High Tide (30 page)

Ace had pulled off the highway onto the overgrown back road that entered Kendrick Park, and now they were heading toward the cabin.

He didn't respond to her statement, and she wondered what he was thinking. For her, with every plant they passed, every bird they saw darting about, she remembered the first time they had been to his uncle's old shack. Fiona remembered being frightened, but she also remembered the simple camaraderie they had shared in those days. She remembered
how Ace had protected her from bullets with his own body; he was ready to be shot rather than allow her to be hurt.

Had he been acting? she wondered. Was anyone that good an actor?

But even back then she had known he was hiding something. She hadn't had a clue what it was, but she knew that he wasn't who he seemed. And now she knew what it was that he had been covering up: Money. He was wealthy and he hadn't wanted her to know about it. Why? Wasn't she his social class?

When they were close to the cabin, Ace said, “Fiona, I want to tell you that—”

He didn't finish his statement because standing on the porch of the falling down old shack was Jeremy. And beside him was a lovely young woman who Fiona recognized from TV as Miss Lisa Rene Honeycutt.

Twenty
 

“This is
not
a garden party,” Ace said through his teeth to his cute, perky little fiancée.

Fiona had to turn away to hide her smile because when she'd first seen the adorable-looking Lisa, she'd been afraid that Ace was going to fall all over her, and Fiona wasn't ready to see that yet. She didn't know when she was going to be ready for that, but it certainly wasn't now.

Now they were inside the old shack, and from the looks of the place the animals were grateful that an attempt had been made to clean it, because they'd redoubled their efforts to make it their home. But Fiona happily sat down on a couch that a few weeks before she wouldn't have touched. Smiling, she patted the space beside her for Jeremy to take, but he gave her a curled-lip glance that asked if she'd lost her mind.

Everyone in the cabin was focused on the argument going on between Ace and Lisa, watching them as though they were the stars of a movie.

“Lisa,” Ace said through clenched teeth. “Do you have any idea how serious what you've done is? If the police followed you, Fiona and I could be taken to jail before we get a chance to clear our names.”

Lisa stuck out her lower lip in the prettiest pout imaginable. “If you talk to me like that, I won't tell you our surprise.”

When Ace's face turned dark and his hands made fists, Fiona decided to step in before there was a fourth murder. “If your surprise is something to wear and in silk, I'm all for it,” Fiona said, trying to inject humor into the situation, because, so far, there had been no humor. Jeremy had greeted her with a hand tightly gripping her upper arm, as though she were a wayward two-year-old and he were bringing her back into line. Had he always treated her like a child? she wondered.

At Fiona's words, Lisa turned to her, and her blue eyes were fire, a fire that asked who Fiona thought she was.

But instead of angering her, Lisa's hate-filled look made Fiona give a warm smile of congratulations to Ace. What a lovely lady you've chosen, her smile said.

“He
is my surprise,” Lisa said coldly, pointing to the door.

In the doorway stood an old man. But on second glance, Fiona thought that maybe he wasn't as old as he seemed but just beaten about by weather and time. His gray hair was sparse, as was his body, and his neck hung down in whiskery folds into a shirt that was clean but nearly worn out.

“Forget about these?” the old man said, then held out his thin hand to show three little listening devices.

“Did you find them easily because you put them in the cabin?” Ace snapped.

Fiona was staring at the man. There was something familiar about him, and when he turned to address Ace, she let out a gasp. The man turned back to her and gave a wide grin. He was missing his left incisor.

“Know me, do you, Little Smokey?” he said, laughing.

“Gibby,” Fiona whispered, for she'd seen the green dragon tattoo going up the back of his right calf.

“Smokey always said you were smart,” the man said, then turned sharply to look at Suzie. “You ain't changed much,” he said, looking her up and down. “What'd you do? Sell your soul for youth?”

Suzie smiled at him. “Screwed the brains out of a plastic surgeon and he was real grateful.”

Gibby laughed with her.

“All right,” Jeremy said in his lawyer voice. “I want to know what's going on. This man said that if we'd take him here, he'd clear up this whole mess, so now I want to know what's going on.”

But no one answered him, because Ace, Fiona, and Gibby were pulling on backpacks.

“We have to get going. We have a long hike ahead of us,” Ace said, then looked at Jeremy in his lightweight suit. “We'll be back as soon as we can get back. The car keys are on the table.” It was obvious that he planned to leave Jeremy, Lisa, and Suzie behind.

But Jeremy had other ideas. “If you think you're going to walk out of here and—”

When Ace turned a face full of rage toward Jeremy, the
shorter man halted. “I'm in just the mood to take the head off somebody and if it's you, so be it,” Ace said softly; then when Jeremy said nothing more, Ace fastened his pack and started for the door.

But as soon as they were on the porch, Jeremy was with them. “You're not leaving without me,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Why?” Ace said, looking him up and down. “Concerned for your ladylove? Or do you want a cut of what we find?”

Before Jeremy could answer, Fiona got between the men. “Don't take your anger out on
him
. He was trying to help. Gibby is—”

“One of the original men who went with your father; that I could guess,” Ace said, then turned to see Lisa emerge from the cabin, a little black nylon pack in her hand. “Neiman Marcus” was written across the top flap.

“Her mascara,” Fiona said before she could stop herself, then had to look away because she saw just the teeniest bit of a smile at the corners of Ace's lips.

“Ace, honey, you're not going to let her snip at me like that on this whole trip, are you?”

“Lisa,” Ace said patiently, “you can't go with us. There are snakes and mosquitoes out there as well as alligators. It's too dangerous for you.”

“But not for me?” Fiona asked.

“But not for her?” Lisa said at the same time.

At that Ace threw up his hands, then started down the porch steps. “Where are the police when you need them? Why can't I be arrested and put in a nice safe jail cell?”

Behind him Gibby chuckled. “I think I'm gonna like this trip better'n the last one.”

An hour later Fiona wished she'd begged to be allowed to remain at the cabin rather than traipse through a swamp, but she refused to make a complaint. As it was, Lisa was doing enough of that for all of them. And with every word out of Lisa's perfect little mouth, Fiona smiled a little more inside.

“You hate her, don't you?” Jeremy said, moving to walk beside Fiona, dodging plants and constantly looking about for snakes.

There was something in his tone that made Fiona look at him sharply. He was shorter than she remembered and had he always had that pinched look? Maybe it came from a lifetime spent in front of a computer screen.

“But you like her,” Fiona said softly. He hadn't touched her other than to grab her arm since she'd first seen him over an hour ago. Right now it seemed impossible to believe that they had once been lovers.

“Do you have any idea who her family is?”

“No. But I take it you do.”

“She would …” Turning his head away, he looked at Fiona out of the corner of his eye. “She could help me in my career.”

At that Fiona took a deep breath. “Well, that's honest. And, you're right. Even if you were my lawyer and got me off, what would I be but an out-of-work executive? Right?”

“I wouldn't put it quite so bluntly, but, Fee, you know that there was nothing set between us. We were just—”

“You don't have to tell me that we weren't in love. I know that now.”

“Now? Does that mean that you and Montgomery … ?”

“Nothing has happened between us, if that's what you mean,” Fiona snapped, then lowered her voice. “We've been rather busy these last days, what with trying to find out who killed three people.”

“Three? My God, Fiona, how deep are you into this?”

“As deep as I was put into it!” she said, then had to calm herself. “Look, if you want my permission to pursue your cute little”—she sneered the last word as though it were a deformity—“blonde, you have my permission.” A leaf hit at her face, and she swiped it away. “But do you think your little cheerleader is going to want
you
when she can have a man as rich as I've heard … as I've heard … Montgomery is?” She couldn't bear to say his first name. He was now holding Lisa's perfect little ankle and turning it about in his big hand, checking if her lovely little bones were injured in any way. As for Fiona, she'd stepped wrong on a tree branch half an hour ago and was still limping, but no man was coddling her. Beside her, Jeremy hadn't even noticed her limp.

“Their marriage was to be a merger of two family fortunes,” Jeremy was saying, and sounding as though he were quoting someone. “In these past days I've come to know Lisa very well. We've worked side by side, day after day, and—”

“Searching for us,” Fiona said, deadpan. “While you were looking for us, trying to prove our innocence, you and Lisa were playing footsie under the table. Or was it in bed?”

“That's an example of what's wrong between us,” Jeremy said. “No matter how bad things are, you always make jokes.”

Fiona waited for him to finish the sentence, waited for the other shoe to drop. Where was the punch line to that sentence? Wasn't it good that she was the type of person who could laugh in the face of adversity? One of the things that Ace liked most about her was her ability to laugh no matter what was happening to them.

Turning, she looked at the head of the line of people and saw Ace helping Lisa over a fallen log.

“I don't think he'll let her go.” She looked back at Jeremy. “And I can't see that she'd ever choose you over
him.”

Jeremy gave a snort. “Are you kidding? He's one cold bastard. The only thing he ever thinks about are birds and—Would you mind telling me what is funny about that?”

She was staring at Ace with Lisa, staring very, very hard.

“There is nothing wrong with Ace Montgomery,” she said. “Nothing whatever in this world.” With that, she strode forward and got between Gibby and Suzie.

“So tell me everything,” Fiona said, suddenly wanting to hear something other than Jeremy's whining and his calculations about his career.

When Lisa said that she was hungry, Ace motioned everyone to take a break and sit down.

Fiona dutifully sat by Jeremy, but the minute she saw Ace walk off into the bushes, she was up and after him.

“A man would like a little privacy,” Ace snapped as he abruptly turned his back on her and fiddled with the front of his trousers.

She ignored him. “How many have you found?”

“I think we should return to the others,” he said. “Lisa will be frightened and …”

“Don't you give me that, Ace Montgomery!” she snapped, then lowered her voice. “You are a sneaky, conniving bastard, and I know you're up to something.”

“Would you believe I came out here to see a bird?” he asked, one side of his mouth curled into a smile.

“Not even for a blue-eyed blonde sapsucker,” she retorted, and Ace grinned.

“I've missed you,” he said softly.

It was all Fiona could do to keep from falling into his arms. At the moment all she could remember was their time alone. Why had they argued so much? But then she remembered Lisa and the good humor left her.