Heavenly Stranger

by Tina Wainscott

  Patrick ran his hand through his hair and studied the boat. “Then why are you still here?”

  “I’m leaving tonight.”

  Perhaps he saw the loss and betrayal on her expression because the hardness on his face slipped away. She couldn’t hold up to his scrutiny any longer. She walked to Salty’s and wondered where Chase was hiding. “Give me a beer,” she asked Lila. “I need one.”

  “That beer was a bad idea,” Maddie mumbled as they readied the boat that night.

  “How many did you have?” Chase asked.

  “Just the one. I was tense after talking to Patrick, and once I got past the first few sips, I felt better.”

  “Beer buzz,” he said.

  “Then I was afraid to come back to the boat right away in case Patrick was watching.”

  “You were drinking a beer while I was crammed beneath the couch cushion.”

  “I would have rather been under the cushion with you.”

  They traded a grin and climbed on the boat. As soon as it had gotten dark, Chase had come out with a cap and shades and joined Maddie at Salty’s. They’d cleared taking the boat out with Lila and had something to eat at the end of one of the darkened docks.

  They could hear the music and conversation going on at Salty’s, but the north side of the dock was quiet. On a nearby yacht, Maddie heard the tinkle of ice against glass. Two people were sitting in the dark on the stern enjoying the warm night air.

  As he moved soundlessly over the deck, she searched the shadowed nooks and crannies of the marina for signs of Patrick. He could be anywhere, and she’d never see him. She breathed easier once they motored out of the harbor. After they cleared the moored boats, Chase raised the sails. That’s when she saw his face relax, even though he was studying the way the sails moved, adjusting here and there.

  “You still have a love for sailing,” she said, holding onto the huge steering wheel exactly as he’d instructed.

  “Just being out here makes me feel…whole.”

  She sighed, though he couldn’t hear it. He was destined to be a sailor, and there was nothing she could do about it. Barnie had told her that sailing never leaves a man, nor does his love for the sea. He’d stopped sailing after a near-fatal accident, but he’d continued to live on his boat.

  She looked ahead as they sailed into the darkness. Chase climbed across the deck to the stern and stood behind her. His arms around her made everything in the world okay, at least for a few minutes.

  “It’s different than being out on a motorboat,” she said. “So quiet.”

  “Nothing in the world like it.”

  He stayed with her like that, the front of his body pressed up against her backside, his hands on the wheel. Similar to the way Wayne held her when he’d sped across the dark Gulf. And yet, so different, because she wasn’t petrified and pretending to enjoy herself.

  “Ready?” he asked at last.

  “I guess.” Okay, maybe she was petrified, but for a different reason.

  “Don’t look so grim. This was your idea.”

  “I know. And your memories are going to free you, I know it.”

  But he still didn’t let go for a few more minutes. Lila had said he wasn’t much of a hugger, and yet, Chase had held her several times like this. She’d also said that he was a pretty good kisser, quick and intense. With Maddie, he was slow and intense, turning kissing into lovemaking. And he wasn’t just pretty good, he was fantastic, which could only be because she and Chase were meant to kiss.

  When they parted so he could set the autopilot, cool air swept up her back and made her acutely aware of his absence.

  “There’s not much wind tonight,” she said.

  “Tropical storm’s sucked most of it down south.”

  “Storm?”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s not coming here tonight.” His humor quickly faded when he said, “All right. Let’s do it.”

  He searched the deck for the right placement. “I was here. No, here. I can remember seeing the chainplate over there.” He turned, checked his memory, then turned again. His hair whipped around his face in the wind. “Now I know why I kept my hair short.”

  “I like it long.” The lights on deck cast him in elegant shadows, carving out his features. “But I suppose it’s not practical for sailing.”

  He lifted his head and concentrated on something she couldn’t see. Then he jumped up to adjust the jib before returning to his position. “What I remember is fighting with someone here.” He lifted his arms in a fight stance, acting out the maneuvers. Maddie walked closer now, ready for her role as Julie.

  “Me?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see who I’m fighting, but they’re strong.”

  “She was taking karate lessons. Which makes me wonder why she didn’t fight you better. Unless she pushed you overboard.”

  “But I remember her falling.”

  Maddie moved up in front of him. “Let’s say you were fighting me. How were you holding me? What were we doing?”

  He fit his hands over her forearms and shifted her to the side. His eyes were closed as he tried to put the pieces together. “It was raining.”

  “You remember?”

  “I can see rain, swells moving the boat. Julie was here, maybe.” He moved her to the right. “I was struggling with her here, and then all of a sudden I was going overboard.”

  “How’d you go overboard? Did someone push you?”

  “Don’t know.” His face was a study in concentration. “It’s all kind of jumbled together.”

  “Go back to when you saw her fall. Where?” Maddie readied herself to portray the fall.

  He studied the deck. “Right there.”

  She laid herself out. “Here?”

  “Yeah, exactly.”

  Not a comfortable position to say the least. “And where were you?”

  “Came from here.” Chase studied his position again. “I could see the lines there.”

  “But how could you push her from over there?”

  He worked through the sequence of events. “I told you, it’s all jumbled together.”

  She got to her feet. “Someone else was here, Chase. That’s the only explanation. You weren’t sailing the boat. You never sailed when you were drunk, you came on board to crash, and someone took the boat out. If Julie didn’t know how to sail, she was with someone who did. Patrick?”

  He was still measuring out distances in his mind.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What perfect justice to frame you.”

  As the boat moved over a gentle swell, something thumped inside the cabin. Chase watched the tinted door of the companionway, then mouthed, “Somebody’s down there.”

  “Patrick,” she whispered, moving into his arms. “He was here earlier.”

  “And he’s heard everything we’ve said. We don’t want him to think we suspect him. Just in case…” Maddie knew he was remembering Patrick’s murderous rage at their first meeting.

  Chase moved away and said in a normal voice, “Maddie, I remember. I can see who it was. It’s not Patrick.”

  Patrick watched Shades of Heaven sail into the night. Keeping an eye on Maddie was a good idea. He knew she was lying. For some reason, she’d made Chase her cause, and she’d do anything to protect the son-of-a-bitch. He knew that kind of blind devotion well.

  Luckily, he wasn’t that blind where his brother was concerned. Chase had stabbed him in the back, then killed Julie. Not that he’d intended to murder her. Chase wasn’t a killer. When Chase had asked if there was enough hatred between them to inspire him to steal Julie away, it made him think. No, there hadn’t been. In fact, most of the animosity between them was on Patrick’s side. But he couldn’t refute the evidence, both that Chase had killed Julie and that he was going on the run. Someone had to pay for her murder.

  He headed toward his Mercedes. As he turned the corner, he bumped into Lila.

  “Patrick? What a surprise seeing you here.”

&n
bsp; “Great, another Chase groupie. Excuse me.”

  She’d protested his innocence at Chase’s funeral, which Patrick had been ordered to attend. And for nothing, since he wasn’t even dead. Well, he wasn’t going to get away with murder anymore.

  “Wait a minute!” Lila ran to catch up to him. “What are you doing here?”

  In the distant lights from the parking lot, Lila looked as beautiful as she had the first time he’d seen her at a picnic. Then her father had brought Chase over, and that was that.

  “Afraid I’m going to turn your former husband in? You can’t keep covering for him, Lila. How many times was he there for you when you needed him?” This wasn’t what he wanted to say to her. She wasn’t the issue here, Chase was. Turning Chase in.

  The shadow of pain flashed over her features, but instead of retaliating, she reached for his arm. Just the feel of her touch diffused his anger. “Patrick, I wanted to tell you how sorry I was about…what happened. At the funeral, I wanted to come over, but you looked at me like you hated me. What did you just call me? A Chase groupie?”

  “Isn’t it true?” He hated the thickness in his voice and the way he couldn’t break free from her hold.

  “I’ll always love Chase, if that’s what you mean. I know you two have had your differences—” As he was going to say something, she put her finger over his mouth. She smelled like gin and lime. “But I want you to listen to me. Your hatred is coloring everything, which is understandable. Listen to your heart, not your head.” She placed her hand over his heart, and he could feel her heat right through his shirt. “Chase wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. If I thought that, I’d let you call the police right now. If you can’t believe him, will you believe me? He’s not running. He’s trying to find the truth. I think that’s what you want, too.”

  “Yes, that’s what I want.”

  She tugged on his arm. “Please, Patrick? Can we talk?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Maddie and Chase watched the companionway door slowly open. The silver hair wasn’t what she’d expected, nor was Allister’s grim face

  “So, you know then,” he said, climbing out of the companionway.

  Her mind scrambled as she put his words together. “You?”

  It was as though all his strength had been drained with those four words. Allister dropped to the deck with a sigh. “It was an accident, Chase, you have to believe that. I didn’t mean to…kill her.”

  Chase sank down next to him, though Maddie suspected it was probably because his legs wouldn’t hold him. “What are you talking about?”

  Maddie sat down next to Chase and grabbed his hand.

  Allister took out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. He searched for a lighter but found none. “You don’t remember what happened?”

  Chase shook his head. “We heard someone down below and thought it was Patrick. I didn’t want him to know we suspected him, so I pretended to think it was someone else.”

  “And made me think you’d remembered. If only I’d stayed below…” Allister said in defeat. “Let me explain before you make any judgments. One of my bodyguards was about to pick you up on the way to the police.” He still gave his son a reprimanding look. “Which would have complicated matters. Then Maddie cut him off and got to you first. At least she talked sense into you. My boy kept an eye on you because I didn’t want you going to the police again. He reported that Maddie was readying this boat. And I thought, what if you go out on the boat and remember what happened? It’s something I’ve been afraid of since you returned. So, I came aboard before you returned to the boat and hid in the aft berth.”

  Chase squeezed her hand. “Why?”

  “Why did I kill her? Or why did I let you take the blame for it?”

  “Both are a good start.”

  “You think I’m a terrible person, but you don’t know everything. Julie came onto me like a dog in heat. I turned her away at first. I would never hurt my sons. Never. But it had been a long time since…well, since a woman had come onto me like that. She said all the right things. I thought, once, and that would be it. But then it became a regular thing, every Tuesday night.”

  Maddie watched Chase’s expression. For a moment, there was relief that he hadn’t done this terrible thing. But his father had, and that was almost as bad.

  “Why my boat?” Chase asked in a dead voice.

  “Her idea. She said she loved sailing, and Patrick wouldn’t take her out on a sailboat. You’re the only one in the family with one.”

  “She hated sailing!” Maddie interjected.

  “Her intention wasn’t to go sailing with me. It was to kill me.”

  She had to grab a breath after that statement. She heard Chase inhale deeply as well. The boat glided through the night, and for a moment, the only sound was waves splashing against the hull.

  “That can’t be true,” Chase said.

  “Preposterous, isn’t it? We’d gone out once before, and she was antsy to go again. I’m not that good with a sailboat anymore, but I can manage one if properly persuaded. She was very persuasive. Manipulative I believe I told you. It was cloudy that night, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. So, we took your boat out. Obviously, we didn’t know you were below. We got a few miles out, dropped the sails, and she laid out a picnic on the aft deck. I’m not a big wine drinker, but she insisted I have a glass. I didn’t like the taste of it, but there she was begging me to loosen up and drink with her. I didn’t want to drink because the last time I had a few drinks…” His face reddened. “Nothing happened. I couldn’t face that failure again, so I dumped out some of the wine when she wasn’t looking. Whatever she put in the wine still got to me.”

  “She drugged it?” Maddie asked.

  “I’m sure she did. Later, she wanted to dance. It started to rain, but she didn’t care. I didn’t want to seem like an old fuddy-duddy, so I went along instead of insisting we go below.”

  Maddie could relate to that.

  “The boat took a big swell, gliding over it and dropping suddenly. That’s when she kicked me, one of those fancy kicks you see in Jackie Chan movies. I wasn’t expecting it, and she nearly sent me overboard. I was feeling sluggish, not reacting well. I dropped down to my knees.”

  “The karate lessons,” Maddie said.

  Chase brushed his hair back from his face. “But why kill you?”

  “Her devotion to Patrick. He must have told her I held him back, because she started yelling how I’d stifled him, how he’d never get anywhere under my thumb. It was then I could see how much she loved him. She had no interest in me, other than to get rid of me. Then Patrick would be in charge of Augustine Aero and inherit my money.”

  “Was Patrick involved?” Chase asked, then added, “If this is even true.”

  “She denied he was, said I had him too beaten to even talk back to me, much less kill me. Said she was strong enough for both of them.”

  “Julie tried to kick you overboard…” Chase said.

  “I fought her, of course. She thought I’d consumed more of the wine than I did. But my reactions were still slow. We struggled, though she had some vicious kicks.”

  “And broke your rib,” Chase said.

  “Yeah, she did that. You have to understand I was in shock, but I was holding my own. That’s when you came up on deck. I could see it in your eyes, that you were drunk, and you thought I was hurting her. She played it up, pleading for you to help her, said I was raping her. Your face transformed from disbelief to rage, and you rushed me. I couldn’t get the words out fast enough, the truth, before we were the ones struggling. I shoved her, hoping to send her over the side, but she fell on the deck.

  “She hit her head, but it only dazed her. She got to her feet, and then I couldn’t see her. But I knew she was now in control. I imagine she thought it was the perfect opportunity: get rid of both of us so Patrick would inherit everything. If she was resigned to murder one person, another wasn’t going to make much of a difference. So
, as you pulled me to my feet, she shoved you over the side. You didn’t have a chance. You weren’t expecting it and you were drunk. I tried to grab for you…”

  Allister’s face had gone white as he remembered, sinking back into moments that were obviously terrifying. His trembling hands gestured as he spoke, as though he were still trying to grab Chase. “But I couldn’t. It started raining. I tried to turn the boat around and look for you, but Julie came at me again. The next thing I knew, I had my hands around her throat. My fingers were locked around her throat, not even attached to me, not listening to my mind telling them to let go.

  “She scratched and kicked; it was all slow motion. And then it was over. I staggered back, thinking she was only passed out, and tried to find you. I looked, Chase. But I lost my bearings, and it was dark, so dark, and I couldn’t hear even if you had called out.” He wiped his face, now covered in a damp sheen of sweat. “I kept circling, but I had no idea where you’d gone in. An hour went by, me circling, not seeing anything. I shined the spotlight around, but…nothing. I had to assume you were gone. That you’d drowned.”

  “No wonder you looked like you saw a ghost when I walked into your office.”

  Allister reached out to Chase, taking his face in his hands. “I was happy, so happy you were alive. But I didn’t know what you remembered.”

  Chase removed himself from his father’s grip. “How did Julie end up in the water?”

  “Once I realized—thought—you were dead, I turned back to Julie. She was still lying there. When I felt for a pulse, I realized…I’d killed her. But who was going to believe me? I felt like an impotent old man. I couldn’t save you. And she was going to win anyway.”

  “What about the tainted wine?” Maddie asked. “Wouldn’t that be proof?”

  “All spilled and washed away by then. What I couldn’t figure out is how she intended to get the boat back after I was dead. Something else that made me look suspicious.”

  Maddie snapped her finger. “Brian taught her! Sally said her former boyfriend taught her some sailing, though she didn’t like it. Maybe it would have been enough to get her back to the harbor.” Both men looked impressed, and she shrugged. “I’ve been doing a lot of snooping.”