Below the Surface (16 page)

“Sorry I took so long,” Bree said.

“No problem. By the way, the doors weren't locked like you said.” She turned to Bree and smiled up at her. But her smile faded, and she went wide-eyed. “You okay?” the girl asked. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“I'
m not sure I want you to see the painting in my office,” Cole told Bree as he unlocked the front door of his Turtle Bay shop, which had
Streamin'
and a yacht he'd been working on moored right out the back door. “I know the old pickup line is come have a look at my etchings, but this one may give you a jolt.”

They had just returned from a Sunday brunch at Amelia and Ben's house where Cole had fallen in love with their two sons—in a much different way from what he was feeling about Bree. So fierce was his desire to protect her that he'd talked Manny into not telling her that Bess had insisted Daria had been meeting more than one man. There had to be a good explanation for that, and he wanted to break it to her gently. Maybe he'd find the right time once they were out sailing this afternoon.

It was a windy but hot, sunny day again, and he was going to take her out to leave a memorial wreath over the Trade Wreck site, where she'd last seen Daria. He knew she needed any kind of shoring up she could get. Not only was she grieving for the mysterious loss of her beloved sister, but Bree was deeply shaken by her discoveries that she hadn't known Daria as well as she'd thought.

“A painting?” she said. “What about it? Naked women or something? We thought about getting one of mermaids for our front office, but all the ones we found were topless, and we figured it would give the wrong mess—oh, I see what you mean.”

She stood silent at first, staring at the large reproduction of the painting as he closed and locked the door behind them.

“I've seen that before—in a book somewhere, I mean,” she told him, leaning lightly back against him as he put his hands on her shoulders. “Such wonderful movement and power.”

“It's a great reproduction of my favorite painting of all time, a Winslow Homer done right around the turn of the nineteenth century. It's called
The Gulf Stream,
so I named the sloop and my business, Gulf Stream Yacht Interiors, for it. It's kind of my inspiration for my philosophy of life, especially in tough times.”

His pulse picked up. Maybe he could break the bad news to Bree right here, but before he could say more, she interrupted. “Those are bull sharks swimming along with the sloop, right?”

“Right. But what I really love about it—the only reason I brought you through this way, when the sloop's out back—”

“Is because this is a sloop very similar to yours. And, like the day you rescued me, it protects the sailor from those sharks.”

“True, but I always liked the way the sailor looks calm. The mast is broken, but the sloop's not sinking or even taking on water. Despite the looming storm and the danger in the water, he knows he'll get through it all.”

Standing in his loose embrace, she turned to face him. He wanted to pull her to him, but he said, “There's one other thing I need to tell you about what Manny and I learned at the bar yesterday. Bess swears that Daria met at least two different men out in back there. It was dark, and she couldn't give a good description, but saw enough to know it was two men.”

“What? But then—then there were two beers the bartender knew to give me. One shandy, two Mountain Brewed.”

She didn't get the implications of what he was saying, Cole thought, and perhaps that was just as well, but he added, “Not two men at the same time—different times.”

“Maybe she met a couple of guys from her class afterward,” she went on. “I'd hate to go back to the school and make some general, public plea for information. Besides, why would both guys be so secret or taboo that she met them out in the dark in the boondocks?” He could tell she was on a roll now, probably to keep from admitting Daria could have had an entire secret life built on lies. “Or, you know,” Bree plunged on, “Viv Holliman's hair is really short. Maybe the Hollimans are the ones who met Daria there—to discuss business…at different times…but…”

Her voice trailed off. He saw her shudder. She must know she wasn't making sense.

“You think I'm clutching at straws,” she said. “If—if,” she stammered, “she was meeting more than one man and they found out and were insanely jealous or something like that, wouldn't they have gone after each other? You're thinking one of them might have wanted her to pay for two-timing him, then things got out of hand?”

He pulled her to him. Despite the fact she held the wreath she'd made, she put her free arm around him.

“I don't know what I'm thinking,” he admitted. “So far we're still fact-finding and don't have enough to form a theory to act on. We've got a damn multiple-choice quiz going.”

“I don't know if I can get through the funeral tomorrow,” she admitted, her lips pressed to his shoulder, “especially with this new, dreadful possibility. I mean, if there was some sort of attack on Daria like there was on me…we'd have to convince the police of that. Cole, maybe she accidentally fell and hit her head during an argument with someone, but then, when he left the boat alone to drift and crash, it became sort of—of indirect homicide.”

“Manslaughter.”

“That's it. If any of that could be true, that it wasn't an accident, I've got to know, to get justice for her. And what if her attacker's at the funeral? I've heard that killers sometimes are drawn there or to the burial place of their victim. Who hurt her? Who hurt her and why?”

He cupped her face in his hands and wiped tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “First of all, let's concentrate on getting through the funeral, and then we'll do what we can to find enough evidence to get the cops to open the case. Keep Daria's room sealed, and we'll try to get someone in there to take fingerprints, though if someone is truly clever and desperate, don't get your hopes up. Hey, the good news is that, when I agreed to do the job for Dom Verdugo, I talked him into moving his casino yacht from Miami to the marina here. That way I can stay around to help you. I suggested to him it would be good PR if he had the boat here for people to see. I think he's even planning a party cruise on it soon for influential people—without the gambling, of course.”

“I know you want to keep the gambling from coming in here.”

“I do, but I think he's also a good candidate if there was foul play in Daria's death, and I've spoken with more than one of his employees who could fit the description of your attacker.”

“I'd put Sam's diver, Ric, on the list, too, even if he did make that dangerous dive to find Daria with us. All right, let's go, Captain. Bon voyage, ship ahoy and all that,” she said, cradling the flower wreath to her. “Oh, I left the pelican float to keep the wreath in place in your car.”

“I'll get it. Go on out in back and choose a piece of wood you like so we can float that better.”

He kissed her quickly and headed back to his car. When he glanced through the front office window, he saw her still staring up at the picture of the sloop sailing toward the storm with the sharks chasing it.

“Why hasn't seeing more of Bree cheered you up?” Ben asked Amelia as they sat by the side of their screened veranda pool, watching the boys race little wooden sailboats in the shallow end. “I don't mean that the loss of Daria is something you'll get over quickly, or ever, for that matter, but you've been spiraling down. Even Bree seems on a more even keel than you, and she's lost more than—”

“How dare you say that!” She shoved the book she'd been reading about the grieving process onto her chaise longue. Ben had been going over a stack of affidavits.

“I just meant Bree was her twin, lived with her…Honey, I'm going to call the doctor and have him prescribe something to get you through the funeral tomorrow.”

“No,” she said, reaching over to grab his wrist and trying to keep her voice down. “I won't be drugged so I say something I shouldn't.”

“Like what?”

“I just mean your friends will be there, and a lot of important people, I'll bet. The Austins, maybe even Marla Sherborne. It's going to be a media event, and I won't have everyone staring at me because I look comatose.”

Ben shifted his work aside and swung his legs down between their lounge chairs. He bent over his knees to lean closer as Jordan shouted from the pool, “Dad, my boat won that race. James says it didn't, but I did!”

“You two get along now or you're getting out of there!” Ben told them. “I'm trying to talk to your mother.”

“Trying to,” Amelia noted. “Meaning, you're not being very successful at it.”

“Let's not argue. I know you're under stress and I underst—”

“You don't. Not really. Ben, you're a lawyer and my husband. I have something to tell you, part of the reason I'm feeling so awful about Daria.”

Instantly, his expression changed. His concerned gaze seemed more guarded, she thought. His shoulders tensed. But she had to tell someone some of it or she was going to go right out of her mind and be a raving harridan by tomorrow.

“I saw Daria the day she died,” she blurted.

“And didn't say so? Why?”

“Please don't read too much into that. You know her birth caused my mother's death….”

“Yes, but there was hardly any intent on her part.”

“Would you just listen?” she said through gritted teeth. She wanted to scream at him, but the boys would hear. “I know you're used to firing questions at people, but just listen.” He nodded, curious now, but he looked like he was holding his breath.

“I made a date to have a late breakfast with her at the Grog Shop at the far end of Turtle Bay Marina that morning. I asked her not to tell or bring Bree. I guess I just thought I'd try to divide and conquer them, or something like that. Anyway, when we met outside on the dock, I told her I was tired of being shut out. That Dad had always shut me out, maybe because I looked so much like Mother, as if he couldn't bear to see a reminder of her.”

“Go on,” he prompted when she just gripped her hands tightly together.

“And she said, if anyone was the reminder of Mother's loss it was her and Briana, and they'd gotten along with Dad just fine.”

“That's all?” Ben prompted when she said no more.

“I—I don't know what got into me, but I told her she was selfish—that I hated her. Then she got right in my face and said, ‘Amelia, you've got to get over your crazy ideas Dad didn't love you and grow up.' Crazy ideas, she said. Then I—I shoved her and she shoved me back so hard I bounced into a mooring post and could have gone right into the water. I could have been crushed by one of those big boats tied there, for all she cared. And don't tell me I started it first, like I'm some kid. She—both of the twins are the ones who started all my problems, first losing my mother and then, in a different way, my dad!”

He stared at her a moment. She could see his wheels turning, assessing her story, probably looking for flaws, discerning motives. “There's no more?” he asked. “That's the last time you saw her, so you're feeling guilty about the way you parted?”

She nodded, kept nodding. Her entire body was shaking.

“I wouldn't tell anyone else about that unless it comes up somehow,” he said. “You obviously didn't go in for breakfast together after that, so no one saw you eating with her. Amelia, you have got to find the strength to bury these deep-seated feelings. And don't argue with me when I make an appointment for you with a therapist I know. There's nothing else, is there?”

She realized she was still nodding. “No,” she said, and shook her head side to side. There was more to tell, but she was hoping that bleeding out this much of the festering poison would help her get through tomorrow. How ridiculous were those courtroom dramas or funeral scenes, where the guilty party shouted out what they'd done in front of everyone.

“Dad, Mom! He's looking at me really funny, and he's splashing me!” Jordan shouted. “Make him quit it! It's his fault.”

“That's it!” Ben told them. “I'm coming in to play policeman and the first one of you who messes up is going to his room!”

He leaped up and cannonballed into the deep end to the squealing delight of their sons. Amelia stared at the big splash he'd made as her son's words—“It's his fault…fault…fault…”—echoed in her head.

“I picked this piece of dark wood since black's the color of mourning,” Bree told Cole as he came into his back workroom with the pelican float from his car. She loved the rich smell of this well-lit workroom, piled high with various exotic woods in long trays. His workbench looked out over the far end of the marina next to the Grog Shop Restaurant. Cole had told her he ate a lot of his meals there, when he didn't get takeout or delivery. A man who was dedicated to his work, she thought, just as she had been.

“African wenge wood,” he said of the stark piece. “That's a good choice. It's very hard wood with not much grain.” He took a minute to attach the peach and yellow hibiscus and blue plumbago blossoms to it so they wouldn't break up, then they headed out the back toward the
Streamin'.