“I think the boat tour is perfect,” she finally said.
Griffin loaded the small cooler of bottled waters and snacks from the pier onto the boat and he watched Barbara come down the handmade wooden steps he’d built. Her long ponytail was pulled forward in a loose braid just below her collarbone. She was long and athletically lean, as if she had spent time running or playing sports.
It figured that as soon as he made plans to leave town, someone like Barbara would show up. From the first moment he laid eyes on her, he’d felt the connection. She was pretty, yes. Attractive in a way that grabbed guys in the gut, made them look twice. But that wasn’t the only thing he felt from her. He recognized something. As if they were the same, somehow. Like she was someone he could finally relate to.
He had taken Lillian’s advice and struck up a conversation, voluntarily offered up information about himself. Right from the start, even. Made himself more approachable, as she had suggested. “A woman could be intimidated by you, Griffin,” Lillian had told him. “You have to help relax those barriers if you want to get to know someone again.” But Barbara had told him nothing about her life in return. There was a story there, a twisted one, he suspected.
She had looked so scared when he first saw her, he’d thought she was about to pull a gun on him. Several times he had seen her touching her left ring finger with her thumb, as if she were accustomed to wearing a ring there. He’d done the same thing, too, and for a while, after he took his wedding ring off.
But that particular look of fear in her eyes. He had seen it in his mother’s eyes when he was young, when she had had to leave his father. That fear of being found, of being hurt and of losing everything you cared about. It was a scent, almost, one he could recognize at a hundred yards. She was running from something. He would help her, if he could. If she would let him.
“Welcome aboard!” He helped her onto the boat, her hand was soft and delicate inside of his.
“Thank you.” Her smile was warm but guarded, friendly but slightly distant. Protecting herself. Just as his mother had done.
He started the engine and backed the boat out of the slip. “Have you been boating much?”
“Almost every weekend. There’s a lake not far from—there’s a lake I used to go to back home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Uh, it’s just a small town. I would doubt you’ve ever heard of it.”
He turned the steering wheel and set a slow path to the main part of the lake. He wanted her to open up to him, to trust him enough to share with him what happened. If only because he knew if she did that, that she would be closing a door on her past. Then, maybe, she would be willing to explore this connection they shared. One he hadn’t felt with any woman in a long time.
“Are you Jewish?” He pointed to the Star of David keychain in her hand.
“Oh.” She looked at it as if she had forgotten that it was still in her hand. “No.” She paused as though she weighed whether or not to share anything. “My husband was,” she finally said.
He nodded slowly, accelerated the boat into the open water. “He stopped practicing?”
She shrugged. “He died about a year and a half ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” She turned her face into the wind, toward the sun.
“My wife died two years ago,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and he knew she meant it. She would know how horrible that process was.
Now he knew at least part of what they had in common. They had both loved and lost. Her loneliness mirrored his own.
He pointed out the different neighborhoods that bordered the lake, where she could rent a wave runner, where she could shop and which mountains had the best hiking. When they reached the middle of the lake, he cut the motor, letting the boat rock and bob.
“How did she pass?” She asked the question easily, as someone did when they were intimately familiar with death.
“Lung cancer,” he said. “She grew up in a house where her dad smoked. Vicious disease. She caught it at Stage 3, took the drugs, had the chemo, didn’t make any difference in the end.”
She winced. “My mother died of breast cancer. Got into the bone before she caught it and they couldn’t save her. Cancer is such a terrible disease.”
Too many bad memories flooded his mind as usual. Some he could put in the time-will-heal box, others burned like salt in a fresh wound.
“Thanks,” he said. “How did your husband pass?”
She drew in a deep breath and shifted in her seat. “It was a—um. An accident.”
He nodded, looked out at the smoke topped mountains that surrounded them on all sides. He opened the cooler and handed her a Diet Coke.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile.
“Are we always going to be like this?”
“Like what?”
“I ask you a question to get to know you better, only you don’t answer it and I end up not knowing any more about you than before.” He tilted his head to the side, offered her his most friendly smile and wondered what had her locked up so tight.
She looked at the can of Coke and ran her thumb around the rim. When she looked at him her blue eyes sparkled beneath long bangs. Her closed lip smile told him she wouldn’t be sharing any secrets today. He would have to work harder if he wanted answers.
He opened a plastic container of buckeyes that Lillian had dropped off earlier and offered her one. “Let me guess, you’re running from the law? Wanted for murder?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” She laughed and took one of the buckeyes.
“It’s alright. You don’t have to tell me,” he said.
She studied him for a moment. The water lapped at the sides of the boat. “I’m just getting some much needed R&R. Getting off the grid for a while.”
He knew she wasn’t telling him the truth and he had an overwhelming urge to help her, to protect her. To stand between her and whoever she was running from. He pulled a card from his wallet and wrote his cell number on it. “Here’s my number if you need anything. Okay? I’m right next door if you need help.”
Her shoulders dropped an inch. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Griffin started the engine and circled the rest of the lake, showing her a few of the better restaurants, as well as an old stone church that had been built before the Civil War.
When the sun began to slip behind the mountains he asked if he could take her out for dinner. He thought for sure she would say no, but she accepted. With one leap of his heart, his world spun to the positive. He knew exactly where he would take her.
9
Barbara studied her open suitcase that rested on the bed and tried to figure out what was different. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but something was amiss.
She’d left her clothes in a tumbled mess, so she couldn’t be completely certain. But something felt off. There were several pair of her underwear on the bed. She didn’t remember doing that. Her blue bikini top was laid out over the top of the suitcase. She didn’t think she had done that either. Panic skipped through her heart at the thought that David’s murderer might have found her.
She walked the rest of the small house, searching for signs that someone else might have been in the house since she had arrived.
The phone rang and she jumped. Pins and needles pricked her scalp.
Caller I.D. said it was her father. “Hello?”
“Barbara, you’re there?”
“I am,” she said.
“Honey, I’ve got Detective Boone on the line, do you have a minute?”
“Yeah, sure.” She lowered herself onto the edge of the lumpy couch.
“Barbara, I was just letting your dad know that we have a match on one set of the fingerprints from the storage area in your condo. He’s a long time criminal, been around Charlotte for a while. Did a short stint in Miami for breaking and entering, car theft, seems to have a talent for breaking into things. He was r
eleased from prison last year. No known employer.”
“No surprises there,” her dad said.
“His name is Elias Roberts.”
“Elias," she said. "That's him! He owns the condo next to mine?” Barbara asked.
“No, the condo was purchased a little over a year and a half ago, by an LLC called Club East. They own several condos around Charlotte that they rent out,” Detective Boone said. “We’re looking for a connection between them and David’s business, but right now it looks as though they just own rental properties.”
“Did David ever mention anything to you about coming into some unexpected cash? Or did your lifestyle suddenly change?” Detective Boone asked.
“No. I’d been sick and we hadn’t done much of anything for a long while. He did talk about travel. At the time I thought that was just about seeing the world, but then I found those passports he had made up for us.”
“Your dad told me about those. Frank, I’ll be by tomorrow to pick those up from you,” Detective Boone said. “Barbara, we’d like to search your condo again.”
“Help yourself. My sister-in-law is having some of my things packed up before she puts the condo on the market. She can give you access. I’ll email you her number.”
“I can let you in,” her dad said. “I’ll meet you there and hand you the passports.”
“Okay, let’s meet there at nine tomorrow morning. Barbara, did you find anything unusual around the house? Paperwork for an account you don’t recognize? Or can you remember David mentioning a hiding place?”
“No accounts. Just the safety deposit box I told my dad about which is where I found the passports. There was also a key in there that I didn’t recognize. There weren’t any numbers on it, and the banker said she didn’t think it belonged to their bank. Is there a way to find out what it belongs to?”
Detective Boone was still trying to qualify whether David had stolen the diamonds. Barbara was already convinced that he had. She wondered if she found the diamonds and was able to give them to this Elias guy, if he would just leave her alone. Or if she gave the diamonds to the police, if Elias might kill her. He seemed like the type.
“I’d like to take a look at the key," Detective Boone said. “Without unique identifying characteristics, it might be hard to determine what it fits. Email me a photo of the key and let’s give it a shot.” Detective Boone said he had a warrant out for Elias’s arrest, and he cautioned Barbara to be careful, to be aware of her surroundings. He said he would email her a photo of the guy and that he would contact the Brevard police and ask them to keep a lookout for him. “It’s a small town, they would probably have time for some extra police presence in your area. The park rangers might be able to help keep an eye on you and your place as well. I’ll ask and see.”
After they hung up, Barbara stared at the lake. How had she not been able to see that David had stolen diamonds? That he had even wanted to do such a thing? And where in the hell would he have hidden them? She never believed that she was capable of hating David, but she was there today.
She focused on the name Elias. Remembered the coldness in his eyes and the feel of his gun against her head. Subtle pieces of information reached for her, like a hand in the dark, until his energy poured into her. He was obsessed with finding the diamonds. But he wasn't searching for her like he had been before.
Had he found her? She desperately wanted to know. It felt like he was standing right outside the front window, watching her. But at the moment she was feeling so afraid, so paranoid, she wasn’t sure.
She could feel the heat of his stare, so much so that she broke the connection with his name. His energy left her, but her adrenaline continued to surge. She paced around the couch and inhaled deep, slow breaths. He wouldn’t find her up here in these mountains. Certainly not in this preserve. She had been careful to make sure she wasn’t followed.
She picked up the small key that David had left in his private safety deposit box and traced the ridges with her finger. She imagined stacks of money lined up in rows and black velvet bags full of diamonds packed into the metal box. Somehow she would figure out where that box was.
She peeked through the front curtains to prove to herself that no one was out there watching her. What she saw made her gasp.
Griffin walked across the front lawn, one hand in his front pocket, the other hand holding a bouquet of flowers. The goodness she had seen in him earlier in the day shone bright in that moment. He had a Jimmy Stewart type of kindness, she decided, and it made her heart flutter and soften all at once.
* * *
When they walked toward his house she expected to veer toward his dark gray SUV that was parked under a cluster of tall pines. Instead he guided her toward the narrow dirt path they took to his boat earlier in the day.
“This way,” he said, and pointed to a picnic table that was positioned on the bank of the cove. The table was covered with a white tablecloth, silver candle holders with ivory-colored candles had been placed in the center, and a picnic basket was perched on the end of one of the bench seats. “Welcome to Chez Griffin.”
“You cook, too?” she asked.
“A few things. Tonight it’s lasagna. Hope that works.”
“Couldn’t be more perfect, actually. I love Italian food.”
He set the plates and silverware on the table and poured the wine. She set her sights on the shadowy areas of the woods, looking for signs of movement. When she saw nothing, she turned her attention back to the lasagna. It smelled like it came from Mama Ricotta’s, her favorite Italian restaurant in Charlotte.
The noodles were light and the sauce was both savory and sweet with just a hint of basil. Her eyes nearly rolled back into her head. Good grief the man could cook.
They ate and drank and talked until the stars above shone bright. His gray eyes focused on her so intently she thought they might have taken her into their world. The wine, with its seamless blend of toasted spice and chocolate, left her feeling spellbound. Attraction hummed between them like a finely-tuned motor.
He asked her about the dreams she had for her life. This wasn’t the normal small talk she expected and she put her fork down. He didn’t realize it, but he asked her to talk about the secret wishes she kept hidden away. The ones she had kept close to her heart. The dreams she never discussed, at least not since her father had become so emotionally reliant on her.
But here in the semi-dark, with no one else to hear, and being certain that no one would find out what she said, she wanted to revisit them, to give them her voice. “I want to own my own business, a skincare spa. The best skincare at a reasonable price, so I can build a loyal clientele. I have it all laid out in my mind: light blue walls with soft music piped in to give clients an ethereal feeling, like a mini-vacation whenever they come in.
“Then when I’ve saved enough money, I want to travel. Everywhere. Particularly France, Greece, and Italy.” She told him how she had put together a travel book of all her dream locations, how she had even mapped out sample tours and extended vacations.
“I think you’d be quite good at that,” he said.
“Hope so,” she said. “How about you? What dreams do you have for your life?”
He told her how he and his cousin had dreamed of being archaeologists since they were kids, and how they had always wanted to make a truly fantastic discovery. Now, they were actually close on doing just that. “It’s an ancient city that archaeologists have been in search of for the last few thousand years or so.”
“And you found it?”
“I think so.” I’ve been researching its existence for most of my career. Luke and I think it’s in Greece.”
He took her hand in his.
Griffin. Griffin. Griffin.
She rolled his name around in her head, worked to find the right thread of energy that would lead her to more of his story. Methodical popped up again. She often saw that quality in law enforcement and lawyers, how they put clues together that lead them
to logical conclusions. That must have been true for archaeologists as well.
She saw Griffin standing on a steep, dirt-covered hill that overlooked the bluest water she had ever seen. And she had the strong sense that he would live close to that location. Greece, she suspected, and her heart sank. He was leaving.
“You’re moving to Greece?” she asked.
“It looks like it,” he said. “Luke, my cousin, has finally gotten the business end of our excavation pretty well organized.” His gray eyes held hers; their pull was magnetic and she couldn’t look away. “There’s something undeniable here—”
She looked at their hands together and she nodded. The chemistry between them was palpable.
He sighed and stared at the lake for a long moment. When he turned to face her again he said, “You’ve always wanted to travel to Greece, though, right?’
“Unfortunately my dad’s health is not great, so I haven’t traveled in a long time. He’s had two heart attacks and I’m the only one around to take care of him.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Bad timing, then, I guess.”
“Bad timing,” she agreed.
“I’m glad to have met you,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said.
* * *
The walk back with Griffin had been quiet. It was as if the two of them were supposed to catch an important train together but they had missed it.
Bad timing.
Once inside, she looked over the den. It wasn’t her home so she wasn’t completely certain, but, once again, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else had been inside. She walked around, opening closet doors and checking locks. Nothing had been disturbed. No one was there except for her. But the thought of Elias being a master at picking locks left her feeling unnerved.
She poured herself a small glass of Bailey’s, and changed into yoga pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. She snuggled into the corner of the pit group and covered herself with the white knit blanket that had been left on the back cushions, expected to fall asleep.
Chasing Secrets Page 6
