Читать книгу Hurricane Bay - Heather Graham, Heather Graham - Страница 8

“Help me, Dane.”

Sheila’s voice was an echo in his head. A ghostly reproach.

He didn’t need to keep hearing it. He’d already damned himself a hundred times over.

He’d been sitting here that night, just as he was now, the last time he’d seen Sheila arrive at Hurricane Bay.

But before that…

Would things have been different if he hadn’t seen her in action just that day?

He’d been at the Sea Shanty just before she had come over. He’d been drinking soda water with lime, discussing surveillance cameras with Nate. Nothing big had happened. Nate thought that maybe one of his bartenders had decided he wasn’t quite making it on tips and was helping himself to the till. Dane didn’t intend to work for Nate, and he had no intention of charging for the advice he gave. Sheila had been there, too. She came almost every afternoon at about five.

She never bought her own drinks.

Maybe she hadn’t known he was there. Maybe she had known and hadn’t cared. Once upon a time, way back when, he and Sheila had been something of a twosome. But he had to admit, he’d never been in love with her. From the time he had been a little kid, he’d had a path in mind for himself, a plan for his life. A lot of that had come from Mr. Cunningham and Joe, but whatever the reason, his future had been the burning essence in his mind.

He hadn’t wanted to wind up a fisherman in Key Largo, hoping for a catch, dodging the tourists, sucking up to the tourists, watching restaurant managers come and go.

If anything, he’d been determined he was going to own the restaurants.

And Sheila…

Well, at one time she might have loved him in her way. But she’d been just as intent on her own path. She’d wanted out. And getting out had meant more to Sheila than attaching herself to a man with no specific prospects, even if he had ambition. She’d spent her high school years sizing up the tourists and the weekenders—Floridians who usually lived fairly close to Key Largo, where they kept condos or vacation homes, and left their prestigious jobs in the city on Friday after work and returned Sunday night, ready to go back to work on Monday morning.

But he’d always thought he was her friend. They’d had their occasional thing together, even after their passionate breakup way back when. But not in the last few years. Not since he’d finished his military obligations, settled in the St. Augustine area, opened Whitelaw Investigations…and fallen in love with Kathy Malkovich.

He’d seen Sheila a few times since he’d retreated back home. Only with other friends, mostly, or sitting around the bar. She’d even shown up at his place once with Nate when they’d made a major dolphin fish haul a few weeks back and barbecued it on the grill at his place. Because of their past history, people were making more of it than it had been.

Nate had talked about Sheila’s current activities, then cut himself off, remembering that she and Dane had once been more than friends. The usual guy talk had sounded too coarse, even for Nate.

So he should have known. Sheila had always been a flirt. And she was soundly of the opinion that most people fell out of love in life, and that some guys were good in bed and some guys weren’t, so going to bed with a man because he could offer her something was in no way a sin. Look at the jerks most women slept with because they thought they were in love, or thought the guy was decent, she always said.

Sheila gave new meaning to the term “jaded.”

That afternoon, though, just a week ago, he had really seen her in action for the first time. Seen her work her “magic” at the bar.

So he was a little jaded himself. Not exactly sunk in despair, but then again, not ready to go out and tackle the world. And when he had watched Sheila, he’d experienced some strange sensations. Relief, for one. He was thankful they’d never gotten serious or—God forbid—married each other. He felt sorrow, too, remembering the kid she had been. And he had also felt a bit of disgust, wondering what the hell she was doing. There she was, a beautiful woman, doing things she didn’t need to do. She was young, with the world in front of her, and she had seemed to be on the path of self-destruction.

Her sole purpose was apparent from the minute she climbed on a bar stool next to a guy. First there had been the middle-aged Hispanic man sporting the loud jewelry. Heavy gold chains had hung around his neck, and his fingers had been bedecked with gold and diamonds. Sheila had crawled atop a chair with a cigarette, asking for a light. They’d started talking, and he’d bought her a drink, but he hadn’t stayed long. There had been a woman waiting for him out on the patio. Before he’d left, however, Sheila had written something on a piece of paper and given it to him.

Then there had been the younger guy, maybe twenty-five. His cutoffs had carried a designer label, and his sandals were straight from the pages of GQ. His T-shirt had sported a label, as well—not just designer but top designer. Even if he ever got as rich as Croesus, Dane couldn’t see spending that kind of money on a T-shirt.

Sheila had been studying her drink when the young guy had walked in. She must have had some kind of natural radar, because she’d turned around immediately, seen her new quarry, squashed out her cigarette and knocked another out of the pack in front of her.

They’d talked for a long time. And again Sheila had given him her number.

No one had appealed to Sheila after that. She’d noticed Dane at the back of the bar by then. She might have colored just a little, seeing him there. Then she’d tossed her long dark hair and come over.

“So…it’s the long-lost home boy nursing his woes at the shanty bar, huh?”

“Hi, Sheila.”

She’d lit her own cigarette then and tapped her matches on the bar.

“See, old flame, men do still find me attractive,” she’d said softly.

“Sheila, you’re beautiful, and you know it.”

That had brought a smile to her lips. “But it isn’t enough, is it?”

He remembered lifting his hands with a certain aggravation. “It depends on what you want. What the hell are you doing?”

She looked at him. “Do you remember when you liked me, Dane?”

“Sheila, I still like you. You’re a friend.”

That brought another smile. “You never loved me.”

That seemed out of the blue. “You never loved me.”

She looked ahead. “We both wanted to get out, and here we are again. You loved her, though, huh? That woman in St. Augustine.”

He didn’t answer because she didn’t allow him to, rushing back in. “What’s wrong with me, Dane?”

“Sheila, there’s nothing wrong with you. We just didn’t have the commitment, the shared interests, the right whatever.”

She shook her head, staring ahead. “I couldn’t stay with Larry, either. Why not? I should have. It’s like I’m always looking for…I don’t know.” She stared at him. “Hey, want to sleep with me?”

“Sheila—”

“Oh, yeah. I heard. You’re still in mourning. I wish you weren’t. I’d feel…secure if I were with you.”

“Sheila, feeling secure isn’t a reason to sleep with a guy. Any more than money is.”

She turned to look at him with amusement. “Money is as good a reason as any. Come on, Dane, aren’t you feeling just a bit of the old magic?” She reached out beneath the bar, long delicate fingers light on his thigh, then zeroing in.

Actually it was the little jump of arousal he’d felt that had stirred his temper. He’d gripped her fingers, pushing her hand aside, and risen. “No,” he told her angrily—and too loudly.

“Dane, don’t leave me.”

“Sheila, I can’t leave you if I’m not with you.”

He’d turned and left the bar. Nate had seen them, of course. He hadn’t known what they were saying, but since he was at the end of the bar, he must have heard the anger in Dane’s voice. And damn if Cindy Greeley hadn’t been there, too, that day—he hadn’t seen her until then, but there she was, with Nate at the end of the bar, showing him the new T-shirts she’d designed for his bar.

He’d said hi to Cindy and gone on.

That night Sheila had shown up at his house. She’d told him not to worry, she was just stopping by, seeing what he was up to. They were still friends, right?

“Friends, Sheila,” he had told her, and let her in.

At first she had been so casual.

She’d asked him about what had brought him back. He’d told her it had just been time to come home. She hadn’t believed him, but she had pretended to.

“I think, for you, everything changed with Joe.”

He hadn’t answered that. Instead he’d said, “Sheila, what the hell are you doing?”

“Getting by. I should marry some nice guy and settle down. Problem is, there aren’t that many nice guys out there. Besides, you knew me when I was young and sweet and innocent. Okay, I was never innocent. But I was a little sweet.”

“You were married to Larry Miller. There’s a nice guy.”

“A boring guy, I’m afraid. I like excitement. Or maybe every nice guy is a boring guy. I don’t know. You know what, Dane? Men just don’t come in the kind that I really want to keep. Actually, I may be a real voice for my sex.”

“Oh?”

Sheila had laughed, and looked stunning. “Yeah. Guys are usually ratty to women. They fall in love…lust first, most of the time. They marry, they cheat.”

“Not all of them. I’d say it’s pretty even.”

“Not on your life! Trust me. Men always seem to need someone to bolster their egos. Some guy told me once that it’s just natural. You know, survival of the species. Long ago, guys had to sow their seed, just like lions, or some shit like that. Mate all they could so their DNA would go on and on. Instinctively they’re still that way—except, of course, that they don’t really want to procreate anymore, because on the not so instinctive side, something resembling brains kicks in and they don’t want to pay child support. But some guys are innately bad, maybe not even in a way they can help. Look at all the old geezers looking for trophy wives. Sixty-, seventy-, even eighty-year-olds throwing out wives they’ve had for years, finding some beach bunny and patting themselves on the back for having a kid when they’re members of AARP. Makes ’em macho.”

“Sheila, you know, I have friends who have been left by their wives, taken to the cleaners big time by them.”

“See, there you go. Defending your sex.”

“I’m not trying to defend anyone. I just think that people in general aren’t always so great to others. I’ve seen plenty of men behave like real assholes. I’ve seen some women who are just as cold and calculating.”

“Different thing,” Sheila said, waving a hand in the air. “Someone should do a study on it. As for me, well, I guess I’ll just go on thinking that I’m standing up for my sex, using guys like paper cups, tossing them out as soon as they get a bit soggy.” She’d looked at him then. “Dane…are you sure…I mean, sometimes, way back when, we’d get together when neither one of us had a steady thing going.”

“Sheila, you’ve got to trust me here. I’m not what you’re looking for. But I will give you a speech, which is what you need. You’re beautiful. You deserve ten times more than you’re giving yourself. Not to mention the fact that your lifestyle is dangerous. There are a bunch of assholes out there, not to mention the fact that these days the world is full of sexually transmitted diseases, some of which can kill you.”

She’d laughed then. “Oh, great! You think I’m infectious. Dane, I’m careful as hell.”

“No, you’re not. If you were, you’d be looking for something more than money.”

“It’s not just money,” she said softly.

“Then…?”

“I told you, I’m making up for all the assholes out there.” She’d leaned against the pillows on the sofa then, watching him with a rueful smile. “I hear you’re in deep mourning over something gone wrong. I can help. I can make you feel better. If only for a night.”

He had to admit, the thought had been tempting. But Sheila couldn’t really give him anything. And there was nothing he could give her.

“No good, Sheila,” he had told her softly.

And still she’d stayed. They’d had some wine, played chess. She was a good player. Then they’d had some more wine. And finally it had been really, really late, and she still hadn’t gotten up to go.

“I wish you’d want me, Dane.”

“Sheila…”

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked for the second time that night.

“Nothing. You’re beautiful. It’s what’s wrong with me, and the fact that I don’t think we’re particularly good for each other.”

Then that smile. “You know what? I don’t sleep with that many guys. I string them along pretty far, but…I like gifts, good food, expensive bottles of wine. I swear, Dane, I’m not diseased or anything. I’m smart and I’m careful, and more selective than it might appear. And I always carry protection. Dane, dammit, I know you’re hurting, but…don’t you ever just get urges, need some kind of relief? I’m perfect for you. I know you don’t love me, and I don’t want anything from you except to be around sometimes…. You can turn off the lights, drink yourself into a stupor, and I won’t mind. And it’s not like it’s something you haven’t done before, a place you haven’t been before.”

She’d made a move for him. Chess pieces had fallen to the floor. And he’d had a lot of wine, a lot of pain, a lot of guilt and self-recrimination, and a lot of longing. Sheila was beautiful. So overtly sexual she was impossible to ignore. Maybe men were nothing more than slightly evolved beasts. She hadn’t been wearing a damn thing beneath her red dress, and she’d made a point of letting him know it.

“Sheila, I’m telling you, it just wouldn’t be right.” But there had been a guttural quality to his voice then.

“I don’t care, Dane. I don’t care. I just want to stay. For one night.” She stood then. With definite talent, she let the red dress fall to the floor. “Call it a mercy fuck,” she pleaded.

He wasn’t sure he could throw her out naked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

It hadn’t occurred to him that she was scared of leaving. Chalk it up to arousal and maybe even a certain ego. Before he knew it, she was on her knees before him. Her eyes were pleading.

And Sheila was good at what she did.

They hadn’t wound up in his bed, but right there, on the couch, where they’d played chess. He’d awakened feeling a dull throbbing in his head. Sex. Like eating food with no taste. Breathing in and out because the lungs did so without the commitment of the conscious mind. He didn’t want to hurt Sheila. They’d both been banged up enough. He didn’t want to talk, either.

Hadn’t needed to.

Sheila had gotten right up, grabbed the red dress and walked to the door, pausing long enough only to look out to make sure it was light. “Thanks,” she’d said, not turning back.

“Hey, my pleasure,” he said lightly, hoping to make them both feel better.

Still, she hadn’t looked back. That was when she had said it.

“Help me, Dane.”

“I’m trying to help you, Sheila. You don’t want to listen to me.”

Then, still with her back to him, “You can’t help it that you don’t love me. I don’t expect you to…. I don’t love you, either…Well, as much as anyone, but…I just…”

Then she’d turned for a minute.

“I need help.”

“Sheila, we can get you some help—”

She’d laughed, cutting him off. “A psychologist for my nympho tendencies?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. And I can’t…explain.” She had stood in his doorway just a moment longer. In the soft pink light of dawn, he thought he saw a brief look of desperation cross her face.

“I look tough, but…I’m afraid.”

“Jesus, Sheila, then you’ve got to change your lifestyle.” His outburst had brought him to his feet. “Quit picking up strangers and going off with them. Settle down with a different goal in mind, rather than striking a blow against men for all women, or whatever it is you think you’re doing.”

A slow smile had crossed her face. “None of you have ever known just what it was like, being me. And…as for my crusade…Oh, Dane! You just don’t know how fucked up men are.”

And then she’d left.

God, she had needed help! He hadn’t seen, hadn’t known, how much.

It was the last time he had seen her.

Alive.

And now…suddenly, even his palms were sweating. What was the killer going to do next to implicate him?

He had to get to the truth.

Andy Latham lived on the Gulf side of the key.

It was something that had always pleased Kelsey, although she wasn’t sure exactly why. Key Largo wasn’t big enough for her to feel any advantage of distance just because he lived on the other side of US1. But she had never liked Andy Latham, and during all the years when they had been growing up, Sheila had hated her stepfather.

He fished for a living, as many people in Key Largo did. He lived off the main road on a little piece of property that tenaciously clung to the ability to be called land, off a small street that had once been little more than mangrove swamp but had been turned into viable land with fill from the dredging for a nearby hotel harbor that had been built in the late fifties.

It wasn’t more than a ten-minute drive from the duplex to Andy Latham’s house. Once upon a time it had been a pretty decent structure. Back in the fifties, contractors had known the full vengeance of storms. The home had been built well out of concrete block and stucco. It was a small house, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and an open back porch that led straight to the dock and Andy’s fishing boat. Kelsey knew the house fairly well because Sheila had lived in it until she had turned seventeen, when she had gotten work at a now defunct seafood restaurant. She had never asked to stay with any of her friends but first had taken a little room at the home of the restaurant owner, then gotten her own apartment on the day she turned eighteen. Kelsey could remember her folks talking about Sheila, saying that they should take her in. But there had been a hesitance in their wanting to do the good deed, and since Sheila had pointedly told Kelsey she wanted to be entirely on her own, she hadn’t pushed the matter.

She wondered now if things might have been different if she had.

Even as she turned off the main road and headed southwest down the poorly kept county road that led to the few scattered houses on the street, the sun seemed to take a sharp drop toward the horizon. There were still some pinks and grays in the sky, which was good, since Latham had no outside lights on, and the front yard was dangerously overgrown with shrubbery and weeds.

So much for it being daylight.

Kelsey couldn’t quite get her little Volvo into the drive, so she parked on the heavily rutted street. Getting out of the car, she wished she had changed into jeans. Twigs and high grass teased her legs as she made her way to the excuse for a front walk, and she was certain that every creepy crawly thing in the brush was making a beeline for her bare legs.

At the door, she knocked, looking at the sky. She reminded herself that she wasn’t afraid of Andy Latham, he was just a scuzz.

“Yeah? What do you want?” Latham demanded, throwing open the door.

The strange thing about Andy Latham was that he wasn’t a bad-looking man. He had been younger than Sheila’s mother by about five years when they had married, Kelsey knew. She reckoned that made him about forty-five now. He was tall, with the lean strength of a man who spent his life occupied in physical labor. When he wasn’t fishing, he worked odd construction jobs and had managed to keep his lean appearance all these years. His face was weathered, like that of many men down here who had spent years outside in the sun. He had keen hazel eyes and a full head of dark hair, only lightly dusted with gray. Tonight, he was dressed decently in jeans that appeared to be both clean and fairly new. He was wearing a polo shirt that also appeared to be clean and even pressed.

“Why, if it isn’t little Kelsey, all grown up,” Latham said before she could speak.

“Hi, Mr. Latham. Yes, it’s Kelsey Cunningham.”

“Come in, come in,” he said, stepping back. Kelsey felt as if he were wearing the look of a spider who had unexpectedly come across a fly already caught it its web.

Looking past him, she could see the interior of the living room. It hadn’t changed much. The old place actually had a coral rock fireplace, and the overstuffed chair in front of it was the same one that had been there as long as Kelsey could remember.

And also just as she had remembered, there were beer cans littering the floor next to it, along with wrappers and leftovers from various fast food chains. Latham had never air-conditioned the place, preferring to leave the back glass doors open to the patio all the time for the breeze. Air-conditioning cost too much money; natural air was cheaper. Many people relied on it when their houses were set in the shade of overgrown trees, taking advantage of the cooler air that came off the water. But in Latham’s case, the open doors didn’t seem to bring in the breeze. The smell of decaying fast food and fish seemed to permeate the house. Flies buzzed around an empty French fry wrapper.

Kelsey didn’t want to set foot inside the house.

“No, no, Mr. Latham, I didn’t come by to bother you. Looks like you’re ready to go out.”

“I am, I am, but there’s always time for an old friend. Come on in. Can I get you something? Beer, or…beer or water, I guess. Aren’t you looking fine, young lady. Well, I guess big city life agrees with you.”

“I have a good job that I like very much,” Kelsey said. “Really, I don’t need to come in, I just came by to ask you about Sheila.”

If she was going to talk to Latham, she was going to have to step inside, Kelsey realized, since he was already walking into the living room.

She entered cautiously, leaving the door open behind her.

Latham had to check two beer cans before finding the one that still had something in it. His back was to her as he finished off the contents and stared into the fireplace.

“Mr. Latham, I was just wondering if, by any chance, you knew where Sheila was.”

He turned to face her then, hands on his hips, staring at her.

“Why? What has the little tramp done now?”

“She hasn’t done anything, Mr. Latham. She was supposed to meet me down here, but she hasn’t shown up since I’ve arrived. We were supposed to meet yesterday at lunchtime. She hasn’t been home, and it seems no one has seen her in a week.”

To her amazement, he started to laugh.

“She’s only been missing a week, and you’re worried?”

“We had plans, Mr. Latham.”

He looked her up and down for a long moment. “You can call me Andy, you know. You’re an adult, all grown up.”

“Yes,” Kelsey said politely. “But since you’ll always be Sheila’s stepdad to me, it’s just more comfortable to call you Mr. Latham.”

Kelsey didn’t know why it seemed imperative to keep as close to the door as she could, but it did.

Latham started shaking his head as if he were looking at one of the craziest people on earth. Then he laughed again, a sound with no amusement. “Well, missy, I can promise you—I’m the last person Sheila would come to and report her whereabouts. Raised her when her ma up and died on me, and what the hell did I get for it? A slap in the face and a kick in the ass. She never once thanked me for keeping her after her ma died. Never realized that I hadn’t adopted her, that I didn’t owe her squat, that I put myself out to keep her in clothes and put food in her mouth. From the time she was ten years old, she was a little bitch, hassling me for the way I lived, knocking me for not making enough money. She hightailed it out of here the minute she could. And she only comes back when she wants money.”

Despite her unease, Kelsey felt compelled to defend her friend. “If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Latham, Sheila’s mother left money to you for the express purpose of raising Sheila. And I believe there are also several joint trust accounts.”

“Little wiseass, aren’t you, girl? The whole lot of your generation, not a bone of gratitude in you. What do you think it costs to keep a kid in school? Go to the doctor, the dentist, buy books, paper, clothes. Hell, her mother couldn’t have left enough money for what Sheila has cost me. I don’t give a damn whether I ever hear from her again or not.”

“But she has to keep in touch with you, because of the money,” Kelsey persisted.

Latham took a step toward her.

Out on the streets, she thought, he wouldn’t have scared her. If she hadn’t known him, he might even have appeared to be a decent looking and friendly kind of fellow. An all-around American male, the type to watch football on a Sunday afternoon, play armchair quarterback and show up for work on Monday morning to talk over the game with the guys.

Except that he smelled a little like fish.

But she did know him. She knew he had taken a belt to Sheila several times when she had lived at home.

And he made her nervous as hell.

She took a backward step toward the door.

“Look, I’m really worried about Sheila,” Kelsey said. “If you do hear anything from her, anything at all, please have her get in touch with me right away.”

“And where would that be, missy?” he asked. He was walking toward her again. She had the strangest sensation that if he touched her, she would somehow be marked for life. The remaining light outside had faded. The living room was lit by one weak bulb in a lamp with no shade. The pale light fell on the carcasses of mounted fish on the wall, and the head and neck of a tiny key deer with glassy eyes.

“Just tell Sheila to get ahold of me if you hear from her. She’ll know where I am.”

“You’re staying out at her place, eh?”

“Mr. Latham, you did raise Sheila. You must have some feelings for her.”

“Yeah, I hate the little bitch.”

“I’m worried, and she’s missing. And the police will be around to talk to you,” Kelsey said, her sense of both uneasiness and indignation rising within her.

“The cops?” Latham said, then he repeated the words, his voice seeming to rise to a roar. “The cops! You called the cops on me because that little twit of a girl has gone off with some poor Joe she intends to milk for all he’s worth?”

At that point he was almost upon her. Dignity and courtesy be damned, Kelsey was getting out. She turned and headed for the door. She heard him following after her. She felt his breathing.

His hand clamped down on her shoulder. She almost screamed as he spun her around. “Don’t you go causing trouble for me, you hear? You mark my words—Sheila is off with some man—a fool with money, with any luck. Getting the police involved is just going to get her into trouble. Maybe she’ll even see some jail time, understand? Don’t go getting the cops involved with Sheila and me. Don’t you do it over that riffraff girl!”

He had powerful fingers. They were digging into her shoulder. His face was taut with tension, and his eyes had a hard yellow gleam about them.

The stench of fish wafted over her.

“Let go of my shoulder.”

He smiled. The man had amazingly good teeth. Very white. It could have been a good smile, but instead it was full of menace and pleasure at the fear he was sensing in her.

“You came to my house to throw accusations in my face, little lady,” he said quietly, not releasing her.

“Accusations?” Kelsey said. “I didn’t accuse you of anything. I asked you if you had seen Sheila, and if you could tell her I’m looking for her if you do see her.”

“If you didn’t accuse me of anything, why are you calling the cops on me?”

His grasp had a definite biting quality. He was strong, or, at least, stronger than she was.

Cindy had been right. She shouldn’t have come here. Alone. At night.

Alone at any time, she thought.

She wanted to remain calm and rational; she also wanted to scream and jerk away from him. She tried to remember all the movies she had seen, all the programs she had watched about dealing with dangerous situations. Don’t show fear? Or scream like blue blazes, push away with all her strength and run like the wind?

She didn’t have to make a decision. She heard the slamming of a car door and a man’s voice. “Hey, what’s going on there?”

Latham’s hand fell from her shoulder. They both recognized the voice. Latham shook his head with disgust, his eyes moving from the newcomer back to Kelsey once again. “There he is, the big military man, ready to knock my lights out,” he said. “I wasn’t about to hurt you, little girl. And you want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”

She’d known from hearing him, without turning, that Dane Whitelaw had arrived. She’d been relieved.

But Latham’s words gave her a chill.

She turned, Latham’s words echoing in her mind. “You want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”

Dane was coming up the path. He wasn’t looking at Kelsey; he was staring at Latham.

His hair was combed back, freshly washed, a little long at the collar, but off his face now. He was in khakis and a short-sleeved blue tailored shirt. Dane wasn’t exactly a half-breed. His grandfather had been a Miccosukee Indian who had married a Swedish tourist. The two had set up shop in the Keys, died together in an automobile accident and left his father with ownership of Hurricane Bay. His dad had made a career out of the military, retired, turned to fishing off his peaceful property for an extra income, and then married Mary Smith, a woman who could claim ancestors all the way back to the Mayflower. Kelsey could just barely remember Dane’s mother. She had welcomed every kid in the world into their house. She had been quick to laugh, to entertain, to love children. She had wanted twenty, she had told them once. At least a dozen little sisters and brothers for Dane. But both she and Dane’s father had married late in life, and complications had set in when she’d finally gotten pregnant again just before Dane’s tenth birthday. She had died months before the baby was due. Dane’s father had never remarried. He had always been a wonderful man when the kids were around, but he had seldom left his own little island, except to sell his catch.

Dane Whitelaw seemed to have inherited the best to be had from his background. He had dark eyes, a chiseled face with slightly broad cheekbones, dark-wheat-colored hair that was always sun-bleached to a lighter shade, and the height and stance of a Viking. She had adored him growing up. He’d been her brother’s best friend. But then Joe had been killed, and their little world had changed for everyone.

Dane reached the open doorway, still staring pointedly at Andy Latham. His dark gaze had never wavered once.

“What the hell are you doing here, Whitelaw?” Latham asked.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Dane said, an obvious lie. There was nothing in the immediate neighborhood that could have drawn him.

“You’re trespassing on my property.”

“Don’t worry. I’m getting off it.” He stared at Kelsey.

She was tempted to stay just because she didn’t want Dane helping her, not when he was top on her list of…well, not suspects, but highly suspicious people. And not when he had been such an ass that afternoon. Maybe she had approached him badly. But he should have cared. He should at least have frowned with worry and tried to say something good about Sheila.

Then again, maybe she just disliked Dane because of what had happened after Joe had died.

“Kelsey, were you staying?” Dane asked when she didn’t move.

“No, I have a dinner engagement,” she said.

She turned to walk down the overgrown path, certain this time that creepy things were touching her flesh when the overgrown brush swept over her legs.

She reached her own car. Dane was right behind her, Andy Latham still standing at his door. Dane waited until she had gotten in the driver’s seat, closed her door and started the engine.

Then he walked to his own car, a Jeep with oversize tires. Necessary, she knew, for living out on Hurricane Bay. The road to the little island was private, not state or county. Dane’s grandfather had built it; his father had improved it. Now Dane kept it up. It still wasn’t much of a road. During a heavy rain season or after a storm, it was often underwater, sometimes so deep that the only way on or off the island was by boat.

Dane started up his car but didn’t start moving until she did. She drove away with Dane just a short distance behind her.

In the rearview mirror, she could see that Latham was still standing in his doorway. Watching.

Andy Latham muttered as he watched the cars go. Then he walked back into his house, cursing his stepdaughter and her friends. In the kitchen, he reached into the refrigerator for another beer. There was a big fat palmetto bug, a winged cockroach, sitting right next to his beer, waving his antennae.

He cursed the cockroach and reached for the can, then splatted it down on the roach before the filthy creature had a chance to move.

He thought about cleaning the carcass out of the refrigerator, but it seemed like too much of a project for the moment. He hadn’t really wanted another beer; he’d wanted to get going. He liked nightlife. No, he loved nightlife. Nightlife took him away from his hell of an existence and made him feel like a man. He’d been ready to go when Sheila’s little buddy had shown up. Kelsey.

Drinking his beer, he decided to make a pit stop. In the mirror over the sink, he surveyed his features. Good. He was still looking pretty good. He really wasn’t old at all; those kids just didn’t realize it, because he had made the mistake of marrying an older woman.

Well, she’d had some money. A virtue. She’d had her faults, as well. A hell of a lot of them. Who would have thought that she considered herself a match for any man?

And worse, who would have thought she’d leave the money tied up in a trust that could only be accessed little by little, and then only by him and Sheila at the same time.

He picked up the comb sitting on the sink and ran it through his hair. The face that greeted him in the mirror pleased him. He had good features and fine eyes. His skin was tanned and creased, but women seemed to like the weathered look. He was built just fine. Not muscle-bound, but tight as piano wire. Sleek, hard-toned. He was in good physical shape. The whole package was still just fine.

Funny. Once upon a time he’d had a thing for older women.

Now he liked them younger.

Yep, that Kelsey was looking darned good. Too bad he’d been saddled with Sheila. The girl had poisoned everyone against him. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Sheila, he might not have known Kelsey at all as a kid. Who knows? She might have let him buy her a drink at a bar.

She might have let him do more.

He tensed, remembering the way she had looked around the house. As if he were lower than a pig.

Lower than the cockroach he had crushed in the refrigerator.

He shrugged. Imagine that. The damned thing had been in the refrigerator. Maybe that was why it had been so easy to kill. Maybe it had already been cold, shaking in its little cockroach boots, frozen right to the spot.

He looked around the bathroom.

Hell, maybe he should get a maid.

Of course, it would have to be someone who wasn’t afraid of cockroaches.

He exited the bathroom, humming to himself. He started to leave the house, then paused and looked around, damning Sheila once again, thinking of the way Kelsey Cunningham had looked around his house. Fuck them both. Fuck them all. Everyone knew that Sheila took off whenever the hell she felt like it. Everyone but Kelsey, coming back here as if she were something special, raising all kinds of trouble.

Still…

He looked around his domain. Strange, once it had been clean. Sheila’s mother had been good for something. She had cooked, too.

But he couldn’t really remember what the place had looked like back then. There had been food in the refrigerator, and not so many beer cans. The cockroach would have died a lot happier if he had come all those years ago.

Now the place was a dump. Nothing but fast-food wrappers and beer cans. So what if the police came? They would probably leave damn quick.

He left the house, not bothering to lock his door. No one ever came out this road. There were only two other houses, and a bunch of mangrove roots and water. Angus Grier lived in the closest house, and he was ninety if he was a day. And the kids who had rented the other place…they were stoned out of their minds most the time. There wasn’t much reason to lock up his place. If a thief came by…well, hell, he was welcome to steal anything in the place.

Because once he drove away from it, Andy Latham knew that he was a different man.