deeper. Their exit was blocked. “We can’t get out.”
“Not that way. Can you follow me?”
Paige gave one last cry for Liam, her voice drowned by the storm. Sobbing, she clung to her father’s hand as he led the way back into the cave into utter darkness. Soon, though, they left the echoing vastness behind, climbing up manmade handholds through a narrow stone corridor. Still crying, she paused when her father did. He placed her hand on the rung of a ladder. “Climb,” he said. “It will take you to a small trapdoor at the top. Open that, and you’ll be in the crawlspace underneath the cottage where you were staying. I snuck in that first night. Just that first night only. I wanted to know…to know you were there.”
“Dad.”
He let go of her. “I’m going back for one more look.”
“Wait, Dad, no. You’ll be—”
“I have to, Paige. He saved my life when Raleigh blew up my ship. We both lost a lot that day, but him most of all. I need to do this.”
Paige reached for his shoulder, but missed it in the darkness. She listened until she couldn’t hear his progression anymore and then she climbed up rung by rung. She pushed open the trapdoor at the top, shimmying onto the crawlspace floor where she sat with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. She wasn’t going anywhere until one or both men appeared at the top of that ladder.
What seemed like hours later, but was likely, in the time-warping dark, no more than fifteen or twenty minutes, she heard the old ladder creaking beneath the weight of an ascent. In sudden fear it might not be either man she wished to see, she didn’t call out, but waited in mute anticipation.
“Paige?”
“Dad! Is Liam with you?”
He hesitated. “No. I’m sorry.”
Paige bit back a cry of anguish. Crawling toward the opening, she assisted her father into the blackness beside her. “We’ll find him,” she said. “I swear we will. But for now, we have a more immediate problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I nailed the trapdoor in the cottage shut. With about fifty nails.”
Locating a piece of a cement block lying on the dirt floor, Paige banged it against the floorboards above. “I don’t get it, Dad,” she said, punctuating each word with a slam. “Where have you been? Why did you let me believe you were dead? What the hell were you doing on Raleigh’s ship?”
She heard her father scrabbling around in the darkness, soon joining her efforts, wedging an implement of some sort between the boards. “I’m not proud of the choices I’ve made in my life, Paige. I never meant for Liam to get involved in this investigation. When I saw the two of you being loaded into the dinghy with the last of Raleigh’s cargo, I slipped onboard. In the commotion, no one questioned me. Once the dinghy was winched up onto the ship, I hid inside. I couldn’t let either one of you pay the price for my past mistakes. Not again.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?” Paige wiped the sweat from her face on her forearm. “Why didn’t you?”
Her father pulled down on the piece of metal, splintering wood. “It was an impossible situation. We were trying to make things right.”Another board gave. Paige bit back any further questions as she worked beside her father to tear an opening to the cottage above. A half an hour later, they emerged from the cottage into gale force winds. Paige’s cell phone had disappeared in the ocean, but she knew Liam had a landline. She only hoped it would still be working in the storm.
When they entered through the back door, Paige found water on the floor from the open windows. She quickly closed them as she made her way across the kitchen to the phone hanging on the wall. Shadow darted from his hiding place and she reached for him. He ran past her into her father’s arms.
“Hey, Spooky,” he said, scratching the cat behind the ears. “How are you, old man?”
“Spooky? What happened to the white spot on his chest?”
Her dad nodded. “It’s him. Still going strong, your old kitten. The markings on his chest spread apart as he aged.”
Paige shook her head. “Would you close the windows? I think Liam left them all open.” Speaking his name, Paige’s throat closed. She blinked back tears. Lifting the receiver from the cradle, she listened for a dial tone. None.
“Paige!”
Pivoting on her wet sole, Paige looked toward the sound of the voice. Dan Stauffer stood in the living room with several other officers. Over the storm’s racket she hadn’t even heard them.
“Why didn’t you shut these windows?” T
he complaint was the first thing that came to mind. She couldn’t help thinking the floors Liam had worked so hard to refinish would be ruined, which was senseless and stupid. He could be beyond caring about anything at this point.
No. No! She mustn’t think like that. Liam had to be all right.
“It’s a potential crime scene,” Dan told her. “We didn’t touch anything. Came through the front door. Afraid we damaged it. Waters?”
Her father went forward and shook Dan’s hand. “Stauffer. What the hell happened? I thought you were supposed to be there before the dinghy returned to the ship with the goods?”
Paige sat abruptly on the high stool beneath the phone, still cupping the dead receiver in her hand. They knew each other? Why wasn’t Dan surprised to see her father? And what the hell were they talking about? Looking at the other men, she noticed the officers were all dressed in black.
“We set up the perimeter, but didn’t move in until the appointed time. Raleigh shipped off early. I thought maybe he learned we were coming. Gray said—where the hell is Gray?”
For a moment, neither Paige nor her father answered, and then Paige cleared her throat. “The boat capsized. We don’t know what happened to him.” Moisture slid down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe it away.
Dan frowned, turning to hold a quick conversation with one of his men, who promptly fired up his radio, heading back toward the front of the house. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what kind of rescue can be mounted with the severity of this weather, but we’ll do our damndest. I promise, Paige, the Maine patrol will find him.”
Paige compressed her lips, shaking her head. There could be no guarantees. She understood that with a knowledge that chilled her soul. “Why did Liam confess? It was Raleigh all along, wasn’t it? Not Liam. And you arrested him.”
Dan stepped into the kitchen and removed the phone from Paige’s hand, returning it to the cradle. “No, I didn’t. That was a ruse. Raleigh demanded Liam confess as a sign of his loyalty and to lead us off Raleigh’s trail, and we needed Liam back in his good graces. I wasn’t sure Raleigh would actually believe it. In fact, I wanted Liam out at this point, but he refused. I always felt the scheme was too dangerous, but Raleigh approached him half a year ago, and he became our ‘in.’ I’ve never been a fan of civilians in this type of situation.”
“Damn it, Dan, what ‘type of situation’ are you talking about? Why did you two lie to me? You knew my dad was alive. You did, didn’t you?”
Dan let out a long breath. “Yes.” He glanced at her father, who said nothing. “Edwin’s been in hiding since Raleigh tried to kill him by planting explosives on his ship. Gray saved him, but Edwin spent a long time in the hospital. The ship went down with two crew members. Raleigh thought he’d been successful. Even before we convinced your father the time had come to help put the prick behind bars, we made sure the story got out that the ship went down with no survivors. In order for us to pull this off, Edwin had to stay dead to Raleigh. Believe me, Liam wanted to tell you. It was too risky letting you know, especially once we suspected Raleigh might be the one harassing you.”
“You suspected? You mean, even before I gave you that photograph? God, Dan, how could you leave me in the dark? Didn’t I deserve the truth?”
“Paige,” her father said quietly.
She ignored him. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”
“What happened to Raleigh out there?” Dan asked, disregarding her statement. He looked to her father for an answer to that question, but Paige responded.
“After I sliced his Achilles tendon with his knife, I’d say he became shark bait in the water.”
Dan stared. “You? You were on the ship?”
“I was gullible enough to fall for a text he sent with Liam’s phone and showed up here. He was waiting for me. On our way across the beach he or the guy with him knocked me out cold and I woke up on the ship. I should probably see a doctor to make sure I don’t have a concussion.”
Dan’s gaze didn’t leave her face. “And you managed to stab the guy. With his own knife.”
“Yep.”
“You scare me, Paige Waters.”
“I scare myself sometimes.”
Dan studied her a moment before getting on his radio again to make arrangements for transport of the two of them to the hospital. As she was heading out the door to a waiting patrol unit on the front lawn, Paige paused beside Dan. Her father continued on, leaving them alone.
“Raleigh was planning to kill both Liam and me. Liam had apparently told him a story about me remembering something I had witnessed before my mother and I left Alcina Cove. I had only flashes of memory of it. I remember it now. It came back to me in our walk across the beach before I was knocked out. Raleigh…Raleigh is a murderer.” With that statement, the danger of the situation, both past and present, struck her hard.
“That’s something we’ve always suspected,” Dan said. “The only reason this current investigation has gone on so long was because we hoped to get enough on him that he wouldn’t walk away with a slap on the wrist. Between the guns he was moving tonight and other information your dad supplied…” Dan shrugged. “Probably moot now. I would have liked proof he planted the explosive on Edwin’s sailboat. Without physical evidence, though, it would have come down to his word against your dad’s. Paige, if Raleigh has survived, perhaps with your help we can piece together what took place all those years ago. There’s no statute of limitations on murder.”
Liam had said the same thing. When was that? Last night. It seemed like years. Paige looked toward the police car. Exhausted and defeated, Edwin Waters limped across the scraggly lawn. Paige turned back to Dan. “My dad’s been watching me, you know. I spotted him outside the bed and breakfast.”
“I’m not surprised he took that risk. You’re his daughter.”
“Yeah. I am. I just can’t figure out what either of my parents was doing with the likes of Regan Raleigh.”
“That’s something you’ll have to ask him.”
Paige nodded and began walking toward the waiting vehicle again. She paused once more, looking over her shoulder at Dan framed by the open, battered doorway. “I want him back.”
He didn’t ask who she meant. There was no need. “I know.”
On the way to the hospital, Edwin spoke quietly of the day Liam saved him. Paige listened with tears still running down her face. She dashed them away.
“While Raleigh was in prison, I made an honest life for myself. Your mother knew he’d gone, but his release was imminent. By that time, she had a life of her own down there in Tennessee, and there was no guarantee Raleigh wouldn’t make good on his promise if she showed her face around here. When he got out, he kept coming around, trying to talk me into taking small jobs here and there until I threatened to turn him in. Big mistake. I should have gone to the police first instead of after. My crew would still be alive.”
“I don’t understand why Mom never went to the police in the first place, years ago,” Paige whispered, leaning her head back against the seat.
“It was a twisted, nasty affair. I kept working with him, though, more to keep an eye on him than anything else. When he left town, I was relieved. I suppose I could have given him up when the cops questioned me about his disappearance, but I just wanted it all to be over. I hadn’t meant to get caught up in Raleigh’s trade. At first I liked the easy money, and then I was in too deep to get out.”
Paige closed her eyes. From the things her mom had said at the end, she’d suspected her father had been involved in something illicit. That both of them had. How casually he spoke of it now. Yet she could hear the shame, the torment underlying his words.
“After I was released from the hospital following the explosion,” her father continued, “I went to the police. Word was given out my ship had gone down. I went into hiding. Plans had been underway to infiltrate Raleigh’s group as soon as the cops realized he’d come back. He approached L
iam about six or seven months ago, though, because of the cave on the property. I think Raleigh considered himself invincible, smarter than most men. And Liam…well, he felt Raleigh was responsible for the fact he hadn’t been with his wife when she died. And he’s right. If he hadn’t been saving me from my burning ship, he would have been. I lost my men that day. He lost everything.”
Paige sighed. “Raleigh didn’t recognize you tonight.”
“No. He didn’t even notice the extra man when I slipped onto the dinghy. As you can see, I don’t look the same.” He fingered the burns marring half his face.
“What about all these years, Dad? What were you doing? Did you ever think of me?”
Edwin Waters was silent a moment. His lips twisted. Moisture glistened on his lashes. “Of course I thought about you, Paige. Can we talk about this later?”
Paige narrowed her eyes, her stomach twisting. “All right, Dad.”
He nodded. “And I’m sorry about the fact Dan and Liam had to keep you in the dark, couldn’t let you know I was alive. Or any of what was going on. I don’t think they knew for certain at first that Raleigh was after you.”
“But they suspected,” Paige whispered.
“They were protecting you. You need to know that.”
An angry growl escaped her lips. “You know what? I don’t want anyone ever fucking protecting me again.”
“Language, Paige.”
“Oh, now you sound like Liam.” At the utterance of his name, she felt as though her heart had ripped from her chest to land on her lap.
“I’m sorry about your mother, too. At the end, we reached an understanding. I’m guessing you never knew that.”
Paige said nothing. She thought of what she’d viewed as her mother’s ramblings in those final days. She hadn’t been rambling at all. She’d been trying to let Paige know the truth. All of it. Those jumbled, confusing words were what had driven Paige to return to Alcina Cove after all the years away.