by Karen Harper
Hemmed in behind the bar, Claire knew she had to get hold of herself. For once, she was psyching herself out instead of someone else. She had the strangest vibes around and about this man. Despite Nick’s winning Dylan’s case, could he have had some part in getting rid of Sondra, maybe so his wife didn’t find out, or because Sondra was blackmailing him?
“So what kind of a personal staff are you two lovebirds keeping here besides my cook and captain?” Dylan asked in a sudden shift of topics. Maybe her growing alarm had showed on her face.
“Speaking of staff,” she told him, “I’m going to call for dinner, and I’m sure Nick will join us soon. As for staff here, we have a nanny for my daughter on board—and a bodyguard.”
“A bodyguard, no less?” he asked, stopping at the end of the bar, though he still blocked her in. “You know, I actually kept a bartender on board once. I’ll just mix another drink,” he said, coming closer again while she grabbed the phone.
Thank heavens, Nick walked in the door. Now things would be under control with no more suspicions or surprises.
31
With Nick home at last, Claire calmed down. Had she imagined that the vibes from his friend and former client Dylan were menacing? Maybe she was working too hard. She had to stop thinking that Dylan could have killed Sondra. Surely, Nick would have figured that out. He’d told her he never took a client he absolutely knew was guilty, and she was sure he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if he knew he’d helped exonerate a murderer.
She felt somehow disloyal to be using her forensic psychology skills on her own husband, but something else, something new, seemed to be bothering him. Granted, it was eating at him to have to push Youth water products that he thought were fakes. But then, when he’d taken Haze Hazelton’s case—or been assigned to it rather—he’d never had his and his family’s lives threatened by a powerful enemy either.
When Nick finally steered their dinner conversation back to Sondra’s murder, Dylan shared with him the same bombshell he’d told Claire: that Sondra had been involved with Mark Stirling. Nick managed not to show much emotion, but Claire could tell that annoyed him and shook him up. Even when Dylan mentioned that he’d once asked Haze for a monopoly on the water and been refused, Nick seemed only distracted. Probably, she thought, he was already planning how he was going to handle Haze’s murder trial since nothing could stop that now except a guilty plea, which would put both Haze and Nick in Ames’s crosshairs.
She noted Nick kept chewing his lower lip while Dylan seemed a lot calmer—as if he’d been to the confession booth and felt forgiven. Was Nick now thinking that Dylan could have known more than he’d testified to in court when Nick had gambled to put him on the stand? But she made a silent vow not to bring any of that up tonight. They needed to be together, to think and talk about good things for once, happy things, just to have some quiet downtime.
Finally, Dylan was gone so things were bound to go smoother. Except for his two bombshells, she was sorry she’d pushed Nick to ask him here tonight. It was a mistake, and she vowed not to make another.
* * *
Once they were alone in their bedroom, Nick kissed Claire thoroughly and held her tight. He hoped she couldn’t tell that he was really shaken up. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten through dinner conversation with Dylan and then just now visiting Lexi in her room to say good-night. The chicken pox had sapped her strength, and her low-grade fever made her restless. He knew the feeling. And he hated to put the sweet little girl through what was coming, let alone talk her mother into it.
He was tempted to tumble Claire right into bed before he told her what he was dreading, but that wouldn’t be fair. Kind of a cheap shot before he lowered the boom. But he tugged her over to the bed and sat her there, both of them fully dressed. He leaned close and took her hands in his.
“What?” she said. “What is it? Something about Haze’s arrest? Has he turned on Maggie for what she did? She said she wouldn’t tell him until morning because he’d never sleep, and he’d been a wreck waiting for the arrest. Or Dylan’s revelations?”
“No, not any of that.”
“You sensed I didn’t like or trust him.”
“Claire, even though he’s more or less our landlord, that is, our ‘yachtlord,’ I can understand that. Especially since he came clean about once offering Haze a deal for the water and just happened to mention that Stirling was involved with Sondra, which I didn’t know. Did he do or say something out of line before I got home?”
“No, just bad vibes. He called Sondra a stupid slut.”
“You’re not thinking he was guilty of her murder? Just like with this Mangrove Murder case, I looked into every possibility. Haze isn’t guilty of killing Mark either.”
“Then who is?”
“I don’t know! I’m not Perry Mason solving a crime within a sixty-minute TV show, but maybe if I push hard enough it will come out on the stand. I’m going to call Fin Taylor to testify. He’s good at flying off the handle and may say something. But, listen, it’s you and me I want to talk about, as well as Lexi and Ames, so—”
“Don’t put her in the same sentence with that madman.”
“I need to talk to you about Jace.”
When she winced, he realized he was holding her hand much too tight. She tugged her hands back, and he let her. “I hope you’re not going to drag him onto the stand. Nick, Jace didn’t even know Mark Stirling. However upset he is about our marriage and the fact he has to ask permission to see Lexi, I think we need to leave well enough alone with him—leave him alone!”
“Wait, just listen. You go ballistic over anything I say about Jace. Just keep calm. I’m not anti-Jace.”
“You’re not? So what is it? I read that in you all evening, that it isn’t just Haze’s arrest or Dylan’s revelations bothering you. Tell me.”
“I—your glib defense attorney husband—I’m making a mess of this. I love you, Claire, you and Lexi, so don’t forget that, please.”
* * *
Jace sat on the dock near the prow of the Sylph and dangled his feet over the edge. Despite the ambient lights from the yacht and a few strung down the dock, Goodland didn’t have a lot of lights, so the stars stood out real clear, almost like when he used to fly far from cities or over the Pacific. He even watched the space station go overhead on its regular trajectory, like a small, constant light in the darkness. He’d thought once he’d like to be an astronaut, but had changed his mind, that is, loving Claire and having Lexi had changed his mind. Before things went so, so bad.
Frowning, he took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and flicked his thumb across the screen. He opened the email Van Cleve had recently sent him of photos from Claire and Nick’s wedding at Nightshade. Again, he hated being manipulated and used. K-A obviously wanted to keep him wounded and angry at Nick, maybe Claire too.
He darkened the screen fast when he heard footsteps. The guy that guarded the ship came down the gangway and walked the dock toward him. Nick had said he’d tell the big bruiser—named Bronco, no less—that he was coming, but that Jace should wait to board until Nick had told Claire their plan. Jace assumed that Bronco and Lexi’s nanny would be the two domestic staff Nick wanted to go on the escape plane, though he’d said he wouldn’t mention that to Bronco until things were set. Nor would Jace look for a plane to borrow or rent until close to takeoff—if Claire agreed. He figured he’d need one that seated seven.
“You doing okay?” Bronco asked him as Jace jammed his phone in his back pocket. “Want something to eat?”
“Thanks for the nice welcome this time.”
“Just doing my job. And it doesn’t hurt what I do to be suspicious.”
“Good point. Wish I had a friend like you.”
“Nick say I was a friend?”
“I got that idea. Are you?”
“Want to be, though I make my share of mistakes.”
“Yeah,” Jace said, “me too. No, I don’t need anything to eat. I had a solo shrimp dinner at a place on Marco. Don’t like to eat by myself, but Nick had to get back here.”
“I’d better go back on board. I’ll come get you if it’s time.”
“Okay. Good, Bronco. But that may be a while.”
* * *
“Claire, I know you’ve been worried that Jace and I seemed hostile to one another,” Nick said, trying to start again in a logical way. “But, even after Grand Cayman, we’re really not. As a matter of fact, I’ve talked to him, and we agree on something we hope you’ll—well, you’ll get on board with. For your sake and Lexi’s too.”
“What? Like what?”
He decided not to tell her to keep quiet again. Just plunge ahead, get her to hear him out, then bring Jace in. Hopefully, he hadn’t changed his mind and would show up to back him on this.
“Jace and I are still worried about your safety and especially Lexi’s. Things are heating up, and we can’t trust Ames to keep his hands off either of you if he doesn’t like the way the trial goes, if I don’t do enough song and dance numbers promoting the Youth water. Anything could set him off, and we know he’s got operatives here. I hope you won’t say something like he’s given us his word. His word is worth nothing.”
“You—were you with Jace tonight?”
“Yes, but this is bigger than Jace and me, you or even Lexi. I was contacted by the FBI several years ago and again not long ago. So was Jace recently, when they suspected him of flying for Ames. Our government sees Ames as an enemy too, ruthless, dangerous, powerful.”
“They don’t plan to take Lexi away for safekeeping, do they? I wouldn’t even trust them. She’s not going anywhere without me!”
“Exactly. Although it will hurt me to have the two of you leave here for a while, I can’t do what I intend when I’m scared to death Ames is going to grab either or both of you. I may decide to cross-examine Ames’s water experts in court to get them to give him away. Or I might bring in objective experts to show some of their facts are skewed or fudged.”
“Nick, what about your own safety?”
“I know. Especially if it comes out that someone other than Haze killed Stirling. As for my phony courtroom efforts to promote the youth waters—hell, I hope it all goes down the drain. Meanwhile, Jace admits he was captured and threatened by Ames on Grand Cayman, so he’s flying that new state-of-the-art jet for him right now and not for some shadowy, fictional corporation.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and covered her head with both hands. “Then—then, can you trust Jace?”
“I think he’d die before he’d let anyone hurt Lexi. Is it a gamble? If so, trusting him to help us is one I—we—have to take.”
“So, even with Bronco we need more protection, like FBI agents here to guard Lexi and me while you’re in court?”
“Not enough. Have you heard of the Witness Protection Program they call WITSEC?”
“But I have no intention of testifying against Ames. You—you didn’t plan to call me to the stand, right?”
“I want to avoid that at all costs. But what if the prosecution does, since you’ve been helping with this investigation? The last thing in the world I want is to send you and Lexi away. But one of Ames’s men showed Jace a photo of Lexi and Nita at the library story hour, and Darcy and Jilly were in the photo too.”
She sprang from the bed and started to pace. “I never thought of that, that he’d reach out further than just us. So Darcy and Jilly are in danger too? They won’t leave here, won’t leave Steve!”
“I didn’t say that, don’t know any of that. But we’ll have to tell Darcy more than we have. Here’s the deal. You, Lexi, Nita and Bronco will be flown out of here by Jace—Heck and I will go too, just to be sure you’re settled—at least until Haze’s trial is over.”
“But he just got arrested. How long would we be gone? A trial could take months to start and last longer.”
“I’ll bet it won’t. I won’t ask for delays, and Ames wants that good Youth water promotion soon.”
“But go where? I can’t leave Lexi, but I can’t leave you either.”
Nick couldn’t help it, but his eyes prickled with unshed tears. For a moment he was speechless. A wife, a child, a future with them. He realized like a kick to the gut that’s all he’d ever really wanted—that and justice for his dad as well as for others who had been hurt or killed.
“I want to say no way,” she told him as she came close, sat down again and hugged him hard. He clamped her to him. “I want to be furious you thought all this out without a word to me, met with Jace and are willing to send me—us—away, but it does show you love us. You would miss us too.”
“So much,” he got out, but his words were muffled in her hair. “Maybe we can find a way to Skype, phone, email—something, but Jace says our own government can trace that, and they have their WITSEC rules. And for safety’s sake... Claire, Jace said he’d wait outside until I talked to you. Let’s go sit out on the stern, and I’ll have Bronco bring him on board. The government’s going to protect him too—even offered him a job flying and overseeing surveillance planes once this is over. And if it works out, he’d visit you, check on you while you and Lexi are away. How much, I don’t know yet.”
She lifted her head from his shoulder and stared into his eyes. “Then maybe we’ve finally found something to help us fight and stop Clayton Ames. I don’t mean Jace but the most powerful nation on Earth. And it just might take the entire weight of the US government to even things out.”
* * *
Jace was nervous as he sat with Nick and Claire on the darkened stern of the yacht. He felt really awkward, like he should be arguing with them, not telling them one damn thing about nearly losing his life the night he met Kilcorse-Ames at Nightshade on Grand Cayman. After that, there was no small talk, even about Lexi or her illness; they got right to it.
“The program the FBI wants me to head up and fly for—if, I swear, I live through this,” Jace told them, “is not top secret and goes by the name Stingray. Since it threatens people’s privacy, it’s sometimes exposed by media outlets, big and small.”
Nick put in, “Heck, my tech guy, found out it appeared in an article in our favorite publication, The Burrowing Owl. Somehow Mark Stirling keeps coming up as if he’s speaking from the grave, if we just know how to listen.”
Jace said, “You mean he could have been knocked off for that—like by Patterson for blowing the whistle on their project?”
“No, I don’t mean that. This madness has to stop somewhere, but I think Stirling’s real murderer might be Thom Van Cleve, on Ames’s orders, of course.”
“Man, I’d believe that,” Jace said. “Van Cleve’s also as slippery and cold-blooded as a snake.”
Nick nodded and said, “But if I tried to bring any of that out, Ames would have my head on a platter. My mission is to clear Haze but promote Ames High, Inc.”
Claire appeared not to be crying. “All you’d need to infuriate Ames is to subpoena Van Cleve, as if he’d tell the truth on the stand,” he told Nick.
“I’ve thought about that. At least Claire and Lexi won’t be here in the line of fire, if that’s my last resort.”
Claire said, “Nick, if I have to leave—and for Lexi’s sake, I’m agreeing for now, though it makes me sick—I have to see Darcy first. To make her understand, even to warn her to be careful. And I’ll be careful setting up a short meeting with her.”
“I’m hoping Ames’s targets would not stretch beyond you and Lexi to get to me, but you can’t tell her much. It would endanger her and you. That’s why I’m not telling anyone where you’re headed until Jace takes off with us in the plane from Key West, then heads out to the final destination, nort
h instead of south.”
“Could you please just say our temporary destination instead of our final one?” Claire asked and blew her nose. Jace noted her eyelids were swollen, and she had cried or wiped her mascara off before she sat down. Gray circles shadowed her beautiful eyes. Her hair was a mess, and she looked exhausted. But she looked beautiful, and he longed to comfort and hold her. Hell, maybe if this crazy plan worked, he’d get that chance.
“Are the three of us agreed then?” Jace asked. “If so, Nick’s going to call Patterson in the morning and set things in motion, and I’ll line up two rental planes. I think we all need some sleep.”
“If Claire gives the final okay, we have a plan,” Nick said. “I didn’t mean to keep this back from you, sweetheart, but things had to be in order first.”
“I hate this,” Claire said. “I hate all of this, but, as I said, I will do it for Lexi—and for both of you. Living in fear and controlled by others, that’s no way to bring up a child. Let’s pray this nightmare is over soon and that the next person to be arrested, go on trial or worse, is Clayton Ames.”
Like a team ready to head into the final, sudden death game, the three of them gripped hands.
32
Feeling as if she’d been fighting the undertow of a raging surf all night, Claire rolled over in bed the next morning and reached for Nick. Gone.
Oh, that’s right, it was Monday, the day of the office reception, and he’d said he’d head into work early. How ironic the law firm was celebrating the Markwood newlyweds, when they were about to be apart for who knew how long? Nick had said he’d planned to phone Rod Patterson from his car to put things in motion as he drove into Naples.
As a precautionary plan so she wouldn’t be driving alone, Heck was scheduled to pick her up this afternoon to take her to the law office. She hadn’t seen him for a while. Maybe she’d ask him what he thought about Sondra McMillan’s murder, since he’d worked with Nick on background research for Dylan’s trial. She just couldn’t let that go. If there was something subconscious eating at her about Sondra’s murder—and Mark’s—she wished she’d remember it. She sometimes wondered if the strong narcolepsy meds she took buried thoughts she should be able to grasp.
