High Tide

by Jude Deveraux

  But Jeremy had other ideas. “If you think you’re going to walk out of here and—”

  When Ace turned a face full of rage toward Jeremy, the shorter man halted. “I’m in just the mood to take the head off somebody and if it’s you, so be it,” Ace said softly; then when Jeremy said nothing more, Ace fastened his pack and started for the door.

  But as soon as they were on the porch, Jeremy was with them. “You’re not leaving without me,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Why?” Ace said, looking him up and down. “Concerned for your ladylove? Or do you want a cut of what we find?”

  Before Jeremy could answer, Fiona got between the men. “Don’t take your anger out on him. He was trying to help. Gibby is—”

  “One of the original men who went with your father; that I could guess,” Ace said, then turned to see Lisa emerge from the cabin, a little black nylon pack in her hand. “Neiman Marcus” was written across the top flap.

  “Her mascara,” Fiona said before she could stop herself, then had to look away because she saw just the teeniest bit of a smile at the corners of Ace’s lips.

  “Ace, honey, you’re not going to let her snip at me like that on this whole trip, are you?”

  “Lisa,” Ace said patiently, “you can’t go with us. There are snakes and mosquitoes out there as well as alligators. It’s too dangerous for you.”

  “But not for me?” Fiona asked.

  “But not for her?” Lisa said at the same time.

  At that Ace threw up his hands, then started down the porch steps. “Where are the police when you need them? Why can’t I be arrested and put in a nice safe jail cell?”

  Behind him Gibby chuckled. “I think I’m gonna like this trip better’n the last one.”

  An hour later Fiona wished she’d begged to be allowed to remain at the cabin rather than traipse through a swamp, but she refused to make a complaint. As it was, Lisa was doing enough of that for all of them. And with every word out of Lisa’s perfect little mouth, Fiona smiled a little more inside.

  “You hate her, don’t you?” Jeremy said, moving to walk beside Fiona, dodging plants and constantly looking about for snakes.

  There was something in his tone that made Fiona look at him sharply. He was shorter than she remembered and had he always had that pinched look? Maybe it came from a lifetime spent in front of a computer screen.

  “But you like her,” Fiona said softly. He hadn’t touched her other than to grab her arm since she’d first seen him over an hour ago. Right now it seemed impossible to believe that they had once been lovers.

  “Do you have any idea who her family is?”

  “No. But I take it you do.”

  “She would …” Turning his head away, he looked at Fiona out of the corner of his eye. “She could help me in my career.”

  At that Fiona took a deep breath. “Well, that’s honest. And, you’re right. Even if you were my lawyer and got me off, what would I be but an out-of-work executive? Right?”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite so bluntly, but, Fee, you know that there was nothing set between us. We were just—”

  “You don’t have to tell me that we weren’t in love. I know that now.”

  “Now? Does that mean that you and Montgomery … ?”

  “Nothing has happened between us, if that’s what you mean,” Fiona snapped, then lowered her voice. “We’ve been rather busy these last days, what with trying to find out who killed three people.”

  “Three? My God, Fiona, how deep are you into this?”

  “As deep as I was put into it!” she said, then had to calm herself. “Look, if you want my permission to pursue your cute little”—she sneered the last word as though it were a deformity—“blonde, you have my permission.” A leaf hit at her face, and she swiped it away. “But do you think your little cheerleader is going to want you when she can have a man as rich as I’ve heard … as I’ve heard … Montgomery is?” She couldn’t bear to say his first name. He was now holding Lisa’s perfect little ankle and turning it about in his big hand, checking if her lovely little bones were injured in any way. As for Fiona, she’d stepped wrong on a tree branch half an hour ago and was still limping, but no man was coddling her. Beside her, Jeremy hadn’t even noticed her limp.

  “Their marriage was to be a merger of two family fortunes,” Jeremy was saying, and sounding as though he were quoting someone. “In these past days I’ve come to know Lisa very well. We’ve worked side by side, day after day, and—”

  “Searching for us,” Fiona said, deadpan. “While you were looking for us, trying to prove our innocence, you and Lisa were playing footsie under the table. Or was it in bed?”

  “That’s an example of what’s wrong between us,” Jeremy said. “No matter how bad things are, you always make jokes.”

  Fiona waited for him to finish the sentence, waited for the other shoe to drop. Where was the punch line to that sentence? Wasn’t it good that she was the type of person who could laugh in the face of adversity? One of the things that Ace liked most about her was her ability to laugh no matter what was happening to them.

  Turning, she looked at the head of the line of people and saw Ace helping Lisa over a fallen log.

  “I don’t think he’ll let her go.” She looked back at Jeremy. “And I can’t see that she’d ever choose you over him.”

  Jeremy gave a snort. “Are you kidding? He’s one cold bastard. The only thing he ever thinks about are birds and—Would you mind telling me what is funny about that?”

  She was staring at Ace with Lisa, staring very, very hard.

  “There is nothing wrong with Ace Montgomery,” she said. “Nothing whatever in this world.” With that, she strode forward and got between Gibby and Suzie.

  “So tell me everything,” Fiona said, suddenly wanting to hear something other than Jeremy’s whining and his calculations about his career.

  When Lisa said that she was hungry, Ace motioned everyone to take a break and sit down.

  Fiona dutifully sat by Jeremy, but the minute she saw Ace walk off into the bushes, she was up and after him.

  “A man would like a little privacy,” Ace snapped as he abruptly turned his back on her and fiddled with the front of his trousers.

  She ignored him. “How many have you found?”

  “I think we should return to the others,” he said. “Lisa will be frightened and …”

  “Don’t you give me that, Ace Montgomery!” she snapped, then lowered her voice. “You are a sneaky, conniving bastard, and I know you’re up to something.”

  “Would you believe I came out here to see a bird?” he asked, one side of his mouth curled into a smile.

  “Not even for a blue-eyed blonde sapsucker,” she retorted, and Ace grinned.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said softly.

  It was all Fiona could do to keep from falling into his arms. At the moment all she could remember was their time alone. Why had they argued so much? But then she remembered Lisa and the good humor left her.

  Narrowing her eyes at him, she held out her hand. “Show me.”

  After a look about him to check that they weren’t being watched, and with a chuckle, he handed her two gold nails.

  “How did you know?” he asked.

  “I know you. You’re not one of those Southern gentlemen who helps ladies over fallen logs. You’re more of a Get-offyourrear-and-let’s-do-it sort of guy, so when I saw you helping Lisa, I figured you were up to something, like hiding the fact that you were pulling nails out of trees.”

  “Lisa thinks I’m a gentleman,” Ace said with a bit of a smile.

  “Lisa likes your money, and if you don’t know that, you aren’t the man I thought you were.”

  At that Ace grabbed her, pulled her into his arms, and began kissing her. “I’ve missed you,” he said as he kissed her hair and her eyes. “Do you hate me? I never meant to lie to you, but—”

  “I know,” she whispered as her mouth hungrily
ran over his neck. “I know. You’re sick of women who want you for your money.”

  “I never had a chance with a woman who didn’t know who my family was, and—”

  He didn’t say any more, because his hand was on her breast and moving lower. And Fiona’s knees were giving way as they both began to sink to the ground. Around them were luxurious jungle plants, and overhead the birds called to each other, and Fiona had never wanted anything like she wanted this man. It didn’t matter that there were other people not more than twenty feet away. For all the two of them were aware of other people, they could have been alone on an island.

  But Lisa’s frantic screams brought them back to reality.

  “What now?” Fiona murmured. “She see a spider?”

  But Ace had lifted his head to listen; then in the next second, they heard the unmistakable sound of a shot, followed instantly by another one.

  Fiona started to plow through the brush to go back to camp, but Ace grabbed her arm and led her around, quietly through the plants, so they were entering the camp from a different angle. At one point he halted, put his finger to his lips, then gestured. Fiona stood perfectly still while a snake that had to be forty feet long slowly slithered past them. When it was gone, he motioned to her to continue walking.

  “Poisonous, right?” she whispered.

  “Deadly.”

  “Of course.”

  He broke through the plants, then stood for a moment staring; then, frowning, he turned back to Fiona and shrugged his shoulders in puzzlement. She stepped forward and looked ahead. Jeremy, Suzie, and Gibby were staring down at something on the ground. Lisa was lounging against a tree root looking as though she were about to die.

  “She saw the snake,” Fiona said in disgust.

  “And they shot each other in terror,” Ace added jokingly; then they both smiled.

  Straightening, Ace left the shrubs and walked toward the campers. “I want to know who has a firearm,” he said. “And I want it turned over to me now.”

  Lisa, who moments before looked as though she were dying, leaped up and threw her arms about Ace’s neck. “It was me. I found her. She was … Oh, Ace, honey, it was horrible. I don’t know how I’m going to recover from this. My therapist—”

  Looking up, Ace saw Suzie step back from the little circle, and her hands made a motion that meant, Come and see for yourself.

  And when Suzie stepped back, Fiona could see into the group. There on the ground, wearing men’s overalls and a plaid flannel shirt buttoned up to her neck, was Rose.

  “Not again,” Fiona sighed, hands on hips.

  “What does she mean, ‘Not again’?” Lisa half screamed. “Ace, that woman is dead. Doesn’t she realize that? What is wrong with her?”

  Ace peeled Lisa’s arms from around his neck, then walked to the body. “I guess it’s too late to try to see footprints that we could follow.”

  Fiona didn’t want to think about what the reappearance of Rose’s body meant. They were being watched, being followed. She glanced down at the clothes Rose had been shoved into. “All cotton,” she said. “At least she’s still ‘natural.’”

  At that the fear left Suzie and Ace too, and they began to laugh.

  “You three are sick,” Jeremy said. “You’re really sick. I’m beginning to think that you did kill that nice old man, Roy Hudson.”

  At that Ace spun around and grabbed Jeremy’s shirtfront. Jeremy had discarded his too-hot jacket long ago.

  “That’s right, lawyer, we are all sick. And the person or persons who keep killing everyone involved in this is even sicker. Now, I want you to give me your gun, and do it now.”

  “I live in New York; I have a permit,” Jeremy said, trying to pull himself up to his full height, but the top of his head only touched Ace’s chin.

  “This is not New York, this is my land, and here I’m the king, got it? Give me the gun.”

  Reluctantly, with a face that threatened, but with no words, Jeremy handed Ace the small handgun he had carried inside his coat pocket.

  Ace put the gun in his backpack, then started to put the pack on. “From now on, everyone stays together. There is someone following us, someone ahead of us. Anyone have any questions?”

  “We aren’t going to leave her here, are we?” Lisa asked in a whisper.

  “Would you like to take her back to the cabin?” Ace asked, his eyes cold. “Would you like to move away from the protection of the group and go back there alone? Is that what you want to do?”

  “I don’t see why you have to be so rude about it,” Lisa said, sticking out her lower lip. “Maybe you two are used to seeing murdered people, but Jeremy and I aren’t.”

  At that Ace blinked a couple of times, then looked from Lisa to Jeremy, then to Fiona. And when he looked at Fiona, he gave her a little smile before turning away.

  “I’ll lead because I know where we’re going,” Ace said. “Burke, you stay near me, Suzie behind her, then Lisa and the lawyer. Gibby, you bring up the rear.” He looked at the older man. “How well armed are you?”

  Fiona looked at Gibby. “Two pistols and a knife in his boot,” she said softly.

  The old man smiled at her. “And … ?”

  “I don’t think I’ll tell,” she said, smiling at him.

  Gibby winked at her, then looked at Ace. “I’m armed well enough. Lead on, and, this time, I think you should lead us all the right way.”

  Ace gave him an answering smile before turning away and starting to walk again. Once they were going, Ace said over his shoulder to Fiona, “Get what was left of the papers from her and read them to me.”

  It took Fiona a second to translate his command, but she understood that he wanted the coffee-soaked papers that contained the story of how the lions got to be where they are. When her father had written her the story of Raffles, she had been immobile, so she’d read the story with intense interest. But when he’d sent the story about the golden lions, she’d been in the middle of a soccer tournament and she’d paid little attention to what was on paper, much to the chagrin of her teachers. Therefore, she didn’t remember much of the story.

  Suzie had heard the “command” and she had the papers out and ready.

  “They really are a mess,” Fiona said to Ace, doing her best to stay beside him as they walked. If she weren’t as tall as he was, she’d never manage, and she was tempted to look back to see how short little Lisa was doing, but she restrained herself. Maybe Ace was trying to get rid of them. And maybe he knew that the two of them were the targets of whoever was out there, so he wanted to separate them from the group. So we can be shot first, she thought with a gulp.

  “Well?” Ace snapped when she was silent for so long.

  “It’s difficult to make out,” she said. “There are just phrases, parts of sentences that I can read. But here goes. ‘Weather thick and foggy; two days later fog lifted; land straight ahead, black towering cliff face four hundred feet tall. Wind dropped; eerie calm descended; ship drifted toward cliff with everyone knowing it was going to crash. But cliffs seemed to …’ I can’t read this. ‘They … opened up,’ I think it says. Yes. ‘The cliffs opened up as they approached their doom. Something, something. Ship drifted into cavern in rocks until mainmast ground against cave roof and ship wedged. Something … Ship sank before dawn.’

  “There’s a lot of missing text here. Someone, I can’t read the name, was planning to seize the ship, but it wrecked before he could take over. After the wreck, he grabbed jewels and took command of the island. This is funny and I remember this. This horrible man dressed in scarlet robes from fabric from the wreck. He was violent and autocratic. Killed one hundred twenty-five survivors, including women and children, and made Lucinda his mistress.”

  She looked up from the torn, stained papers. “Even in the original there was no explanation of who Lucinda was, but at the time I remember imagining how beautiful she was. I thought …” A look from Ace made her look back at the papers.

 
; “Let’s see … Another man on the island, Williams, had forty followers and was able to repulse two attacks. He finally made a surprise attack and took … I can’t read the name.

  “Anyway, he took the bad guy prisoner. Then there’s a lot missing here, but it seems that the captain of the ship and forty-five others had sailed for help and had returned, and when they got back, the bad guy, along with his henchmen, surrendered and were taken back to … wherever the ship came from and hanged.” Fiona began to riffle through the pages.

  “Let’s see … These other pages—oh, I see, they’re the middle of the story. Everything is out of order. There’s a long description of what the people went through while they were stranded on the island. I can only make out phrases.

  “‘… drunk off of salvaged bottles of muscatel, ate cheeses and olives … built a camp of huts with palm-leaf roofs, decorated with Flanders tapestries … Apes on island, stole their food. They …’”

  Fiona held the papers up and twisted them about. “ ‘They shot some …’ I guess they shot the monkeys, but the flesh was nasty tasting … Oh! This is interesting. The island wasn’t uninhabited as some of the sailors seem to have been eaten by natives. What else? ‘They … created saws out of swords.’ That sounds sensible. And … yes, ‘They killed a fifteen-foot crocodile, roasted it and ate it.’ I think it says that the meat was very good.”

  “It is,” Ace said succinctly. “What else?”

  “‘They … met …’ I can’t make it out. Oh, yes. ‘They met the local king, gave him gifts of textiles, glass goblets, mirrors … and …’ No, I can’t make it out.

  “That’s all I can read except …” Fiona smiled. “I think it says that Sophia fell into a succession of fainting fits.”

  “All that is very interesting,” Ace said, “but what about the lions?”

  “Either the part about them is on the coffee-soaked pages and I can’t read it, or this story doesn’t match the map that was sent that year.”