Bougainvillea

by Heather Graham

  “You’ve come. You’ve come to say goodbye.”

  Kit was startled to realize it was the truth. She loved David. She didn’t want to leave him, and she didn’t exactly intend to do so. But she was going to leave, with Jen, tomorrow. David could come to Chicago if he wanted. They could talk there.

  He would come, she thought, if he really loved her.

  “Mary, I am leaving,” she said softly. “But I’ll come back. I wish you could help me. Marina was seeing someone. You knew who it was.”

  Mary squeezed her hand. “Mark loves you. I know that you broke it off with Seamus when he married you. What I don’t know is why you ever cheated on him again. Kaitlin hates you, seriously hates you, you know. She knows the baby is her half sister.”

  A lump formed in Kit’s throat. “Mary, did Kaitlin kill my mother?”

  “Marina, Lenore is dangerous, too. She’s afraid that her own boy will be left out.”

  “It’s all right, Mary.”

  “I heard the screaming. I thought it was the parrots. You were crying out for help, and I knew it. David came. He was supposed to be away at school, but he came.”

  Her heart froze. A sense of illness swept through her.

  Suddenly, Mary’s hand curled tightly around hers. “Josh…they were all there. If only…you could have been helped. If I had known. I thought it was the parrots…only later.” Mary suddenly looked really distressed. “You’ve got to go! Now. Tonight.”

  Kit felt a chill invade her as never before. She tried to remain calm. “I’m going, Mary,” she said softly. “I’ll be safe, I promise.”

  She remained calm and easy as she kissed the old woman, and then slipped out, speaking lightly to Alicia in the living room of the cottage before hurrying out the door.

  She realized she didn’t have a cent on her. There was only one thing to do. Run to the Callahans’ house, borrow some money, call the police and get away.

  She knew there was nothing she could prove to the police. But it didn’t matter. She just needed to get away from Bougainvillea—before she followed her mother’s footsteps to a watery grave.

  The compound lights were dim, but she realized that she would be well enough illuminated on the tile path around the lagoon. She kept to the bushes, hiding in the shadows.

  It seemed to take her forever to get around the little inlet. At last, she reached the foliage.

  “Kit!”

  David was out on the path, calling her name.

  She hunched down into the foliage until he walked by. Then she spurted through the path.

  Seconds later, she came to the little pet cemetery. In the dim light here, the markers seemed as eerie as death itself. There was the lump in the ground where poor Whitney had so recently been buried.

  She fell dead still suddenly, aware that the bushes were moving to her side.

  “Kit!”

  Her name was being called. She knew the voice. It was Josh. She was startled by the overwhelming sense of fear that streaked through her like lightning.

  What the hell was he doing in the bushes?

  Her mind raced. Had he simply called her name? Or whispered it softly? She was afraid for him to find her here. Alone.

  She inched slowly toward the farside of the burial area.

  “Kit!” It seemed that Josh lunged out of the bushes, rushing for her. Shadows surrounded him. She couldn’t see his face, and the terror remained with her. Panicking, she looked around and noted the spade he had so recently used to dig Whitney’s grave. She grabbed it and clanged him on the head as he neared her. Regardless of the noise she made, she ran pell-mell down the path toward the Callahan residence, leaping the gate like a professional vaulter.

  A few minutes later, she reached the Callahan house and began pounding on the door. To her dismay, no one answered. “It’s Kit!” she called. “Please, help me!”

  “Kit?”

  She turned around. Martin Callahan was coming up the walk, his keys in his hand.

  “Help me,” she said frantically. “I need the police!”

  “Of course,” he said, frowning. “We’ll get into the house. Eli will be back shortly. He’s a cop. He’ll help.”

  He opened the door and ushered her in, looking anxiously around the house as he closed and locked the door. He propelled her toward the dining room and pulled out a chair for her. “I’ll get you a brandy. Then you can tell me what’s happened.”

  He came back a second later, offering her a snifter. “I don’t need a drink,” she murmured.

  “A good jolt will help you. Swallow it, now.”

  What the hell? she thought. It couldn’t hurt. She swallowed the brandy down, and was glad of the warming tingle that touched her throat. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “My mother was definitely murdered. And Mary knows a great deal that everyone ignores, assuming that she’s senile.”

  “Ah!” Martin said. “Well, it was always a sad, confused lot over there. Seamus was, in his younger years, quite a ladies’ man. And then your mother came into the picture, and seduced everyone. You know, I believe she was actually evil.”

  Kit frowned. She started to protest, but felt strange when she opened her mouth. “No, she wasn’t evil. Just wild and immature,” Kit managed to say at last. It felt as if she was slurring her words. “She saw someone that night.”

  “Yes, well, she was always seeing someone.”

  Kit licked her lips, feeling incredibly odd. “Um… where did Eli go?”

  “He’ll be back.”

  Martin was just staring at her. She blinked, trying to keep her eyes open.

  Martin smiled suddenly. “You wanted to know,” he said softly. “Well…now you do.”

  “Know…what?”

  “How your mother died.”

  At first, his words didn’t register, didn’t really make sense. Then she knew. She had been drugged.

  “You!” she whispered. And then, incredulous and confused, “Why?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He rose, coming over to her. He gripped her face, trying to study her eyes.

  “No!” she screamed with the energy and fury she could muster. “No!”

  “Yep, it’s time.”

  He pulled back the chair. She nearly fell but then he bent over, sweeping her into his arms.

  She tried desperately to push away from him.

  But he was strong, far stronger than she might have imagined. His left arm came around her. She still had some strength in her limbs. She scratched and clawed and fought desperately, her hands flailing ridiculously.

  Martin Callahan! It was impossible. Why?

  “I could have left you alone, except…you were so determined. I’m so sorry. Quit struggling. It will be easier.”

  She couldn’t quit struggling. He meant to kill her. But the sickly sweet sensation filling her limbs until they were all but useless caused her head to spin as well.

  “Why?” she tried to gasp out.

  “Why?” he said curtly. “The bitch was sleeping with my son. Seducing a seventeen-year-old boy. She deserved to die, not run off and have a happy life with Mark.”

  “I…I would have never found out,” she whispered.

  “Yes, eventually, Mary would have given you names. I’m afraid I can’t take any more chances with Mary, either.”

  “Eli…Shelley…will be back.”

  “Oh, no, they won’t. Your husband called in a panic. They’re all searching for you.”

  She was about to lose consciousness. Kit held her breath, and pretended to go entirely limp.

  He carried her from the house.

  She continued to fight inwardly, a truly desperate battle to remain conscious.

  * * *

  David would never know exactly why such a deep sense of panic had filled him.

  Well, hell, why not? Far too much was out in the open.

  Once he had ascertained she wasn’t at the main house with Jen, he ran to Mary’s cabin. Lenore called over to the
Callahan house while Jen and Eli headed out together, ready to search the estate with flashlights while he went to Mary’s. But when he reached the old woman’s cottage, Alicia told him that Kit had already left.

  David headed back to the cottage for a flashlight. Thor started barking, trying to follow him when he was stepping out. He hesitated. Thor cocked his head expectantly at David, wagged his tail, and whined.

  “Oh, all right. Come on!”

  With Thor on his heels, he raced out, heading first toward the pet cemetery, thinking that might be a place she would go to find solitude and nurse her wounds. There, by Whitney’s grave. He heard a rustling in the brush, even before he got the light on.

  “Kit? Who the hell is there?” he demanded.

  He heard a moaning. Thor rushed on through the foliage and started barking. David followed the sound and came upon Josh, trying to sit up in the bushes.

  “What happened?” David demanded tersely, hunkering down beside him.

  “She creamed me!”

  “Kit?”

  “She’s scared, really scared. I was just trying to talk to her, and she walloped me with the shovel.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s Jen?”

  “Running around lost somewhere.”

  David set a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got to keep looking for Kit, Josh. Can you make it to the house?”

  “Hell, yes. Go!” Josh looked at David, shaking his head. “It’s happening again—go!”

  David did. He ran through the bushes, thinking she might have headed for the Callahan property. Except that Lenore had called over there.

  He leaped the gate and was amazed to realize that Thor did so behind him. He saw the house ahead of him. It was dark. He ran up the steps and banged at the door. No answer.

  But he noted the porch. There were strange marks on the wood floor. It looked as if something—someone—had been dragged across it.

  David followed the marks, frowning. Then continued through the high grass, and back toward Delaney property. He started to run again, Thor at his heels.

  * * *

  Kit heard water lapping against the boat. Despite her best efforts, she had blacked out.

  But she wasn’t dead.

  Not yet.

  She swallowed hard, trying to ascertain exactly where she was. A dinghy, she thought. She was in one of the little boats kept down at the dock. She’d been thrown to the bottom of it. The rhythmic sound she was hearing, along with the slap of the water, was Martin rowing.

  Somehow, he knew that she had come to. “Just like your mother, Kit. You wanted to know so much. Well, now you do. You’ll know every single second. You shouldn’t have been so nosy, huh?”

  Her mouth felt as if it weighed a million pounds. She couldn’t quite work it.

  “Your son is a cop,” she managed to say at last. She doubted if he could hear her. She could barely gasp.

  “Thanks to me. She would have destroyed him.”

  “They’ll know the truth now.”

  “How? I’ll return the dinghy. They can all accuse one another. After that display this afternoon, it would be easy to convince almost anyone that you killed yourself—I mean, you have one major fucked-up family, don’t you think? This is far enough,” he said, interrupting his own enjoyment of his subtle humor.

  She felt him moving toward her, trying to grapple her up in his arms. She managed to claw her fingernails hard against his arm.

  She could swim. Like her mother, she could swim.

  Except that she couldn’t move her limbs. She had to stay aboard the dinghy, somehow. Once she went over, she was dead.

  Like her mother, she would drown.

  He had her. Had a good grip on her. He was swearing about the scratches she had caused, but still, he had his grip.

  Then, the boat began to sway. At first, it appeared that the creature from the black lagoon was rising from the darkness of the sea. Then she heard a voice.

  David.

  “Martin! Let her go, now, this instant!”

  Martin dropped her. She hit the bottom of the boat hard because Martin had turned, swearing, grabbing up one of the oars to slam against David’s rising head.

  She heard a sickening thudding sound and her heart sank, and she couldn’t help but wonder if her mother had thought about the man who had really loved her, her husband, right before she had died.

  “And now…!”

  Arms gripped her again around the waist. She kept trying to struggle. She was dragged over the edge of the dinghy this time. But before her weight could pull her over, a counter pull from the other side of the dinghy righted it.

  Martin didn’t have time to reach for an oar. David was aboard and the two of them were caught in a power struggle. The little dinghy began to rock.

  With all her strength, Kit fought to kick out. Her right heel caught Martin hard, in the ankle.

  He turned. David swung.

  She was aware of another shift of weight, and a sickening, smacking sound, before the dinghy tipped over completely and she was cast into the murky depths.

  She began to sink, lower and lower. Seaweed trailed over her face. Her lungs hurt, blackness and stars alternated in her vision.

  Marina! she thought, vaguely wondering if her mother could come to her somehow, take her hand as she perished within the sea.

  Then something reached out. A hand. For a moment, delusional, she thought that her mother had come.

  She was pulled hard. She found some strength in her limbs again, and managed a feeble kick.

  Moments later, she burst through the surface, gasping, choking, coughing, gasping some more. She was being towed in the water with a firm grip at her nape, and she heard David shouting, “Here, over here!”

  A motor roared, then died, and a boat was next to them again. Someone pulled her aboard. Kaitlin stared down at her anxiously. “Get her up quickly, quickly!” It was Michael speaking. “Jesus, is she breathing?”

  She was. David pushed her, Michael lifted her. Lenore wrapped her in a blanket. She was held then, in the blanket, warmed. “Forgive me!” she heard, and she was aware of Seamus there, as well.

  Her eyes closed.

  “Brandy. Get some of the brandy into her!” Lenore cried.

  “No!”

  She coughed, breathed in a deep breath, and found some of her own strength.

  “Coffee, give her the coffee,” David said, and then, dripping wet, he was taking her from Seamus’s hold, bringing a plastic thermal coffee cup to her lips and forcing her to drink. She stared into his eyes, dark and intent, and realized that it was her turn, that they all had their fears and their doubts, and definitely their sins.

  “Forgive me!” she said softly to David. “I was afraid…of you. Afraid to trust that you really loved me. Afraid to believe that I wasn’t a fool to be so much in love with you.”

  “Just live!” he told her. And the slow, rueful smile that had first won her heart curled into his lips. “Just live. With me. Forever.”

  His arms wrapped around her.

  And no matter what lay ahead now, she could brave it.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  As it turned out, Bougainvillea was Paradise.

  Kit and David had gone away at first. For a long and extended vacation in Aspen, Colorado.

  But then, they had come home.

  And to Kit’s amazement, everything had changed.

  She had a family again. A family she wanted.

  Lenore and Michael were going to leave shortly for the long voyage he had always wanted to take, sailing romantically through the Caribbean.

  Kaitlin had been planning on leaving after that awful day on the beach, but Kit had managed to change her mind. It had helped that Kaitlin had burst into tears the night of her rescue, swearing that she had never believed that Marina had been murdered, or that anything could happen to Kit. The next day, she, Josh, and Kaitlin, all half siblin
gs, had finally talked about their situation.

  They were definitely on the raw edge of dysfunctional. But then, Kit figured, such was life for many people those days.

  Kaitlin needed to plunge into the business more. She knew it as well or better than either David, Josh, and maybe even Seamus.

  Mary was never going to believe that Kit was anyone but Marina. That was okay. As long as she could be assured that Marina was right there, she was fine.

  Eli and Shelley had been in shock as well. It was Martin’s body that washed up on the beach that time.

  Shelley had thought that they could never be friends again. Kit had assured her that they could.

  And Eli, well, Kit knew he was going to have to learn to live with it all. Plus, Jen was crazy about him and was ready to stand by him, and in time…

  It came down to Bougainvillea.

  Their first day back, David had reminded her that they could move. He’d be more than willing to quit Sea Life altogether and move to another state.

  But Kit didn’t want to leave. She wanted to know Kaitlin and Josh better.

  And even Seamus.

  She had point-blank told him that she would never consider him to be her father. But he could remain an uncle, and as such, she enjoyed him, and even loved him.

  They could make it.

  She could make it.

  Mostly because of David, of course. It didn’t matter if they did move, or didn’t move. As long as they were together.

  And there was Thor, of course. David told her that he’d never had realized that Martin was dragging her out on one of the boats if the puppy hadn’t followed the trail so certainly.

  And so…

  Bougainvillea.

  It was her home.

  On her first morning home, she knew it for certain.

  She woke up in her husband’s arms, seeing the sun rise through the windows that looked out on the lagoon. She felt his eyes on her, and knew that look in them, and smiled, rolling into his arms. He reached out and his fingers moved against her flesh lazily, evocatively. His whisper was warm against her cheek.

  “Welcome home, again,” he said softly.

  “Umm.” She snuggled against him, then moved her toes against his inner legs, higher, higher. “Home, huh?”