Below the Surface

by Karen Harper

  Cole considered playing dumb about the fact Bree had been here, but that probably wouldn’t work. He decided to try a plain, old man-to-man approach and hoped he didn’t have to get rough, even if he was ready to. He figured, one wrong move here and they’d be taking on almost every man in the bar.

  “We’re friends of the woman who was in here earlier today,” he said, keeping his voice low. “the one you made a shandy for and sold the two Mountain brewskis.”

  “What’s the deal with the guy you’re all looking for?” he asked. “Swear to God, don’t know his name or why a class act like her took to meeting him here—yeah, well, I guess I do,” he added with a snicker.

  “Did Bess get a good look at him?”

  He seemed startled Cole knew the woman’s name. “What’s the prob, I asked,” the guy demanded, still not raising his voice either. “He leave her and she wants him back? Or what?”

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “Or what. Can I talk to Bess just for a sec?”

  “She’s pretty busy, fryin’ fish.”

  “You see, we’ve got other fish to fry, too. If I can just talk to her, I won’t feel I need to make a police report that the woman you’re referring to was attacked by a guy with a wrench when she walked out of here in the rain today. Her attacker might just fit the description of the man I’m trying to trace, but I can just let the police take over and come out here to snoop around, check your liquor license, question your customers, and—”

  “Lay off, I hear you. Come on out in back. And we don’t need no health inspector here lookin’ at the kitchen neither, if you was going to bring that up next.”

  Bess’s description of the mystery man was the same general, nondescript one the bartender and Bree had given. “But there is one thing I thought was kinda funny,” she added, after the bartender had gone back out and Cole and Manny were about to leave.

  “What’s that? Anything might help.”

  “More ’n once, I think she met a different guy. Like maybe she was really getting around, meeting clients here or something. You know—johns. If you’re involved with her, I’d try asking her about it.”

  Cole smacked his hand down so hard on the counter that her pile of knives jumped and clattered. She grabbed one and held it in front of her.

  “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it, just telling the truth,” she muttered. “If that don’t do no good, just get on outta here ’fore I call Jerry.”

  Manny went way up in Cole’s estimation when he automatically covered his back by facing the door, in case she did call Jerry in. Cole clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth.

  “Can you describe anyone else she met?” he asked, trying to keep calm.

  “Listen, mister, it’s pitch-black out there at night. I’m standing here doing dishes or fixin’ food. I just glance out, that’s all. It wasn’t the same guy all the time. There were at least two different ones, one taller and thinner than the other, that’s all.”

  Cole raked his hand through his hair. “Thanks for your help. I appreciate your honesty,” he told her as they went back out through the bar.

  But he was considering lying to Bree.

  After the rain stopped, Lucinda wanted to go sit on the lanai to watch what was happening at the marina, but Bree felt afraid. Until Cole learned something about her attacker, she was hesitant to even sit outside.

  Such a feeling infuriated her. She was not going to become a victim or prisoner. Sure, she’d be more careful now, but whether or not her attacker’s purpose was to scare her into silence or shut her up for good, she wasn’t going to cooperate. The best defense was surely a good offense.

  “Why don’t you pour us both a glass of OJ from the fridge, and I’ll be right back,” Bree suggested. “But the furniture on the veranda will be soaked, so we’d better just open the doors to the patio and sit in here for now. The doors are locked, but I’d appreciate it if you unlock them so we can get the breeze and see out better.”

  As Lucinda headed for the kitchen, Bree went to the bathroom, popped into her bedroom to brush her still-damp hair, then hesitated in the hall to stare at the closed door to Daria’s room. Manny had said he’d heard Sam had a sort of shrine to Ted, no doubt with cherished mementos and photos. Bree didn’t want to become obsessed like that, nor would Daria want her to.

  Still, after the funeral, she’d go through her sister’s things again. She’d give some away to the church for their collection for migrant workers, keep precious things, of course, and offer some to Amelia. When Bree had searched the room so thoroughly yesterday, she’d noticed a few new clothing items of Daria’s she hadn’t even worn yet. Maybe she would keep a few things for herself. Wearing them would make her feel closer to Daria. How often they’d shared clothes over the years.

  Something compelled her to open Daria’s door and glance in. She gasped, clamping both hands over her mouth so hard she felt her cut against her teeth.

  True, Daria had left the room in disarray, and Bree had moved things around, but it was even more of a mess. No one had been here when she wasn’t, so what had happened?

  The pillow on the bed was out of its case. Other subtle changes caught her wide stare, a picture they had taken in Greece aslant on the wall, a sock hanging out of a drawer Bree had carefully closed. And two pairs of shoes, which had been under the bed skirt now peeked out.

  Trembling, she glanced behind the door, then looked under the bed and into the closet, which looked rearranged. Bree opened the bureau drawers she’d gone through. She rifled through the top one, as she was certain someone else must have done.

  The Gator Watering Hole coaster was gone.

  She almost called Cole on his cell, but she remembered that she’d given Amelia a key to the apartment. It had been almost as if Bree had presented her with the Holy Grail, she’d been so pleased. Maybe Amelia had wanted some remembrance of Daria and had just come over, though she didn’t believe that was likely. At least she would have left a note. Of course, Manny knew where the extra apartment key was downstairs in Bree’s desk. He’d been here all morning, while she was gone and Lucinda was sweeping the back room.

  Shaken, she rejoined Lucinda, who had two glasses of juice waiting on the coffee table next to the orange orchid Cole had given her in the hospital. As Bree had asked, Lucinda had the veranda doors open to the warm breeze off the bay.

  “Sorry I took so long,” Bree said.

  “No problem. By the way, the doors weren’t locked like you said.” She turned to Bree and smiled up at her. But her smile faded, and she went wide-eyed. “You okay?” the girl asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  14

  “I’m not sure I want you to see the painting in my office,” Cole told Bree as he unlocked the front door of his Turtle Bay shop, which had Streamin’ and a yacht he’d been working on moored right out the back door. “I know the old pickup line is come have a look at my etchings, but this one may give you a jolt.”

  They had just returned from a Sunday brunch at Amelia and Ben’s house where Cole had fallen in love with their two sons—in a much different way from what he was feeling about Bree. So fierce was his desire to protect her that he’d talked Manny into not telling her that Bess had insisted Daria had been meeting more than one man. There had to be a good explanation for that, and he wanted to break it to her gently. Maybe he’d find the right time once they were out sailing this afternoon.

  It was a windy but hot, sunny day again, and he was going to take her out to leave a memorial wreath over the Trade Wreck site, where she’d last seen Daria. He knew she needed any kind of shoring up she could get. Not only was she grieving for the mysterious loss of her beloved sister, but Bree was deeply shaken by her discoveries that she hadn’t known Daria as well as she’d thought.

  “A painting?” she said. “What about it? Naked women or something? We thought about getting one of mermaids for our front office, but all the ones we found were topless, and we figured it would give the wrong mess—oh, I see
what you mean.”

  She stood silent at first, staring at the large reproduction of the painting as he closed and locked the door behind them.

  “I’ve seen that before—in a book somewhere, I mean,” she told him, leaning lightly back against him as he put his hands on her shoulders. “Such wonderful movement and power.”

  “It’s a great reproduction of my favorite painting of all time, a Winslow Homer done right around the turn of the nineteenth century. It’s called The Gulf Stream, so I named the sloop and my business, Gulf Stream Yacht Interiors, for it. It’s kind of my inspiration for my philosophy of life, especially in tough times.”

  His pulse picked up. Maybe he could break the bad news to Bree right here, but before he could say more, she interrupted. “Those are bull sharks swimming along with the sloop, right?”

  “Right. But what I really love about it—the only reason I brought you through this way, when the sloop’s out back—”

  “Is because this is a sloop very similar to yours. And, like the day you rescued me, it protects the sailor from those sharks.”

  “True, but I always liked the way the sailor looks calm. The mast is broken, but the sloop’s not sinking or even taking on water. Despite the looming storm and the danger in the water, he knows he’ll get through it all.”

  Standing in his loose embrace, she turned to face him. He wanted to pull her to him, but he said, “There’s one other thing I need to tell you about what Manny and I learned at the bar yesterday. Bess swears that Daria met at least two different men out in back there. It was dark, and she couldn’t give a good description, but saw enough to know it was two men.”

  “What? But then—then there were two beers the bartender knew to give me. One shandy, two Mountain Brewed.”

  She didn’t get the implications of what he was saying, Cole thought, and perhaps that was just as well, but he added, “Not two men at the same time—different times.”

  “Maybe she met a couple of guys from her class afterward,” she went on. “I’d hate to go back to the school and make some general, public plea for information. Besides, why would both guys be so secret or taboo that she met them out in the dark in the boondocks?” He could tell she was on a roll now, probably to keep from admitting Daria could have had an entire secret life built on lies. “Or, you know,” Bree plunged on, “Viv Holliman’s hair is really short. Maybe the Hollimans are the ones who met Daria there—to discuss business…at different times…but…”

  Her voice trailed off. He saw her shudder. She must know she wasn’t making sense.

  “You think I’m clutching at straws,” she said. “If—if,” she stammered, “she was meeting more than one man and they found out and were insanely jealous or something like that, wouldn’t they have gone after each other? You’re thinking one of them might have wanted her to pay for two-timing him, then things got out of hand?”

  He pulled her to him. Despite the fact she held the wreath she’d made, she put her free arm around him.

  “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” he admitted. “So far we’re still fact-finding and don’t have enough to form a theory to act on. We’ve got a damn multiple-choice quiz going.”

  “I don’t know if I can get through the funeral tomorrow,” she admitted, her lips pressed to his shoulder, “especially with this new, dreadful possibility. I mean, if there was some sort of attack on Daria like there was on me…we’d have to convince the police of that. Cole, maybe she accidentally fell and hit her head during an argument with someone, but then, when he left the boat alone to drift and crash, it became sort of—of indirect homicide.”

  “Manslaughter.”

  “That’s it. If any of that could be true, that it wasn’t an accident, I’ve got to know, to get justice for her. And what if her attacker’s at the funeral? I’ve heard that killers sometimes are drawn there or to the burial place of their victim. Who hurt her? Who hurt her and why?”

  He cupped her face in his hands and wiped tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “First of all, let’s concentrate on getting through the funeral, and then we’ll do what we can to find enough evidence to get the cops to open the case. Keep Daria’s room sealed, and we’ll try to get someone in there to take fingerprints, though if someone is truly clever and desperate, don’t get your hopes up. Hey, the good news is that, when I agreed to do the job for Dom Verdugo, I talked him into moving his casino yacht from Miami to the marina here. That way I can stay around to help you. I suggested to him it would be good PR if he had the boat here for people to see. I think he’s even planning a party cruise on it soon for influential people—without the gambling, of course.”

  “I know you want to keep the gambling from coming in here.”

  “I do, but I think he’s also a good candidate if there was foul play in Daria’s death, and I’ve spoken with more than one of his employees who could fit the description of your attacker.”

  “I’d put Sam’s diver, Ric, on the list, too, even if he did make that dangerous dive to find Daria with us. All right, let’s go, Captain. Bon voyage, ship ahoy and all that,” she said, cradling the flower wreath to her. “Oh, I left the pelican float to keep the wreath in place in your car.”

  “I’ll get it. Go on out in back and choose a piece of wood you like so we can float that better.”

  He kissed her quickly and headed back to his car. When he glanced through the front office window, he saw her still staring up at the picture of the sloop sailing toward the storm with the sharks chasing it.

  “Why hasn’t seeing more of Bree cheered you up?” Ben asked Amelia as they sat by the side of their screened veranda pool, watching the boys race little wooden sailboats in the shallow end. “I don’t mean that the loss of Daria is something you’ll get over quickly, or ever, for that matter, but you’ve been spiraling down. Even Bree seems on a more even keel than you, and she’s lost more than—”

  “How dare you say that!” She shoved the book she’d been reading about the grieving process onto her chaise longue. Ben had been going over a stack of affidavits.

  “I just meant Bree was her twin, lived with her…Honey, I’m going to call the doctor and have him prescribe something to get you through the funeral tomorrow.”

  “No,” she said, reaching over to grab his wrist and trying to keep her voice down. “I won’t be drugged so I say something I shouldn’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “I just mean your friends will be there, and a lot of important people, I’ll bet. The Austins, maybe even Marla Sherborne. It’s going to be a media event, and I won’t have everyone staring at me because I look comatose.”

  Ben shifted his work aside and swung his legs down between their lounge chairs. He bent over his knees to lean closer as Jordan shouted from the pool, “Dad, my boat won that race. James says it didn’t, but I did!”

  “You two get along now or you’re getting out of there!” Ben told them. “I’m trying to talk to your mother.”

  “Trying to,” Amelia noted. “Meaning, you’re not being very successful at it.”

  “Let’s not argue. I know you’re under stress and I underst—”

  “You don’t. Not really. Ben, you’re a lawyer and my husband. I have something to tell you, part of the reason I’m feeling so awful about Daria.”

  Instantly, his expression changed. His concerned gaze seemed more guarded, she thought. His shoulders tensed. But she had to tell someone some of it or she was going to go right out of her mind and be a raving harridan by tomorrow.

  “I saw Daria the day she died,” she blurted.

  “And didn’t say so? Why?”

  “Please don’t read too much into that. You know her birth caused my mother’s death….”

  “Yes, but there was hardly any intent on her part.”

  “Would you just listen?” she said through gritted teeth. She wanted to scream at him, but the boys would hear. “I know you’re used to firing questions at people, but just listen.” He no
dded, curious now, but he looked like he was holding his breath.

  “I made a date to have a late breakfast with her at the Grog Shop at the far end of Turtle Bay Marina that morning. I asked her not to tell or bring Bree. I guess I just thought I’d try to divide and conquer them, or something like that. Anyway, when we met outside on the dock, I told her I was tired of being shut out. That Dad had always shut me out, maybe because I looked so much like Mother, as if he couldn’t bear to see a reminder of her.”

  “Go on,” he prompted when she just gripped her hands tightly together.

  “And she said, if anyone was the reminder of Mother’s loss it was her and Briana, and they’d gotten along with Dad just fine.”

  “That’s all?” Ben prompted when she said no more.

  “I—I don’t know what got into me, but I told her she was selfish—that I hated her. Then she got right in my face and said, ‘Amelia, you’ve got to get over your crazy ideas Dad didn’t love you and grow up.’ Crazy ideas, she said. Then I—I shoved her and she shoved me back so hard I bounced into a mooring post and could have gone right into the water. I could have been crushed by one of those big boats tied there, for all she cared. And don’t tell me I started it first, like I’m some kid. She—both of the twins are the ones who started all my problems, first losing my mother and then, in a different way, my dad!”

  He stared at her a moment. She could see his wheels turning, assessing her story, probably looking for flaws, discerning motives. “There’s no more?” he asked. “That’s the last time you saw her, so you’re feeling guilty about the way you parted?”

  She nodded, kept nodding. Her entire body was shaking.

  “I wouldn’t tell anyone else about that unless it comes up somehow,” he said. “You obviously didn’t go in for breakfast together after that, so no one saw you eating with her. Amelia, you have got to find the strength to bury these deep-seated feelings. And don’t argue with me when I make an appointment for you with a therapist I know. There’s nothing else, is there?”