High Tide (16 page)

Fiona threw up her hands. “Great. Now
I
am the cause of
my father having to deal with criminals. No doubt it's one of the jailbirds on parole who killed Roy, killed Eric. I wonder what he thinks my father did to him?”

“Do
you
think your father was capable of what you seem to think that I told you that he did?” he said loudly; then when Fiona looked at him in question, he smiled. “Okay, so maybe I don't make any sense. Truth is, I don't know anything about your father. I met him only once. I had the problem with the loans that my uncle had taken out on the park. Truthfully, I was afraid that those men had killed my uncle. I asked someone what I should do, and I was told to ask Smokey, so I did. He gave me excellent advice, I slipped him a hundred, and that was that.”

Fiona cocked her head to one side. “So what did he tell you to do?”

Ace hesitated before answering, and she was sure she saw a bit of a blush on his neck. “He, uh, told me to go to a bank and get a loan and pay off the sharks.”

Fiona blinked at him. “But that's what anyone would tell you to do. Why didn't you think of that yourself ?”

“Youth. Grief over my uncle's death. Too many gangster movies. When I look back on it, I don't know why I didn't think of that.”

“So why didn't your uncle go to a bank in the first place and not the sharks?”

For a split second, Ace looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and she knew that he was hiding something. She had just touched on something that he didn't want her to know about his life.

“My uncle had major personal debts from a divorce. No
bank was going to lend him more. The sharks didn't care about his lack of assets. As they say, He had knees. But I had no debts, and as far as the bank knew, Kendrick Park was unencumbered, since the sharks didn't have any paperwork on the money they had given my uncle.”

“So they gave you the loan,” she said, then looked away. His answer had been simple and easily believable, but he wasn't telling her all of it. She could sense that he was holding something back, hiding something.

“So how are you feeling?” he said in a false voice, obviously attempting to lighten the mood.

“Dirty,” she said instantly. “My hair is dirty, my nails are ragged, even my toenails feel as though they haven't been trimmed in years. And I have hair on my legs and my under—”

“How about some music?” Ace said as he switched on the radio so he wouldn't be able to hear the rest of her feminine complaints. But he didn't get music.

“… notorious John Burkenhalter, aka ‘Smokey'—” Ace turned off the radio.

Fiona closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “I've destroyed my father's name. Before this happened everyone thought my father was wonderful. I thought he was wonderful.”

“Why don't we—”

“What?!” she half shouted, and she could hear the hysteria in her voice. “What can we do? Check in to a hotel? Have a nice dinner and a rest? Or better yet, why don't we just get on a plane and get out of this mess?”

Leaning forward, she snapped the radio back on.

Immediately the announcer's voice came on. “It was announced
today that Fiona Burkenhalter has been discharged from her job at Davidson Toys. The owner of Davidson Toys, James Garrett, said that he knew something was wrong when Burkenhalter refused to leave New York to go to Florida during the winter. ‘I had to threaten her to make her go,' Garrett is quoted as saying in a press conference this afternoon. He went on to say that Burkenhalter had been relieved of all her duties at Davidson Toys. As is known by every little girl in the country by now, Burkenhalter was the creator of Kimberly.”

It was Ace who switched off the radio; then he pulled the car off the highway and onto a side road. During the time it took to do this, Fiona didn't move so much as a muscle. She just sat there, staring out the window, not moving. When he looked at her, as he did every few seconds, she appeared to be relaxed. Her hands were lying limp by her sides, and her face was smooth, undistorted by the anger he would have expected to see.

He would have thought she was unaffected by what she'd just heard except that there were tears running down her face. Slow, silent tears just flowing out of her eyes and running, unchecked, down her cheeks. She made no attempt to wipe them away. In fact, she didn't seem to be aware that they were there.

When he stopped the car and turned the engine off, he leaned over her. “Are you all right?”

“Sure. Fine. Why shouldn't I be? It was just a job. I'll get another one, and they should fire someone accused of murder, shouldn't they? Especially when you work for a toy company. Children are involved with toys, you know. And they look up to the people who create for them. If I were
Garrett, I'd fire me. I wouldn't hesitate. I'd fire me right away. I'd take Kimberly away from me too. Children look up to us. We have a responsibility to the children. That's important in a toy company. We—”

“Sssssh,
be quiet,” Ace said as he smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “Everything's going to be fine. I'll take care of it all, trust me.”

“Gerald can take care of Kimberly. He's wanted to for a long time. The children will be all right. Garrett will figure out something to tell them.”

Ace got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, and pulled Fiona out; then he helped her into the backseat. “I want you to lie down,” he said gently. “I want you to rest while I make a phone call.”

“You know what's funny? Kimberly is going to work with a cartographer. I used my father's maps. Isn't that a good joke? Do you think I'll be arrested for using the maps of a criminal? But then
I
am a criminal too. Like father like daughter. Isn't this just the greatest joke you've ever heard?”

Ace got a blanket out of the trunk and spread it over her; then he rummaged in her backpack until he found the borrowed cell phone. “Be quiet now,” he said. “Just close your eyes and be quiet.”

“Might as well,” she said. “Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. No one needs me anymore.”

Ace stepped away from the car and punched the buttons of a number he knew well.

“How bad is it?” he said as soon as the familiar voice of his cousin Michael Taggert answered.

“Oh, God, Ace, am I glad to hear from you! It's real bad,
but Frank has lawyers working and they all think you two should turn yourselves in. The lawyers will be with you every step of the way.”

“Right,” Ace said. “And will the lawyers be there when she's fingerprinted and they take her mug shot?”

Michael was silent for a moment. “What about you? You'll be taken into custody too.”

“I can take it, but she's beginning to crack up.” Holding the phone to his ear, Ace looked in the backseat of the car, where Fiona was curled, the blanket held to her tightly. She looked like a frightened three-year-old, he thought. He turned his attention back to the phone. “We stayed at Uncle Gil's place, and—”

“Everyone knows that!” Michael snapped. “Aren't you listening to the news?”

“No. Every time we turn it on, something new and horrible is reported and she nearly comes apart. She's had a tough life. A lonely life, but she doesn't know that. The only relative she's ever had has been her father, and he was—”

“An underworld character.”

“He was not!” Ace snapped.

“I'm just quoting what the media is saying. You two have a powerful enemy out there. Someone knows a great deal about you two.”

“And he's taken years to set this up against us.”

Michael hesitated. “Actually, it's not you, it's her. I think she's the target, not you.” When Ace didn't say anything, Michael continued. “And you agree, don't you?”

“That information's from the lawyers, isn't it? They can get me off because of my family name, right?” There was anger and even bitterness in his voice.

“Yeah, they can get you off. Your father can prove—”

“And what am I to do,
leave
her? Abandon her? Say, ‘Nice knowin' you, babe, but I'm outta here'?”

“Calm down; I'm not the enemy. I just need to know what you want to do.”

“I want to know who's behind this. Why is there an advantage to her being killed?”

“Killed? I thought she was being accused as the killer.”

“This morning someone was shooting at her. Not at me, at her.”

“You think it was the police?” Michael asked. “Or maybe someone looking to be a hero by bringing in the two most-wanted …” He broke off as though he'd thought better of finishing that sentence. “What do you think?”

“I have no idea, but I'm sure he was after her alone, not me. What I want to know is why. Any luck with the detectives?”

“None. The trail is ice. They hadn't even found out who her father was, but the police received a tip. Seems there are always tips from the same male voice.”

“Yeah. He planted a bug under the table in the cabin, and I'm sure there was someone outside during the night. The pattern in the birdsong was different.”

“Ace, you're out of your element. This thing is big and it's well planned. You've got to fight it with—”

“I know: money, guns, and lawyers.”

Mike's voice was quiet and serious. “Lots of money, lots of lawyers. No guns.”

Ace paused, took a breath to calm himself. Fiona looked as though she were sleeping. “Mike, who is Kimberly?”

“Kimberly? Lord, Ace, where do you live? On this planet?
No, I know, you live in the sky with those damned birds of yours. If you ever took the feathers out of your eyes, you'd know that Kimberly is a doll, a—”

“A doll?” he said stupidly.

“Yeah, a little, what do you call them? A fashion doll. My girls are mad for them, not to mention adult collectors.”

“You mean it's a doll like that other one? Bar—”

“Don't say that name. I mean it! The war between those two is very real. If you're a Kimberly girl, you don't buy Bar—” Michael broke off before he finished saying the name, and he sounded as though he were looking around to see if anyone was listening. “The other one,” he said, and his voice was so low Ace could barely hear him. “Your Miss Burkenhalter created Kimberly. That doll is a whole world. She's got an occupation, and twice a year she's reissued with new clothes, new friends, and a new task.” Mike's voice dropped even lower. “And twice a year I have to spend new cash on the bloody things. I tell you, it's one of the most brilliant schemes ever thought of to rook parents out of money. Every Christmas and birthday, Sam has to—”

“All right, I get the picture.”

“Okay,” Michael said in a normal voice. “Where do we meet you?”

Ace took a deep breath. “You mean to take us to the police?”

“Right. You can't remain fugitives forever. This has to end.”

Ace took a while to answer. “We can't go in like this. Her hair is dirty and … and …”

“Okay,” Mike said slowly, “I understand. Tell me where you are, and I'll send a car. You can stay tonight at Frank's place. And I'll have Sam get things for … What's her name?”

“Don't send a car. I'll drive to Frank's. Just have his private elevator waiting and the room ready. Fill it with flowers and fruit and chocolates. And when we arrive, send up a lavish spread of food and champagne. And her name is Fiona, as you well know since it's being broadcast all over the world.”

“Yeah, I know her name. I just wanted to hear you say it. You know, the photos of her remind me of someone.”

“Ava Gardner, the fifties movie star. Fiona can make herself up to be a dead ringer for her. She's even got a faint cleft in her chin.”

“Does she?”

“Don't use that tone with me. I want you to have Sam get her some clothes. She's been wearing men's clothes, and she's tired of them. Get something in silk. And shoes. Size seven. And get her some jewelry. Something tasteful. And real.”

“She'll have to relinquish it when you two go to the police,” Mike said softly.

“Yeah, but photographers will be there, and …” Ace's voice trailed off, as if the coming scene was too horrible for him to imagine.

“Oh, by the way, Ace, Lisa flew in last night. She said you'd called her once, but she hadn't heard from you in days, so she was coming apart with worry. She flew in on the same plane as Fiona's fiancé.”

“Boyfriend,” Ace snapped.

“Oh. I see.”

“No, you don't see anything. I'll call Lisa soon. It's just that all this takes precedence.”

“All this being Fiona, right?”

“All this being that
we
—the two of us—are charged with murder.”

“Ace, am I remembering correctly that you used to own a tape of some old movie starring Farley Granger and Ava—”

“Shut up, Mike,” Ace said, then closed the telephone and cut him off.

With a heavy heart, he walked back to the car. Fiona wasn't sleeping as he thought, but just lying there, her eyes full of fear. When she saw him, she looked up. “I can't take this anymore,” she said. “I want out.”

“All right,” he said. “I'll get you out.”

But when he started to get back into the driver's seat, she said, in a panic, “Don't leave me,” so he half carried her as he put her into the passenger seat, and all the way to the hotel, she explained to Ace
why
she was giving up, why she thought they should stop running. Why they
had
to turn themselves in.

Eleven