by Lee, Rachel
“That’s weird,” Jeff said.
“Even weirder when you connect all this to the proximity with The Happy Maggie.”
Jeff leaned forward eagerly. “Then this stuff at your place. Yeah, I see what Callie meant. Too much weird stuff, and all of it could be connected to the Maggie.”
“About the only coincidences the connection won’t explain is me living next door to you and Jeff finding the Island Dream,” Chase said.
“Well, coincidences do happen,” Callie said. “They just don’t usually pile up. A woman I work with went to Washington last winter on a vacation, and as she was walking up the steps of the Capitol, she ran into an acquaintance she hadn’t seen or heard from in a dozen years, not since she left Michigan. It happens. You just don’t usually get a whole string of them like this.”
“Sometimes,” Jeff said soberly, “you get the feeling things were meant to be.”
It was true, Callie thought. Sometimes you just got that feeling, and she was having it right now, looking at Chase and Jeff across the table. She definitely had the feeling that events were moving in a destined direction, that currents were carrying her, Jeff, and Chase to some preordained place. She didn’t know if she liked that. A shiver ran through her.
“Actually,” she said, needing to banish the feeling, “the only real coincidence would be Jeff finding the Island Dream. Without that, none of the rest of this would seem like a coincidence.”
Chase agreed. “That’s true.”
Jeff made an impatient sound. “What does it matter? When you start looking at things in hindsight you can see all sorts of coincidences that made things happen.”
That was a remarkably perceptive comment from her usually devil-may-care brother. Callie looked at him with new respect.
“I can do that with anything in my life if I want to,” he said. “What really concerns me right now is, how do we use this to get me out of these murder charges?”
“That,” said Chase, “is the question.”
“Did you find out anything from the dive shops?” Callie asked.
“I was waiting for callbacks. Didn’t get any yet. But I have an answering machine, so if anyone calls, I’ll know about it.”
“Why did you call dive shops?” Jeff asked.
“Actually, I called around to places that supply gases to commercial divers. Some deal with the public; most don’t.”
“How come?”
“It’s hard to get a good gas mixture,” Chase explained. “It takes skill to mix the helium, oxygen, and nitrogen into a safe blend, and it’s too easy to screw up. Every now and then some diver dies because his mixture is off, and he’s breathing nearly pure helium or nitrogen.”
Callie’s heart turned over. “Jeff’s not going to breathe that stuff, is he?”
Chase shook his head. “Most places he’d want to dive around here, all he’d need is regular compressed air. He can get that at any dive shop. Anyway, I was hoping somebody would remember a guy, or a couple of guys, who paid cash for Trimix or heliox within a day or two of the murders. Of course, if these guys were working for a commercial dive company, we’re screwed. They wouldn’t have stood out, and nobody will remember them.”
“If they were commercial divers,” Callie said, “wouldn’t they have had their own boat?”
“I doubt they would have used a company boat for this expedition regardless. What I meant was that if they frequently get gas mixes for dives for a commercial venture, no one would have noticed them.” Chase sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I gotta think about this. Everything’s turning up a dead end, but I keep getting this feeling that the answer is right there, almost in reach.”
“One thing for sure,” Jeff said with a remarkable amount of firmness, “you’re not going home tonight.”
Chase looked at him.
“If somebody was willing to kill your buddy because he was a loose end, they’d be willing to kill you, Chase. Especially now that you’ve been nosing around.”
“He’s right,” Callie said. “Jeff’s absolutely right. You’ve asked a lot of questions. Who knows who may have heard about that.”
He looked at the two of them, then surprised them with a laugh. “Christ,” he said. “And I thought I was paranoid before.”
Callie had lit up the whole house, Chase noticed. In a quiet, unobtrusive way, she’d turned on the living room lights, the bedroom lights, the veranda lights, driving the shadows back from the house. The gesture touched him.
It also made him feel small and shameful. His fear of the darkness troubled him in a way few things had. It wounded his self-image, wounded his self-confidence. His marriage had done that, but nothing else until this had affected him. quite so much.
He made himself go out onto the veranda again, reminding himself that only a couple of hours ago he had managed to walk through the woods, through the shadowy, reaching shapes of the mangroves and the buttonwoods. If he could do that, he could stand on the veranda for a while and fight the darkness some more.
The thing about fear, though, was that even if you faced it, it didn’t necessarily go away. Stepping through Callie’s front door was a difficult thing to do. He could feel the night trying to close in again.
But he could also see the crescent moon, and the silvery water. The breeze had quieted, and the inlet was as smooth as glass, looking like a dark mirror. He stared into that mirror, trying to remember his last dive.
The ocean had been unusually calm that day, he remembered. A beautiful day for a dive, with bright sun, no clouds, and very little wave action. He and Bill had suited up, double-checking each other’s equipment—and then he remembered nothing, not even going over the side. What had happened after that had become the stuff of nightmares he couldn’t trust.
But in his dream earlier, he’d seen the hull of The Happy Maggie. It had been a dim blur, outside the brightest halo of his lamp, and it might only have been the creation of his dream—in fact, probably was since the hole he had seen in his dream in no way matched Bill’s damage report. But he focused on the image anyway, trying to jog his subconscious into remembering more.
“Chase?” Callie came out onto the porch. “I wanted to show you your room. I made up the bed.”
“Thanks. Don’t be offended if I don’t sleep in it. I don’t sleep much at night.”
“It’s there if you want it.” She came to stand beside him at the railing. “It’s beautiful tonight. When I was a kid and dad was home, sometimes he’d take us out on the water on nights like this. I’d usually fall asleep from the rocking of the boat. I always figured he did it because he and Mom found it romantic.”
He looked down at her. “That would be romantic.”
“Sure. If you don’t hate the sea.”
She looked ethereal in the pale moonlight and shadows, and he felt something catch in his chest. Callie was, he thought, as elusive as the sea. You might reach out and touch her, but you could never hold her. Every time he started to feel close to her, she drew even further away. The realization stayed his impulse to reach out.
“You don’t hate the sea,” he said quietly.
“No? How would you know?” Her tone challenged him as much as her words.
“You hate the things the sea does. But if your dad had died in a car accident, would you blame the road? Would you refuse to ever drive again?”
“Don’t use logic on me. This isn’t logical.”
He had the worst urge to laugh, but bit it back because she’d probably misunderstand and think he was laughing at her. Laughing at her was the last thing he wanted to do.
What he wanted to do was laugh at himself. “Listen to me trying to talk you out of your hangups. Me. As if I haven’t got a million of my own that won’t yield to reason.”
She glanced up at him and laughed. Only then did he feel it was safe to let out his own laughter.
Presently, though, after their laughter died, she sighed. “Look, about Jeff’s diving…”
“
I know you don’t want him to, Callie. But it has to be his decision.”
“I know that. That’s what I was going to say. I realized a few things about myself today, and I didn’t like them. So I won’t say anything more about college or diving.”
“Good for you.”
“It won’t be easy.” She sighed again. “I guess I’ve gotten into a bad habit of thinking I know more than he does. But that’s not really true. In the first place, I’m not all that much older. In the second… well, if I could manage to raise him from the time I was fourteen, I guess he’s probably better equipped for life at twenty than I’m allowing him to be.”
“He’s as well equipped as anyone his age.”
“Yeah, I was thinking about what you said about being on your own at twenty. Eric—his friend—has been self-supporting for the last two years. It occurred to me that Jeff might have moved out on his own already—except for me. I think he’s hanging around here because he thinks he has to take care of me.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me. But you do have a dock…”
She laughed again. “There are a few attractions around here. But mostly I think he just doesn’t want to leave me alone. He said something tonight that really hurt.”
“Which was?”
“That I need to get a life. He’s right.”
“I imagine a lot of women discover that when their kids grow up. Being a mom is pretty life-consuming, I’d think. Then one day they don’t really need you as much.”
“That day arrived a while back. I just didn’t want to face it.”
He gave in to impulse and slipped his arm around her shoulders. Something akin to amazement and wonder filled him when she allowed herself to lean against him, when she relaxed into his embrace. After what he had done earlier, he wouldn’t have blamed her for jerking away. When he felt her arm lift and wrap around his waist, he stopped breathing.
God, it had been so long! The ache that filled him then had nothing to do with fear, and everything to do with an unending loneliness that not even the sea and his friends had been able to assuage.
This was dangerous territory, and he knew it, but he decided he could risk it for just a little while. He and Callie were worlds apart, and there could never be any more between them than this moment. Besides, he was never going to trust anyone with his heart again. But just for now he could have the illusion of not being alone in the world.
“I’m really scared,” she said. “That’s part of the reason I’ve been acting so crazy. These murder charges are real, and they aren’t going to just vanish no matter how much I wish it. So I’m ragging on Jeff when I know I shouldn’t. Distracting myself from the stuff I can’t fix by getting on him about college and anything else that comes to mind.”
“Maybe you’re feeling a little resentful of him, too. He’s caused some serious trouble in your life with this murder charge.”
“But he isn’t the cause. I know that.” She stirred against him, then leaned even closer. “You’re right, though. I guess at some level I’ve been blaming him.”
“You’re only human, Callie. You can’t expect to be perfect.”
“Mmm.”
Was it his imagination, or was she leaning even closer. His heart accelerated a little as he tightened his hold on her. God, he needed her closeness.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
His heart plummeted. He was sure she was going to pull away, and he didn’t know if he could stand that. Right now, holding her, even the dark didn’t seem threatening. “For what?”
“The way I’ve been acting. I’ve been on some kind of tear, haven’t I? I’ve been just awful to you and Jeff.”
“Awful is a little extreme, don’t you think?”
“No.” Another sigh escaped her. “Lately I’ve been feeling I’m losing my grip on everything, that every last thing is getting out of my control. Jeff’s growing up and pushing for independence. Then these murder charges. Then you.”
“Me?”
She was silent a long time. A very long time. Finally, she spoke, her voice hushed. “You terrify me.”
His heart thudded. “What I did earlier…”
“Not that. I’ve already forgotten that. It’s… I’m just scared of you. Part of me… part of me wants things….” She trailed off.
His mind scrambled around, trying to complete that sentence, afraid he might put the wrong meaning there. Afraid of him? Wanting? Wanting what
She spoke again, and unconsciously he leaned close to hear. “I swore I’d never get involved with a man again.”
His heart skipped into high gear. Now he was scared. “Me too,” he said. “Me too.”
She tilted her face up, and silvery moonlight kissed her. “Your wife hurt you.”
“Mel hurt you.”
They stood, not moving, understanding filling them and drawing them closer even though neither of them moved a muscle.
Callie spoke, her voice little more than a whisper. “you make me feel out of control.”
His heart beat heavily, and he had the feeling that the next few minutes might shape his life in ways he’d never imagined.
“Jeff makes me feel out of control, too, lately,” she said quietly. “But you… terrify me.”
Right now she was terrifying him. His white-knight impulse had never been stronger. She needed help, and he wanted to give it, but there was danger here. Potential catastrophe. In the first place, he was nearly paralyzed by his own problems. How could he possibly help anyone else?
But worse, he wouldn’t help Callie at all if she seized on him as a substitute for Jeff. He couldn’t become her life simply because she needed one.
He should back away right now, he told himself. Let go of her, step back, and return their conversation to safer grounds.
But he could no more have let go of her than he could have stopped the beating of his heart. He felt almost as if he were welded to her, and ripping away would cause terminal damage.
But the night had other ideas. A breeze moved, skimming over the water and stirring its surface, shattering the mirror of moonlight. It caught the back of his head, ruffling his hair and gently pushing him toward Callie. Carrying away his last sane thought.
He bent his head, saw her face lift toward him, recognized that she wanted this as much as he. A small flame of warmth began to glow in his heart, and gently began to spread to all the other cold, lonely places.
He lowered his mouth to hers, felt their lips touch again, but this time the touch was so very different. Instead of anger and a desire to silence her, this time he wanted her to speak to him in a language older than words.
His lips moved gently against hers, coaxing her to answer his question. The warmth in him grew, settling lower, becoming a hot, heavy ache in his loins.
She kissed him back, and it was unlike any kiss he had ever known. There was a freshness, an uncertainty, and an eagerness that acted like an intoxicant on him. Drawing around so that she faced him, he tucked her into the curve of his body and felt delight splinter through him as her other arm closed around his waist.
He deepened his kiss, sensing her inexperience and taking great care because of it. He should have called a halt, but there was some essential need in him that she was answering, overriding his caution and common sense.
She trusted him, he realized with an explosion of delight and wonder. She trusted him, or she wouldn’t be holding him like this and kissing him like this. Her trust was a scary thing, because it would be so easy to hurt or disappoint her. But it was also a healing thing, a balm to wounds so old he had forgotten they existed.
Making a little sound deep in her throat, she pressed herself tighter to him, and her palms climbed his back, stroking him longingly. He began to have visions that went far beyond a comforting kiss, visions of their bodies twined, his hands and mouth on her, of the two of them rolling around in a big bed in a search to appease the fires of passion.
His hands followed his thoughts, and one
of them slipped between them, finding the fullness of her breast and cradling it with a hunger. She arched into his touch as if it delighted her every bit as much as it delighted him.
Oh, man. Thunder began to roll in his head, and lightning to shoot through him to his loins. He was hardening for her, and with an instinct as old as time, he pressed himself to her, seeking release.
And all of a sudden she tore herself away from him, backing up until she was five feet away.
He stared at her, battling the waves of desire that were demanding he go to her and bring her close again. He couldn’t do that. He realized it as strongly as he realized that he wanted her more than he had ever before wanted a woman. “I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have let that get out of hand.”
“It’s not you…” Her voice broke. “It’s just… I never… I’d only disappoint you.” Turning, she fled into the house.
Leaving Chase on the porch with his enemy darkness and an empty ache as big as the Atlantic Ocean.
CHAPTER 15
Callie awoke in the morning with the feeling that some kind of dark cloud had vanished, leaving her head clear and her heart filled with determination. Looking back at her behavior over the past few months, she wondered what had been wrong with her. She’d been making life hell for Jeff, and had projected her fears outward on Chase Mattingly in a way that embarrassed her to death. She almost felt as if she’d been caught in some kind of dark bag, and had been flailing in every direction trying to find a way out.
There was no way out. That knowledge settled over her, calming her. Jeff was growing up and was going to leave. The murder charges weren’t going to vanish no matter how she railed against them. And Chase wasn’t Mel. Whatever his problems, he didn’t deserve the way she had been acting toward him. Maybe she was entitled to her fear of men and her doubts about their reliability, but she wasn’t entitled to treat individual men according to her generalized fear.
She looked in the bathroom mirror and grimaced. “Psychologist heal thyself,” she said sternly.
Well, why should it surprise her that she’d been blind to her own failings? She was only human, after all, and psychologists were no better at analyzing themselves than the general population. It was one thing to be objective when you were dealing with someone else’s problems, and entirely another to be objective about your own.
