She stretched out and crossed her ankles, trying to look casual and comfortable. Then she decided she looked too casual and comfortable, and uncrossed them.
She crossed them again, smiling, as Amber made her way down to the cabin. “This is too cool. Way, way too cool,” she said.
“Ohmygod,” Kim breathed, coming down behind her.
“Like a floating hotel suite, huh?” she said, trying to sound cheerful and welcoming. She decided she was loud and fake, but apparently she sounded all right to everyone else.
Amber turned to her with wide eyes. “Like a floating palace.”
“Not that lush,” Ben protested, coming down behind the girls. He looked at his sister and grinned—apparently oblivious, she noticed gratefully. But then, he probably thought he knew her. Just as she had thought she knew herself.
Keith came striding breezily out from the stateroom. “Hey, kids. Want a tour? Or would you rather roam around on your own?” he asked.
Amber didn’t get to answer. “Would you look at the kitchen!” Kim exclaimed.
“Galley,” Amber corrected.
Kimberly laughed, running her hand over the counter and staring at the appliances. “No way. This is a full kitchen,” she protested.
“Seriously, it’s not a salon, either, it’s a living room,” Amber agreed, looking at Keith.
“You can go around the world in her, can’t you?” Kim asked.
“You could.”
“Have you ever?” she asked.
“No. But she does offer all the comforts of home,” he said. “Speaking of which, would you like something to eat? Drink? You want a smoothie?”
“You can make a smoothie?” Amber asked.
“Yup. I’ll see what we have.”
He delved into the refrigerator, and the girls went to join him. Ben looked at Beth. “You don’t mind that I brought them?” he asked.
“Don’t be silly.”
“We didn’t interrupt anything, did we?” he asked, a frown starting to crease his brow.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she protested. Then afraid that she was about to blush the shade of a beet, she leaped to her feet, closing the magazine.
“Hey, did you get a good look at the upper deck and the flybridge?” he asked excitedly.
She smiled. Big boys, big toys.
“It’s an amazing yacht,” she said.
“And to think I thought I had the prize of the seas when I bought mine.”
In the galley, a blender roared to life just as she started to answer, so she had to smile and wait.
“You have a wonderful boat, and I love it,” she said loyally at last.
“Oh, I love it, too. It’s just…well, who wouldn’t want to own something like this, huh?” he asked.
“Dad, you want a strawberry smoothie?” Amber called.
“Sure.”
“Aunt Beth?”
“Absolutely,” she murmured. She followed her brother into the galley and accepted a large paper cup from her niece.
She couldn’t help it; she felt wary of Keith. She had to keep her distance. She was afraid even to make eye contact, terrified that at any minute she was somehow going to give herself away. She was certainly over twenty-one, but she felt so responsible toward her niece. She’d always tried to teach her that sex should be special; that it was the most intimate act between two people and shouldn’t even be contemplated without sincere emotion, the deepest respect, and a sense of responsibility and consequences.
Well, emotionally, she was involved, like it or not. Had she been in the least responsible? No. And as to thoughts of future consequences…
It terrified her to realize just how much she wished there could be one. That he would reappear somewhere in her world, that he would be a responsible member of the human community and not just a diver. Or…a common criminal. Or worse.
A murderer.
No. She knew instinctively that wasn’t true. Or else she just wanted to believe it.
Keith didn’t have any problem being entirely natural and casual. He chatted easily. Beth wasn’t even sure what was being said half the time.
Then they heard the motor of the yacht’s dinghy, returning with Matt and Lee and the supplies. Ben said it was time to go, and thanked Keith, then Matt and Lee. They all talked about what a pleasure it had been to meet, said they would undoubtedly run into one another somewhere along the line sometime.
“Beth, you can come back with the girls and me,” Ben said. “Save Keith the bother.”
“Of course.”
“I can take you back—” Keith began.
“The girls and I have already packed up. We don’t need to head back to the island, just straight to the boat,” Ben said.
“Perfect,” Beth murmured.
It wasn’t perfect. Perfect would be if they all disappeared, if there didn’t have to be any words, if she could just go back where she had been and pretend. Pretend Keith Henson was someone she would see again, someone she had known forever and ever…
Someone she trusted.
She had to trust him. She’d just gone to bed with him.
She felt more awkward than ever. She was at ease saying goodbye to Matt and Lee, but she couldn’t meet Keith’s eyes, and she only shook his hand, while she’d kissed the others goodbye on the cheek. So much for appearing completely casual.
She couldn’t escape quite that easily. He stopped her and took her hands. His eyes met hers. Amused but affectionate, she thought. Affectionate? She wanted so much more.
She still felt so ridiculously awkward.
“We’ll talk soon,” he said.
She nodded, hoping she looked casual, carefree.
“I will find you,” he said softly.
“Finding me won’t be very difficult,” she murmured.
“Strange timing, huh?”
She didn’t know exactly what he meant. And she couldn’t ask him. She couldn’t stand being so close to him any longer, with so very much unsaid.
She had to escape, and she did, reaching her brother’s dinghy before the others.
As Ben revved his little motor to life, he laughed with the girls as they raved about the Sea Serpent. She was grateful she didn’t have to speak. She kept a smile plastered to her face as she lifted a hand in farewell to the men standing on deck.
Soon Ben had set their course for home. She reflected that she hadn’t even said goodbye to the others—any of the Masons, or Brad and Sandy. The Masons she would see again, and as for Brad and Sandy…
Thinking of the pair still gave her an uneasy feeling.
She looked away from the yacht at last and turned her gaze westward, toward the Florida coast. It would all come into perspective, she told herself.
She would get home. She would believe she had been silly, that she couldn’t have seen a skull. That nothing had been going on during their stay on the island. No one had lurked around with evil intent.
And as for Keith…
She would stop thinking about him eventually. In her mind, he would lose the charismatic appeal that had all but obsessed her. She would remember him as a man. As someone special she had once met. Handsome, virile, exciting…but too laid-back, too ready to enjoy good times with his friends, too lacking in ambition.
It would all come into perspective….
But things always came back around to one fact.
She was certain she had seen a skull.
Just as she was certain there was something about Keith. No matter how appealing the man might be, he simply wasn’t what he seemed.
There had been an honesty in the way he’d touched her, but only lies had fallen from his lips.
7
“I ADMIT TO STILL BEING confused,” redheaded Ashley Dilessio said, easing back in her chair at Nick’s, her uncle’s restaurant on the bay.
Nick’s was everything good about the area, Beth thought. Boats came in to dock, houseboats were moored nearby, and anyone was welcome. The tables were r
ough wood, an overhang sheltered the outside seating from the sun, and it felt like a continuation of island living in the midst of a hectic, overpopulated, multicultural community.
Not to take anything away from the yacht club, she decided a little defensively. The two establishments were just different. And of course part of Nick’s appeal was that she’d known Ashley most of her life.
Now Ashley was with the police force, in the forensics department, and her husband, Jake, was a homicide detective.
“Okay, you got to the island. You walked with the kids. You thought you saw a skull. A man showed up—you hid it. You went back with Ben, and there was no skull,” Ashley said, her green eyes studying Beth with a slight frown wrinkling her forehead.
“That’s the gist of it, yes. Ben thinks I saw a conch shell,” Beth said, her tone a little sheepish. “It might be nothing, it might be something. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Ted and Molly Monoco.”
“I remember the story, but…I thought they were sailing around the world,” Ashley said. “No wonder no one’s seen them.”
“But what if it was a skull?”
“You said that whatever you saw was gone when you went back.”
“Maybe I just couldn’t find it,” Beth persisted.
Ashley stirred her straw around in the large glass of iced tea in front of her. “This isn’t my jurisdiction, or even Jake’s, you know.”
“But you have contacts,” Beth reminded her.
Ashley nodded thoughtfully.
Beth let out a deep sigh. “Shouldn’t someone check it out?”
“Yes,” Ashley agreed. “We can get the Coast Guard out there to take a look, if nothing else. But…why would the skull—if it was a skull—have disappeared? Did any of the other boaters seem suspicious?”
Beth groaned. “All of them.”
Ashley smiled. “Okay, tell me.”
Beth began describing the other campers on the island: the Masons, who Ashley knew casually, Brad and Sandy, and the three men in the exquisite yacht.
“Three hunks, huh?” Ashley teased.
“Um. They looked the part.”
“What part?”
“Oh, you know, the type who would be out fishing, diving…boating.”
“You mean they had beer bellies and could open the bottles with their teeth?”
“Ashley!” She flushed slightly, remembering the way she’d described Ben’s mythical “friends” who were due to arrive on the island.
“Sorry, just kidding. But they don’t sound like modern-day pirates. Not if they already had such a fantastic boat themselves.”
“So there really are pirates out there?” Beth asked, keeping to herself the thought that maybe Lee hadn’t been the legitimate owner of that boat after all.
“You bet. There’s lots of money—and very little law—once you’re out on the ocean,” Ashley said seriously. She was doodling idly on a napkin. “Describe your guy.”
“Which one?”
Ashley grinned. “The one you’re talking about the most, seem the most suspicious of—and the most attracted to.”
“Ashley…”
“Beth, just describe the guy. Tall? Dark? Face shape—round…long…?”
“Um, really good bone structure. Cheekbones broad, chin kind of squared, really strong. Eyes…” She watched as Ashley sketched on the napkin. Her friend was good. “Farther apart. And the brows have a high arch. The nose is a little longer, dead straight. The lips are fuller. And the hair…well, depends on whether it was wet or dry.”
“Just go for the face.”
“A little leaner there, below the cheekbones,” Beth said. Then she exhaled, leaning back, staring at Ashley. “You’d think you knew the guy. That’s incredible.”
Ashley shrugged, sliding the cocktail napkin with the perfect likeness to the side of her plate. “Let’s hope so. I’m being paid to do it.”
Beth shook her head, staring at Ashley, thinking of the man whose likeness her friend had just drawn.
“Hey! Look what the summer wind brought along,” a masculine voice said, breaking the moment.
They both looked up. Jake had arrived. Winking at Beth, he kissed the top of his wife’s head and pulled out a chair. He was a rugged-looking man; he either looked his part as a cop or could be taken for one of her boat people. In fact, he was both. He’d spent years dealing with the hardest, darkest, ugliest secrets of a big city, and still knew how to come home and smile, play with his toddling son and baby daughter, love his wife and enjoy his friends.
“Beth thinks she might have found one of the missing Monocos,” Ashley said.
Beth was startled when he looked at her sharply, then at his wife again. “I’m not sure they are missing. I just heard a rumor that their boat was seen recently.”
“She might have found a skull on Calliope Key,” Ashley explained further.
“It disappeared,” she murmured, then shook her head. She couldn’t be hesitant. “Actually, I’m sure I saw a skull. But I got scared and tried to hide it. Then I couldn’t find it. And—”
She broke off, then plunged back in. “Well, if someone else had hidden the skull, it didn’t seem like a good idea to make a production of digging it up.”
Jake grimaced, looked at Ashley again, and then smiled at Beth. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll get on it,” he assured her. “I’ll call Bobby—Robert Gray, a friend with the Coast Guard. I’m sure he’ll help. Will that make you feel better?”
“Yes, and thank you,” she told him.
“Hey, are we invited to your next big event at the club?”
“Absolutely,” she assured him. “You can come in anytime, you know that. Just use my name. No, better yet, use Ben’s. He’s the paying member.” She grinned.
“Want to hear more about Beth’s excursion on Calliope Key?” Ashley asked her husband. “Some of her new acquaintances sound fascinating.”
“Oh?” Jake said, and looked at Beth curiously.
“She met three hunks. Rich ones, maybe.”
“Ohhhh,” Jake said.
Beth groaned and stood. “You two are cops—you’re supposed to be taking me seriously. I’m out of lunchtime. Call me.”
Ashley grinned, shaking her head. “We’re taking you seriously, really. The thing is, your hunks do sound intriguing.” Ashley paused, her expression turning serious. “I promise we’ll find someone—the right someone—to look into what you saw.”
“And we will call you,” Jake promised.
Shaking her head, Beth turned and left them. But she smiled as she did so. She could trust them. If they said they would see to it that the Coast Guard checked out the island, it would be done.
AS SOON AS BETH HAD GONE, Ashley pulled the cocktail napkin from the side of her plate, setting in directly in front of her husband.
He frowned and stared at his wife.
“He was out at Calliope Key. Where Beth thinks she saw a skull.”
Jake picked up the napkin, but hardly bothered to study it.
“She sounds as if she’s paranoid already,” Ashley murmured.
Jake shook his head.
“Perhaps,” Ashley began, “I should—”
“No,” Jake said firmly. “No. She’s back here, and she’s safe. There’s no reason to say anything.”
“We both know—”
“Yes, we both know. But we don’t know what the hell else is going on. Leave it. I’ll call Bobby, they’ll check out the island. Other than that, there just isn’t a hell of a lot we can do.”
“Jake—”
“Ashley, it’s out of our hands. And besides, since we don’t really know anything for certain, what the hell are we going to say?”
She sighed, still unsure that silence was the right course.
KEITH SURFACED, lifting his mask, spitting out his mouthpiece. He saw Lee on deck—his binoculars in his hands, looking toward the island.
Hand on the ladder, Keith kicked off his flippers and crawled aboard
.
“What?” he asked Lee, shedding the rest of his equipment.
Lee shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure what they’re doing.”
The day before, they had caught sight of Sandy and Brad on their old scow of a boat—and the couple had been watching them through their binoculars.
“What does it look like they’re doing?” Keith asked.
“Stashing, stowing…getting rid of something. In a hurry.”
Keith took the binoculars from Lee and turned slowly, scanning the horizon. Damn! He thought as he sighted a Coast Guard cutter. Beth. She just wasn’t going to let it rest. She’d gotten the authorities involved. The problem was, they weren’t going to find anything.
“Take a look,” he said softly to Lee.
Lee took the binoculars back and followed Keith’s line of vision. “Coast Guard,” he muttered. He looked at Keith. “Anything we need to worry about ourselves?” he asked. “This isn’t the time to be making explanations.”
Keith shook his head.
“Nothing down there?” Lee asked tensely.
“Not yet.”
“What was on the radar?”
“An old tire iron.”
Lee swore. “Well, hell, let’s get ready for guests, then, huh?”
Keith nodded.
He turned, moving down the deck to find the freshwater hose and rinse down his equipment before stowing it. Lee hurried down to the cabin.
As he worked, Keith was startled to see that Brad had gotten in his dinghy and was motoring quickly away from his anchored boat.
He chose the direction away from Keith and his group, disappearing around the island.
He was gone for only a matter of minutes, back long before the Coast Guard cutter approached.
Brad hadn’t even turned on the dinghy’s motor, he thought. He had used the oars, but had moved with incredible haste.
Why?
The answer was obvious. To try to go unnoticed. And to get rid of something.
Or someone?
ON MONDAY BETH HAD BEEN hopeful, by Tuesday she had been mad, and on Wednesday she was morose, then angry again, this time with herself.
Keith Henson knew her name, where she came from and where she worked. She realized that she’d had it in her head that he was going to find her, that he was going to say he had to see her again, that he was as mesmerized, fascinated, and in love or lust with her as she was with him.
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