by Lee, Rachel
“Florida sunsets are the best.” And he needed to be getting home before it got much darker. He wasn’t at all keen on the idea of walking around the inlet once night fully ruled, of passing through the dark shadowy places among the reaching arms of the trees. In fact, he wasn’t sure he could make himself do it, even though he’d managed to walk from the car to his house the other night. Any gain he might have made against his fears seemed to have evaporated when he found that chair moved out of place. As the shadows closed in, he felt the pressure of dread.
“Thanks for dinner,” he told her. “It was great. I need to be getting back now, though.”
“I’ll walk with you,” she said unexpectedly. “I need to stretch my legs.”
He wouldn’t mind her company at all, but he didn’t like the idea of her walking back alone in the dark. On the other hand, he reminded himself, she’d done it the other night without any problem. He found himself envying her fearlessness.
Hell, maybe he was the one in need of a white knight. The sour thought made him grimace.
“Sure,” he said to Callie, feeling small. “I’d enjoy the company.”
They descended the steps together, and began to walk toward his cottage.
“I’m glad there was something on TV that Jeff wanted to watch,” Callie remarked. Overhead, the tangerine clouds were turning pinker.
“He needs the distraction. You could probably use some, too.”
“No, I don’t want to be distracted. There’s too much to do.”
He glanced down at her, and saw that her face was a shadowy blur in the deepening twilight. Unconsciously, he quickened his pace. “What’s that?”
“I figure the only way I can help Jeff is to try to find out why those two guys were murdered. If I can do that, I can probably figure out who was behind it.”
“Good thinking.” He hesitated, reluctant to upset her newfound sense of purpose, then decided he might as well call the shots the way he saw them. She needed to be wary. “But have you considered how dangerous that might be? We’re talking about hunting for murderers here. If this was worth killing over once, it’s worth a hell of a lot more now.”
“I don’t care,” she said defiantly. “I can’t just sit back and watch my brother go to the electric chair.”
“It won’t do him a hell of a lot of good if you get yourself killed.”
“I won’t get killed. I’ll be careful.”
“Yeah, right. You have a whole lot of experience in detecting, I suppose. You have a background as a private investigator, right? Come off it, Callie. If you start nosing around this thing and word of it gets back to the killers, they’ll be dumping you off a boat somewhere.”
“It’s a risk I have to take. Jeff’s life is on the line.”
“So put yours on the line, too. Makes great sense.”
She stopped walking and faced him. He stopped, too. “Well, what do you suggest, Mr. Know-it-all?”
The instant he stopped walking, he felt the pressure of the night increase tenfold, taking his tension of a minute before and putting the screws to it. It wasn’t fully dark yet, but it would be soon. He didn’t know how long he could stand here before he turned into a gibbering idiot. “Listen,” he said, his voice rasping. “Could we just keep walking?”
Her head jerked, but it was dark enough now that he couldn’t read her expression at all. He didn’t know if she was angry with him or if she’d picked up on his fear. He was male enough, and she was pretty enough, that he hoped it wasn’t the latter. Christ, he didn’t need these complications right now!
He turned and started walking briskly, struggling not to break into a run.
She caught up with him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Liar.
“Something’s wrong.” She looked quickly around. “Did you see something?”
“Nothing.”
“Chase…” She grabbed his arm. “What is wrong with you?”
Suddenly furious, as angry as he’d been in many, many years, he rounded on her. “I’m scared shitless of the dark, okay?” Then he gave in and broke into a trot, figuring he’d reach his house before the last of the twilight faded. At least tonight he’d had the sense to leave a light on. It beckoned to him through one of his windows, and he headed straight for it.
Moments later he heard Callie’s running feet right behind him. Damn the woman, why couldn’t she just leave him alone?
But even worse than his frustration was the twisting, unmanly awareness that he was glad she was behind him, because while she was behind him, nothing else could be.
He reached his porch at last, threw open the door and stepped inside, flicking the switch that turned all the lights on. A dozen bulbs blazed, driving the night back to where it belonged.
He stood for a minute, catching his breath, ashamed of himself and angry all at the same time. He wanted to find a hole—a brightly lighted hole—to just crawl into and never come out of again.
He heard the cottage door close and whirled around to find Callie had entered behind him. He hated her just then, because she was seeing him at his worst, helpless in the face of a nameless fear. He felt stripped bare to the most shameful part of himself.
“Look,” he said, squeezing the words between his teeth. “’Just go home.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Crossing the room, she sat at the table and folded her arms. “Have you always been afraid of the dark?”
“What are you going to do? Analyze me? I don’t need that from you. I’ve got a shrink of my own, thank you very much.”
She ignored him. “You couldn’t have been afraid of the dark all your life or you’d never have been able to deep dive. I hear it’s darker than night down there.”
“Shit.” He said the word under his breath, but she heard it anyway.
“So, you’ve been afraid of the dark since your accident? That seems perfectly reasonable to me. It must have been very dark down there.”
He faced her, setting his hands on his hips. “Look, it’s not just the dark. It’s the things in the dark. So lay off and leave me alone, lady. I’m crazy.”
She nodded slowly. “I imagine you think so.”
“No, I know so! I sit here all night, wide-awake, and I listen to the darkness whisper. I wait for it to pounce. The things that attacked me in the sea are here. They’re outside right now, just waiting for me. That’s how crazy I am.”
She just sat there, continuing to look at him, her gaze steady and her expression—hell, what was her expression? It wasn’t sympathetic, it wasn’t pitying, it was… it was attentive. Nothing more or less.
Finally she spoke. “I have a patient who was brutally attacked by a stranger when she was sixteen. She nearly died. Today she’s twenty-seven and has a child of her own. She lives behind an eight-foot fence, in a house with a security system, keeps the lights on all night, and has four attack-trained Rottweilers. She sits up all night, listening to every little sound, terrified that someone might break in.”
“Christ! Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Eleven years and the woman was still suffering from this stuff. The Beretta was looking good again.
“All I’m trying to say is that what you’re suffering is perfectly normal.”
“Is it? Well, I’ve got news for you. I wasn’t attacked. I had an accident.”
“Accident victims have the same post-traumatic stress. Some of them can never get in a car again. Or drive down certain streets. It’s not unusual, Chase.”
His tone was angry, bitter. “How many of them populate the night with demons, though?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “When you’re afraid of something, the mind is good at making up excuses for it. Since there’s no water outside the door, demons will do for a reason.”
He swore and turned away from her, throwing up his hands, feeling that he just wasn’t getting through.
“I’m sorry,” she said presently. “I suppose it helps to feel you’re unique.”
Her sarcasm surprised him, even as it felt like a lash on his soul. “Do you work at being a bitch?”
He heard nothing but silence from her, but refused to turn around. He wanted her out of there, now, because she was making him feel as if she could read his soul.
“Well,” she said after a moment, “I suppose you could call me that. It can’t be pleasant to be told you’re magnifying your problems.”
“I’m not magnifying anything. I sit here night after night and tell myself I’m imagining things, that there’s nothing out there, that I’m just crazy. Then something as small as a chair being out of place throws me over the edge again.”
His face twisted as a searing bolt of pain shot through him from his hip all the way down his leg. Cursing quietly, he yanked a chair back from the table and sat, waiting for it to pass, feeling icy beads of perspiration break out on his brow.
“Is the pain ever going to get any better?” she asked softly. He looked at her and for the first time saw genuine concern in her blue eyes.
“Who the hell knows.” Little by little, the fiery pain ebbed, returning to its usual dull ache.
“I’m sorry, Chase,” she said presently. “I wasn’t minimizing your problem. I was just trying to tell you that it’s normal. And most of the time it eases up.”
He didn’t answer. Part of him was still angry that she was seeing him like this, but part of him was as grateful as hell that she was here. Her presence seemed to be as effective as the lights in holding the darkness at bay. Maybe even more so, because even when he closed his eyes he didn’t hear the mocking whispers of the shadows, didn’t hear things scraping against the windows or the side of his house. The night had fallen silent.
For the first time in a long time, he let go of the tension while shadows still lurked outside. For the first time in a long time, he felt the tension seep out of his muscles while darkness still ruled the world.
He looked at Callie and wondered if she had any idea that she had just become a talisman.
The silence that stretched between them suddenly seemed fraught with possibilities, and he felt himself straining toward them and recoiling from them all at once. This is dangerous, he told himself. At any time in his life, this would have been dangerous, but right now with all the problems he faced, and with all the problems she faced, this was downright perilous.
Her gaze continued to meet his steadily as the air in the room seemed to thicken. Then, to his amazement, her cheeks colored faintly, and she looked down.
“I’d better be getting back,” she said. “I don’t want Jeff to be alone too long.”
That shocked him back to reality, dispelling the moment of near enchantment. “You don’t think he’d hurt himself?”
She shook her head. “No. Not really. But…” She left it incomplete, giving him a look that said that regardless of what she believed, she wasn’t taking any chances.
Rising, he limped into the kitchen and pulled the magnetic memo pad off the refrigerator. Returning to the table, he scribbled a number, tore off the sheet, and passed it to Callie. “If you need any help at all, call me. I mean it.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and blue, and somehow they seemed to reach out to him, to touch him someplace deep inside. And for an instant, just an instant, he trembled on the cusp of something at once important and terrifying.
An electric tingle filled him, and he realized he could almost feel her silky skin against his palm, could almost taste her mouth beneath his, could almost hear her sighs in his ear. For an instant, just an instant, desire crashed over him like the breakers of a stormy sea.
If he didn’t step back now, he was going to step forward. Afraid of what he was feeling, of what she might not feel, he stepped back.
She took the paper with a nod. “Thanks, Chase.”
Then she walked out of the cabin into the night, as if there was nothing at all threatening out there.
Nor was there, Chase told himself. And for a little while he actually believed it. But later… later he heard the scratching at the windows again, and saw something shadowy move past one.
He might not believe there was anything out there, but there damn well was.
He thought about going outside to check on it, but remembering the chair, he hesitated. Which would be worse? To go out there and find nothing, or go out there and find something?
Damned if he did, damned if he didn’t. Giving in, he went to get the Beretta. If there was something out there, he was damn well going to find it now.
He waited until the scratching started again, at the rear of the cabin. Then, with more fortitude than he’d shown in a while, he flipped the switch, casting the cabin into darkness.
For an instant he could hardly breathe. For an instant he felt as if he were drowning, as if the shadows were as thick as the water at thirty fathoms. He forced himself to ignore the feeling, made his leaden limbs move, reminded himself that once the night had been his friend.
He opened the door slowly and stepped out of the cabin. The scratching was still coming from around back, and as soon as he stepped onto the porch, he felt the breeze that was probably causing it. A stiff wind blew tonight, rattling the palms, causing the mangroves to sigh like lost souls. He smelled the sea and felt his heart leap with a yearning he hadn’t allowed it to feel in months.
The sea called to him even as the night threatened him. He had told himself they were one and the same, but they were not. Listening to the gentle lapping of the waves in the inlet and the creaking of the dock to which the Lily was tied as the boat tugged at her moorings, he felt the whisper of the peace he had once found in the sea.
Almost as if drawn by a force outside himself, he climbed down from the porch, and walked around the seawall to the water’s edge. The waves sparkled dimly in starlight, murmuring a soft, liquid lullaby.
She called to him, and he wanted to go.
Squatting, he forgot the night and listened to the sea’s siren song. Responding to it, he reached out a hand and felt her warm waters kiss his fingers. Peace began to fill him, and the night seemed to lose its fearsome grip.
Then, sounding like the crack of a gun, the door of his house slammed shut.
At the loud crack, Chase instinctively rolled sideways until he was on his back, pointing the gun toward the house. Nothing moved except the breeze and the swaying trees. No darker, thicker shadow had coalesced out of the night.
It had to have been the breeze, he thought. The breeze had caught the door and slammed it.
But he didn’t quite believe it.
Rolling once again, he came to a crouch and began to make his way closer, keeping low, hugging the shadows that now promised safety with concealment. His training came back to him instantly.
He reached his porch and still saw nothing. The breeze had gentled some, and the palms were whispering rather than clattering. Step by step, keeping crouched, he climbed to the porch. Nothing.
Finally, deciding it had to have been the wind, he straightened and went to open his door. He swung it inward and peered into the dark maw inside his house.
There could be something in there. He almost sensed that something was. Feeling his heart pound, he weighed his options and decided that whatever was in there couldn’t possibly do any worse to him than his own fear did. If he let fear cripple him, he might as well be dead.
Stepping into the yawning blackness, he felt for the light switch and threw it.
The sudden blaze from all the lamps was painful, but it revealed that the darkness inside had concealed no secrets. There was nothing there. Carefully, though, he made his way back to the bedroom, the one part of the house he couldn’t see from the front door. Nothing. He was alone.
Turning, he went back to close his front door. Just as he was about to swing it shut, he caught sight of something glistening. Reaching out, he turned on the porch light.
There, draped across the planks of his deck and leading down to the water, was a trail of w
et seaweed. For the first time, he considered that the demons he feared might not all be in his mind.
CHAPTER 7
Callie called Shirley Kidder first thing in the morning. “What’s happening on Jeff’s case?”
“Very little I’m afraid. I don’t have full discovery yet, just what the State Attorney and sheriff are willing to share. The Monroe County sheriff says they’re going to deliver a paper to you telling you what they took during the search. Apparently it was just the boat’s log and some clothing.”
“So they didn’t find anything else?”
“Not a thing. And you can use the boat anytime you want. I told them to either impound it as evidence—which considering they didn’t find anything at all on the Lily would be a very hard thing to justify—or release the boat. They released it.”
“Good.”
“With regard to the clothing, they took Jeff’s clothes out of your hamper. Did they tell you that?”
“No. They said they didn’t take anything!”
“Well, someone took four pairs of undershorts, three pairs of tennis shorts, one pair of jeans, five pairs of socks, and six T-shirts out of the hamper. You can get irate that they didn’t tell you about this after you get the good news. All of the clothes, dirty though they were, including the pair of jeans that was soaked with salt from seawater, proved to be perfectly free from bloodstains. So as it stands now, they haven’t got one direct link between your brother and the dead men, other than that he happened upon a sinking boat.”
“Thank God!” Callie’s spirits soared.
“This doesn’t, however, mean that we’re out of the woods.”
And just as quickly her spirits plunged. “What do you mean?”
“They’ve still got a strong circumstantial case. Strong enough to press this charge. And unless somebody comes up with another suspect, this is probably going to run through to the bitter end. Have you been reading the papers?”
“No.” They were still lying wrapped in plastic in a pile on the veranda. She’d picked them up from her box out at the highway, but since Jeff’s arrest she hadn’t even wanted to open them.
