Читать книгу Key West Heat - Alice Orr - Страница 8

Twenty-four years later

She should have come here long ago. Taylor Loyola Bissett knew that the minute she stepped from the cab. She was out of her element, as her Great-Aunt Pearl would have put it, but that was exactly what Taylor wanted to be. “Stay where you know the territory and the territory knows you,” her aunt said over and over, like a chant. “That way you will always be in tune.” Taylor could feel herself out of tune with this place already, and that both frightened and thrilled her.

Her immediate impulse, conditioned by years of Aunt Pearl, was to get back in the cab and escape. But Taylor never did anything on impulse, at least not before today. Besides, all the way from the Key West Airport she had been less than at ease with the driver of this outlandish pink taxi who looked like he’d just crawled off skid row. She’d prefer not to drive any further with him, not even back to the airport. She couldn’t leave the Keys yet anyway, anymore than she had been able to resist coming in the first place. There was something to be settled for her on this island. She’d been haunted by that feeling for weeks now. She had to find out what it was all about. Maybe then she could put the past, what little she could recall of it, to rest at last.

Taylor climbed out of the cab, dragging her belongings with her. She should have had the driver help with her bags, but he hadn’t offered and she hadn’t asked. She did stupidly independent things like that sometimes. Her hair was heavy on her neck from the humidity, and tendrils clung to the dampness of her cheeks. By the time she lugged this load up the steps to the guest-house porch, she’d be drenched with perspiration, and the Key Westian looked too small to have a bellboy. She stopped to catch her breath and also to try to get a handle on her apprehension.

Everything bad that ever happened to the Bissett family had happened on this island, starting with the day her father, Paul Lawrence Bissett, met Desiree Loyola. He was a young naval officer, fresh from a small town in northern New York State and green as the valley of the St. Lawrence River for which he had been named. She was a pale-eyed beauty who captured the young naval officer without so much as a shot over his bow. He married her and gave her Stormley, a tall, stately house by the sea, as a wedding gift. His maiden aunts did not approve. Netta moved to the Keys to watch out for Paul and his interests, but not even that was enough to prevent disaster. Within a few years, he had deserted both country and family, and his beautiful wife was dead, consumed by the inferno that some said was her deserved end.

After that, Taylor had been taken back to northern New York to be raised by her great-aunt, Pearl Bissett. Netta Bissett remained in Key West. Pearl had passed away two years previously, and now Netta was gone too. During Pearl’s final illness, she had instructed Taylor to sell off all Bissett holdings on Key West, especially Stormley, after Netta died. Taylor worked full-time managing the Bissett family’s considerable north-country interests. Still, lawyers and realtors could have handled the Key West details. That had been Aunt Pearl’s plan. Taylor wouldn’t even have to show up here, where nothing but bad fortune had ever befallen her and those she cared about.

Taylor would have been content to go along with it—except for the dreams. They began a few months before Pearl died. They came in the hour before dawn and were filled with creatures made of tangled green foliage and smoke. Sometimes Taylor was embraced by these creatures. Other times they pursued her. She awoke with her heart pounding from both terror and fascination, and with the certainty that these images had something to do with this Isle of Bones where she was born.

“Leave well enough alone,” Aunt Pearl would have said were she still alive. “Don’t ask for trouble.”

But the dreams felt to Taylor as if she already had trouble. Not even her long, soothing talks with Early Rhinelander could erase those shadows from her mind. Early, the dear family friend who had brought her north from the Keys as a toddler with Pearl, had stayed in New York and become Taylor’s most trusted confidant. Unfortunately, even Early couldn’t resolve this restlessness in Taylor’s spirit. She’d known somehow that only returning to her birthplace could accomplish that. So, here she was, damp and uncomfortable in her too-heavy clothing, standing on the low curbstone of the Key Westian Guest House on Amelia Street.

It was after ten at night. She had taken the last commuter flight from Tampa on the mainland. She wasn’t even sure there would be anybody around to check her in at this hour. She should have mentioned the time she’d be arriving when she made the reservation. She didn’t ordinarily neglect details like that, but her whirlwind decision and departure had been anything but ordinary for her. It occurred to Taylor that there might be a price to be paid for that hastiness.

What looked like a single lamp burned behind the lace curtains of the guest-house door. Maybe she should go up there and see if anybody was available to help carry her bags. She was about to do that when she noticed something peculiar down the block, back along the way the cab had driven.

The streetlights were far apart and shadowed by the thick greenery of tropical trees. The moon was also barely visible through the veil of foliage. Taylor could feel the dark blue of the sky more than she could see it. Still, she was sure she had seen a car being driven slowly along the opposite curb with its headlights off. That car had stopped a few houses from where she stood, and was still there. She couldn’t make out who was inside the car from this distance in the near darkness. Why had the car been driven without headlights? Why did the driver just sit there now, without getting out?

Maybe a pair of lovers were lingering for a last kiss in the tropical night. The car appeared to be dark in color, but Taylor couldn’t really tell. The shadows here might make anything look dark. Taylor remembered the pink cab. Hadn’t she noticed the cabdriver watching her a bit too attentively in his rearview mirror? She strained to make out the contours of the car down the street. Had the cab looked like that? She usually noticed such things. Tonight she had not, another example of not being quite herself in this place.

Maybe the lovers didn’t want the neighbors to see them drive up and start kissing in the car, so they turned the headlights off. That scenario was preferable to imagining she was being stalked by a cabdriver. Taylor shook her head in wonder that she was even taking time to contemplate such theories about the simple presence of a parked car. The heat, which her north-country metabolism found so difficult to assimilate in mid-February, must be addling her brain. She bent down to pick up the bigger of her bags in one hand, then balanced it by slinging the smaller duffel over her opposite shoulder along with her purse. She straightened up slowly and was about to turn toward the guesthouse when she saw that the car had begun to move.

It crept along even more slowly than when she had first noticed it coming down the street. For a moment, she wasn’t entirely certain the car was moving at all. Then she saw that the gap had widened between the body of the vehicle and the curb. The car was creeping in her direction with its headlights still off, like a dark, crawling hulk in the night. Taylor shuddered, causing the strap of the carryall to slide down her arm, shifting the balance she had so carefully adjusted and pulling her precariously to one side.

Taylor tried to hunch the strap back upward. Rough fabric chafed her neck as her jacket was pulled askew. She could feel her clothes sticking to her everywhere. She longed to drop the bags right here and make a beeline for what she hoped would be the air-conditioned lobby of the guesthouse. But what if that was exactly what the driver of the car wanted her to do? What if he was after her luggage? She’d heard about thieves who prey on tourists in resort areas.

The car was close enough now for Taylor to see it more clearly. It was either dark green or navy blue. She recognized now why she hadn’t been able to see inside and still could not. The windows were tinted and opaque from the outside looking in. The wide, blank eye of the windshield made a sinister image as the car continued its slow, steady advance.

This was definitely not the pink taxicab she had taken from the airport. This car was not only darker in color, it was also of much more recent vintage. Its sleek surface glistened like brand-new in the occasional patch of streetlight. Taylor’s common sense told her that this was not the kind of vehicle likely to be owned by a petty luggage thief. She held tight to her bags anyway and staggered toward the guest-house steps. Meanwhile, her overheated brain registered the fact that the car was picking up speed.

She struggled through the opening in the white picket fence that surrounded the guesthouse. Her suitcase bounced clumsily as she thumped it upward from step to step. She looked over her shoulder to see the car almost at the curb where she had been standing only a moment ago. Her heart jumped, and her right shin bumped sharply against the edge of the top step, almost sending her sprawling across the porch floor. Taylor lunged onto the porch just as the light behind the lace curtain glowed suddenly brighter, and the door opened.

“What’s goin’ on out here?” drawled an amused female voice. “You’re makin’ enough noise to wake ‘em up all the way over at City Cemetery.”

“I’m sorry,” Taylor gasped as she struggled toward the door, “but I have to get inside.”

“Slow down, honey,” the woman in the doorway said. She touched Taylor’s arm. “Heaven’s sake, you’ve worked yourself up to a mighty sweat.”

Taylor pressed forward, but the tall woman’s strong grip restrained her.

“What’s eatin’ you, girl?”

“That car,” Taylor blurted out, jerking her head toward the street.

“What car might you be referrin’ to?”

Taylor spun around, half expecting to see the dark hulk with its blind, black windows crash through the white pickets and mount the porch steps after her. What she did see made her let the carryall and purse drop to the floor on one side of her and the suitcase plop down on the other. The street appeared even more shadowed in contrast with this lighted porch. The opposite side was lined with frame houses set close to the sidewalk. She could just make out the clusters of bougainvillea tumbling everywhere, from the balconies and along fence tops. But there was no dark car in sight.

Taylor hurried to the edge of the porch and peered down the street in the direction the car had been headed. The roadway was empty, except for a few parked vehicles along the nearer curb. Could the dark car have slipped into hiding among those vehicles? Taylor moved down a step, as if she were about to run to the street and check the parked cars. She hesitated. Did she really want to do that? Her heart was still pounding from the fright her stumbling flight had given her.

“Wait up, hon.” The tall woman was beginning to sound concerned. She crossed the porch to Taylor. “Where are you dashing off to?”

“There was a car....” Taylor gestured down the street.

“I didn’t see any car. I didn’t hear one, either.”

Taylor dropped her arm to her side. Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t heard the car herself. Maybe she couldn’t have heard anything above the thumping of her heart. Or, maybe the car’s engine had purred too smoothly to be noticeable. But would that still have been the case after it picked up speed?

“You just flew in from up north. Right?” the woman asked.

“What?” Taylor looked up at her. “Yes, that’s right. I flew from New York State.”

“Well, that explains it.” She took Taylor by the arm and urged her back toward the door. “You snowbirds sometimes get a little rattled when you first wing it down here to the tropics.”

“Snowbirds?” Taylor bent to pick up her bags, but the tall woman beat her to it.

“I’ll get those,” she said. “Paradise can be disorienting, you know, especially at first.”

Taylor glanced back toward the street one more time before stepping through the doorway. “I’m not so sure about this being paradise,” she muttered.

“I didn’t catch that.”

“It’s not important.”

“Whatever you say, hon.” The woman set Taylor’s bags down in front of a high registration desk that looked as if it must be a valuable antique—oak, aged to a reddish grain, topped with a slab of white marble veined by rose-colored streaks. The woman walked behind it and extended her hand across the marble. “My name is April Jane Cooney. I run this place.”

April Jane was tall, all right. Taylor hadn’t imagined that part at least. However, she was beginning to question her perceptions about the dark car. Maybe April Jane was right. The drastic transition from driving through a northern New York blizzard this morning to stepping into this land of exotica tonight might be enough to distort anybody’s perceptions.

“Now, let’s get you checked in so you can settle yourself down and take a nice, long bath. That’ll have you a hundred percent again in a jiffy. There’s even some stuff in your room that makes heaps of bath bubbles. Look in the cupboard under the bathroom sink. Or maybe you like showers best. Lots of New Yorkers don’t like to take the time for a bath.”

“I’m not from New York City. I’m from rural New York State,” Taylor said, feeling she was being put on the defensive. “There’s a big difference.”

“I suppose there is,” April Jane said, turning the leather-bound register toward Taylor. “Sign here. We do it the old-fashioned way at the Key Westian.”

Taylor managed a thin smile. She did want to get to her room. Whether she would shower or bathe once she got there wasn’t important to her right now. She did not want to hear anymore about how uptight snowbirds are or what a paradise this place was supposed to be. She was even beginning to resent the golden-brown tan above the curve of April Jane’s peasant-style blouse. Her hair was streaked with blond as further evidence of how much time she clocked in the tropical sun. Suddenly, Taylor was more aware than she wanted to be of her own hair clinging to her neck, the damp wrinkles staining her jacket, the perspiration trickling between her breasts. Suddenly, she wished she could will herself back to this morning’s frigid blizzard. She would be comfortable there, where the chill made her feel sharp and alert the way she liked to be. Aunt Pearl’s warnings about what happened when you strayed too far from home echoed in Taylor’s brain as she scrawled her name in the register. She dropped the pen and grabbed her bags from the floor.

“Let me help you with those, hon,” April Jane drawled.

“I’ll get them myself,” Taylor said a little too harshly.

“Suit yourself.” April Jane sounded amused again. “Second floor.”

Taylor hoisted the bags as best she could and struggled toward the stairs. She knew what a pathetic, bedraggled sight she must be right now, but she didn’t care. She told herself that if she could just be alone, she’d be able to sort everything out. She’d know what she was or was not seeing. She would be able to tell the difference between a harmless illusion and real danger. And, there would be no more overwhelming urges to run back home like a frightened child. She chose not to remind herself that it had been an overwhelming urge that had brought her here in the first place.

* * *

IT WAS LESS THAN AN HOUR later when Taylor wandered out onto the terrace of her second-floor room two blocks off Duval Street. She had taken a shower after all and put on a sleeveless cotton dress. The night air rested on her bare arms, warm and slightly moist and unbelievably warm. The fronds of a tall coconut palm brushed the terrace railing. The scent of night flowers surrounded her, as soft and shimmering as the silver light from the haloed moon or as a whisper of romantic memory. She understood how someone might be so seduced by this place that they could never leave. April Jane might be right. This could possibly be paradise after all. Taylor walked back inside where a circling ceiling fan had cooled the room to a pleasant evening temperature. The shower had revived her from her previously overheated state. What couldn’t be so easily cooled was the reason for her visit to the Keys. She had come here with a burning need to find out why this place haunted her so, and she had very few clues to go on—except for three names.

She had already unpacked the leather portfolio and slipped it between the bed and the nightstand. It contained a copy of Aunt Netta’s will and descriptions of the three heirs she had mentioned in addition to Taylor. There were two relatively small and perfectly understandable bequests, one to Violetta Ramone who had cooked for Netta and kept house at Stormley, where Netta had lived after it was rebuilt, and another to Netta’s longtime friend Winona Starling. The third bequest was larger and more mysterious. Netta had left it to a man with the unlikely name of Destiny Maxwell and the enigmatic instruction “he will know what it is for.”

The description of Mr. Maxwell was not so mysterious, but it was definitely troubling. He was in his late thirties, a lot younger than Aunt Netta had been. Yet, he had apparently been her frequent companion both socially and privately. He owned and operated a Key West saloon called the Beachcomber on lower Duval Street. Had he been Aunt Netta’s young lover? Was that what she meant by his knowing what the bequest would be for? Taylor wasn’t really bothered by that possibility. Aunt Netta had been free to spend her time with whomever she chose and to leave her money to them if she wished. Taylor respected that, though she didn’t like to think that her aunt might have been taken advantage of by an opportunist.

What Taylor was more curious about, however, was if Netta might have confided in Mr. Maxwell. Had she told him things about the Bissett family and its history in Key West? If so, Taylor wanted to know those things, along with whatever Violetta Ramone and Winona Starling might have to tell. It was too late at night to go calling on either of them right now, but a Key West saloon was sure to be open at this hour.

Taylor picked up her small handbag and the room key on her way to the door. She took a few steps toward the front stairway then thought better of it. She had a feeling that, despite April Jane’s casual manner, she kept a close watch over things around here and would be far too interested in the reason for Taylor’s going out alone so late. She used the back stairs to avoid that interest. The back door had a release bar across it. That meant it could be opened from the inside only. Taylor would have to take the front entrance back in. She could see herself tiptoeing barefoot up the stairs like a teenager out past curfew. The thought made her smile, but that smile disappeared as soon as she stepped outside and the door clicked shut behind her.

The back door did not open onto a street or a well-lit path as she’d thought it would. Instead, a pattern of flat stones led from the stoop through an overhang of foliage with no visible light along the way. Taylor moved cautiously down the steps to the stone walk and the entrance to the overgrown pathway. She could see that the foliage actually arched over the path for some distance to the street beyond. The light from the opposite entrance was just bright enough to reveal that much. There must be a wood or wire trellis structure that kept the greenery from filling in the opening altogether.

A shudder ran through her. She had been suddenly reminded of her dreams. There was a tunnel much like this in one of them, made up of long, undulating fronds that reached out to grab her as she ran through. She still trembled at the remembered sense of great danger lurking among those wild, grasping, green things. Taylor’s experience with the dark car had made her skittish already. She would have preferred not to be reminded of her nightmares right now. She told herself that there was no person lying in wait along this passageway or she would be able to make out their shape even in the dim light. She couldn’t be accosted from the side because of the trellis and the thickness of the shrubbery.

But what about non-persons? Wasn’t this the tropics, after all? Weren’t snakes and other creepy-crawly things common to this part of the world? She took a deep breath against that possibility. Another deep breath and Taylor was into the tunnel, which smelled faintly of leaf mold. She hurried but would not allow herself to run. Her heart tripped at the sound of her own footsteps and the attention they might arouse among whatever beings lurked within the green wall that surrounded her.

“Stay where you know the territory and the territory knows you.” Aunt Pearl’s words rang in Taylor’s head as haunting accompaniment to her hurried steps. She could almost feel Aunt Pearl keeping pace and whispering, “I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.”

Taylor didn’t take a full breath again until she was out of the passage. She didn’t slow her pace until she was standing beneath a street lamp where she was forced to stop for a moment to get her bearings. She had studied a Key West street map on the way down here in the plane. She knew precisely where the guesthouse was located in relation to the place she was now headed. Her exit through the backyards had taken her one block closer to her destination. She took a few more deep breaths to slow the tripping of her heart then set out along the cracked pavement toward Duval Street.

Small, modest houses lined the block on both sides. She was alone on the street—no people, no vehicles parked in possible ambush, no leafy nightmare creatures in evidence. Duval Street was famous for its noisy nightlife, but all was quiet here. She had deliberately chosen an address near the center of things but still at some distance from the hubbub of Mallory Square, with its sunset worshippers and late-night revels. Her guesthouse was only a few blocks from the southernmost point on the island, which the brochures all bragged of as also being the southernmost point in the entire United States. Almost not in the same country with the rest of us, Taylor thought, and wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She was reminded yet again of being out of her element.

The tropical air caught in her heavy hair. She could feel it there like a gossamer web among the strands. She raked her fingers through it and felt the coolness of that web and the fullness of the waves made suddenly untamable by this place. She pulled the strap of her handbag from her shoulder and began fishing inside for a wide-toothed comb that might bring the honey-colored mass under control. She was still poking around in her purse when she felt a movement behind her.

“What’s an angel like you doin’ out here on her own?”

He must have come out of one of the shop doorways that bordered the street. She was on Duval now. The shops were all closed along here, and there was no one else on the street, at least not near enough to be of help if she needed it. He was tall and very thin. His clothes hung loosely on him. His shirt was open several buttons at the neck, and his pants fit more like pajamas than trousers. She thought he might be wearing sandals from the sound of his shuffling along the pavement, but she couldn’t see his feet in the shadowy night.

She began walking fast away from him, down Duval Street toward the bright neon and the sound of music ahead. She could see that the lighted shop fronts were closer on the opposite side. She would cross the street when she got there, maybe step inside one of the open boutiques till she was sure she wasn’t being followed any longer. She could hear him, still laughing softly behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder.

“Fluff out your wings and fly away, angel,” he said. “There ain’t no heaven hereabouts.”