Protector, Lover...Husband?: In the Dark / Sure Bet / Deadly Exposure
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“She was dead,” Alex repeated.
“Cause of death?” Nigel asked her.
“I didn’t do an autopsy,” she snapped, and then was furious with herself.
“There was nothing that suggested a cause of death?” Nigel asked patiently.
She shook her head. “If she had washed up with a rope around her neck, I didn’t see it. I’m sorry, I’ve dealt with dead dolphins, but I never interned at the morgue,” Alex told him. “But I know a corpse when I see one.”
“So you’ve seen lots of corpses?” Jay asked.
“I’ve seen enough dead mammals, Jay.” She looked at Nigel. “I swear to you that there was a dead woman here, tangled in seaweed.”
He sighed, looking at the sand and the water, then back to her. “No drag marks, Alex. She wasn’t pulled into the bushes.”
“She was here,” Alex insisted stubbornly.
“Alex, I’m not saying this is what happened, but isn’t it possible that someone was pulling a prank?”
“No,” she said determinedly.
“So…what did happen? Why isn’t she here?”
“I don’t know. I thought she was far enough out of the water, so I don’t think the waves could have pulled her back out…I think someone came and moved her.”
“They were quick,” Nigel commented.
“I’m telling you, she was here. Isn’t there a way you can check? It will be dark soon. Can’t you spray something around, see if there are specks of blood in the seaweed or on the sand anywhere? Better yet, take samples. Get more men out here and make certain that the only tracks around came from Jay, Laurie and myself?”
“There could be dozens of tracks around, and it wouldn’t mean anything. The beach is accessible to all the staff and every guest,” Nigel told her.
“Surely there’s something you can do,” Alex said.
“I can see if a body turns up again,” he told her quietly. “Seriously, Alex. The most likely scenario is that the woman wasn’t dead. Maybe she was unconscious but came to while you were up at the lodge. One of you should have stayed here.”
Alex glared at Laurie.
Laurie looked back at her defensively. “Hey, how could I know that a corpse could get up and walk away?”
“A corpse can’t get up and walk away,” Jay interjected impatiently. “Unless the person you saw was not a corpse.”
“We’re going in circles here,” Alex told him.
“This is ridiculous,” he told her. “You pull me out here, make me ruin my good Italian shoes, drag Nigel away from his supper…because you saw someone passed out. Maybe someone in need of help, who you left. Or, more likely, someone playing a joke. A sick joke, yes. But a joke, and you fell for it.”
Alex lifted her hands in exasperation. “All right, fine. There’s nothing I can say or do to make you believe me. Nigel, I’m sorry about your supper. I owe you one. I’m going to take a shower.”
“Wait a minute,” Nigel said. “I’m not ignoring this. I’ll make a check on passengers who took the ferry over today, and, Jay, you check your guest lists. We’ll make sure that everyone is accounted for.”
Alex stood in stony silence.
“Alex, that’s all I can do since there’s no body,” Nigel said patiently. “We’re not New York, D.C., or even Miami. I don’t have a huge forensic department or the manpower to start combing every strand of seaweed, especially since the tide is coming in. Alex, please. I’m not mocking you. It’s just that there is no body.” He turned to Jay. “Get busy on the paperwork, Jay. I’ll handle the ferry records. And, Alex…don’t mention this around, all right?”
She frowned curiously at him. “But—”
“Don’t you dare go alarming the guests with a wild story,” Jay said.
“Actually, I was thinking that if there was a corpse and someone’s hidden it, it might be a very dangerous topic of conversation,” Nigel told her.
“He’s right,” Jay said. He pointed a finger toward Alex. “No mention of this. No mention of it for your own safety.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
Nigel turned around, looking at the beach. He shook his head and started away.
“Where you going, Nigel?” Jay asked.
“To check on the ferry records,” Nigel called back.
He reached his launch, gave it a shove back to the water and waded around to hop in, then gave them a wave.
Jay stared at Alex and Laurie again. “Not a word, you understand? Not a word. It doesn’t matter if there were a dozen corpses on the beach, Alex, they’re not here now. So keep quiet.”
“Fine. Not a word, Jay,” Alex snapped, walking past him.
“Hey! I’m your boss, remember?” he told her.
She kept walking, Laurie following in her tracks.
“I’m still your boss,” he called after her. “And you owe me a new pair of shoes.”
They were soon out of earshot. “Alex, there really was a corpse, wasn’t there?” Laurie asked. But she sounded uncertain.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps…I mean…couldn’t you have been mistaken?”
“No.” She turned. “I’m going to go take a hot shower and a couple of aspirin. I’ll see you later.”
Laurie nodded, still looking uncertain. “I’m sorry. Jay has a way of twisting things,” Laurie said apologetically.
“I know. Forget it. I’ll see you later.”
She lifted a hand and turned down a slender trail that led through small palms and hibiscus, anxious only to reach her little cottage.
She slid her plastic key from the button pocket of her uniform shorts and inserted it into the lock. The door swung open.
The air was on; the ceiling fan in the whitewashed and rattan-furnished living-room area was whirling away. The coolness struck her pleasantly.
She walked through the living area and into the small kitchen, pausing to pull a wine cooler from the refrigerator. She uncapped it quickly and moved on, anxious to flop down on the sofa out on the porch. She opened the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and went out, actually glad of the wave of warmth outside, tempered by the feel of the night breeze and the hypnotic whirl of another ceiling fan.
But even as she fell into a chair, she tensed, sitting straight up and staring across to the charming white gingerbread railing, too startled by a figure looming in the shadows of coming twilight to scream. Then she took a deep breath of relief when she recognized who it was.
It wasn’t just anyone planted on her porch.
It was David.
He was wearing nothing but swim trunks, broad, bronzed shoulders gleaming, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the rail. He was very still, and yet, as it had always been with him, it seemed that he emanated energy, as if any moment he would move like a streak of lightning.
Her heart lurched. He was so familiar. How many times had she seen him like this and walked up to him, wherever they were, sliding her fingers down his naked back, sometimes feeling the heat of the sun and sometimes just that of the man? She had loved the way he had turned to her in response and taken her into the curl of his arm.
How many times had it led to so much more? There had been those days when, just in from the water, he had been speaking to a TV camera, holding her as he talked, then had suddenly turned to her, and she had seen a sudden light rise in his eyes. She could remember the way he would move, his attention only for her, as he excused himself, smiled and led her away. By the time they reached a private spot, they would both be breathless, laughing and pulling at the few pieces of clothing they were wearing. He could move with such languid, sinewy power; the tone of his voice could change so easily; the lightest brush of his fingers could evoke a thousand rays of pure sensuality. And she had been so desperately, insanely eager to know them all.
But then, that had been in the days when it had mattered to him that she was with him.
He didn’t smile now. His deep blue eyes were grave as he surveyed her. She’d seen him cold and distant like this, as well, the light in his eyes almost predatory.
“David,” she said dryly, pushing away the past, forcing herself to forget the intimacy and remember only what it had been like once she had determined to pursue her own career and he had begun to travel without her. Days, weeks, even a month…gone. Not even a telephone call, once he was with his true love. The sea.
And those who traveled it with him.
“Alex,” he responded. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“So it appears. Well, how nice to see you. Here. On my porch. My personal porch, my private space. Gee, this is great.” Her tone couldn’t have held more acidity.
“Thanks.” Her welcome hadn’t been sincere. Neither was his gratitude. But there was no mistaking the seriousness of his next words.
“So,” he said, “tell me about the body you found—the one that disappeared from the beach.”
Chapter Three
“What?” she said sharply.
“You heard me. Tell me about the body.” He uncoiled from his position, coming toward her, taking a chair near hers. He was close, too close, and she instantly felt wary and, despite herself, unnerved. They’d been apart for a year, and she still felt far too familiar with the rugged planes of his face, the bronzed contours of his hands and fingers, idly folded now before him.
She managed to sit back, eyeing him with dignity and, she hoped, a certain disdain.
“What the hell are you doing on my porch? There’s a lobby for guests.”
“Get off it. You must have been in a panic. And Jay probably behaved like an asshole.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m trying to help you out.”
“If you want to help me out, get off the island.”
“Am I making you uneasy?”
“You bet,” she told him flatly.
That drew a smile to his lips. “Missed me, huh?”
She sat farther forward, setting her wine cooler on the rattan coffee table, preparing to rise.
“I assume you have a room. Why don’t you go put some clothes on.”
“Ah, that’s it. Can’t take the sight of my naked chest. It’s making you hot, huh?”
“More like leaving me cold,” she said icily. “Now go away, please.”
His smile faded for a moment. “Don’t worry. I know you want me to leave. I haven’t forgotten that you had the divorce papers sent to me without a word.”
“What was left to say?” she asked with what she hoped was quiet dignity.
“Hmm, let me think. Maybe your reasons for leaving me?”
She got to her feet. “You want the truth? I couldn’t take it. I was so in love with you, it hurt all the time. You were all that mattered to me. My dolphins were far too tame for you—and far too unimportant. Our agreement that we’d spend time dedicated to my pursuits didn’t mean a thing—not if a sunken ship turned up or a shark-research expedition was formed. Then it came to the point when I said you were welcome to go off even when you were supposed to be helping me—and you went. And then that became a way of life. There’s the story in a nutshell. You were gone long before I sent those papers. And sometime in there, I got over you. I love working with dolphins. No, it isn’t like finding a Spanish galleon, or even locating a yacht that went down ten years ago, maybe. But I love it. What you apparently needed, or wanted, was a different kind of wife. Either a pretty airhead who would follow you endlessly, or…someone as fanatic about treasure as you are. So go to your room and put some clothes on, or take a stroll over to the Tiki Hut and give someone else a thrill.”
She started inside, hoping he would stop her. Not because she wanted to be near him, but because he knew about the body.
Her back to him, she suddenly wondered how he knew. The question left her with a very uneasy feeling.
“Alexandra, whatever anger you’re feeling toward me, whatever I did or didn’t do, I swear, I’m just trying to help you now.”
She spun around. “How do you know about the body, anyway? Jay gave me very direct orders not to mention it to anyone.”
He cocked his head slightly. “Jay’s assistant talks.”
“What did you do? Flirt with Len, too?”
He arched an eyebrow, curiously, slowly. She wished she could take back the comment. It made it appear as if…as if jealousy had been the driving factor in her quest for freedom. And it hadn’t been.
Thankfully, David didn’t follow up on her comment. “I don’t think Len could contain himself. He tried to be smooth and cool, but I guess he feels he knows me and that I’m intelligent enough not to repeat what he said. He told me you’d all gone off in search of a body, and then it turned out to be gone. I overheard Jay tell him that part.”
She stood very still, watching him for a long moment. “You know, I came back here to be alone.”
“So talk to me, then I’ll leave you alone.”
“You know, this is very strange. Most people would scoff at the idea immediately. Bodies don’t turn up on a daily basis. And yet…it sounds as if you think that there…should have been a body.”
“No,” he corrected. “I didn’t say I thought there should be a body.”
Alex pressed her fingers to her temples. “I can’t do this,” she said.
She was startled when he suddenly moved close to her. “Alex, please. If there was a body, and you saw it—you could be in danger.”
She sighed. “Not if no one knows about the body.”
“But I know, so others could, as well.”
“You said Len only told you about it because he trusts you.”
“Others might have overheard.”
“Just what do you want?”
He was no more than an inch from her. He still carried the scent of salt and the sea, and it was a compelling mixture. She looked away.
“I don’t want anything. I’m deeply concerned. Alex, don’t you understand? You could be in danger!” His hands fell on her shoulders then. It was suddenly like old times. “You have to listen to me.”
She’d heard the words before. Felt his hands before. Memories of being crushed against that chest stirred within her. She didn’t want to believe that she had once been so in love with him just because he was so distinctively male and sensual. There had been times when they were together when his smile had been so quick, and then so lazy, when just a finger trailing across her bare arm or shoulder had…
“David, let go of me,” she said, stepping back.
His eyes were narrowed, hard. She’d seen them that way before, when he was intent on getting to the bottom of something.
“Talk to me, Alex.”
“All right. Yes, Jay acted like an asshole. Yes, I’m convinced I saw a body. A woman. A blonde. Other than that…I couldn’t see her face. The angle of her body was wrong, and she was tangled in seaweed. When we went back, she was gone. Even Laurie, who saw the body first, wasn’t sure we’d seen it anymore. She didn’t actually go near the body even when it was there. Anyway, there was no corpse. So, are you happy?”
He didn’t look happy. Actually, for a moment, he appeared ashen. She wanted to touch his face, but he was still David. Solid as rock.
“Please, will you leave me alone?” she asked him.
His voice was strange, scratchy, when he spoke. “I can’t leave you alone. Not now,” he said. And yet, contrary to his words, he turned and left her porch, disappearing along the back trail that led, in a roundabout way, to the other cottages and the lodge.
She stared after him, suddenly feeling the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. “Damn it, I got over you,” she grated out. “And here you are again, driving me crazy, making me doubt myself…and not doubt myself,” she finished softly.
She realized suddenly that twilight was coming.
And that she was afraid.
David had almost made her forget. No matter what anyone said, she’d seen a body on the beach. That was shattering in itself, but then the body had disappeared.
She slipped back inside, locking the sliding-glass door behind her. Then she looked outside and saw the shadows of dusk stretching out across the landscape.
She drew the curtains, uneasily checked her front door, and at last—after opening and finishing a new wine cooler—she managed to convince herself to take a shower.
David sat at a table at the Tiki Hut, watching Alex. Not happily. He had been sitting with Jay Galway, who hadn’t mentioned Alex’s discovery, naturally. There might be a major exodus from the lodge if word got out that a mysterious body had been found, then disappeared, and Galway would never stand for that.
During their conversation, David had asked Jay casually about recent guests, and any news in the world of salvage or the sea, and Jay had been just as cool, shrugging, and saying that, with summer in full swing, most of their guests were tourists, eager to swim with the dolphins, or snorkel or dive on the Florida reef. Naturally—that was what they were set up to do.
David had showered, changed and made a few phone calls in the time since he’d left Alex. He’d still arrived before her.
If she’d seen him at the table, she’d given him no notice, heading straight for the table where John Seymore was sitting with Hank Adamson. They were chatting now, and he had the feeling that part of Alex’s bubbling enthusiasm and the little intimate touches she was giving Seymore were strictly for his benefit, her message clear: Leave me the hell alone, hands off, I’ve moved on.
How far would it go?
All right, one way or the other, he would have been jealous, but now he was really concerned.
A woman’s body had been found on the beach, and he had not heard back from Alicia Farr—who was a blonde.
David couldn’t stop the reel playing through his head.
From what he’d overheard, Jay was convinced a trick had been played, or that Alex had assumed a dozing sunbather was a corpse. David didn’t see that as a possibility. Alex was far too intelligent, and she wouldn’t have walked away without assuring herself that the body no longer maintained the least semblance of a vital sign.
A trick? Maybe.
Real corpses didn’t get up and walk away, but they could be moved.
If there had been a real corpse and it had been moved, it had been moved by someone on the island. That meant Alex could be in serious danger. After all, Len had told David what was going on, so who knew who else he might have told?
An ex–navy SEAL, maybe? The perfect blond hero—but was that the truth behind John Seymore being at Moon Bay?
Hopefully he would find out soon enough.
“So?”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” David said, realizing that Jay had been talking away, but he hadn’t heard a word.
“Well? Is it a photojournalism thing or a salvage dive?”
“What…?”
“Your next excursion,” Jay said.
“Oh…well, I was looking into something, but my source seems to have dried up,” David told Jay. My key source either dried up, or was killed and washed up on your beach, and then disappeared, he thought. Then his attention was caught by Alex again.
The band was playing a rumba. She was up and in John Seymore’s arms. Head cast back, she was laughing at whatever he had to say. Her eyes were like gems. She was beautifully decked out in heels and a soft yellow halter dress that emphasized both her tan and her tall, sinewy length. Her long hair was free and a true golden blond, almost surreal in the light of the torches that burned here by night.
The lights were actually bug repellents. There was no escaping the fact that when you had foliage like this, you had bugs. But the glow they gave everything, especially Alex, was almost hypnotic.
David turned to Jay. “Sure you haven’t heard about anything?” he asked him.
“Me?” Galway laughed. “Hell, I’m a hanger-on. The big excitement in my life is when I get a taste of something because of the big-timers—like you.”
“Well, I’m looking at the moment,” David told him. “So, if you do get wind of anything, anything at all, I’d like to know.”
“You’d be the first one I’d go to,” Jay assured him solemnly.
“Interesting that you’d say so—with Seth Granger here and ready to pay.” And in the Tiki Hut at that moment, David realized. Granger was a big man and in excellent shape for his sixty-odd years. He was speaking with Ally Conroy, mother of Zach, at the bar. She was at least twenty years his junior, but he’d gathered from their bits of conversation before the swim that she was a widow, worried about rearing her son alone. Seth wasn’t all that well-liked by many people, yet Ally seemed to be giving him the admiration he craved. Maybe they were a perfect fit.
“Seth…well, you know. He’s always looking for something to bug his way into. Hell, why not? He’s rich, and he loves the sea, and he’d like to make a name for himself in his retirement years. Don’t you love it? Tons of money, no real knowledge, yet he wants to be right in the thick of things. Executive turned explorer.”
“Why not?” David said with a shrug. “Most expeditions need financial backing.”
“Yeah, why not? It’s what I’d love to do myself. I’ve got a great job here, mind you—but I sure wish I had his resources. Or your reputation. Every major corporation out there with a water-related product to sell is willing to finance you—even on a total wild-goose chase.”
“You know me—game for anything that has to do with the water,” David murmured absently.
Alex was leaning very close to John Seymore now. In a moment she’d be spilling out of her dress.
“Excuse me,” he said to Jay, rising, then went up to the couple on the floor. Alex wouldn’t be happy, but if John Seymore was really such an all-right kind of guy—or even pretending to be one—he would show him the courtesy of allowing him to cut in.
A tap on Seymore’s shoulder assured him that he had correctly assessed the situation. The other man, his eyes full of confident good humor, stepped back.
Alex gave David a look of sheer venom. But she wasn’t going to cause a scene in the Tiki Hut. She slipped into his arms.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Dancing.”
“You know I don’t want to dance with you.”
He ignored her and said, “I guess you haven’t had a chance to talk with Seymore yet.”
“John and I have done lots of talking.”
“Well, I happened to mention to him one of the reasons I’m here.”
“And it has something to do with me?”
“Definitely.”
She arched a delicate eyebrow. “I guess you’re going to tell me—whether I want to know or not.”
“We’re not divorced.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said sharply. “I filed papers, you signed them.”
“I don’t quite get it myself, but apparently there was some little legal flaw. I must not have signed on all the dotted lines. The documents were never properly filed, and therefore the decision was declared null and void. I know what a busy woman you are, but I need to ask you when would be a good time to get together with my lawyer and rectify the situation.”
She wasn’t even pretending to dance anymore. She just stood on the floor, staring at him. His arms were still around her, tendrils of silky soft, newly washed blond hair slipping over his hands, teasing in their sensuality. He knew he needed to move away, but he didn’t.
“That’s impossible!” she exclaimed.
“Sorry.”
She stared at him, still amazed. “I don’t…I…can’t…”
“Look, Alex, I know how eager you are to be completely rid of me. I’m sorry. But as of this moment, we are still married.”
He wondered if lightning would come out of the sky to strike him dead.
It didn’t.
God must have understood his situation.
“It’s…it’s impossible,” she repeated.
He shrugged, as if in complete understanding of her dismay. “I’m sorry.”
Something hardened in the depths of her ever-changing, sea-green eyes. “I’ll make time to see your attorney.”
“Great. We’ll set it up. Well, lover boy is waiting, so I’ll let you go in a sec. But first I need you to listen to me. Alex, I’m begging you, listen to me. You’ve got to be careful.”
She pulled back, searching his eyes, then shaking her head. “David, I understand why you’re here, and frankly, I’m surprised you took the time to actually ask me what would be convenient for me. But I don’t quite get this sudden interest. Where’s Bebe whats-her-name? Or the thin-but-oh-so-stacked Alicia Farr, the Harvard scholar?”