The Island of Dangerous Dreams

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “Did Justin think you were representing the gallery?”

  “I hope so.” Her eyes suddenly became swarmy with tears, and she said, “You know as well as I do, Madelyn, that everything can’t be open and aboveboard in our business. I had a chance to make a huge commission, and I went for it, because I badly needed it. And then the way it turned out—nothing but bad luck.” She mopped at her eyes and went on. “I’m on a roll of bad luck. Two marriages gone sour, my new car repossessed, a lost commission …”

  “Sorry,” Madelyn said, but she didn’t sound sorry. “Knowing you, Benita, I’m sure that you were desperate enough to do anything to get possession of that artifact.”

  “Desperate. Yes, that’s the word for it.” She sighed, then abruptly realized what she had said and snapped, “Don’t try to trick me, Madelyn! I had nothing to do with those deaths, and I don’t know where in blazes that artifact is!”

  Aldo yawned widely and stretched. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and got to his feet.

  “I’m tired too,” Benita said. She fluttered upward and held out a hand to Madelyn. “I think we should all go up together.”

  “Are you still frightened?” I asked her.

  She looked a little embarrassed. “I admit I was upset at first, but seen in this new light I—well, I’m angry instead of frightened. We’ve all been badly used.”

  “Especially the judge and Mr. Granakee,” I mumbled.

  Aunt Madelyn, who had come to my side, poked me as a signal to watch what I said, so I meekly followed the others up the stairs to bed. With the lights off the living room was a dark, cavernous hole, and I had to convince myself that the room was empty, that the noises I heard were the natural noises of night, and nothing was creeping up the stairs behind me.

  Outside my door Madelyn stopped and put a hand on my arm. “I keep thinking about your mother,” she said. “She’d be so upset with me for involving you in this situation.” I was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

  “Mom wouldn’t blame you, Aunt Madelyn. How could you know what would happen?”

  She didn’t seem to hear me. “I remember when you were born,” she murmured. “I was so excited that I cut class to stay at the hospital until your father came rushing out with the good news. You were a very special baby.” She smiled. “I guess I thought of you as so special because you’ve always been a carbon copy of your mother, and she—well, she was a wonderful big sister.”

  Madelyn blinked a couple of times, as though coming back to the present, and I could almost see her backbone stiffen. “We’ll get you home safely, Andrea,” she said firmly. “Don’t doubt it for a minute.”

  She smiled, and I tried unsuccessfully to smile back. No matter how confident Madelyn sounded, I knew she was as frightened as I was.

  From somewhere below us a tired board in the house popped, and I jumped and shuddered. Madelyn frowned in concern. “Would you like me to stay with you?”

  I shook my head and tried to put her at ease. “I’m a big girl,” I said. “I don’t even need a night-light.”

  “Then I’ll let you get your sleep,” she answered. Gently she kissed my cheek. “Good night, Andrea.”

  “Good night, Aunt Madelyn,” I murmured. Impulsively, I reached out and hugged her. “Thanks,” I whispered.

  I stood in the upper hall for a moment after Madelyn had gone into her room. The house creaked again, and I backed against the wall, trying to stare into the darkness. My imagination was ready to leap out of hand. I tried to hold it down, but it fought back, so I dashed into my bedroom. Groaning with relief, I locked the door.

  The veranda doors were open wide, and moonlight from a clear sky poured into the room. Before I turned on the light I moved to close the doors, but suddenly someone stepped out of the bathroom, quickly slipped behind me, and clapped a hand over my mouth.

  “Don’t make a sound!” he whispered.

  CHAPTER

  11

  I struggled and tried unsuccessfully to make shouting noises in the back of my throat until the voice whispered, “I knew you’d do that! Will you just shut up!”

  Relief turned my legs to wet spaghetti, and I collapsed against Pete, managing to throw him off balance, so we ended up in a heap on the floor.

  “You’re heavier than you look,” he muttered as he tugged one of his legs out from under me.

  “Thanks,” I grumbled sarcastically.

  “Hey, it doesn’t bother me. Nobody’s perfect.”

  “You really scared me, Pete! My heart’s still banging away!”

  “Really? Let’s see.”

  I pushed him away. “What are you doing here?”

  “Taking care of you. What else?”

  “Wait a minute.” I realized that even our whispers could probably be heard through the open veranda doors, so I jumped up and closed them tightly, then groped my way back to where I’d left Pete sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. “Did you get a chance to go aboard the powerboat?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I did. I looked over every inch of that boat, and the PI hadn’t come back by the time I left it.”

  “He’s here at the house,” I said. “Tell me. What do you think about the boat?”

  “It’s a neat boat. It’s got this terrific computer navigational device that—”

  “Don’t get sidetracked. I don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. What I want to know is, will we be able to use the boat?”

  “I know how to operate it. No problem.”

  I shifted to snuggle against him, and he put an arm around me. “Thank you, Pete.”

  “For what?”

  “For being such a good person. I trusted you, and I was right. You could have taken that boat and left the island, but you didn’t. You stayed.”

  “Do you think I would leave you with a murderer?” Pete’s breath was warm against my hair, and his other arm went around me. “You don’t need to thank me for being brave, for putting aside everything else in order to be with you. You’re very special, Andy. You—”

  I would have let Pete go on, but a floorboard on the veranda cracked, and I quickly put a finger over his lips. “Someone’s out there,” I whispered.

  I could feel Pete tense. We waited, ears straining to catch another sound.

  It came. Another board creaking under someone’s weight, but farther down the veranda now, away from my room. And another step, even farther away. I shivered with relief, or maybe it was Pete who shivered. We were so close together it was hard to tell the difference.

  “In case we need to take the boat then, we’re ready,” I said. “You’ve got everything you need.”

  “Except the ignition key,” he said.

  I pulled away and stared at him, barely able to see him, even though my eyes had adjusted to the dark. I was so angry, it was probably just as well he couldn’t see my face. “The brave hero!” I said. “You chose to stay and protect me! Ha! You couldn’t take the boat out, because you didn’t find the key.”

  “That was just one minor reason,” he said.

  “Darn!” I said. I leaned back against the wall, my arms folded tightly.

  “Hey, Andy, look at it this way. I’m here, aren’t I? I could have gone back to my own boat.”

  “Just why are you here? I want an honest answer.”

  “Because you’re here, and I really do want to help you.”

  The anger began to dissipate, taking with it the hot tension from my head and neck and shoulders. I unfolded my arms and began to relax. “You don’t have to be here, you know.”

  “Why don’t you just go to bed?” he asked. “I’ll sit here on the floor and keep watch.”

  “You’ll get stiff. You’ll be uncomfortable.”

  “All in the line of duty. You don’t need to thank me …” he began, but I giggled and sidled closer.

  “I can’t sleep,” I said. “I’ll sit here with you. Maybe if we go over everything that has happened, we can come closer to figuring out wh
o might have killed the judge and Mr. Granakee.”

  So, one by one, we talked about everyone who had come to the island, even including Aunt Madelyn. We didn’t leave Ellison out either. And we came up with nothing, except for that strange prickly feeling that poked at the back of my mind and refused to turn itself into words I could see and understand. What was I missing? What was I trying to remember?

  I thought about it so hard that it surprised me when the idea began to fall into place. “Pete,” I murmured, and discovered that I was lying on the floor, a pillow under my head. The room was dark, still touched with moonlight from the open veranda doors, and I had no idea what time it was.

  “Pete?” I sat up, trying to rub away the furry taste and feel of sleep as I reached for him, looked for him. But Pete wasn’t there.

  I stumbled to my feet, wildly scanning the room, and discovered a mound in the middle of my bed. I ripped back the blanket, and the mound mumbled something.

  “Pete!” I hissed. “What are you doing in my bed?”

  He groaned and struggled up on his elbows, shook his head to clear it, and said, “Well, you weren’t using it.”

  “I thought you were going to keep watch.”

  “It’s your turn.” He dropped down again and groped for the blanket.

  “No!” I pulled the blanket away from his reach and shook his shoulders. “Listen to me, Pete. You’ve got to wake up. I think I know who committed the murders!”

  This got his attention. His eyes opened wide, and he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “Who?” he asked.

  “Aldo.”

  Pete looked so puzzled that I hurried to explain. “The judge said someone was sailing under false colors. He said this when I said that people were not always what they seemed to be.”

  “He could have been talking about his private investigator-secretary, having a good laugh about it.”

  “I thought so at one time, but I don’t think so now. Let me finish what I have to say. I think that the judge was talking about people themselves, not the clients they claimed to represent. So he couldn’t have been referring to Benita.”

  “What about Aldo’s client?”

  “It’s not who he is, it’s what he is.”

  “I know I’m awake, but I can’t seem to follow you. Are you making this more complicated than it’s supposed to be?”

  “No, no! Listen!” I was so eager to explain that I grabbed Pete by the shoulders. “That wasn’t all that the judge said. When he met Aldo for the first time, on the dock in Fort Lauderdale, he said that he looked familiar. He told Aldo that he had a good memory and sooner or later he’d remember where he’d met him.”

  “That’s not much of a reason for killing him.”

  “Aldo must have thought so. I don’t think he counted on the judge having any idea who he really was. Maybe he and the judge had never met. It could be that the judge had only seen Aldo’s picture—maybe in a newspaper.”

  I stopped for breath. “And then there’s Franklin Granakee. Aunt Madelyn mentioned that Mr. Granakee had been involved with people on the other side of the law. Mr. Granakee said he knew everyone who had come to bid for the artifact. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but he had to have been including Aldo.”

  “You think he knew him?”

  “Knew him or knew about him. Look, Pete, maybe Aldo wasn’t representing anyone. Maybe he had come just to steal the artifact. Aldo might have been afraid that if the judge remembered him, he’d have no chance to get possession of the artifact. And later he either realized that Mr. Granakee would tell the others about him or maybe Mr. Granakee even threatened to do so. Aldo’s the one who’d have a reason to kill Judge Arlington-Hughes and Mr. Granakee. Don’t you agree?”

  Pete thought hard for a few minutes. “Maybe you’re right,” he said.

  “So what can we do next?”

  “I’m darned sure not going to wake up Aldo and ask him if he’s the murderer!”

  “Be serious.”

  “I get too scared when I’m serious.”

  I plopped onto the bed next to Pete. “I told Kurt I’d let him know if I uncovered anything. I think now is the time to tell him what we know.”

  “Not ‘know.’ What we suspect.”

  “We need to get Kurt’s help, Pete.”

  “Do we have to? I told you, I don’t trust that guy.”

  “Can you handle Aldo yourself?”

  Pete sighed and stood up. “Okay. Where do we find Kurt?”

  “Probably in his room.”

  Pete walked to the doors, opened them, and stared up at the sky. “Can’t we wait until it’s light? If we knock on his door in the dark, everyone in the house will pop out into the hall to see what’s going on. They’re all jumpy.” He walked back to where I was sitting. “As a matter of fact, we’re taking a big chance doing so much talking here. Even though we’ve been whispering, someone might have heard us.”

  I climbed off the bed. “Then let’s go downstairs and talk, or outside. That’s even better. I can’t go back to sleep.”

  A meager sift of moonlight kept us from blindly stumbling on our way down the hall and stairs. We moved slowly, clutching each other, trying to make as little noise as possible. Pete breathed through his mouth in short, erratic gasps. I tended to hold my breath with each creak of the wooden floor and stairs, letting it out in a whoosh when I couldn’t hold it any longer. We sounded like two candidates for an oxygen tent. In a strange way it was comforting to me that Pete was as frightened as I was. This was something we were involved in together.

  “So far, so good,” Pete whispered.

  I listened intently. No footsteps, no lights turned on, no one calling “Who’s there?”

  “I don’t think anyone heard us,” I whispered back, relief so strong that my legs felt wobbly.

  “Which way now? Back door? Front door?”

  “They wouldn’t hear the back door as easily as they would the front door. But Ellison’s room is somewhere downstairs and close by, so we’ll still have to be as quiet as possible.”

  Pete took my hand and began to lead me into the living room. But I balked and said, “You act as though you know the way.”

  For a moment there was complete silence. Then Pete whispered, “I got a pretty good idea of the layout of the house before you all went upstairs to bed. I found your room without any trouble. Remember?”

  His face was so close to mine that as I nodded agreement my cheek rubbed against his, and I breathed in his warm, salty, sunburned smell, which was even more comforting than his words had been. “I’m sorry I was suspicious, Pete. I guess it’s because I’m so frightened.”

  “We need each other, Andy,” Pete said.

  I nodded again. This time our lips brushed together for just a second, and Pete said, “Let’s sit on the sand in the moonlight.”

  What was the matter with me? Why had I been suspicious of Pete? Was I so terrified that I couldn’t think straight? I gave a little nudge to his shoulder and moved forward. “Let’s go.”

  The living room was darker than the hall, and Pete immediately banged a foot into the leg of a table. “Ouch!” he said.

  “Be quiet,” I cautioned.

  “Can’t we use flashlights? They’re on that table in the entry hall.”

  “I don’t think we should. Someone might see the light.”

  “If they’re all asleep, they won’t. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” In a couple of minutes he returned with two flashlights and put one of them into my hands.

  “Don’t turn them on until we get outside. How do we know they’re all asleep?”

  Pete muttered something under his breath about wishing he’d gone to Mexico instead and moved forward, cautiously groping ahead before taking each step. I glanced around the room, trying to squint through the shadows, my imagination creeping ahead of me. A patch of darkness, too deep to penetrate, lay on the floor behind the table where the judge’s body had lain. And
in that high-backed chair—was someone sitting there? Was that the roundness of a head? The hiss of suddenly suppressed breathing? I squeezed even closer to Pete and managed to fight down the panic that threatened to burst through me like hot fireworks.

  Making our way through the room was slow work, but eventually we crossed the living room and dining room and entered the kitchen, where the open windows allowed moonlight to spill in without interference. We arrived at the back door as quickly as though it were home base and we’d been in a race.

  “I’m not too happy about all this,” Pete said. He moved close to me and put a hand on my arm as I reached out to open the back door. “Just do me one favor.”

  “Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

  “When you talk to Kurt, tell him whatever you like about your suspicions, but don’t tell him you know where the artifact is.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry,” I said. “We’ve figured out that the murderer is Aldo. That means that Kurt is in the clear.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “That’s just because you don’t like him.”

  “You wouldn’t like him either if he’d kicked your butt out of town. Come on, Andy. Promise. I know you keep your promises. See—I trust you.”

  “Okay,” I told him. “Nothing about the artifact.” Again I reached for the doorknob. Again Pete stopped me.

  “One more thing,” he said. “When we find him you talk to him alone. Don’t tell him about me. Don’t tell him I’m here on the island.”

  “Pete?”

  “And don’t stand around asking stupid questions. Let’s go.”

  As I opened the door Pete stepped aside, motioning me to go ahead. I practically ran down the half dozen or so back steps to the grass and held up my flashlight, fumbling for the switch.

  “Should I turn this on now?” I whispered.

  “Why not?” A shape quickly separated itself from the shadows at the side of the house, and before I realized what was happening a beam of light shone directly into my face.

  I held up an arm to shield my eyes. “Stop that!” I cried out. “What are you doing?”

  The light was lowered, and the voice said, “You’re the one who should answer that question. What are you doing out here by yourself at this time of night?”