Butterfly Cove

by Christina Skye

  “Tell me about it,” Rafe muttered.

  “But let’s forget about all that and enjoy each moment. If people have problems with us being together, then screw them.” Olivia swallowed. “Did I just say that?” She looked off into the distance and smiled slowly. “I did. I just said that. And it felt really good.”

  Rafe slid his hand onto hers. “It sounded good to me, too. Just so it’s on the table, I want a future with you, Olivia. It may not be neat and tidy and it may take us a while to figure out how we’re going to manage it, but that’s my game plan right now. A future. The one we’ve waited for for too long.”

  Olivia gripped his hand back. Because his touch was hard and strong, she faced a subject that she had been trying to avoid. “This boat of my father’s. You’re pretty sure it’s important because he didn’t tell anyone about it. And that means...he was trying to hide something there. That’s why you want to go along with me, in case there’s a problem.” She forced out each sentence, feeling a little dizzy, as if she was standing at the edge of a gorge and the land was falling away in front of her.

  And she couldn’t go back.

  Rafe didn’t answer. That told Olivia that she was right about the boat. “Okay. I’m ready for whatever we find. I think.”

  Rafe muttered something under his breath. Olivia thought it sounded angry, but she knew it wasn’t aimed at her. “Aren’t you going to knit? Jilly said you always knit.”

  Olivia didn’t move. “Not today.”

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER they reached the address Martin Eaglewood had emailed Olivia. The dock was small, at the end of a nondescript little town. An unpainted pier ran down to a small cove with a dozen cars parked in the facing lot. A small trailer doubled as an office.

  “This is it?” Olivia frowned. This wasn’t her father’s style at all. He liked luxury and brand names in everything he did. Status was crucial to him, and this place was depressing.

  She started to get out, but Rafe put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go get the key, Livie. Then we’ll check out the boat together.”

  “But how can you get the key? I’m his daughter. Why would they give it to a stranger?”

  “Because I’ll explain that I’m a deputy with the Summer Island police and that I’m investigating a possible felony committed on the property.” Rafe flashed his badge. “This opens a whole lot of doors.”

  “And you think there really was a felony committed here?”

  “At the moment, I have no expectation of anything. I’m just doing what it takes to get us in and out fast.”

  Spoken like a seasoned soldier, Olivia thought. And she was glad to have him watching her back. “Okay. I’ll wait for you. Just—don’t take too long.” Because she realized she might be losing her nerve.

  * * *

  RAFE WAS BACK in less than five minutes carrying a diagram that showed the location of every boat. As he walked beside Olivia, he kept his arm around her waist.

  Comfort and reassurance, she realized. And she was intensely thankful for both.

  When they came to the center of the dock, Olivia glanced down at the map and then up at the gray forty-foot boat docked before them. “This one?”

  “That’s the number. Your father had rented it for the past six years.”

  It looked unpainted. The deck was empty and the small windows were coated with grime.

  No status at all. Somehow Olivia couldn’t imagine her father ever putting foot on that deck.

  “I’m ready. Let’s go see what we can find.”

  Rafe moved ahead of her onto the deck. Olivia realized he was careful to stay in front of her.

  She had a sudden awful thought. “There couldn’t be a dead body or anything here, right? I mean—bodies go bad. It would...smell or something.”

  “Don’t worry. No dead bodies. After a while you get to know that smell,” he said quietly.

  Olivia had another quick glimpse into the life Rafe had led for the past decade. She said nothing, but squeezed his hand. Then she followed him down the narrow steps to the lower rooms.

  She rarely set foot on a boat because she got terribly seasick. Then Olivia had a strange thought. Her father knew she hated boats. He had always encouraged her to avoid anything to do with the water, reminding her how nauseated it made her. She wondered now if that was no accident.

  When she looked up, Rafe was standing in the doorway of the small lower galley. His broad shoulders blocked her view. Olivia tried to look over, but he didn’t move. “Rafe, what is it? What do you see?”

  “Not much. Looks like nobody has been in here for a long time.” He moved aside finally, and Olivia glanced around her at the single bed and chipped table. A small dresser stood beside a built-in cabinet with drawers, all the furniture cheaply made and showing signs of age.

  No dead bodies.

  Nothing horrible.

  But there was gloom here along with something depressing. Olivia frowned. “Let’s hurry. I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.”

  She walked past Rafe and swung open the door to the closet.

  * * *

  IT TOOK THEM less than ten minutes, working together, to examine every inch of the room. The only thing in the closet was a dry-cleaning bag with a quilt inside. Olivia recognized the blue-plaid design. It was definitely her father’s. The plastic bag had the logo of Summer Island’s only dry cleaner.

  She glanced at the tag and saw that the invoice was dated almost two years before. “So this means my father hasn’t been back here for two years? Is that right?”

  “Probably. For now let’s just look for information, rather than try to figure out what it means. You work better that way,” he said slowly.

  “He died barely a year ago. Why didn’t he come back here? Do you think he...forgot?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s part of the picture, honey. When we know that, we’ll know everything else.” Rafe was studying the small dresser with its built-in drawers.

  “What’s wrong? You’ve searched that dresser three times.”

  “Look at the bottom. There’s at least a foot of space there, but the drawer only goes down for about six inches. What about the other six inches?”

  Olivia saw instantly what he meant. She leaned down and grabbed the handle and Rafe tried to stop her, but she shoved his hand away, yanked out the flimsy plywood drawer and looked inside. “There’s a piece of wood in here. Thin wood. You could probably break it if you had to.”

  “Don’t touch anything.” The cold edge in Rafe’s voice made Olivia frown.

  He knelt down beside her, pulled on plastic gloves, and knocked the plywood carefully. They both heard a hollow ring as he tapped from front to back.

  At the back the sound of the tapping changed. It grew muffled, because the space below was no longer empty.

  * * *

  NOW THAT RAFE knew what he was looking for, he could work faster. He traced each side of the enclosure, searching for openings or metal springs. At the back-left corner, he found a small piece of metal jutting from the wood. When he pressed hard, the false floor of the cabinet gave way, revealing a gray metal box with a black lock.

  Neither of them moved for long seconds. Rafe cleared his throat. “By all rights, we should be doing this differently. But you are his only remaining heir, so we’re going to do it like this.” Rafe lifted the metal box carefully and rested it on the dusty floor. He studied the simple combination lock. “Any idea about the combination?”

  Olivia shook her head.

  “So it’s a good thing I brought my trusty lock-decryption tool.” Rafe reached into the canvas bag he had brought from the car and pulled out a narrow metal tube. He slide the end beneath the lock, twisted hard and the lock opened.

  Then he looked at Olivia. “Are you sure you want to stay? I can do this. You can wait for me in the car if you—”

  “Open the thing. Do it now,” Olivia said grimly. Something felt wrong. She didn’t unders
tand anything about this place and she was determined to get answers.

  Rafe nodded and opened the box, then lifted out a portable VCR player with a flip screen attached. It was an older model, but it looked nearly new, as if it had been well maintained. Next to it Olivia saw four video cartridges.

  None of them bore markings of commercial releases. Their only marks were a neat set of dates marked in highlighter pen. The handwriting was her father’s. Olivia recognized it immediately.

  “Plug it in.” Her voice was cold.

  Rafe hesitated. “Olivia, you might not want to do that. Why don’t you let me look at these first.”

  “He was my father and this was something he went to great trouble to hide. But I won’t have any more secrets. I need to understand.”

  Rafe nodded slowly. He carried the player to the little table and chose one of the cassettes. He tried to reach the electrical outlet, but the cord was too short, so he leaned down, rummaging in his bag. “We need an extension cord. I have one out in the car. I’ll go get it.”

  “Okay.” Olivia sat down on the bed. She heard his feet tap up the stairs and cross the deck.

  When she looked down, she noticed a closer outlet in the bottom of the wall, hidden behind the rickety desk chair. In growing impatience, she put the player on the floor, plugged it in and powered up the device. Everything seemed to work fine.

  Then Olivia reached for the top video, slipped it into the player and pressed the play button.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  OLIVIA SAT UNCOMFORTABLY in the dark room, waiting for the blank screen to vanish. Outside, she heard the sound of waves and seabirds. She wondered if Rafe had found his extension cord.

  She also wondered why on earth her father had rented this boat and kept it a secret.

  Then shadows began to move over the little flip screen. Olivia saw the grainy images change and resolve into white skin, dark gloves. She heard low, muffled laughter. Naked skin flashed by.

  Her heart hammered as she recognized her father—with a woman who wore black gloves with metal studs. The gloves came down hard on naked skin, leaving a trail of blood. Olivia stared at the grainy images, frozen, not sure what she was seeing.

  A hand touched her shoulder and she swung around with a gasp.

  “It’s just me, honey. You found an outlet?”

  Rafe saw the screen and frowned. Then he moved in front of Olivia as the low laughter continued while leather and metal struck naked skin. A man’s voice rose, pleading for more.

  Her father’s voice, in a way Olivia had never heard it, broken and confused and weak. Olivia closed her eyes, too dizzy to stand up. Dimly she realized that Rafe had leaned down, flipping off the player.

  “You should have waited, Livie.”

  “I saw the outlet and I thought I would try one of the videos.” She gave a dry laugh. “How dangerous could that be?”

  But the laughter became a bitter weight as she stared at the video and the dingy room. Sawyer Sullivan, the powerful mayor and shrewd real estate developer, had been a man of taste. But this was a different man entirely. How could you keep two lives separate and not go completely mad?

  “I think we’re done here,” Rafe said flatly. “I’m taking you back to the car. I want you to stay there, Livie. I’ll get everything from this room and bring it along with me.”

  “You don’t have to be involved. This is...my problem.”

  “I’ve been involved since the first day I saw you. I think I stalked you as a grubby nine-year-old coming home from the library.”

  “I know. I saw you there on the steps wearing baggy jeans and carrying a baseball glove. I thought you were...cute.” Olivia was pretty sure he had brought the subject up to distract her, but she managed a smile. She still remembered Rafe in those torn blue jeans, trailing home after her in the twilight.

  She touched his cheek gently. “In case you didn’t get the memo, you’re not grubby now, Deputy. You’re quite a hunk, as any woman will tell you. And I’m glad you’re here because, frankly, this whole thing with my father and these videotapes is really...creeping me out.” She tried to keep her voice light but failed. “Don’t leave anything behind for someone else to find.”

  “I’m taking all of it, don’t worry.”

  “I don’t want to see anything more,” she said stiffly. “But if there’s other information in those videos that could explain what he did with his money...with our money—”

  “I’ll check them. Meanwhile, you probably should talk to someone. Talking can be good.”

  What she had seen could leave scars, Olivia knew. It definitely raised deep questions. Her father, always in control, always the dominator and the manipulator, had carefully hidden a life where he chose a very different role.

  But she didn’t want to think about that now. The thought of confiding in anyone except Rafe left her queasy. “Did he really...enjoy that? He was always so strict with me. Everything I did was wrong. My skirts were too short, my sweaters were too tight. But they weren’t and I know they weren’t, because Grace and Caro could wear the same kind of clothes.” Her eyes hardened. “And then there were those things he said about you, about how you only wanted to be around me for sex. That I couldn’t trust you.”

  Rafe finished loading up the videos and swung the big bag over his shoulder. He studied the room and then walked to the door. “He was dead wrong, Livie. And now we’re done here. Let’s go.”

  But Olivia couldn’t move. She was trying to make sense of years of pain—her own and possibly her father’s. “I hate that he had to do something like that. That he needed to be hurt.”

  Rafe slid an arm around her waist. “He didn’t trust people very much, not even you. Maybe he didn’t trust himself either. I’m sorry for him,” Rafe said quietly.

  “Why?”

  “Because when you stop trusting, you stop living.”

  * * *

  THE DUFFEL BAG was stowed in Rafe’s trunk when Martin Eaglewood drove up in his late-model Lincoln. His smile slipped when he saw Rafe cross the pier.

  The two men shook hands. Then Sawyer Sullivan’s adviser walked back to Olivia. “I don’t understand. You aren’t coming to see the boat? Have you already been there?”

  “We got here a little early, Martin. The man at the desk gave us the key.”

  “I take it that you didn’t find anything worthwhile?”

  “Just a dry-cleaning bag with an old quilt inside. It was from the Summer Island dry cleaner,” Olivia said slowly.

  The older man looked off toward the sea. “So there was nothing else. This was a wild-goose chase. I’m sorry there wasn’t anything in there to help you.”

  “So are we.” Rafe leaned down and glanced at the backseat. “I don’t see my cell phone. I must have left it on the boat.” He started down the pier and then glanced back at Martin Eaglewood. “Why don’t you come along, since you’re here.”

  The tall man shoved his hands into his pockets. “Sure. Since I’m already here.”

  Olivia frowned as the two men crossed the dock. She was pretty sure that Rafe hadn’t left his cell phone in the boat. There had been a hard look in his eyes when he left.

  She wondered what he expected to find out from Martin Eaglewood.

  * * *

  THE TALL MAN with silver hair glanced around the boat. “This one?”

  “That’s what they told us.” Rafe opened the door. “Go on downstairs.”

  Eaglewood seemed relieved as he glanced through the empty bedroom. “Nothing here. You’re right. It doesn’t look like anyone lived here.”

  Then he made a hard sound of anger as Rafe turned him around. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “You knew about this boat. You knew about the rest of it, too.”

  Eaglewood cleared his throat nervously. “Okay, okay, I knew. Sawyer was into some kinky stuff. He always came here to the boat because no one knew him here. He figured it would be safe.”

  “How many others
knew about this?”

  “No one. Just me. He always wanted cash to pay for...whatever he needed. I got the cash for him and I didn’t ask questions. That was the arrangement.” The man rubbed his neck. “And if you’re wondering if I was involved, the answer is no. I’m not into that stuff.”

  “Somebody else knew,” Rafe said quietly. “The people who shared this room with him would have known.”

  “I guess so.”

  “His money vanished somehow. It would have been your job to trace where it went. I think you need to work harder on that. How many clients would you lose if Olivia Sullivan filed professional misconduct charges against you?”

  Eaglewood’s face went white. “Don’t even talk about it. I’d be ruined. This business is all word of mouth.”

  “Too bad.” Rafe turned to go.

  “Wait. I—I knew something was going on here. I knew it was dark and that Sawyer didn’t want Olivia to see it.” He glanced back over the dock toward Rafe’s car. “He wanted a son, you know? Someone to take on his real estate business. I never could persuade him that a daughter would be just as good. He brushed away any idea of working with her. And Olivia was always so polite, so smart, so...capable. She just wanted him to show a little affection.” He frowned. “I’m not sure Sawyer could.” He ran a hand over his eyes. “So how can I help?”

  “Needless to say, this stays right here in this room. For his sake and for Olivia’s sake. But I’m counting on you to start digging. See if you can track who he spent time with. Where he traveled and if he had bank accounts there.”

  Eaglewood nodded quickly. “I’ll try. Just...make sure she doesn’t file any charges.”

  “Then work fast. Olivia and I are both getting impatient. When our patience wears out, you can expect a visit from me. And I’ll be in uniform,” Rafe said flatly.

  * * *

  “DID YOU FIND IT?”

  “Find what?”

  “Your cell phone.” Olivia raised an eyebrow. “You said you left it on the boat.”