Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) (12 page)

July passed in a blur of happy, of wedding plans, sleepy days, and magical nights under a tropical breeze. Happy. I was happy. Something I’d never been until Nick, and now was to the nth degree. I’d even had a month’s break from my deteriorating ex-boyfriend, holes in my house, and thieving contractors. Sure, we worked hard, too, but I’ve always worked hard, and I didn’t mind.

But that didn’t mean I’d say no to a day off. When Ms. Ruthie arrived one morning and set about washing the breakfast dishes, Nick whispered to me, “How about we play hooky at the beach today, just you and me?”

“How about yes?” I responded. I turned to go get ready, but I heard Taylor singing, and it stopped me short. “Do you recognize that song?” I asked.

Nick smiled. He always understood Taylor. But it was Ruth who spoke.

“You are my sunshine,” she said.

She joined in with Taylor, her soprano voice shaky with age or a delicate vibrato. Either way, their duet sounded lovely.

“What she said.” Nick grinned. “And bravo, Ms. Ruth. Very nice, Taylor.”

There were plenty of explanations why Taylor would know that song. All kids know it, practically. But still. The possibility was there.

Right after lunch, Ruth and Taylor waved goodbye from the driveway as we drove away. I rolled my window down and stuck my face into the warm breeze, turning it up to catch the sun on my cheeks. I whooped.

Nick was behind the wheel, practicing his left-hand driving. He was getting pretty good at it. “Yah mon,” he said, and I laughed.

I navigated Nick down out of the rainforest to the west end of the island, opposite of our normal route to Town, then southward to the secluded entrance to Turtle Beach. We drove another half a mile down the service road to a tiny dirt lot.

“Where’s the beach?” Nick asked.

“Through there,” I said, pointing through a thick stand of sea grape trees. I grinned at him. “It’s kind of remote.”

He leaned across and kissed me. “Sounds just right.”

A strip of swampy land webbed with mangroves and sea grape trees protects Turtle Beach from vehicles and casual visitors. We threw our bags over our shoulders and each grabbed an end of the cooler and set off down the path, following signs to the turtle nesting sanctuary ahead. Within ten yards, sweat was running down my neck. We rounded a bend that emptied out onto the wide swath of white sands that cover the southwest point of St. Marcos and the sparkling turquoise water beyond.

“Wow,” Nick said. “This is the best beach I’ve seen on the island yet.”

“Those sea turtles know how to pick ’em.”

We waded through the sand. My calf muscles were burning.

“If you loved me, you’d carry the cooler on your head,” I told Nick. He was not only carrying his own beach bag, but also lugging a beach umbrella with a heavy wooden base that kept uncollapsing into the back of his calves.

He raised his eyebrows. “If you loved me, you would have hired me a Sherpa.”

“I’m not sure, but I think that’s racist,” I replied. “I’m an employment lawyer, you know.”

Nick laughed. “I didn’t suggest you kidnap and enslave him,” he said. He stopped. “How about here?”

“Just a few more yards, around that bend. It’s perfect there, you’ll see.”

He grunted and we resumed our sand march. Around the point, the beach widened. One hundred yards of fluffy white sand tapered off to meet an endless turquoise sea. And we were the only ones there.

“Holy shit,” Nick said. “I recognize this place.”

I looked around us. Of course I recognized it, I’d been there before. But in the months since my last visit, something felt different, yet more familiar. “What do you mean? This is your first time here.”

He set down his load. I set mine down, too. He turned in a small-stepped circle. “It looks like someplace I’ve been before. With you.”

I reached for his hand and peered down the beach. Wind rushed past my ears, masking everything but the sound of the waves. Except for one other sound. I closed my eyes to concentrate on the noise. Barking. It was the sound of my dogs on the beach, but it was only in my mind, in a memory. And without opening my eyes I saw the white sand ribbon in front of us, and an old woman walking toward us.

“Our dream,” I said.

Nick squeezed my hand. “Yes, that’s it. This was the beach in our dream.” He stepped in front of me and kissed me on the lips. “Empress.”

My lips curved into a smile under his. We were there. In the exact spot we had dreamed about together. My lips and the rest of me lit up like a sparkler. When we broke apart, I was still smiling.

We set up, which was easy since my brightly striped umbrella had popped up again as we rambled the last few yards. I laid my thick white beach towel in its shade, slipped off my yellow Fresh Produce sundress, and stuffed it in the beach bag.

“We’re getting married this weekend,” I said, looking up at Nick from under the floppy wide brim of my straw hat.

He smiled at me, his eyes obscured by sunglasses but his mouth soft. “This is true.”

“Wanna get wet?” I asked.

He dashed off. “Race you!”

“Cheater,” I yelled, running after him.

Nick turned around and ran backwards in exaggerated slow mo until I caught and passed him at the water’s edge. I splashed out until the water slowed me down, then strode farther until I was in up to my rib cage. Nick slipped his arms around me from behind, and I put my head back under his chin, loving his height, loving his hard body and the way mine molded into it.

“That hat makes it awfully hard to kiss you,” he said.

I rolled the brim back with both hands and turned my head up until our lips met. His tasted of sweat and seawater, tangy and salty, and I let mine cling to them for several long beats.

“Better?” I asked.

He moved his mouth to my forehead as I turned until the fronts of our bodies pressed together. “Much. Makes me pretty happy we have a whole beach to ourselves.”

Reflexively, I checked the beach. Damn.

“Well, we did. Now we have to share.”

He looked, too. “We could drown them.”

I laughed. He grabbed my hand and we walked back to shore together. A family of five had set up twenty-five feet from our umbrella. So much for sexy times at the beach. As we neared our spot, I heard the heavy bass opening bars of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.” Nick’s ring tone. I was shocked we had signal.

“Could you answer it? My hands are wet,” he said.

I reached deep into the beach bag and pulled out the phone. “Hello?”

“I just leave you a voice mail,” Rashidi said. Usually, Rashidi drove me crazy by his very refusal to do just that. It’s an island thing.

“What?”

“You and Nick need to come home, straight along.”

“Why?”

“Someone been here, and Taylor and Ruth gone.”

The world froze. I stumbled into Nick and grabbed his arm.

“Rashidi said someone broke into the house, and Taylor is gone.”

Nick ripped the umbrella out of the sand and started shoving towels back into bags. I grabbed one end of the cooler as he hoisted the other, and we took off down the beach, his longer legs stretched out and pulling me along. I forced myself to keep running even though my lungs were burning and my legs were turning to lead in the heavy sand. We made it to the truck in half the time it took us to trek out.

“I’ll drive,” I said.

“Good idea,” Nick replied. “I’ll call Rashidi.”

He pressed Talk and I heard the distinctive sound of a call failing.

“Shit,” Nick yelled.

“We may not have good service on this side of the rainforest.”

Nick blew an O out of his mouth. “OK.”

I reached for his hand and squeezed. “I love you. I’ll get us there as fast as I can.”

I felt him looking at me, and I turned and met his eyes. The panic in them tore at me. But they focused as we looked at each other, the black centers shrinking. He blinked. “I love you, too. Thank you, Katie.”

I sped along the coast and up the winding road through the rainforest to Annalise. We arrived in a cloud of dust with a skidding stop. The dogs circled the truck, barking. Ms. Ruth stood between her old Buick Lacrosse and Rashidi’s Jeep.

She ducked her chin back into her neck. “Wah the matter?” she yelled.

Nick reached her in three giant steps. “Where’s Taylor? Who’s been here? Is everything all right?”

Her hands flew to her bosom. “Lah, you scaring me. Taylor asleep in he car seat.” She pointed into her back seat. “I ain’t seen nobody, and everything OK. We at Lotta’s all day. What wrong?”

Rashidi came out of the side door and stopped behind Ruth. He held up both hands. “I no wanna scare she.”

I joined Nick and searched Rashidi’s face for clues. “What’s going on, Rash?”

“The house unlocked. Somebody do bad things in the office. They left this in the kitchen.” He held up a sheet of paper.

“I lock up before I leave,” Ruth protested, her hand raised toward the side door.

But I’d never changed my locks after I lost my keys.

Shit.

Nick took the paper from Rashidi and angled his body toward me. I put my head to his shoulder and we read the typed note together.

You took something of mine, and I want it back.

“Who?” I asked. A parade of possibles ran through my mind. Bart, me? Junior, money?

“I don’t know,” Nick said.

The sun was descending, throwing a glow on Ruth as it sank behind the hills to the west. She shook her fist. “No bad man gonna mess with things round me.”

Me either, I thought.

Nick and I watched Ruth and Rashidi drive away, his Jeep just behind the dust plume trailing her gold sedan. The rainforest swallowed them one after another.

“That note is creepy,” I said.

“Very.”

He pulled me into him. I tucked my head down into the nook between the side of his chin and his shoulder. The unyielding edge of his collarbone supported my cheek. I traced his shoulder blade with my finger, the tip dipping off the blade and over his shoulder muscle.

“You OK?” he asked.

Someone had left a really strange note in my kitchen, and Nick and I’d had the bejeebers scared out of us. We were about to face whatever it was that had been done to the office. Yet somehow I wasn’t completely freaked out. “I’m fine, baby, I really am.”

He squeezed me. “Why don’t we put Taylor in bed first? Then we can deal with the rest of it.”

“Good idea.”

We went together to Taylor’s room, Nick carrying the boy in his car seat. I unbuckled him and Nick lifted him gently and placed him in the pink playpen. He sighed and nestled himself against his blue blanket. Nick leaned all the way in and gave him a clean diaper. The boy’s dark lashes lay against his cheek, and his back rose and fell in a slow cadence. He usually flung his arms out, but this evening he tucked them around his face.

“You know he’ll be up at some ungodly hour,” Nick said.

That I knew. “That’s all right, this once.”

“We’d better go check out the damage.”

“Right.” I followed Nick up the stairs to the office.

“Oh no,” I said. I grabbed the door frame to steady myself.

The room looked like a cyclone had blown through. Paper blanketed the floor. The file cabinet lay on its side. Whoever was in there had swept every item off the desks, including our open laptops. Mine was upended but fine. Nick’s screen was shattered. And like the heavens themselves had rained down upon it all, water had pooled over everything. Taylor’s dump truck was parked in the middle of the mess with its bed in the unload position.

Nick pushed his hair back. “Tossed. Thoroughly.”

“Do you think they were looking for something?”

“Hard to say. Maybe, or maybe they just wanted to send a message. Maybe both.”

He stepped into the room and righted the file cabinet. His action mobilized me. I snatched up printouts, matching their corners and stacking them in neat piles on the desk. I gathered up pens and paperclips, file folders and highlighters, and reassembled everything. The process pulled me back together, too, mostly. In fifteen minutes we’d restored a semblance of order.

I said, “If anything was missing, I didn’t notice.”

“Me either. But we can’t assume this is the only room they touched. We’re going to have to search the whole house.”

“How about you take the basement and we meet in the middle?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Half an hour later, we met back in the great room, which actually functioned as a great room since contractors had finally removed the scaffolding last week. Neither of us had found anything else disturbed, but my unease still lingered. Nick stood with his hands on his hips. “That’s all we can do for now. I’m salty and I could really use a shower. Besides, I think it would help,” he gestured toward the office, “with this. Will you join me?”

I love to shower with Nick, to feel the hot water trickle around us until it runs cold, forcing us to run to bed to keep warm together. He was right, a shower together would wash the creepy away, but I told him I wanted to feed the dogs and double-check the locks first. “Go ahead and jump in. I’ll be right there.”

“I can do that for you,” he protested.

I stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “I know you can, but I want to. I have to have a do-better with the troops. They should have stopped this and left us a bloody corpse.”

I set out Purina and water as dusk fell. Six canines clustered around me, ignoring my lecture and lining up at the food bowls in the garage according to their pecking order. I looked up when I heard an unfamiliar car pulling into the gate. Its lights were off. Not Rashidi. Not Ruth. Not Ava or Crazy. Not even Bart. My intuition screamed a warning at me:
You took something of mine, and I want it back.
Maybe I wasn’t as OK as I’d thought. Maybe bad man dem coming.

For a nanosecond, I thought about running into the house and grabbing Nick out of the shower. But I didn’t, because my intuition could only be rampant paranoia, and if I ran for help I’d be leaving the ramparts unmanned. Ever since my pitiful failure on the day of the pool incident, I had started coaching myself when I was at a complete loss as to how a normal woman would handle herself. It was like the WWJD bracelet my parents made me wear in middle school, hoping it would keep me away from drugs and maternity wards. What Would Jesus Do? Lately I’d been using WWMD—What Would Mom Do. And W the hell WMD now? The answer came without thinking. She would protect her family.

I ran into the garage and grabbed the flare gun from my truck’s glove compartment. I gulped air and stepped out on the driveway. I immediately felt exposed, trapped in the light cast by the motion detector lights. I stepped back into the shadow and hid the flare gun behind me. My dogs gathered around me, warm fur pressing against my legs. Good, reinforcements.

I didn’t get a good look at the car until it turned up the driveway in front of me. It was a dark sedan of some sort. Nick would know. It parked fifteen feet down the driveway and idled. Maybe it wasn’t a bad man, after all. Maybe it was a roti delivery man gone astray.

The car stopped. The door opened. A man got out. He walked in front of his still-running car, backlit by the headlights. He was roughly my height, average for a guy, but a head shorter than Nick. He was so thin his ribs formed something like a six-pack underside of his tight tank shirt and made his muscles look bigger than they were. His olive skin was covered with elaborate tattoos of women and a Maltese cross. His dark brown hair fell straight across his brown eyes.

“Where’s Nick?” he growled. His tone spoke of long-held grudges and dreams of revenge. Definitely not the roti delivery man. Callia started growling.

“Excuse me, who may I say is asking?” But suddenly, I knew. I just knew.

“Just tell me where he is.” Five other dogs joined voice with Callia.

“Inside.”

“Get him.”

I didn’t budge. “He’s not available right now.”

The man yelled, “Nick Kovacs, you got one minute to get out here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. I saw a glint of light on a blade as I heard a faint click underneath the sound of the wind. Switchblade? How
West Side Story
of him.

No answer from inside, thank goodness. I shouted, “Ignore him, Nick. I’ve got the gun.” And I pulled it out and pointed it at the man I believed was Taylor’s father. I hoped he couldn’t tell it was only a flare gun in the dark.

“No need to get hostile.”

“Leave.”

He put one leg back in the car. “My boy shouldn’t be sleeping in some pink-ass crib. He needs to grow up to be a man. Bad enough that bitch gave him a girl name. I’m coming back for him. You be sure to tell him, tell Nick.”

I saw rapid movement out of my peripheral vision, on the far side of the car.

It was her. Black, beautiful, and ferocious. Her skirt billowed behind her as she lifted a large flat rock—not unlike the one I’d used to mark my burial spot—which pulled her shirt up and exposed her hard stomach. When she brought the rock down on the sedan’s front window, Derek jumped back and fell to the ground. He scrambled away from the car in a crazy crab-walk. The dogs rushed at him, snarling, but stayed well back.

“Son of a bitch. What was that?”

No more rock. No more woman.

“Fate,” I said. “Leave.”

He stood up, brushed off the seat of his pants, and glared at me. “Shooting out my window doesn’t make you tough.”

I held the gun steady. “You’re next.”

Derek climbed into the car and was already accelerating before he threw it in reverse. The engine whined and the transmission clanked, then the car shot backwards down the driveway and its back end swerved into my front yard. He jammed the gas and threw it in drive, digging a hole in my new grass before rocketing forward. His front wheels bit into the gravel lane and the back wheels lost traction. Six dogs ran after him as he fishtailed and then disappeared in the dark. I heard the car turn out of the gate and onto the road back to civilization.

I heard a sound from the house. My adrenaline surge had my heart doing wind sprints. I wheeled with my hands raised to protect my face and torso and flexed my knees. I was ready to fight off the devil himself barehanded. Me and Annalise.

“I gave up on you,” came Nick’s voice from the kitchen.

“Sorry.” I was a goddess. No, scratch that, I was an empress. “We just had a visitor.”