Body Search

by Jessica Andersen

  “Be careful,” she called, but was grateful when he was gone. Hot baths and Dale were a potent combination. She wasn’t sure she’d be strong enough to resist, even though she’d come to grips with the fact that they would go their separate ways once they left Lobster Island.

  If they left Lobster Island.

  “No. I won’t think like that,” she said aloud, wincing when the strange crystal walls picked up her words and threw them back at her.

  She listened for Dale, or for gunshots, but the doctor in her knew that Roberts would soon be irrelevant if she didn’t bring her body temperature up. Though it was probably forty degrees outside, the wind and the rain made it feel far colder. She debated keeping on her panties and bra, then shrugged, wrung them out and added them to the line of clothing she’d spread on the gritty floor along one wall. Hopefully, the warm air and the slight breeze from the hurricane winds above would be enough to dry them.

  When she dipped a toe into the oily-looking water that swirled in a rocky bowl near the far wall of the eerie cavern, she found the water blood-warm. Slipping in, she felt strange mineral salts tingling against her skin. With a sigh, she let her head fall back and felt the warmth caress her scalp. Warm. She was finally warm. She arched up and felt the heavy mineralized water sheet off her breasts.

  “God.” The single word in Dale’s voice was less a curse than a prayer.

  Tansy straightened in the chest-high water, aware that it all but glowed amethyst around her. Dale stood near the door with the shotgun in one hand and a knapsack in the other. His eyes were fixed on her.

  “I found some food near the back of the main cave,” he said thickly. “It’s not much, but it’s packaged, so it should be safe. I also found three unopened cases of saxitoxin from Beverly Labs. I think we can be safe in assuming he didn’t poison the island.”

  The reminder of their peril should have been enough to jerk her back to reality, but the purple light and the man standing at the water’s edge wouldn’t allow Tansy to climb back up out of the rabbit hole. Part of her wanted to stay down here forever.

  “I, uh, found some string in a pile of equipment, and rigged a trip wire at the front. If anyone comes in, the noise will warn us.” He took another step closer to the water, eyes dark in the strange half light of the storm that raged far away, outside the suddenly steamy cave.

  “You’ve done your best, Dale. Now come and get warm. You must be freezing.” She patted the water beside her and saw his eyes flash with the memories that crowded her head, as well.

  There was no future for them, she knew, but what was the harm in one last moment in the present?

  He dropped the knapsack near the water’s edge and set the gun beside it. “We should probably take turns bathing. It’ll be safer.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Roberts is gone, Dale. Even if he made it out of the river alive, there’s no way Harriet is letting him—or one of his friends—back up here today.” As if in confirmation, the hurricane winds blasted past the rocky opening high overhead, creating an eerie, moaning descant that raised the hairs on Tansy’s body as she stood in the warm water. “We’re safe enough for right now.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.” His voice rasped on the words and Tansy realized what he’d meant by “safe.”

  She wouldn’t be safe from him, or from the wild urges she’d seen reflected in his eyes after Roberts had gone downriver.

  “Oh.” Suddenly hotter than the surrounding steam, Tansy patted the water again and felt the ripples tingle at the tops of her breasts. “Then come into the water, Dale. Please.”

  She would give herself this one last, unwise interlude before she said goodbye.

  She thought he muttered a curse, or maybe a prayer, then he was in the water with her, fully clothed, pressing her up against the smooth, warm amethyst that lined the hot spring. But instead of kissing her right away, and grinding at her with the abandon of her dreams, he caught her face between his hands. “Tans. I never meant to put you in danger. I want you to know how sorry I am.”

  A quick lump plugged her throat, hard and hot, and she smiled defiantly past it. “Hey,” she said softly, “what happened to the guy whose first words to me were, ‘Don’t slow me down’?”

  “He got to know you.”

  For a brief moment, she wondered what that might mean, then the wondering floated away on a purple beam of light as he kissed her, and the wind above gave an eerie, triple-noted moan.

  Or maybe that was her.

  On a sigh, she curled her arms around his neck, quivering slightly as the breeze chilled them in an instant. The roughness of his clothes against her naked skin was a tantalizing, impossible friction when she lifted her legs to wrap them around his waist.

  They’d loved each other like this before. But the strange-colored darkness, the storm and the danger outside and her sure knowledge that this was the last time for them, lent a sharpness to her desire. She felt an edgy need to brand herself on his skin as he had tattooed himself on her heart.

  So she broke the kiss to slide lower in the water and rake her teeth, hard, across the place where his neck and his shoulder joined.

  He hissed sharply and jerked her up so they were eye to eye. Nose to nose. “Be sure, Tansy. You don’t know me.”

  But she did. She knew the wildness that came from this island, and the honor that came from Dale himself. She also knew the barriers, and the things he was incapable of doing.

  Like loving her.

  “I’m sure,” she said firmly. “I’m sure that I want this, just as I’m sure we’ll say goodbye once we return to Boston.”

  When she said it like that, it seemed like making it back home was certain. The small lie felt good.

  He frowned. “That’s not what I meant.”

  She kissed the corners of his mouth where it turned down, and busied her fingers with his shirt. Her hands were trembling again, but not from the cold. Now they shook with want. With need.

  With the power that flowed between them.

  “No. But it’s what you’ve always wanted.” And she took his mouth and poured three long, lonely months into one kiss until they both trembled with it.

  Then there was no more need for words, no place for them. They wrestled his sodden clothes off, tossing them in wet heaps beside the pool. Tansy tasted him, feasted on him, storing up the memories for the lonely times she knew would soon come. When his head snapped back with a groan, she fastened her teeth on his lower lip and slid down his shaft, feeling her hips crack against stone when he surged deep and hard and sure to touch her center.

  Her heart.

  She clenched around him and he cried out, surging against her again as a quick, sharp wave broke over them both, leaving them quivering with aftershocks and frustration.

  Tansy almost cursed as remembered reality intruded. She’d wanted this last time to be tender. Perfect. Emotional. But it had just been about sex.

  Then again, that had been their problem from the beginning.

  Feeling tears burn behind her lids, she pushed against his chest.

  “Not yet,” he said quietly, pressing her back against the sloping wall of the hot spring. “Please, not yet.”

  Surprised, she let herself relax against him, aware of the pulsing place where they were still joined. Almost unwillingly, she curled her arms and legs around him, knowing the sense of security was a lie.

  But who the hell cared? She buried her face against his neck and hung on tight, hoping he couldn’t tell that her tears mingled with the warm water surrounding them.

  His arms tightened around her and he sighed, a deep motion that was echoed where he still nestled within her.

  “My mother would have liked you,” he finally said. Tansy stilled. After a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the wind above them and the gentle slap of water against semiprecious stone, he continued, “And my father, too.”

  Part of her didn’t want to ask, knowing that it still wouldn’t be eno
ugh. Her mother had been wrong. Knowledge wasn’t power.

  Love was.

  But the pain in his voice called to the healer in her. She closed her eyes and felt the tears leak through. “What were they like?”

  “Plain and honest. Poor but happy. Like the island,” he said. And there was a touch of surprise in his voice when he added, “I wish I was more like them.”

  Not sure how to help, not sure she wanted to, Tansy turned into him and tried to heal his wounds with a kiss. Tried to heal her own, though she’d brought them on herself.

  “Tans,” he murmured, sliding against her and returning the caress of her tongue and lips. “Sweetheart.”

  She shut her heart to the endearment, to the false hope it brought, and shaped his face with her hands as she kissed him, trusting him not to let her sink beneath the warm water.

  Wishing she could sink down and never come back up, breaking through back into reality.

  The purple air spun out around them as he hardened within her once again. There was no frenzy to their coupling this time, though no less desire. A move. A splash. A sigh. Sound and texture became one as the sky darkened outside, dusk coming unnoticed amidst the storm.

  After a time, they crawled up onto the ledge, laughing over their water-wrinkled skin and feeding each other bits of the packaged crackers Dale had found. They wrung out his clothes and left them beside hers to dry before returning to the smooth spot they’d discovered beside the hot spring, where soft, worn stone cushioned their bodies, and steam from the spring kept them warm.

  And he talked. He told her about his Aunt Sue, and how Trask had fallen apart after her death. He told her about leaving the island and being afraid. And he told her about seeing himself as a fake, though in her mind there was no one at Boston General less false than Dale Metcalf. He made no apologies for his barriers, simply expected the rest of the world to live with them.

  And now that the barriers were coming down?

  “It’s no good,” she murmured, rolling away from him just after dawn, when even the hot spring seemed cooler. She shivered in the humid air and thought she felt her heart crack. She couldn’t do this.

  He followed her. “What’s no good?” His voice was raspy with fatigue and stress. And maybe something else.

  “You. Me. Us.” She closed her eyes, though the tears leaked through. Then she stilled, and her wounded heart picked up its beat with a spurt of fear. “Wait. Listen.”

  Silence. Finally, he said, “I don’t hear anything.” But he caught her tension, rose and padded to where their clothes had almost dried.

  “That’s the point.”

  “Oh, hell.” He tossed her clothes over and pulled on his own. “The storm’s passed.”

  And as though called down by his words, sunlight speared through the opening high above their resting place. It refracted through the crystal spear and bathed the room in purple light. But the shimmering light didn’t feel restful now. It felt wrong, as though the morning sun shouldn’t be that color. As though the hot spring was stained, bruised.

  Tansy shuddered and hurried to dress. “You think Roberts is working with someone here on the island, don’t you? You think there’ll be someone waiting for us.”

  “If we’re lucky, there won’t be.” Dale hefted the empty shotgun. “Let’s get out of here. If we work our way down the hill on the other side, we should be able to make it back to town in a few hours.” Neither of them bothered to mention the possibility of booby traps. It was a given.

  Roberts and his partner didn’t want this cave found. Part of her could understand the greed. Even lit with the strange purple light, the hot spring room was incredible, flanked on both sides of its entrance by towering rock stalagmites that thrust up and met at—

  Tansy paused and looked more carefully. “Dale. I think there’s another opening.”

  He followed her gesture and his eyes narrowed. “You’re right. I missed it last night with the flashlight.” He stuck his head through the crude door and his shoulders stiffened. He jolted back with a curse.

  “What?” She moved to touch his arm, but stopped herself. “Dale, what’s wrong? What is it?”

  “It’s Roberts. He’s dead.”

  “Oh, God.” She pushed past Dale’s restraining arm and ducked into the narrow granite fissure, stalling when she saw the developer’s body crumpled in the corner. He was wearing navy trousers, a wrinkled white shirt and one loafer. His head lolled at an obscene angle and his skin seemed tinted a strange gray-purple in the gem-filtered light. “His neck’s broken.”

  At her elbow, Dale nodded. “And he didn’t walk up here. Not in loafers.”

  Tansy shuddered. “That wasn’t him in the forest, was it?” The question was rhetorical. There was no way the man could have fallen in the river and wound up in the cave, dry. “It was never him.”

  “Or he was part of it,” Dale countered, “and his partner got spooked when we stayed on the island. Roberts was in the motel the night before last…”

  And while they’d been sleeping in Eddie’s room, someone had killed him, maybe even in the room next door. Tansy’s skin crawled at the thought, and at the knowledge that they were several hours away from civilization, maybe a day away from the promised mainland rescue.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Dale didn’t finish his thought, but there was no need. Hurricane Harriet had come and gone, leaving them vulnerable. The killer might even now be on his way back up the southern claw to finish what he’d started.

  As one, they turned for the exit of the narrow fissure. And stopped. There, on a small folding card table, sat a portable satellite phone. A wire snaked up to a crack in the stone, likely leading to a discreet dish.

  “Of course,” Dale muttered. “He’d need a way to communicate with his partner.” He glanced quickly at Tansy, his expression cool and closed. Hurt.

  They knew of only one other satellite phone on the island.

  “Call Cage,” Tansy finally said, “and tell him to hurry with our reinforcements. I’ll keep watch in the main cave.”

  She could see that Dale didn’t like it, but there weren’t many options left.

  He finally nodded. “Okay. But take this.” He handed her the shotgun. “It’s empty, but it might work as a threat.”

  Tansy swallowed hard and took the heavy gun, hating the feel of the stock in her hands, and hating even more that it was empty. She looked up at Dale and their eyes caught and held. His were full of emotions she’d never seen there before, emotions she’d longed for, begged for. But she steeled herself against the pull. She’d been down that road before.

  In the end, she looked away and said simply, “Hurry. I’d rather be in the woods than stuck here—” her eyes drifted to Roberts’s corpse “—with him.”

  “Tans—” Dale reached for her and she stepped back. He let his hand fall. “Tans, when we’re out of here…when we’re back at Boston General… I think we should talk.”

  So he could break up with her all over again. Damn him.

  Ignoring the thud of hurt she’d brought on herself, Tansy turned away. “There’s no need to talk, Dale. We’ve said all there is to say. When we get home, I’ll ask for my transfer. Don’t worry, I won’t bother you with my emotions anymore.”

  Dale cursed as she walked out of the small fissure and into the hot spring chamber. “That wasn’t what I— Tansy!” When she didn’t turn back, he cursed again. “Fine. We’ll talk about this later.” She was almost to the outer cave when his final words carried to her. “Be careful, damn it.”

  “You, too,” she murmured as she retraced her steps out to the main cave. The smooth purple sand was scuffed where she and Dale had entered the cave the night before.

  And where three other sets of tracks had followed.

  “Dale! There’s someone else—” She spun to run back for him and stopped dead in her tracks.

  Hazel and Trask huddled, bound and gagged, near a crumbling rock slide at the back of t
he cave. Their captor stood not two paces away from Tansy.

  She stared at the revolver in the murderer’s hand and felt the shotgun slip from her fingers. Heard it clatter to the floor. “You!”

  Churchill’s tie was askew and there was a smear of mud on his pant leg. Aside from those small imperfections—and the gun—he could have been standing before a board of directors in any big city. He smiled slightly. “Yes, my dear. Me.” The cultured tones were society-perfect, but the wild look in his brown eyes was anything but. He grabbed her arm and his soft-looking fingers bit deep. “Now. Let’s go take care of some business, shall we?”

  The last thing Tansy saw as he dragged her toward the hot spring was the anguish in Hazel’s eyes and the dull resignation in Trask’s.

  They didn’t think she was coming back. And at that moment, neither did she.

  THE SECRETARY’S VOICE was slightly distorted by the satellite connection. “Boston General Hospital, please hold.”

  “No! Wait! Damn it!” Dale banged his fist on the rock ledge beside the communications device. It was a stroke of luck that they’d found the phone, and a source of great concern.

  Someone was bankrolling this illicit mining operation, probably the men who had hired Roberts to negotiate the purchase of the entire island. But who were they? How had they learned of the gems in the first place?

  The answer pushed at him, demanding entrance through the closed wall of history, through the belief in the one man he’d trusted so many years ago. Churchill. He pushed the name away and concentrated on the feel of the phone in his hand, and the tension that hummed through him at the thought that Tansy was guarding the entrance to the cave with an empty shotgun.

  The line remained stubbornly on hold, but unless he could get through to Cage, only Hazel and Trask would know where they were, and Dale wasn’t certain they’d made it. The thought that his uncle and Hazel might be gone ached through his chest like a wound, but he couldn’t dwell on that now. He had to focus on getting Tansy back to town safely.

  Though he’d felt her pulling away more and more as the night wore on, uncomfortable with the man he truly was, in the darkest hours before the dawn, Dale had decided there was no way he was letting her go. He’d fight for her if he had to.