by B. J Daniels
“It looks bad in Florida. If they decide to press charges...”
She didn’t need him telling her what that would mean. She wouldn’t be able to get out of the country in time. “I’m hurrying as fast as I can,” she said and hung up.
How much more could she take? Last night she’d had the nightmare again.
As if her waking fears weren’t enough.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING AJ flew to Grenada. According to the captain, the island would be the farthest point that Cyrus might have floated. Of course, there was always the chance that a boat had picked him up. But if that had happened, they would have heard by now.
She went to the hospital first, showing anyone who would look the photo she’d brought of Cyrus. She got the same reaction, a shake of the head, a look of sympathy. She went to the morgue and then the police station. Nothing.
As one day slipped into another she went from Grenada to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Each hospital was the same. Each morgue. Each police station. No one had seen the man in the photo she showed them. Each day was the same. The recent hurricane had hammered many of the islands. Everywhere she went, she saw construction—and destruction. Some of the residences and businesses would be rebuilt. Others would turn into ruins.
She even stopped people on the streets. No one had seen anyone who looked like Cyrus.
More days went by, each more discouraging than the last. She continued up the crescent-shaped line of islands, refusing to give up.
She flew to Barbados and then St. Lucia. She went through the same thing she had been doing for days. She went to the hospital, the morgues and the police departments, showing Cyrus’s photo with the same results.
No one had seen him.
She was about to get on a flight to Martinique when she got a call from Flint. He asked where she was and where she was headed.
“I’ve got what could be very bad news,” he said without preamble.
She braced herself for the worst.
“What is left of a body has washed up on the beach in Martinique.”
“I already have a flight there,” she said. “But it’s not him.” She hung up close to tears. Her heart ached. She tried to feel Cyrus and that heart assurance that he was still with her. For a moment, she felt nothing but exhaustion.
What if this body that had washed up was Cyrus?
* * *
ELY CAHILL OPENED his eyes. This time, he was certain that he’d died. He remembered the pain in his chest. Like a shotgun blast to his heart. It was the big one.
Now he blinked, uncertain. He felt weak and seemed to be connected to every medical device there was. So he was in a hospital but how was that possible? Hadn’t the doctor and his family said that the next one could be The One and that it would kill him? They’d all been convinced he would be up in the mountains when it happened and no one would find his body until spring—if they ever found it.
More than likely some animal would drag his body off and bury it. Or birds and other critters would chew it down to nothing but bones. He’d always been fine with that. When his Mary had died, he’d taken to the mountains, leaving the ranch to his kids, though only a couple of them had taken to ranching.
Now he wished he’d stayed up in the mountains. Up there, he would have died—died not knowing that he’d lost a son. He couldn’t bear to think of Cyrus and what had happened to him.
He moved his head and saw out of the corner of his eye that his son Flint was beside his bed. Flint, the sheriff. The son who took care of everyone else. He had to smile to himself. From the time the kid was in short pants, he’d looked after the others even though Tucker was the oldest. It would be Flint who would hold this family together when he was gone, he thought, and cleared his throat.
The sheriff’s eyes blinked open and he sat up. “Dad.”
“Still here.” His voice came out hoarse. “How long?”
“You’ve been unconscious for a while.”
“The ticker?”
Flint nodded. “Another heart attack.”
“I figured...” He didn’t finish the thought. “I need you to get something for me. Out at my cabin—”
“Dad, whatever it is, it can wait,” his son said, getting to his feet.
“No, it can’t. I need you to get my journal.”
Flint stared at him. “Your journal?”
“It’s leather. It’s hidden in the wall behind my bed. It’s all in there. Everything. If the government has heard about my heart attack...”
His son groaned. No one had ever believed what happened to him back in 1967 and he doubted they ever would—without the journal.
“Dad—”
He wasn’t up to arguing about aliens or spaceships or what the government was up to at the missile silo on their land. “Just get it.” He began coughing and motioned to the water by his bed.
Flint poured him a cupful and held the straw so Ely could get a sip.
“It’s more important than you know,” he said, his voice sounding even weaker and more hoarse. “The government will try to cover up what they’re doing out there at the site. But it’s all in the journal. Get it to someone you trust. If I’m right—”
The monitors began to go off. A nurse came running in, followed by a doctor. He could barely breathe, barely get the words out. “You have to get it. Promise me you’ll go now?”
“Okay, I promise.” Flint stepped back as the doctor rushed to the monitor.
“You have to calm down, Mr. Cahill.”
“I promise,” Flint said as he was pushed toward the door. “I’ll get it and bring it right back here. Do what the doctor says.”
Ely leaned back into the pillow, his chest on fire. He motioned for his son to step closer. “I suspect it’s chemical warfare,” he whispered, even though he could no longer see Flint with the nurse and doctor fiddling over him. “Tell someone. Before it’s too late.”
But even as he said it, his voice barely a whisper, he feared it was already too late to get the journal.
* * *
FLINT DROVE AWAY from the hospital headed toward his father’s cabin at the foot of the mountain. He’d lived with the whole county believing Ely was a crackpot, but sometimes it was all he could do not to tell the old man to just knock it the hell off.
Chemical warfare? Was he suggesting what Flint thought he was. His father had said that there was more activity around the site. What if it wasn’t just the missile site on their property? What if his father was right?
He shook his head. His father had always been suspicious of the government. He reminded himself that Ely believed he’d been abducted by aliens. No one believed that back in 1967 even though there had been an UFO sighting in the area.
Government documents that had been declassified since then confirmed the sighting. According to the report, whatever the flying object had been, it had shut down eight of the missiles in the silos around the area.
That night, Ely swore he was near the silo on their ranch when he was grabbed and taken aboard a spaceship where experiments were done on him. Since then, he’d been spying on the missile silo and had seen...things. Things he’d apparently written down in his...journal.
As Flint neared his father’s cabin, he frowned. There was a light on inside and two government cars parked outside. His heart began to pound.
The moment he drove up, two armed men stepped from the cabin.
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded as he climbed out of his patrol SUV.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you beyond this point,” one of the armed soldiers informed him.
“This is my father’s cabin on private property, so why the hell not?”
A figure darkened the doorway. He recognized Bruce Smith, the air force commander in charge. He and Bruce had fly-fished together on the sprin
g creek and butted heads a few times when Ely had gotten too close to the missile silo on their property even though his father had never entered the chain-link fence that surrounded it.
“What’s going on, Bruce?” Flint sounded winded from the shock. He’d never believed his father’s nonsense about aliens or government secrets involving the silo on their property. “My father had a bad feeling that you would be here. Now I’m wondering which of us is delusional.”
The commander told the two men to stand down and walked out to where Flint was waiting. “I’m afraid this is a matter of national security.”
He looked past the uniformed man to the small cabin where his father had lived since losing his wife—when Ely wasn’t in the mountains.
“What in that cabin could have something to do with national security?” he asked, even though he suspected he now knew.
“I’m afraid that is also classified.”
“Are you trying to tell me that some old man’s belongings are a matter of national security?” Flint met Bruce’s eyes in the glow of light spilling out of the cabin.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything.”
He swore. “All this time, my father was right.” The commander said nothing. “Not about the aliens but about the government being up to something.”
“All clear,” a soldier said from the cabin doorway.
Even from where Flint stood, he could see that the man had a leather-bound journal in his hand. He watched him put it in a high security pouch and wanted to laugh—and cry.
“I do wonder how you heard about the journal,” the sheriff said. “I didn’t hear about it until a short while ago at the hospital. My father has said that the government put some kind of tracking device in his head. That would explain how you knew he was in the hospital. It just wouldn’t explain how you knew about the journal.”
The soldiers began to load up. He could tell that Bruce was anxious to leave, as well. “What if what’s in that journal is just the ramblings of an old man who never came back from the Vietnam War the same?” Flint asked. “Otherwise, I hope to hell my father wasn’t right, whatever he wrote in that journal.” He felt a chill and knew he would never look at the fenced missile silo on his ranch the same way again.
“Have a good night,” the commander said and walked to his waiting car.
The sheriff watched them drive away before going to his father’s cabin. The place would have to be cleaned up from the mess the government had made inside it.
His phone rang. He stood for a moment just listening to it ring before he finally answered, already knowing. It was the hospital. He thanked the doctor for letting him know and closed the cabin door. Ely Cahill wouldn’t be returning here.
* * *
THE MOMENT AJ landed in Martinique she went straight to the morgue. The taxi let her off in front of the building as a woman and two men came out. The last man began to lock the door.
“I need to see someone about the body that was found on the beach,” she said, quickly paying the taxi as she delayed those leaving the morgue.
“Come tomorrow morning,” one of the men said.
“No, please, it can’t wait until morning. The body that was found, was it Caucasian?”
The men exchanged a look.
“Please, it will only take a moment. I have to see the body.”
“It has deteriorated badly,” the woman said. “If it is a loved one, you don’t want to see it.”
“Not a loved one,” AJ lied. “I’m a lawyer from the States. I’ve just come to identify the body. Please.”
The man with the key sighed, and then told the others to go on without him, and he’d meet them at the bar. He opened the door, all the time telling her she’d better not throw up or faint. He didn’t have time for either.
She promised that she would be fine when all the time she had no idea how she would react if the body were Cyrus’s.
Opening a door into a cold room, the man stepped in and she followed. She shivered as she watched him move to one of the refrigerated drawers. She hadn’t been cold since she’d landed in Miami, let alone the islands. Now she couldn’t keep her teeth from chattering.
The man rolled out the drawer. The first thing that hit her was how small the body was beneath the sheet.
“I warned you that there wasn’t much left,” the man said, eyeing her as if he expected her to possibly throw up and faint.
Her heart beat so hard against her rib cage that it hurt to breathe as he pulled back the sheet. The body had been chewed on. Both arms were nothing more than nubs. One leg was completely gone. The other was chewed to the bone. But most of the chest was intact.
AJ braced herself and looked to where the head should be. The skull was open on one side and empty. For a moment she felt her stomach rise in her throat. Her legs wobbled under her as she looked at what was left of the face and felt all the blood drain from her head and rush to her feet.
The nose was mostly gone but there was enough of the face left and the top of the skull to see that the man was blond with at least one brown eye, though it was now mostly milky. Her gaze dropped to what was left of his shoulder. There was an old tattoo on the man’s shoulder with the name Cherie. It appeared the man had tried to have it removed at some point.
Jordan Hughes? The other man who’d gone overboard from another cruise ship? She stumbled back a step. “It’s not him. You should let everyone know about the tattoo along with at least a little description. He was blond with brown eyes.”
The man grunted and threw the sheet back over the body as she turned toward the door. Behind her she heard the sound of the drawer sliding back into the wall and the clang of metal. She hurried, bursting through the door outside into the heat and dust. She made it as far as the curb before she threw up.
CHAPTER NINE
AJ HAD BEEN so exhausted after visiting the morgue that by the time she’d checked into a hotel and called Flint with the news, she’d fallen onto the bed, still dressed without even brushing her teeth, and passed out.
While her news about the body that had washed up on the beach was good news, Flint had given her a heartbreaking update on his father. Ely Cahill had died of a massive heart attack. She’d given him her condolences and, shocked and saddened, had succumbed to fatigue.
Cyrus came to her in the middle of the night. She felt his breath on her ear, warm and tempting. She sighed as the bed shifted and she felt him spoon her, his body warm against her backside. He kissed her earlobe and then dropped his lips to behind her ear before his lips trailed down her neck to her bare shoulder.
She kept her eyes closed, afraid to open them. When he stopped kissing her shoulder, she wanted to cry out. But then she felt him behind her. He lifted her nightgown and pulled down her panties. She heard the sound he made when he pressed closer, his arms coming around as he pulled her against his now naked body.
She felt her nipples pucker and harden even before the tips of his fingers brushed over one or the other. She snuggled against him, wanting more, desperately needing more. His fingers touched her between her legs, a brief promise of what was to come and then he pulled her onto her back as if, like her, he could no longer stand just touching her.
Her eyes opened and she looked into his handsome face as he smiled down at her. Cyrus. He was so handsome with his dark hair and gray eyes. That gray gaze shifted from her eyes to her lips as he slowly dropped his mouth to hers.
She closed her eyes, anticipating the kiss she’d waited for so long.
Her lips trembled. But his never touched hers.
“No!” Her eyes flew open. She was lying on the hotel bed, her sundress she’d worn yesterday tangled around her, her heart beating fiercely. She felt the side of the bed where Cyrus had been only a moment ago—in her dream.
A sob broke free of her throat. It had only been a dream. She closed
her eyes tightly, the pain and frustration and grief bringing her to her breaking point. She’d wanted that kiss so badly, had yearned for it for so long. And now he was gone.
She rolled over onto her side, drew her legs up into a fetal position and, burying her face in her pillow, she sobbed as if the dam inside her had finally broken.
Spent, she must have fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes sunlight was pouring into the room. For a moment, she didn’t move. Couldn’t. The memory of last night had taken all her hope from her. Cyrus was gone. She had to accept that.
And now Cyrus’s father had died. She thought of Ely and felt tears burn her eyes. She’d liked the mountain man. He was sweet and caring and she loved hearing his stories about his life with his wife, Mary, before her death. She told herself that they were together now, Ely and Mary.
But it was just another loss for the Cahill family.
She had to force herself to climb out of bed, shower and dress for another day. She’d been down here for over a week. She should give up and fly home. But where was home now? Could she go back to Montana with Cyrus gone? She thought about calling her father and telling him she would take the job with the family business.
But as she pulled out her ticket for her flight to the next island, she knew she had to finish what she’d started. If she didn’t find him today... Well, she would decide what to do then.
Empty inside, she headed for the airport and a late flight to the island of Dominica.
* * *
THE DESTRUCTION IN Dominica from last year’s hurricane was worse than even the other island. It was so bad that she’d asked taxi drivers at the airport about places to stay and had gotten, “All full. No place to stay in the city.”
Weary from traveling and feeling despondent, she hadn’t known what she was going to do. There were a couple of chairs in the tiny airport that maybe she could sleep on tonight and resume her search tomorrow.