High Tide

by Jude Deveraux

  “Get in the shower,” he said, but when she didn’t move, he leaned over, and turned on the water. “Now peel off and get in there.”

  She couldn’t think about what was making her clothes stick to her skin, couldn’t think about the cold, wet stuff on her skin that was beginning to dry. When she didn’t move, Ace reached out both his hands and tore open the front of her shirt—his shirt.

  “Get it off! You hear me!” he shouted at her.

  It was as though he thought she was about to leave her body again, which she was, but his voice brought her back to reality. In the next moment he was tearing at her clothes in a way someone would remove burning rags from a human body, as though it was her very life to get out of them.

  When she was naked, he pushed her into the shower. The warm water woke her up and made her mind focus on one thing: getting out—out of the shower, off the boat. OUT. But when her way was blocked by the big body of Ace Montgomery, she did her best to get past him.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, and pushed her back inside, trying to close the door against her. “You need to wake up, to return to reality.”

  “I have to get out, you bastard,” she shouted as she tried to push past him.

  At the moment she didn’t think of the embarrassment of being naked in a shower while fighting a clothed stranger who stood just outside the door. All she thought about was getting away from this place. “Let me out of here!” she shouted at him, trying to open the shower door, but he was too strong for her.

  When she kept pushing against the door, he opened it and got into the shower with her. At first she fought him. He stood with his back to the shower pipes and held her about the waist as she fought him with all her might. He held her hands so she couldn’t claw his face, but she managed to rake quite a lot of skin off the back of his hands, and she pounded his chest hard.

  After long minutes of fighting and not being able to move him, she started sobbing. And when she started to cry, her body went limp against his. Both his arms were around her back, the warm water cascading over both of them, he fully clothed, she naked, and he held her against him while she cried.

  Five

  “Where are you taking me?” Fiona asked as she looked across the dark car at Ace. It had been only hours since she’d found Roy’s bloody body on top of her, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. After the shower—and cry—with Ace, she had, surprisingly, felt better. If angry and wanting to cut the head off the nearest person is better, that is. Once again, she was wearing Ace’s clothes, this time gray sweatpants and a thick green sweater that had the name of some Ivy League school embroidered over her left breast.

  In the time since the … finding, as she was calling it in her mind, Ace and Eric had done a lot of whispering. They seemed to agree on everything because they had done a lot of nodding and looking at Fiona as she sat on the edge of the boat and watched the moonlit water. As far as she could tell, they seemed to think that she might throw herself overboard at any moment. But Fiona looked at the water and at the stars and tried to direct her mind to her real purpose in life: Kimberly. What was going on with her now? Fiona wondered. Who was handling her? Did her assistant Gerald send the maps to production or had he left them on the floor in the Saks bag?

  “You ready?” Ace finally asked; he was treating her as though she were a mental case about to flip out again. What did she expect, right now he had every reason to think she was a murderer.

  When he’d finally shut off the shower, opened the door, and stepped out, he’d handed her a blanket, then kept on walking. He’d disappeared somewhere on the boat, and when he’d reappeared later, he’d been dry and composed—and he had looked at Fiona with the cool disdain he always wore when he looked at her. No one would have guessed the intimacy that had recently happened between them.

  But Fiona remembered the scene too well. “Florida doesn’t agree with me,” she said, making a feeble attempt at a joke—and some human contact—as he helped her off the boat.

  But he didn’t smile or acknowledge her attempt at levity in any way. His face was grim.

  If he could forget the scene, so could she, she thought. Once on shore she looked about. She had no idea where they were, but there was a Jeep waiting for them, so one of the two men must have called ahead from the boat. Ace put his hand under her elbow to help her into the car, but she jerked away.

  “I am not an invalid,” she snapped as she propelled herself into the car. He tossed his duffel bag and her backpack onto the backseat, slammed the door, then got into the driver’s side, and the next moment they were on the highway.

  “Is it too much to ask where you’re taking me?”

  “To the police,” he said tersely.

  “Ah, yes. Since I’m a criminal, right?”

  He didn’t answer but just kept driving.

  “Would it do any good to tell you that I didn’t kill a man who is twice my size and probably twice my strength?”

  “I’ve seen your strength,” he said.

  “I thought you were being eaten alive!” she screamed at him. “Why can’t you understand that? I didn’t stop and think about whether or not that creature was real or not, I just reacted.”

  Ace was very calm, exaggeratedly calm, as though he knew he was dealing with an insane person. “I know. And I’m sure that when Roy attacked you, you didn’t stop and think either; you just pulled his knife out of its case and stabbed him.”

  “I was hard asleep. I hadn’t slept in two days, remember? And the knife I had in my hand was lying on the bed beside me. It wasn’t in a case.”

  “His knife was always in the case he wore about his waist. I’m sure you saw it.”

  “No, I did not,” she said through her teeth. “How could anyone see anything underneath that belly of his? And I didn’t look anyway.”

  Ace turned the steering wheel sharply as he made a right turn. “Look, why don’t you have some coffee? Eric made a fresh pot for us.”

  “Wasn’t that kind of him? Did he make it before or after he killed Roy?”

  Ace gave her a sharp look before looking back at the road, but he said nothing.

  “Why am I to presume that you are innocent? Or that the other man is? If I didn’t kill him, then one of you two did.”

  Ace didn’t seem perturbed by what she was saying. “It’s a matter of motive. I lose any possibility of getting money for Kendrick Park with Roy’s death, and Eric no longer has a job.”

  When he said no more, Fiona had to think about what he was saying. “You think that I killed the man just to get out of a fishing trip?” She was incredulous.

  “You were awfully unhappy about being there, so maybe you had deeper reasons.”

  At that Fiona looked out the window and tried to judge how fast they were going. At least sixty. If she jumped out of a car going this fast, she’d break every bone in her body.

  With a sigh, she picked up the big silver Thermos at her feet and poured herself a cup of coffee, drank it, then poured Ace one and handed the cup to him. What the hell? she thought as she put her hand on the door latch. If the police were as stupid and as implacable as this man, this was her last night of freedom forever.

  But at Fiona’s first movement, Ace put his hand on her forearm, the empty coffee cup falling to the floor. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Stupider than what’s already happened to me, you mean? Stupider than the last two days? Stupider than—” Breaking off, she put her hand to her forehead. She was still so tired that she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open. In fact, she was dizzy with fatigue. “I, ah …” she began but couldn’t remember what it was that she was going to say. She put her head back and closed her eyes.

  Minutes later, she was vaguely aware of a garish pink motel sign flashing on and off over her head and the car pulling to a halt. She thought that Ace got out, and she even thought that she should try to run for it, but her body wouldn’t move. Instead, she kept her head resting against the back of th
e seat, her body limp with fatigue. Someone could have cut her feet off with a chain saw and she wasn’t sure she’d notice.

  But as though she were in a dream, she seemed to feel strong arms lift her and carry her through a doorway, then place her in the heavenly comfort of a real bed—a bed that didn’t undulate with the whimsy of the waves. As she lay there, sinking even deeper into what was surely more a coma than sleep, she seemed to hear someone stumbling about. Drunk, she thought, then smiled and gave herself up to sleep. She didn’t feel the bed sag as a heavy body got between her and the door.

  A terrific headache woke Fiona. It was that kind of groggy, empty headache brought on by too little food, too little sleep, and too much to drink. With every muscle in her body aching, she swung her legs off the bed and sat up. For a moment she didn’t know where she was and especially not why she was there. She had a vague feeling that something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure what it was. But she was sure it had to do with Kimberly, so she’d better get to work and sort it out.

  A noise behind her made her turn. There was a man sound asleep in the bed beside her. What was Jeremy doing here? she wondered, but as the man turned over, his face toward her, she knew that Jeremy had never had a head of hair that thick in his life. Nor lips that full, or a nose that strong, that aquiline, or—

  “Holy—!” Fiona said aloud as memory came back to her with the force of a tsunami hitting a beach.

  In the next second, she’d grabbed her backpack from the rickety chair by what passed for a desk and she had her hand on the doorknob. But in the following second, a larger, darker hand covered hers.

  “I don’t think you should leave,” Ace said; then he rubbed his hand over his face. “And please don’t hit me or kick me. I’m not in the mood for one of your assaults this morning.”

  “My—” she began, then calmed herself. “You are not my keeper, and you have no right to hold me here.”

  Ace didn’t seem to hear her. Yawning, he stepped back from the door but not far enough to give her space to flee. “You think that diner over there delivers?”

  “How would I know? I was drugged and carried in here against my will, remember? What do you think they give you in this state for kidnapping?”

  “You weren’t drugged, and you weren’t held against your will. You were asleep,” he said without emotion. The truth was, Fiona was beginning to wonder if he had any emotion except anger. “Do you want the bathroom first or me?”

  At that Fiona looked toward the cheap wooden bathroom door speculatively.

  Ace yawned again. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t have a window. I asked for a windowless bathroom.”

  “You’re sick, you know that? And I was drugged; I know the feeling too well.”

  “Oh? Personally, I don’t do drugs, but if you—”

  She didn’t bother to listen to the rest of his sentence but slammed into the bathroom, her pack over her shoulder. Twenty minutes later she emerged, showered and made up.

  “Ah,” Ace said as he looked up at her. “You’re wearing your mask again.” He was sitting on the single chair in the room and looking at a magazine. Lying on the table in front of him was a long piece of what looked to be curtain cord. The moment Fiona saw it, she started backing up. Someone had killed Roy Hudson, and if it wasn’t her, then it could have been him.

  “Look,” she said softly, “maybe we should go to the police. Maybe you should call them now, and—”

  “We’ll go in a while, but if I’ve learned nothing else in the last days, the police don’t give you time to eat, much less shower. I need to be prepared for what’s ahead.”

  When he left the cord where it was, seemingly unaware of its existence, she said, “Sure,” then smiled at him. “You go ahead and shower and shave. I’ll wait for you here.”

  For a moment he blinked at her. “I need to make sure that you don’t run out the door while I shower and …”

  Looking at her, he kept blinking, and it took Fiona a moment to realize that he was perplexed—and embarrassed. How was he going to use the bathroom and shower while keeping watch over her?

  The memory of their shower together came back to her. At the time all she’d thought of was the trauma of Roy’s dead body and Roy’s blood all over her, but now she remembered her nudity and his wet clothes.

  He hadn’t been embarrassed when she was the naked one, but now that the tables were turned, he … What? Thought she would jump on him?

  “Go on, get in the shower. I promise I won’t look.” Her tone was that of a mother talking to a nine-year-old who’d newly turned modest.

  He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then he turned away from the bathroom. Some tough guy, she thought, chuckling to herself.

  “If I let you walk out the door, I’m an accessory to murder,” he said as he walked to the big window and looked out between the drapes.

  “Right, and you have to protect your own skin,” she said.

  “Look,” he said as he dropped the curtain and looked back at her, “I know that right now you want to run, but where would you go? You can’t very well fly back to New York and walk into work tomorrow as though nothing happened. Roy was a prominent man, and his murder will make the news.”

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Probably not,” Ace said as he pulled out a shaving case from his duffel bag. “Come in the bathroom and sit.”

  “I will not—” she began, but then thought, Why not? She went into the bathroom with him and sat on the toilet while he shaved.

  “The way I see it, I’m doing you a favor,” he said, foam on his face, a safety razor at his throat.

  Fiona was looking about the room for something heavy to hit him over the head with. But the room had long ago had everything stolen from it that could be carried away. Maybe the razor would slip …

  “And how are you doing me a favor?” she said. If she could get him to turn his back when he returned to the bedroom, maybe she could hit him with the chair.

  “If you ran, you’d be a fugitive from justice, and—”

  She forgot about killing him. “Justice? You can say that word to me? What do you know about justice? I was taken away from Kimberly to go on a slimy fishing trip, and—”

  “Who is Kimberly?” he asked as he dried his face.

  “Really,” Fiona said with the heaviest sarcasm she could muster. “Bird feathers in your ears and eyes? Do you actually live in America?”

  As he picked up the phone, he gave her a puzzled look, but the next moment he was talking to someone. “Ham and eggs, hash browns, toast, coffee, the works. Yeah, and that too. Sure. You can deliver it to—You don’t deliver? But I’m in the motel just across—Oh, I see.” Ace waited a moment before he spoke again, then he lowered his voice and spoke in honeyed tones. “But couldn’t you make an exception just this once? For me?” He was obviously talking to a woman.

  “I’m going to be ill,” Fiona muttered, then took one long step toward Ace, snatched the phone from his hands, and said into the receiver, “There’s a twenty tip in it for you.”

  “Be there in a tick,” a woman’s voice said; then the phone went silent.

  Fiona dangled the receiver from her fingertips while looking Ace straight in the eyes, an I-told-you-so smile curving her lips. “You’re out of high school now … Ace.” She said his name with contempt. “Not all women are cheerleaders lusting after the football captain.”

  Turning her back on him, she walked away, at least as far as the small room would allow. Truthfully, the longer she spent with this man the more ready she was to turn herself in to the police. Now that she was fully awake, she was thinking of the seriousness of murder and that if she didn’t kill Roy, either this man or the fish cleaner did.

  Or maybe the two men had done it together.

  For a moment neither Fiona nor Ace said a word.

  “Soccer,” Ace said. “I played soccer in high school, not football.”

  Fiona almost said, “So did I,” but sh
e conquered herself. Right now she was concentrating on springing out the door the second the waitress appeared. If she could escape him, maybe the best thing to do would be to turn herself in to protective custody.

  Minutes later there was a knock on the door. After all, how long did it take to fry perfectly good food into the greasy mass that was sloshing about on the tray the woman held out?

  “That’ll be sixteen fifty, plus tip of course,” she said, beaming up at Ace with so much concentration that she didn’t notice Fiona edging toward the door. “I even brought you this morning’s paper. It’s all about those two killers from …”

  She had glanced down at the newspaper, then back up at Ace, but she quickly looked back at the paper again, and her eyes widened. The next instant she looked up and saw Fiona in a position as though she were about to spring.

  With a quick scream of pure terror, the plump waitress dropped the tray and began running across the parking lot to the diner.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Ace said, standing there watching the woman run.

  Stooping, Fiona grabbed the paper.

  It took both of them precious moments to comprehend what they were seeing. Photographs of Ace and Fiona were on the front page, and the headlines said that they were killers on the run. Below their picture was a shot of Eric lying on a hospital bed, one eye swollen shut, his face a mass of bruises, and the caption said he’d been left for dead by Ace and Fiona after the brutal slaying of Roy Hudson.

  Ace grabbed their two bags, the car keys, and as he went out the door, he grabbed Fiona’s arm and pulled her toward the Jeep. Within seconds they were screeching by the windows of the diner. Every patron in the place was standing at the window watching and pointing.

  “Bonnie and Clyde,” Fiona shouted over the sound of the tires tearing out of the parking lot. “I feel like Bonnie and Clyde.”

  “Yeah,” Ace yelled back, “and look how they ended up.”

  Six