Hurricane Bay (36 page)

She would fight, fight, fight….

The cabin was growing dark.

Light, and life, were fading.

Something huge and wet hurled itself onto the bed. The constriction around her neck slackened instantly.

She gulped in air again, coughing as if she would never stop. Bodies slammed against her. She pressed against the cabin wall, still coughing. Her mind was numb. She was aware only of the bodies at first, flailing and thrashing around her. The boat was rocking madly in the high seas brought on by the storm.

Then Latham was jerked up. There was a tie around his neck.

Kelsey saw his eyes as he was jerked backward out of the cabin.

She crawled to the foot of the bed, then slid off it, using the wall for balance as she got to her feet. Dane was there. Dane had come to rescue her from Latham. They were still struggling, though Dane had the tie. He was dragging Latham away from her as Latham's fingers tried to ease the hold of the tie around his own neck. It must have loosened, because he got free and turned, heading up the steps. Dane was right on him.

Kelsey staggered after them. They were on deck together. Dane had the tie around Latham's neck again.

A huge wave struck, and the two men went crashing over the side.

Kelsey's cry was drowned out by the thunder that cracked almost immediately after the vivid flash of lightning that lit the sky.

She made her way to the port side, looking down at a dark sea.

“Dane!”

The wind whipped away her voice.

She saw a head, bobbing to the surface. A hand, reaching out…

Dane's hand?

Or Latham's?

She bent down, reaching over. Strong fingers grasped hers.

She pulled.

A body began to rise. Two hands gripped the hull of the boat.

She caught hold of them both as Dane Whitelaw struggled up and over the rail. Together, they crashed to the deck.

A
ndy Latham's body washed up on shore three days later.

By then Kelsey had been out of the hospital a full twenty-four hours herself, and when the group met at the Sea Shanty, it was to celebrate rather than to mourn.

Dane had spent as much time with the police as she had healing, so once they were together, everyone started asking him questions, trying to get him to put the pieces together.

Cindy said, “My God…this is still so scary. So when we were kids, Latham was abusing his stepdaughter, and as the years went by, he started killing?”

“Unfortunately we'll never know for sure what happened,” Dane told her. “I admit, when I reached the boat, I wanted to kill him. But I wouldn't have—except that it turned into a life or death struggle.”

“Why would you have wanted to keep him alive?” Nate asked.

“Because he could have answered questions for us. No one knows when he started killing. There could be more victims in the waterways, in the swamps. We'll never know. And there are so many missing women out there. Families who will live with the dread all their lives but never have any kind of closure. He probably started off abusing Sheila, and then the violence escalated when she got older and broke free. No wife, no kid…and he probably always frequented strip joints and cruised the streets looking for prostitutes. Hector Hernandez believes he may be responsible for a number of unsolved rapes. And then he probably went from rape to murder.”

“And he was watching us, all of us, before he attacked Kelsey,” Cindy said. “It's possible that he walloped me with his crowbar that night, then ran off when he realized Nate and Larry were so close.”

“Maybe. And maybe you just ran into the storm shutter.”

“How did you know it was Latham so quickly, even before the police had him down as a suspect?”

“I knew it was someone who knew me,” Dane said.

He looked across the table at Kelsey. She flushed. “He tried to frame Dane. Before he killed Sheila, he broke into Dane's house. He knew that Sheila had been there, so he went into Dane's place when he was at the Sea Shanty one day. He took one of Dane's ties, and he strangled Sheila with it. He watched Dane's schedule, and he saw Sheila when she left Dane's. Then he waited for Dane to leave again the next day, posed her on the beach and took a picture before disposing of her body.”

“Then he left me to sweat, wondering where the next piece of evidence against me would turn up. The picture was left beneath my door,” Dane said. “I didn't dare take it to the police. I couldn't afford to be arrested when I knew the real killer was still out there.”

“Wow,” Larry said. “So you knew she was dead all along.”

“Yes. I'm sorry. I couldn't trust anyone.”

“Have the police seen all this yet?” Nate asked.

“I've told Hector Hernandez,” Dane said. “Problem is…the picture is gone.”

Kelsey cleared her throat, staring at Cindy. “That's how I wound up with Latham. I found the picture under Dane's floorboard. He had it hidden. I was there and I stumbled on it. I could swear I put it back, but…anyway, we're searching for it. God knows, I was in such a panic, I might have held on to it and lost it somewhere while I was running. But it doesn't matter. Latham's not going to hurt anyone again, and that's what counts.”

Dane said, “That's right. It's over. Thank God, it's over.”

“And you're really all right, Kelsey?” Larry asked anxiously.

She nodded. “I'm fine.” The bruises around her neck were going to stay awhile, but that didn't matter. She was alive.

In fact, she was far more alive than she had been in years. She was home. And she was with Dane.

“We'll all think about Sheila, though, for years to come,” she said.

“The only solace is that…” Nate paused, looking for the right words. “Well, like we said before. She was at peace. Sheila wasn't just running. She was miserable. She had been miserable for years. She didn't know how to live anymore. Latham didn't just kill her when he strangled her. He killed her over the years. He killed her when she was a kid, bit by bit.”

“Well,” Kelsey told him, “we're going to try to do something for her. I was her beneficiary—a lawyer contacted me today. According to the terms of her mother's will, Latham only received money from the trust fund while Sheila was alive. At Sheila's death, the bulk sum came to me. So Dane and I have discussed it, and we thought the best thing to do was donate the money to an agency in Miami that cares for abused wives, children and runaways. We thought the best memorial to her would be to try to see that what happened to her never happens to another child.”

“Bravo!” Cindy said. “What a great idea.”

“Curious, though,” Nate murmured.

“What's that?” Larry asked.

“That Latham killed Sheila. She was his meal ticket.”

“I thought of that,” Dane said. “I didn't realize it at the time, but that might have been part of the reason he was after Kelsey.”

“Who would have thought Latham was smart enough to pull off everything he did?” Cindy murmured.

Larry shrugged and looked at Kelsey. “I take it you've decided that you're going to need more than a week's vacation time?”

Kelsey smiled ruefully. “I sent in my resignation, Larry.”

“What?” Larry said, astounded. Then he looked from Kelsey to Dane and back again.

“Oh.”

“I'm going to paint down here for a while,” she said.

“Sure,” Nate teased. “Paint. That's what they call it these days?”

They all laughed. “Seriously, I haven't done any real artwork since I took the job in the art department,” she said ruefully.

“Shall I guess that you're not going to stay at the duplex?” Cindy asked.

“She'll be living at Hurricane Bay,” Dane said.

“Congratulations,” Nate said. He lifted his glass and smiled at Kelsey. “Really. Congratulations. It took you two long enough to admit you want to be together.”

“Thank you, Nate,” Kelsey told him sincerely.

“It better be one good wedding—when you get around to it,” Cindy said, adding the last hastily.

“Of course we plan on it being one good wedding,” Kelsey said.

“You're not going to elope or anything?” Nate demanded.

She shook her head, smiling at Dane. She was amazed that she could have lost an old friend and so recently have been near death herself, yet know such a strange, poignant sense of happiness. Sheila had done her the greatest favor in the end. She had brought her home. And to Dane.

She looked from Dane to Nate. “Actually we're going to go up and see my parents, and tell them, then come back and get married down here. And guess what else? My mom is pregnant. So Dane and I are going to go see them, then we'll arrange the wedding.”

“Wow,” Cindy said. “Your mom is pregnant?”

“Uh-huh. I'm going to have a baby brother.”

“Wow,” Cindy said again.

“That's great. Really great,” Nate said.

“A toast,” Cindy said. “To life.”

“And friendship,” Nate said.

“Hear, hear,” Larry agreed.

They ate dinner together and were pleased when Jorge joined them. Marisa was with him, having given up her job at the club to work as a chef on Jorge's boat.

Kelsey was certain there was something going on there, as well.

It was late when they returned to Hurricane Bay. Dane locked the doors carefully, as he had done every night since Kelsey had been attacked.

Since he'd picked her up from the hospital, he had been treating her like glass. “Want me to run a bath for you? Need a cold compress for your neck?”

She shook her head, smiling. “I need you.”

“Kelsey, he hurt you pretty badly. It's pretty late. You probably want to go to sleep.”

“What I want to do is make love.”

He eyed her for a long moment. “Careful,” he said softly. “You know I'm easy.”

“And good. Don't forget good.”

“Naturally. So be careful what you ask for.”

Kelsey wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his lips. “I want good. Damn good,” she told him.

Later she realized that he was still awake, staring up at the ceiling. “What's the matter?” she asked him.

“Something is still bugging me,” he said.

“What?”

“What Nate said. That it was weird, Latham killing Sheila. She was his meal ticket.”

“That is strange. Know what else?” Kelsey said. “It's hard for me to remember, because I'd been knocked on the head and I was busy trying to get away, but when Latham talked about Sheila, it was as if he hadn't killed her.”

Dane rolled onto his elbow, staring at her in the moonlight.

“What?” he demanded.

“Hey, you sound like the police. I can't remember exactly what he said. Something about he knew that she was dead and that she had gotten what she deserved.”

Dane lay back down. She knew he was staring at the ceiling again.

Kelsey looked over at him. “Dane, he was the Necktie Strangler. We know it, the police know it. Maybe, in his warped mind, he didn't want to believe he killed Sheila. Maybe he didn't even plan to kill her.”

“How do you not plan to kill someone—and have a stolen tie to strangle her with?” he asked quietly. “There's something else,” he added.

“What?”

“The fish.”

“The fish?”

He nodded in the shadows. “Andy Latham came over here the day of the barbecue with all those fish, convinced we were dumping dead fish on his property. Those fish had to come from somewhere.”

“We're in the Keys. They could have come from anywhere.”

“I know, but it's almost as if the fish were put there to make sure Latham would come after us. Or me. It's as if someone was trying to make sure Andy Latham would make himself a suspect.”

“Then again,” Kelsey said slowly, “maybe he caught the fish, then forgot about them until they rotted. He might have reached a point where reality and his psychosis were all mixed up in his mind.”

“The whole thing still bothers me,” Dane said. “Shit,” he muttered. “I can't sleep. I'll go downstairs so you can get some rest.”

She was immediately wide-awake.

“Don't you dare leave me. I'm not sleepy right now myself. And I can think of a perfect way to get some exercise and then relax.”

“Kelsey, you're hurt. Are you sure twice is okay?”

“I never feel better than when I'm with you,” she told him.

He wrapped her in his arms.

 

The call came early. Dane had just come downstairs, and Kelsey had made coffee. She had been staring out the window, basking in the sunshine.

“I love Hurricane Bay,” she told him.

“Great,” he teased, walking to where she stood and slipping his arms around her waist. “You're going to marry me for my island.”

She laughed. “I love Hurricane Bay because it's an extension of you.”

He wasn't able to reply, because that was when the phone rang.

He picked it up. Jesse Crane was on the line.

“Hey, Jesse,” Dane said.

“Dane, let's have coffee.”

“Jesse, you know I'm always ready to meet you. But I just woke up, and…why don't you come out here?”

“Dane,” Jesse repeated firmly, “I need to meet you for coffee. Alone. I'm halfway there. I'll see you at the coffee shop at the base of the island.”

Dane frowned. Apparently Jesse didn't want to spell anything out, but Dane could tell from his tone that it was important that they meet.

“All right.”

He hung up. Kelsey was looking at him. “Who was that?”

“Jesse. Seems he needs to see me.”

“Is he coming here? I'd love to see Jesse.”

“No, I've got to go meet him. I'll be right back, though.”

She smiled. “I'm not an invalid, Dane. I still have a little cut on my head and some bruises, but I'm fine. Take your time.”

He still wasn't happy leaving her. Ever since the attack…

“I'll be right back.”

He started out. Kelsey followed him to the porch.

“You know where the gun is. Under the bed, my side,” he told her.

“I know where the gun is,” she assured him.

He was still disgruntled, but he didn't ask her to come with him. Jesse had wanted to talk alone.

He wasn't going far, and he would be right back. He kissed her briefly, then left.