Protector, Lover...Husband?: In the Dark / Sure Bet / Deadly Exposure

Chapter Nine

“This was really kind of you,” Ally Conroy told David. “I hadn’t realized what a big deal you are until I started talking with Seth the other night. That you would take time for us…well, it’s very kind of you.” She was sitting at the helm by David. Zach, filled with excitement, was standing by the mainsail, looking out at the water as they skimmed over it.

“Not a problem. Zach is good kid.”

She sighed. “Yeah, at heart. I’ve had some trouble with him at school. I’m a nurse, and gone too often. But…we’ve got to live. Anyway, thank you. I was horrible last night, and you were great. It’s just, Seth might have been a blowhard to others—I’ve heard that term a dozen times from people talking about him—but he was very sweet to me. I was just stunned and upset. He really had a high regard for you, by the way. He was going to speak to you about something important. He said that he was waiting for the arrival of one more professional friend, then you’d all be getting down to business.”

“And he talked about the Anne Marie?” David pressed gently.

She sighed. “He asked me not to say a word to anyone, but I guess it doesn’t matter now. He told me that all his life, he had been interested in treasure hunting. People always wanted his money for their expeditions, but they didn’t want him to be a part of them. The woman he was expecting was going to let him go along, not just foot the bills.”

“Ally, did he know anything more about where this friend he was waiting for obtained her information?”

“An old man who died. He told her he’d hidden a copy of an old pirate map on this island.”

David arched an eyebrow. “You’re certain? There’s an actual map, and it’s hidden here?”

Ally sighed. “I’m not certain of anything, but that’s what he said. That the ship went down off Florida, and that the map, the proof, was hidden here.”

“Thank you, Ally, for telling me,” David said gravely.

“Seth didn’t know where the map was,” she said. “That’s part of why he was so concerned that his friend hadn’t arrived yet. He didn’t want to talk about it with you until she did arrive.” She hesitated. “Do you think maybe…someone thought he knew more about the map than he did, so they killed him? Wouldn’t that put you in danger, as well?”

“Ally, we don’t know how Seth died yet. And I’m a pretty big boy, but I’ll watch out, okay? Thanks to you.”

She smiled, turning to watch her son. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Ally, if you think of anything else that Seth said before he died, will you please let me know?”

“Of course.”

“And watch out for yourself, too. You haven’t mentioned this to anyone else, have you?”

She shook her head.

“Don’t—unless you’re speaking with Sheriff Thompson. He’ll be over here sometime today.”

“I won’t say a word,” she promised.

He nodded and slowed the Icarus, shouting to Zach that he was going to lower the anchor, because they were out of protected waters and could do a little spearfishing.

Moments later, he stood aft with Zach, assuring himself that the boy could handle the speargun without skewering either himself or David. “We come back on board after every fish,” he told Zach.

“Right. Because of the blood and sharks. And there are a lot of sharks out here, right?”

“Yup. They usually mind their own business, but…” He shrugged. “I had a friend once who liked to stay down and try to get a lot of fish at once. He used his swim trunks for a storage area. If a shark did smell the blood, the first place it would attack would be…”

“Ouch!” Zach said, laughing.

He tousled the kid’s hair, pressed his own mask to his face and made a backward dive into the water.

He meant to give Zach his day out on the boat. He was anxious, however, to return to the dock at Moon Bay before noon. Before Alex would be out of the public eye.

Before she could be alone anywhere…

With anyone.

When the swim was over, Alex rewarded her dolphins with some pats, praise and fish, then stood, anxious to hurry over to the next platform and accost Laurie.

She didn’t get a chance to. Jay, in another one of his handsome suits, came hurrying along the dock.

“We’re starting evacuation proceedings now,” he told her.

“Now?”

She looked at the sky. It was an unbelievably beautiful day, the sky an almost pure blue.

“Don’t even bother looking up. You know how fast things can change.”

“The storm turned toward us?”

“The Middle Keys may get a direct hit as early as late tonight or tomorrow morning. She’s not a big one, but…well, you know. A storm is a storm. The ferry is here, and the guests are packing up. I’d like you and Gil to take a walk down to the beach and make sure we haven’t missed anyone.”

“Sure.”

“The others can rinse down the equipment and get this part of the operation closed down. Later, if the storm keeps on coming, you can go down and open the lagoon gates so the dolphins can escape to the open sea if necessary.”

She nodded. The lagoons were fairly deep; her charges could ride out a storm much better than people could. Still, the facility had been planned with escape routes for the animals, should they be needed.

“Did they act strangely today?” Jay asked.

“No.”

“Then I’d say we’ve still got plenty of time.”

Jay didn’t have a particular affinity for the animals, but he knew enough about them to know that the dolphins would know when the storm was getting close.

“I see that Laurie arrived fine,” Jay said.

“Yes.”

“She told Len she forgot to charge her cell phone.”

“Well, yesterday was her day off, and she wasn’t that late this morning,” Alex reminded him. Until she had a chance to listen to Laurie, she certainly didn’t intend to tell Jay that anything was wrong in any way. She turned around, looking toward the next lagoon. Irritated, she realized that both trainers were already off the platform.

“Where’s Gil? Does he know we’re going on a beach hunt?”

“I just passed him. He’s at the Tiki Hut, grabbing a sandwich.”

“Is Laurie with him?”

“I don’t know,” Jay said. “Don’t worry, you’ll have a chance to talk to her when you get back. You know the island better than anyone else, so I appreciate you doing this yourself with Gil.”

“Sure, I’ll go find him.”

Alex looked around for Laurie as she walked the path to the Tiki Hut, which was almost dead quiet, despite the time of day.

“Grilled chicken,” Gil announced to her, lifting a wrapped sandwich. “I got you one, too, and a couple of bottles of water.”

She arched an eyebrow, amused. “The beach isn’t that far.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got a lot of trails to check, just to make sure. The ferry’s already picked up anyone who planned to check out today. It will be returning soon.”

“Where did Laurie go so quickly?” Alex demanded. “She should be cleaning the equipment and battening down with Manny and Jeb.”

“I don’t know. She was with me right after the swim. She was pretty upset, though. She couldn’t believe Jay had us finish the swim when there had been an evacuation notice. But she knows her responsibilities, and we’ve still got hours to get out, though I’m sure the roads will be a mess. We’ll find her when we get back. Jay said you’re staying, but that the rest of the dolphin team has to be on the next ferry.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” she said, looking at the sky, despite the fact she knew it didn’t really mean anything.

“Always a calm before a storm. Didn’t your folks teach you that?” Gil teased.

“I suppose.”

They reached the beach. As far as the eye could see, it appeared to be empty.

“Well, I’m sure Jay will make sure all the guests and employees are accounted for,” Gil said. “But I guess we have to comb the trails anyway, huh?”

She smiled. “You go to the left, I’ll go to the right, and we’ll circle around and meet in the middle. How’s that?”

Even as she spoke, she felt a lift in the breeze. It was subtle, but there. “I guess the storm really is coming in,” she said.

“You never know. They can predict them all they want, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to do what they’re supposed to. Had it reached hurricane status yet?”

“I don’t know,” she said ruefully. “I wasn’t really paying attention. Yesterday was quite a day, if you’ll remember.”

They’d reached the fork in the trail. “You go your way, I’ll go mine,” he told her.

She nodded and started off.

The trails were actually really pretty. She didn’t know how many of the trees were natural and how many had been planted to give the feel of a lush rain forest. Great palm fronds waved over her head, allowing for a gentle coolness along the walk and, she noted, a lot of darkness and shadow.

The fronds whispered and rustled, and she felt as if the darkness was almost eerie, all of a sudden. There was a noise behind her, and she spun around, then felt like a fool. The noise was nothing more than a squirrel darting across a path.

Still, she felt as if she had come down with a sudden case of goose pimples, and then she knew why. David had told her not be alone.

And certainly not alone walking down an isolated trail.

She was suddenly angry. She’d never been afraid here before. She had enjoyed the solitude that could be found on the island.

But that had been before people started dying.

She quickened her steps, anxious to get back to Gil. “Hello? Anyone out here?” she called. There was no reply.

Birds chattered above her head.

She looked all around herself. Not much farther and she would meet back up with Gil.

She reached the farthest point, seeing the sand on the southern tip of the isle, and stepped off the trail to look around and call out. Nothing.

She turned back, noting that the breeze was growing stronger. In the shelter of the trees, though, she could barely feel it. The dive boat hadn’t gone out that morning, she thought, but pleasure craft had probably been rented out. She hoped all the guests were back in.

“Hello?” she called out again, and once more paused to look around. She quickened her pace, then stopped suddenly.

And it wasn’t a sound that had caused her to stop. It was a stench. A horrible stench.

And she knew what it was. The rotting, decaying, stench of death.

She started walking forward again, shouting now. “Gil! Gil!”

She started to run, and the smell grew stronger.

There was no denying it. Very near them, hidden in the foliage, something—or someone—lay dead.

“Gil!”

She nearly collided with him.

“What the hell is it?” he asked.

“Something dead,” she told him.

“Yeah…that’s what I thought. But where is it coming from?” Gil asked.

“It’s gotten stronger as I’ve come toward you,” Alex told him.

“Then it’s here somewhere.”

She stood still, surveying their immediate surroundings.

“Alex.”

“What?”

“Let’s get out of here,” Gil said.

“Gil, we can’t. We have to find out what it is.”

“Or who it is,” he said uneasily. “Alex, this is a matter for the sheriff.”

“No! Yes, I mean, but not now. I am not letting anyone else disappear.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We have to find out what it is, then call the sheriff. Gil, please?” Alex said. She took a few steps in the direction of a large clump of trees.

“Alex…” Gil said.

“It’s here,” she whispered. “There are a bunch of palm fronds on the ground, fallen leaves…and the smell is really strong. It’s here.”

He looked at her, then sighed. “All right. I’ll lift the fronds.”

“We’ll do it together,” she said.

They steeled themselves against the smell of death and set to work.

And after a moment, it was Gil who let out a sick croak of sound.

David had listened to the radio warnings and decided it was time to head back in. The water where they were was about seventy feet deep, and he’d snagged a few snapper. Zach, proudly, had speared his first fish ever, and it had been a beauty. Someone would be enjoying his catch tonight, one big beaut of a dolphin—or Mahi Mahi, as the restaurants called it, afraid that otherwise diners would think they were serving big cuddly marine mammals.

They hadn’t taken the spearguns down this time; they’d just gone for a last look around. Far below them, a few outcrops of coral welcomed all manner of sea life.

David was just about to motion Zach back to the boat when he saw something that caused him to pause. Anemones could create the appearance of heads with waving hair, and that was what he was certain he was seeing at first. But then…

David thought there was something beneath the skeletal arms of the coral.

He surfaced, and Zach did the same, lifting his mask and snorkel. “We have to go back, huh?”

“Yes. Head on to the Icarus. I’ll be right with you.”

He watched Zach swim back to the Icarus was not more than twenty feet away. Then, taking a deep breath, he jackknifed in a hard, clean dive toward the depths.

He reached the coral, saw the outstretched arm, and…

Horror filled him so completely that he almost inhaled a deadly breath.

There she was.

Alicia. Or what remained of her.

Hair billowing in the water…

Features partially consumed.

Feet encased in concrete.

“That has to be the biggest, fattest, deadest possum I’ve seen in my entire life,” Gil said, turning aside. “Phew.”

“Thank God it’s just a possum,” Alex said fervently.

Gil looked at her, puzzled. “Okay, I know I was acting a little weird, but you seemed convinced we were going to find a person.”

She shrugged, remembering that Gil had no idea she’d already found one body on the beach. “I guess I’m just spooked because of yesterday. Let’s head back.”

David docked the Icarus just long enough to drop off Ally and Zach, then headed for dry dock on the Gulf side of Plantation Key.

There he waited for Nigel Thompson to pick him up in his patrol car.

David slid into the passenger seat, meeting Nigel’s gaze.

“You’re a fool, you know, going back when everyone else is evacuating. Actually, I think it’s about to become mandatory. You could have taken that yacht of yours and sailed her straight north,” Nigel said.

“And wound up chased by the storm anyway,” David said. “And you know damn well I would never leave Alex—or Moon Bay, for that matter—until this thing is solved. I hope this storm comes in and out fast.”

“I’d have divers out there now, if I could,” Nigel said. “But I’ve got every man on the evacuation route, and since we’re talking about a corpse, I can’t risk living men on a recovery mission. The water is getting rougher by the minute.”

“I’m afraid that by the time the storm has passed through, the body might have…hell, it might have been ripped apart,” David said.

“You know there’s nothing I can do right now,” Nigel said firmly.

David was silent, then said, “I know. But damn the timing. There was no way to get her to the surface, and then, hell, I had a kid on the boat.”

“You know the location. You won’t forget?” Nigel said.

“Oh, you bet I know it. And I gave you the coordinates.”

Nigel glanced at him. They were on the main road at last, just miles from the ferry platform that serviced Moon Bay, but they were creeping along. There was one road down to the Keys, and one road back, so with the exodus going on, traffic was at a crawl.

“You know, Jay Galway can refuse to let you stay,” Nigel warned him.

“He won’t,” David said with assurance.

“And you’re certain you want to stay?”

“More so than ever,” David said firmly.

Nigel was quiet again, then said, “Just because you found Alicia Farr today, that doesn’t mean that her remains were ever at Moon Bay. I questioned everyone about the woman yesterday, when I was asking who might have seen Seth Granger leave the bar. And not a one of them saw her, any more than they did Seth.”

“Which just goes to show you that no one in the place is observant. And that someone is lying,” David told him. “Did you get the M.E.’s report back on Seth, yet?”

Nigel nodded.

“And?”

“The man drowned.”

“I still think someone helped him do it.”

Nigel twisted his head slightly. “Maybe.”

“You know more than what you’ve said,” David accused him.

“There are some bruises on the back of his skull,” Nigel said. “The M.E. hasn’t determined the source of them. He might have hit his head or something. Look, they took him up to Miami-Dade. One of the best guys they’ve got there is working on him, all right? They deal in fact, not supposition.”

“Yeah. Well, there’s one dead man for certain, and I know for a fact that Alicia is dead and rotting. And fact. She didn’t just drown or have a boating accident. Not unless she lived long enough to cast her feet in cement and throw herself in the water.”

“All right, David, I swear, the minute I’ve got an all clear on the weather, I’ll be out there myself with the boys from the Coast Guard, hauling her up. All right?”

“I don’t know if that will be soon enough,” David muttered.

“For what?”

“She was murdered—there’s a murderer loose. On Moon Bay. Can’t you do something? I need to get back there fast.”

“What do you want me to do, plow down the cars?”

“Put your siren on.”

“This isn’t an emergency.”

“Maybe it is.”

Nigel sighed, turned on his siren and steered his patrol car onto the shoulder of the road. “If I get a flat, you’re fixing it.”

David shook his head, offering him a half smile. “If you get a flat, I’m going to hitch a ride in the first Jeep I see.”

Still on edge, Alex and Gil returned to the resort area just as the ferry was about to leave with the last of the guests and personnel. Dismayed, Alex ran to the dock, looking for Laurie.

“Alex, you’re coming?” Jeb called to her from the crowded deck.

“No, but I need to see Laurie,” she called from the dock.

“She’s inside somewhere,” he said. “I’ll find her.”

Gil had run up behind her. “Damn, I hope someone got my stuff.” He turned to her. “You sure you want to stay? The dolphins will be just fine. Think about it, alone in that little place with Jay, Len and a handful of others? C’mon! Just hop on board the ferry. We’ll have fun in Miami.”

“No, no, I can’t leave,” she told him.

“It’s going to be like a paid vacation.”

Jeb came back to the rail. “Hey, Gil, I got your wallet and an overnight bag for you.”

“Great.”

“Where’s Laurie?” Alex asked.

“She said she was coming,” Jeb said.

Alex watched nervously as the ferry’s ties were loosed and she prepared to depart. She scanned the vessel for Laurie. Gil barely made it to the gangplank. An impatient seaman yelled at him, “I called an aboard five minutes ago!”

“Sorry,” Gil said.

The plank was up. Alex stared at the ferry in disbelief, ready to throttle Laurie herself. How could she say what she had—then disappear without a word?

Then, just as the ferry moved away from dock, Laurie appeared at last. She looked distressed. “Alex, stick with Jay, all right? Stick with Jay and Len and…whoever else.”

Alex stared back at Laurie, then whipped out her cell phone, holding it up so that Laurie would see her intention.

Laurie gave her a smile, digging in her bag for her own phone.

Then she frowned and put her thumb down. “No battery!” she shouted.

“Jeb, give her a phone!” Alex shouted.

Jeb did, and a minute later Alex’s phone rang. She answered it. “Laurie, what the hell’s going on?”

“Alex, don’t hang around David, okay?”

“Why?”

“Because something is going on. Something that has to do with salvage. Listen, you should be all right. Hank Adamson is staying on—he wants to write a story about battening down for a storm, and John will be there, too.”

“John Seymore? Why?”

“I told you about him.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“He’s the agent I told you about. He’s FBI. Well, I assume he’s FBI. Or working with them or something.”

“Laurie, how do you know this? Please, explain before the weather comes in and the phones go completely.”

“All right, I’m trying. I ran into him, so we went to his cottage and talked. Just talked. That was it. I swear.”