by R. T. Wolfe
"I assume you're speaking of the murder weapon, and we're not going public with that yet."
"I'm not public," she protested.
He looked at her with cop eyes. "I'm afraid I can't give you any information that might compromise your brother's case."
She felt like Raine and wished her sister were here to set him straight.
"You're smart enough to know I can't share confidential information about a pending investigation. Do you want me to mistrial your brother's case before we make it to trial?"
"Make it to trial? Do you have a suspect? Who is it?" She nearly jumped out of her seat.
"No, no. Now, take a breather there."
She could slap him.
"One step at a time. I'll keep you updated on everything I can. I won't forget. This is good." He waved the letter. "It could be a motive. I'm glad you brought it."
A motive? As in someone killed her brother because someone found out Seth was having an affair?
"Well, I can tell you right now," she thought out loud. "Richard Beckett is gay. His partner is definitely not a woman. And—"
Matt held up a finger as he opened a file from the side of his desk and started thumbing through. It was Seth's file. She wanted to read it so badly she could taste it.
"The realtor," he said knowingly.
"Yes," she answered curtly. "The realtor. Why isn't this, I share, then you share?"
He lifted his eyes to her as Dane injected, "This isn't a game, Zoe. This is murder." There he was again. Sticking up for the cop. Where was Raine when she needed her?
"Timothy Hart," she offered reluctantly. "School Superintendent. He never married. The letter refers to a husband."
Matt nodded and took notes.
"The rest are up for grabs. The police chief and Blake Eaton... he's the Show Me's owner... both fit the asshole status, but abuse? I don't know. Wait a minute. Blake Eaton's wife is younger than me. I can't see Seth with someone barely old enough to drink legally." She started imagining the other wives with Seth.
"It might not have been someone in his diving group," Matt suggested. "Try to keep an open mind."
Wow. She hadn't even considered it. He was right. Each diver had the same story the days after Seth's disappearance. They just felt awful about it. One minute Seth was there, the next he wasn't. The last time they'd spotted him was at the mouth of the larger crystal springs cavern.
* * *
She'd found three more letters. After Matt's refusal with transparency, she was reluctant to turn them over to him. Yet. Her family never saw the first one. Maybe she would share these with them before she gave them to Matt. Maybe she would make copies of each. Maybe she would just keep them to herself. First, she would read them each a dozen more times.
'My dearest Seth, I'm so sorry for my reaction when you mentioned having kids. Of course I want to have children with you. The thought of cuddling on a porch swing with you and our son or daughter is a dream I'll keep forever. I'm just not sure I can have children after... after. I love you. Maybe we can adopt. I love you...'
He wanted children with this woman? Zoe rubbed her face over her hands. How did he keep such secrets from all of them?
Her life was becoming more and more surreal. Dane was spending his sixth night at her place. It was as natural as breathing now. They were sitting on her couch, Zoe with her legs over his lap. He used them as a desktop for his Sun Trips bookwork.
She wasn't sure if she felt guilty because he was doing the bookwork that used to be hers or because he was staying at her place due to the recent break-ins. "You don't have to stay, you know."
He didn't answer with words. It was more of a grunt as he kept his eyes on his paperwork. It felt like a challenge. Pulling her legs from his lap, she destroyed his lumpy, make-shift table top. Crawling the short distance between them, she straddled him as he dropped his papers next to them.
"You're... um... happy to see me." Very happy.
He didn't laugh at her attempt at humor. Instead, he slid his hands up her blouse sending her from zero to sixty in seconds. His hands. She let her head fall backward. His glorious, magical hands. How did she ever live without them?
She shifted just enough to make him suck in a quick gulp of air. Dane Corbin could multi-task. He soothed and caressed, teased and molded. Dipping his fingers beneath her lace, he tugged enough to cause her to lift her head. She needed to see his blue eyes, see them as they turned a shade deeper.
Her damned, damned, flipping cell rang. It was Raine's ringtone. She looked at the time. Eleven-thirty. "I'd better get it."
This time his growl was much sexier.
"Can you get out?" Raine asked. "I'm at the north end of the island with a disorientation. I just got a call about a rental with the porch lights on in front of an early nest that's near its hatching due date."
"Are you sure you want me?" Zoe asked. "Shouldn't you call Willow?"
"Nah. You don't need a permit to knock on a patio door. Unless you're chicken."
She was not. "Give me the address, smart ass. Oh, and I found some more letters. I'll let you see them before I hand them over to Matt this time."
"More letters? Really. And thanks. You should've known Osborne wouldn't return the first one. A pig's a pig."
She slung a leg over Dane like she was dismounting. "I've gotta check out a patio light left on beach side. You don't need to come with. Get your bookwork done."
"Like hell."
Chapter 17
The only sounds on the beach at this hour were the waves as they crashed. Since it was dark, Dane opted to keep his sandals on. Zoe had, too. They were the only ones strolling the beach for nearly as far as he could see. Much farther south the telltale signs of two flashlights bobbed along the beach. Probably tourists.
Flashlights weren't really necessary. The sand was a light tan, almost white. It reflected off the distant crescent moon and lit their path. Still, they carried turtle friendly flashlights just in case. Covering the bulb with amber colored cellophane didn't take much time. He thought the realtors should provide the covers in all their rentals.
As they came closer, the lights from the patio in question were like a lighthouse showing him and Zoe the way. Unfortunately, it would do the same for sea turtle hatchlings if they decided to emerge that night.
"Where is the nest?" he wondered aloud.
She pointed inland as they walked. Four wooden stakes stood guard around the nest with bright, orange tape wrapped around them. It looked like a mini crime scene. The number for Ibis Island Turtle Conservation was in black magic marker on the stake in the front. Raine's cell.
He stopped at the nest and studied it more carefully. No movement that he could see. "Which numbers tell when the eggs were laid?"
"We don't put that information on the stakes anymore. People were starting to figure out when the nests were due to hatch and disrupted the hatchlings. The numbers tell which section and the chronological order the nest was made within this section. See? Section 3. This is Oliver's section. And the 2 is because this was the second nest laid in his section."
"You're sexy when you're businesslike." It was true. He took her free hand as they continued, reaching the path that led to the rental.
"Damn it." She set her clipboard and flashlight down and picked up a lounging chair. "Raine didn't say, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this is one of Beckett's rentals. He's notorious for leaving chairs out." She walked to the rental's beach entrance and stacked the chair on top of the one furthest from the shore.
There were at least a dozen of them lined up neatly parallel to the beach. She reached for the next chair when one in the middle moved. He stuck out his arm, stopping her. "That one moved."
"What moved?"
"The chair."
She pushed his arm away. "Chairs don't move."
Before she could argue that he was seeing things, it moved again.
"Richard frigging Beckett. This is exactly why we ask each and
every one of the realtors to stack their chairs." She walked closer, dipping her head underneath.
It was a turtle. A huge, gorgeous loggerhead. Stuck under the chair.
Zoe tugged at the chair. It wasn't budging. The turtle was slow on the sand but still tried to get away from Zoe and the chair. "She could have dragged this all the way out to the water. Damned Beckett. She would drown."
"Let me give it a try." It was stuck all right. And the turtle was heavy as hell. He tried to slide it off the way it would have ducked into it. That seemed to be working, but the turtle kept inching back underneath it. Dane headed around, stepping on some sea oats as he tried to get in front of it.
"Hey. Those are protected plants."
He didn't give her the luxury of a glance. "Sea oats or turtle? Make a choice."
Her silence would serve as his answer.
He slipped it off, freeing her, only to have her head inland.
"We've got her freaked out," Zoe said.
"How much did you say these things weigh?"
"Three hundred pounds, minimum. You can't pick her up. You're not certified."
"Hell," he said as he reached for the sides of her shell.
"No, behind the back of her head and above her tail."
"I thought you didn't know how to do this." His head nearly exploded when he lifted. Using his thighs as a fulcrum, he pivoted the beast toward the shore. Her flippers waved like mad making it all the harder not to drop her. Nearly plopping her in the sand, she spotted the water and started her trek down the beach. It looked like she was swimming free style over the sand. It was... frigging amazing. As soon as she hit the water, her stroke turned to butterfly with both flippers pulling up and around her before smacking the water and propelling her forward. He stood motionless and watched the water long after she was gone. To free a helpless creature was magnificent as it was, but add that it was an endangered helpless creature... it was something he would never forget.
He felt a nudge. Oh, right.
The rental was the type you'd expect to see on an island off the coast of Florida. Bright coral paint, rows of shells plastered in the stucco walls. He stopped short when they hit the back of the patio. In the brick were plastic toys in the shapes of necklaces, hunting knives, and china. Written in chips of colored rock, the edge of the patio read, "Luciana's Dowry." He wasn't sure why, but it unsettled him enough to take her arm and step in front of her.
He led the way to the back door. The blinds were open, letting out extra light toward the beach. Inside were two men and two women sitting around a table playing cards and drinking wine. It was a good thing they were awake. Tourists might not like having someone knock on their door at this hour. He didn't blame them. It could be their first time on the island, or maybe they came regularly, as many do. They might not know to turn off their patio light. Not if the rental owner didn't include it in the contract or post it in the rental.
Luckily, Zoe had remembered her Island Turtle Patrol shirt. She knocked and the voices stopped. All heads turned their way. He imagined they were deciding what to do. She knocked again.
A woman answered. She looked to be in her forties or fifties. Another woman and two men stood behind her. That's right. Have the woman open the door.
"Hello," Zoe greeted them. "We're from Ibis Island Sea Turtle Conservation. We're sorry to bother you at this time of night, but we need to ask you to turn off your patio light. We have turtle nests close by and—"
"Oh, we're sorry. Does the light hurt them? Are they coming out right now?" The woman craned her head around Zoe. It's what most tourists came to the island for. The turtles.
"The light can confuse them, yes," Zoe explained. "We don't have any hatching at this moment, but some of the nests close by are due soon. If you could just turn off your lights on this side of the house at dusk, we would appreciate it. So would the turtles."
The woman reached over and flicked the light. "We came three years ago and got to see one crawl up on the beach."
"Oh, how lovely." Zoe never turned away from an interested tourist. "Did she lay eggs for you?"
"No." The woman looked positively crushed. "It was one of those pretend..."
"False crawls?" Zoe amended.
"Yeah. One of those. Maybe this year."
"Maybe. Good luck, and remember to leave your flashlights off if you walk the beach at night. I hope you see one."
He linked fingers with her as they made their way back to his Jeep. Experimenting, he ran his fingertips down the inside of her arm. She shivered. Her erogenous zones were exceptionally sensitive. The more he learned, the more there was to know, and the more he wanted to learn.
She was becoming an addiction. It left him out of his element. But that was what he was trying to resolve, wasn't it? Was he going to spend the rest of his life in flip-flops on a boat hunting for treasure? Lucky had tried to get him back out on the ocean. There was a time when he wouldn't have wanted anything else. Why did he have no desire to take Lucky up on the offer?
Zoe.
"You're quiet," she said in the almost alto croon that kept him awake at night.
It was worse than getting caught having a sex fantasy.
"Who do you think Seth was having an affair with?" she asked.
It was like a necessary cold shower.
"Do you think it was the wife of one of the divers?"
"Osborne said anyone could have been down there."
They turned down the long, skinny beach access trail that led to his Jeep.
She stopped and pulled on his hand.
"Forget something?" he asked.
She fidgeted for a full minute before muttering, "I'm falling in love with you." Her eyes shone up at him like emeralds hiding in a damned shipwreck.
"It's the picking up the turtle and the way you wait for me when I come in from a tour. And those damned bracelets and the wrinkles that form between your eyes when you do Sun Trips bookwork. And the Smithsonian. I think I started to fall when I found out about the Smithsonian."
When had she found out about the Smithsonian? Her gaze dropped to her feet.
He used a finger to lift her beautiful chin. She trembled beneath his finger. A single tear slipped between her closed lids, then another. He pressed his lips to one of her eyes. "And I'm in love with you." Then, kissed the other. "I think I've been since the day you came crying in my office, asking me to buy you out."
She opened her eyes to him. The green turned bright beneath the salt from her tears. "But I'm just me."
He shook his head and kissed her on the lips this time. "You have no idea who you are, Zoe Clearwater."
* * *
"I can't believe we're doing this," Dane said to Zoe for the third time.
He was right, of course, but she couldn't just sit around waiting, and Matt wasn't sharing. She'd convinced Dane to take her Jeep. His was an ostentatious beacon. He drew the line at letting her drive. She didn't have the energy to argue about the chauvinistic push. Opening her glove box, she pulled out the pad of paper she'd started taking with her everywhere she went.
They sat outside Blake Eaton's home. It was beachfront and looked like a log cabin. She thought it seemed like it belonged in a forest, not on an island off the coast of Florida. They hoped to get a glimpse of his new wife, or better yet to follow her if she left.
As a person who never left the island—hardly ever—she was the one up to date on island gossip. "I've never met his new wife," she explained. "He divorced his former wife five years ago. Traded her in for a younger version. Do woman-abusers divorce their wives? I thought they kept them. Possessive and all that."
"No offense, but I'm not sure a woman who was raised by Henry and Harmony Clearwater is qualified to know about life in an abused home."
"Hmm. Good point," she had to agree.
"What are we looking for?" he asked.
"I don't know. To see what the new wife is like? I can't really see Seth with a woman younger than me." Her nose cu
rled at the idea.
"I'm not sure either of us would know what an abused woman looks like," he said.
A brush of conflict flowed into her. Zoe's attacker was possibly abused. Severely. She wanted to hate her, but... Dane was right. She had no clue what abuse could do to a person. She flipped through her notes as they sat. "Timothy Hart. Superintendent to all Ibis Island schools. Never married, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a woman."
"The letters said, 'husband.'"
That's right. She was no good at this.
"Glen Oberweiss' wife is about the right age, if there is a right age. She seems like a nice person. See? That's where I get mixed up. I'm trying to find someone nice enough Seth would fall in love with her. Except she's also the kind who breaks into people's homes and attacks... well... me."
"Just the facts, then. Who has a wife?"
"Oh jeez, there she is," Zoe sunk in her seat. It wasn't like they were the only car parked along the street. Several people had already left their cars to use the handy beach access near the Eaton's home.
The woman came strutting out in cork wedges, shorts, a tank, and big, perfect hair.
"No big sunglasses hiding a black eye," Dane commented.
"Yeah," she added. "I can't picture Seth with her. Or her trying to choke me or anyone else. She might break a nail."
Chapter 18
Zoe lay still and mentally sorted what she'd discovered.
Whenever she had time off, she staked out the homes of the men who were there the day Seth was murdered. She took pictures with Dane's camera. It was one Seth would approve of. Dane came with her every time, reminding her he was the boss and set his own hours. The elbow jabs, looks, and eye rolls from the other employees increased exponentially from the obvious way they often left at the same time.
Since the public school superintendent wasn't married, and the realtor wasn't married to a woman, they focused on the other four that were in Seth's diving group the day he was murdered.
They doubted Seth's involvement with Blake Eaton's beach bunny, trophy wife, but the mayor's wife could be a possibility. As well as the police chief's and the town historian's wife. Pictures of each were taped to the pad of paper Zoe had deemed the investigation notebook. She thumbed through it as Dane breathed deeply next to her.
