Hurricane Bay by Heather Graham
She lay down again, got up, washed her face, brushed her teeth, turned the television on to a cable movie. An old mummy movie. Black and white, with no computer or high-tech gimmicks, it was just a darned good movie. Good acting, lots of suspense.
She warned herself that she would fall asleep and dream about bandage-wrapped creatures rising from the grave to come after her.
But she didn’t.
She dreamed about the past.
And hours later, when she awoke again to the streaking pink and gold colors of a new dawn, haggard and still exhausted, she wished that she had dreamed of ancient monsters.
They were far less unsettling than the memories of a not so distant time.
CHAPTER 5
An endangered American crocodile had somehow made it into the waters just off Coconut Grove, so close to the marina that those who made a living scraping barnacles from the hulls of the many pleasure craft had been afraid to go into the water. But the wily reptile had been caught and brought back to a crocodile reserve. Two accidents had tied up US1, and a woman had been arrested for aggravated child abuse after bringing her injured baby to a local hospital. Another Hollywood star had been arrested on Miami Beach for DUI.
Waking early, Dane listened to the news on the television, then scoured the morning paper.
No bodies had been discovered in the last twenty-four hours. And it was daylight. Time to take the offensive. He owed it to himself—and to Sheila.
He left the house and started out with a visit to Gary Hansen at the local police station. Gary had come down from Minnesota. In the sun, his blond hair had turned to a platinum that was almost white. He always wore very dark sunglasses, mainly because his eyes were nearly as light a blue as his hair was a blond. The sunlight hurt him. He was fair-skinned, as well, and despite the amount of sunblock he used, he was usually burned to a shade of brilliant pink most commonly found on tourists unaccustomed to the sun. But despite his body’s seeming protest against the climate, Gary loved Key Largo. He was never leaving.
He was a decent guy of about forty, the kind who would slap a drunk driver in the can overnight without mercy, but who would deal mercifully with minor infractions of the law. He gave the appearance of moving slowly, of being a leisurely guy, but in the few cases that had brought them together since Dane had opened up shop in the area, he’d proven himself to be sharp as a tack.
“Hey, Dane, what’s up? Caught any thieves on video?” Gary asked him.
“No, I just came in to ask you a few questions.”
Gary groaned. “You’re not going to ask me for files that aren’t public domain, are you? There are laws to protect the criminals out there, you know.”
Dane grinned at the joke despite his lack of humor at the moment. He took a seat on the edge of Gary’s cluttered desk. “No, I think a friend of mine was in here yesterday. Seems we have another friend who hasn’t been seen for a while.”
Gary nodded, eyeing Dane closely as he leaned back in his swivel chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. He’d known exactly why Dane had come.
“Kelsey Cunningham. She reported that your friend Sheila hadn’t been seen in a while.”
“Have you done anything?”
“Filled out the papers. Asked a few questions.”
“That’s all?”
Gary hesitated, then shrugged. “Actually I would have come to see you today. Miss Cunningham said that Nate Curry out at the Sea Shanty told her Sheila was heading for your place the last time he’d seen her.”
“She did. She came to my house. Left early the next morning. I haven’t seen her since.” That was God’s truth. He hadn’t seen her.
Not in person.
“Did she say anything to you about going away?” Gary asked him.
“No. Not to me.”
“Well, there are some other locals she hangs with, who we might want to question…just for being questionable locals. Still, Miss Cunningham says that her friend’s car is gone, as well. We’ll treat the situation as a missing person, but from past history…this lady comes and goes as she pleases. Look, Dane, I know Sheila Warren, too. Not like you old-timers here know her, but I’ve met her, and I know about her. She isn’t employed and lives off that trust fund left by her mother. She island hops, continent hops…seems to me she’s a free spirit. Sorry, Dane, I know the woman is your friend. Maybe she’s still a lot more, from what I’ve heard from a few people. But, hell, she’s a grown woman. Apparently she…likes making new friends and traveling with them. Have you been hired by someone to look for her?”
“Yeah, myself.”
“Great. We’ll help each other. But…this isn’t a big city like Miami or anything, but still, we had a big drug bust the other night, I’ve got to find a husband who broke his wife’s jaw at the new hotel the other night…there’s a string of burglaries, and…well, you know the routine. It’s hard to get too concerned over a woman who regularly goes off with whomever she pleases whenever she feels like it.”
“I understand your position. But I have a suggestion. Talk to Andy Latham, Sheila’s stepfather.”
“Yeah, I’d intended to do that.” From his tone, Gary Hansen obviously considered it an unpleasant proposition. He eyed Dane for a minute. “I heard around town that Sheila was getting into drugs.”
“To the best of my knowledge, she wasn’t into anything heavy,” Dane said. “She wasn’t shooting up, if that’s what you mean.”
“How do you know?”
“Okay, she wasn’t shooting into her arms, at any rate. I know because she was always bare-armed when I saw her.”
“You did have a relationship with her for years, right?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t say high school sweethearts, because neither one of us was particularly sweet. After high school, I went away to college, and then into the service. Sheila went her own way.”
“So it had all cooled down by now?” Gary said, still studying him. He didn’t wait for Dane to answer. “Yeah, I guess it couldn’t have been much of anything now. Heard about what happened up in St. Augustine. I’m sorry about that.”
“Thanks. And as to Sheila, whether or not she was buying weed or pills on the street, I don’t know. She might have been. It’s an angle I wouldn’t rule out.”
“The problem with searching for Sheila is that there are miles and miles of angles that have to be checked out,” Gary said.
“Keep me posted, will you?”
“Sure.”
Dane stood and started for the door.
“Hey,” Gary called.
“Yeah?”
“You keep me posted, too, huh?”
Dane nodded. He felt an uncomfortable rise of tension in his throat. It might be the best thing in the world if he did keep the cops posted with the truth.
The whole truth and nothing but the truth.
No, he’d thought it all out. There was nothing he knew that could help the cops do anything.
Except charge him with murder.
Working out with Cindy made Kelsey feel like a novice climber trying to scale Everest next to the pros.
She had never considered herself to be in particularly bad shape—she did slide on into the gym in Miami now and then, she loved to go bike riding on a decent day, and she spent at least several late afternoons a week in her condo pool.
But watching Cindy on an exercise bike was like watching a tornado set down. She seemed to pedal close to a mile a minute.
They shared no conversation at the cycles. Kelsey was lucky to be able to breathe while trying to appear to keep up with Cindy’s speed.
From the cycles, they went on to free weights.
Cindy could apparently press more weight than most of the men. Two-hundred-something pounds. Kelsey didn’t need to spot Cindy while she was lifting—something that probably wouldn’t have done much good anyway, since she couldn’t begin to lift the weight that Cindy could—because there was a roomful of muscle-bound guys more than ready to help out.
No one had.
Three guys—Jim Norris, Ralph Munroe and Ricky Esteban—apparently knew Sheila. And knew her fairly well.
None of them seemed in the least concerned about her whereabouts. Ralph was short and, with his muscles, seemed as wide as he was tall. Killer pecs. Jim was the opposite, so tall that the scope of his muscles seemed smaller, though certainly as well honed. The man didn’t seem to have so much as a quarter inch of body fat. Ricky Esteban came in a body shape right between the other two; standing about six feet even, he had a very attractive build. He told Kelsey that he and Sheila had spent a night on the town about two weeks earlier, and he hadn’t seen her since then.
He watched Kelsey with curious amber eyes, then told her, “You know…Sheila’s the kind of girl who doesn’t believe in double standards.”
“Meaning…?” Kelsey asked him.
Ricky shrugged, dragging damp hair back off his forehead. “What’s good for the gander is good for the goose. I guess I’m trying to say that she does whatever the hell she wants to do. It aggravates her that men seem to think nothing about going to a strip club, or that they can go to a bar at night in hopes of getting lucky with a total stranger, and that women generally get labeled—not nicely—for doing the same thing. She told me once that she was a voice for her sex.”
Kelsey stared at him blankly as he went on. “What I’m trying to tell you is that you shouldn’t be too worried. If Sheila met a guy and liked him, and he was heading to Alaska for the week, she wouldn’t think twice about going with him.”
“She would have called me,” Kelsey insisted.
Ricky shrugged. Then his expression changed, and he asked her what she was doing with her vacation time in the Keys.
He was flattering—and damned good-looking.
She hesitated and wondered why she did. Dinner with him would probably be nice.
She gave him a vague answer, though, escaped out to the entry area and bought a bottle of water, then sat in one of the comfortable spa chairs to wait, breathe and hope the pain she’d incurred by trying to keep up with Cindy would go away.
She damned the fact that Dane Whitelaw had returned to Hurricane Bay. She wondered if, had she not seen him, she might have gone out with Ricky.
Ricky had admitted to dating Sheila.
Then again, she wasn’t sure she had met a guy yet who hadn’t dated Sheila. Everything she was learning was disturbing. And yet people kept telling her these things so she wouldn’t worry.
Unfortunately, all these tidbits about Sheila’s wild lifestyle only made her more concerned.
The bottle of water went quickly.
She wanted coffee.
The gym was very nice—Cindy had spoken the truth. There was the gym itself, along with a complete spa in the west wing of the new hotel. The spa sold all kinds of juices and herbal teas. Healthful offerings.
She just wanted coffee. Strong, caffeinated coffee.
As she debated heading out to the hotel area, she was startled to hear her name called.
“Kelsey? Kelsey Cunningham? It is you, isn’t it?”
She twisted in her chair to see a man coming from the free weight room. He was a good six foot two and wearing a tank top, so it was apparent that he was muscular. He had hair so dark it was almost ebony, able to defy the effects of the sun that had tanned him to such a deep shade that he was nearly brown. His eyes were just as dark as his hair. Within two seconds she recognized him and smiled. “Jorge!”
He walked over to her, about to give her a hug, then backed off, apologizing. “Sorry, I’m sweating like a pig. If pigs really sweat. Quick kiss on the cheek. How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages. Actually, I should have expected you—Sheila mentioned that you were coming down for vacation.”
She rose and gave him a hug, despite the sweat. Jorge Marti hadn’t been one of their intimate crowd, but he had been a friend. While they had all taken various jobs throughout their high school years, Jorge had really worked. His folks had come over during the Mariel boat lift from Cuba, and for many years had barely eked out an existence. Jorge hadn’t spoken a word of English when he had arrived as a nine-year-old. Now his accent was barely discernible. They’d all liked him, and on those few occasions when he hadn’t been studying or working, he’d spent his free time with them.
In high school, though, he’d had a period where he’d mixed with the wrong crowd. Only the intervention of Dane’s father had kept him from going to jail and acquiring the kind of record that would have stayed with him all his life.
“Jorge, it’s wonderful to see you. And yes, I came to meet Sheila, but it seems that she stood me up.”
“Stood you up?”
“She isn’t here. Have you seen her in the last week?”
“Sure…wait…no, I haven’t. The last time I saw Sheila…was at the Sea Shanty. She’d been making the rounds, then ended up sitting with Dane. I think they had an argument or something. He left…and she left right after. Hey, have you talked to Dane?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Well, you know Sheila.”
Did she really know Sheila anymore?
“So how have you been?” he asked her.
“Great, thank you.”
“Still doing commercials?”
“Commercials and print advertising.”
“Great. And you’re still working with Larry Miller?”
“Yes. In fact, Larry was the one who got me the job.”
“Glad to hear it. You look wonderful.”
“Thanks. So do you. How is your business doing?”
“I’m happy with it. I’ve got two captains working for me now, so I don’t have to take out every charter myself. It was a good way to create a company, but man…it made for some long hard hours and very little social life.”
She smiled. “Jorge, you were always the best worker, the go-getter. One day you’ll probably have a fleet of ships to rival the navy, and captains for all of them.” She thought about Dane and the way he appeared to be spending his life in a lounge chair with a beer. She didn’t know what had happened in St. Augustine that had made him close up shop, then close up life. But here was Jorge, who had certainly been as beaten up as any man alive when he was a little kid, and he just kept moving forward. “And you’ve done it all from nothing,” she added.
He looked at her peculiarly, almost as if he had been watching her mind working. “Remember where you are. Here we believe in smelling the flowers along the way, you know. We’re in the Keys. Sun, sand and ocean breezes.”
“Alcohol and drugs,” she added.
“Well,” he said, his tone light, “there is a fine line between making a place in the world and forgetting that we only live in it so long. So, are you planning to take the world by storm? Eventually own every advertising agency in the state?”
She gave him a rueful grin. “No. I’m sorry, did I sound as if getting ahead was the only important thing in the world?”
Jorge shook his head. “I was just remembering how you loved to paint, and how you always had a camera, no matter what we were doing. Still painting?”
“I still have a camera most of the time. As for painting…”
She never finished the sentence. Cindy came out, blond hair pulled back, her workout tank damp, her muscles gleaming with a sheen of perspiration. “Jorge!” she said with pleasure. “I didn’t see you in there.”
“I saw you, but you were lifting the equivalent of the Titanic, so I didn’t interrupt,” Jorge said.
Cindy gave him a kiss on the cheek, still smiling. “We’re going to have a barbecue at Dane’s in a couple of hours. Why don’t you come?”
He looked surprised. “Dane invited everyone over for a barbecue?”
<
“No,” Kelsey corrected.
“Yes,” Cindy argued.
“We suggested he have one,” Kelsey said. She looked at Cindy. “And we’re surprising him with the time and date. You don’t think we’ll be welcome? Have you seen much of him since he’s been back down here?”
“Sure, everyone from the old crowd runs into everyone else down here, what with Nate owning the Sea Shanty,” Jorge said.
“Has he been…rude?” Kelsey queried.
“No, no, nothing like that. Quiet. Reclusive, maybe,” Jorge said. “I’ve respected his privacy, that’s all.”
“Well, we’re not going to let him be private anymore,” Cindy said firmly. “Show up. We’re going to make him have a good time.”
“All right, maybe,” Jorge said. He wrinkled his nose. “I’m off to the showers. Kelsey, great to have you home.”
She wasn’t really home, she thought. She was just passing through. “Thanks, Jorge.”
He left them, heading into the men’s locker room. Cindy sighed in his wake. “He is so good-looking.”
“Yes, he is,” Kelsey agreed. “He hasn’t married? He isn’t seeing anyone?”
“He works,” Cindy said. “And I guess he sees lots of people. Oh, well, let’s head out. We need showers, too,” she said ruefully. “I must smell like a trucker who’s been on the road for a week.”
“You work out like a boxer aiming for the heavyweight championship,” Kelsey told her.
Cindy laughed. “Like I said, I think it has something to do with being short. Let’s go, shall we? Showers, then barbecue shopping. Too bad Dane didn’t really plan this. He’d have gone out and brought us back lots of fresh fish. Maybe there will be something fresh at one of the markets. Or maybe we’ll just go with red meat. Or chicken. Or both.” She led the way out, hesitating as they exited the building. “I hope Jorge shows up,” she said.