Tide Will Tell (Islands of Intrigue: San Juans) (23 page)

She shrugged as they started for the stairs. “I would, but duty calls. I’m heading to Bowen Island for a marine biology summer internship. If all goes well, it’ll lead to a job in the fall.”

Pausing at the top of the stairs, Josh tamped down the extended handle of Kim’s suitcase and angled her a look. “You’re going to be a marine biologist?”

“That’s the plan.” Sliding a wisp of hair behind her ear, Kim tipped a playful half-smile and started her descent. “I know you probably thought I was just another party girl. That’s the clever façade I managed to maintain at school to keep my social life from drying up. What guy wants to date a science nerd, right?”

He smiled, going along with her self-deprecating barb.

When he didn’t say anything, she reined in the flirtation. “Are you headed back to Seattle?”

“Vancouver, actually. I got a job on a film that’s being shot up there.”

“Seriously? We’re going to be neighbors. Bowen Island is just north of Vancouver.” Kim smiled, giving him a flash of nearly-perfect teeth. “You’d love that place. It’s where they shot
Clan of the Cave Bear
.” Her smile turned coy. “Maybe we can get together some weekend.”

“Yeah, sounds good.” The idea wasn’t exactly unappealing, and it might be nice to have an old friend to explore with. Not that he’d get a lot of free time, but still.

Reaching the bottom step, he popped up the suitcase handle. The wheels hummed across the smooth wood of the floor as they made their way to the front door. They stepped out into what had quickly turned from warm sunshine to a shadowy chill.

“Looks like we’re heading out just in time.” Kim shivered. “A storm’s brewing.”

Josh scanned the overcast sky as they headed down the porch steps. He’d always made the most of this atmospheric Seattle gloom by pretending he lived in a black and white film. Right now, the sudden gray only served to enhance his mood.

As they walked around to the side of the house, his eyes wandered again to what he could see of the trail leading down to the dock.

“We’d better hurry if we want to catch this next ferry.” Kim reached out her hand and clicked her key fob, opening the trunk of her sports car.

Shifting his focus, Josh hoisted her suitcase in. She gave another click to shut.

“I guess I’ll see you on the boat.” She crossed to her door and opened it. “It’s a long ride. Maybe I’ll challenge you to a game of chess.” She winked and got into her car.

As she pulled out of the driveway, Josh tossed his backpack on the passenger seat of his Toyota, and pulled in a slow breath. He’d forgotten Kim was as much of a chess nerd as he was. A game might be just the thing to refocus and clear this whole insane situation from his mind.

Casting one more long look at the trail, he considered strolling down just to make sure Kate wasn’t sitting on the ground rubbing her knee. He checked his watch and shook off the thought. Kim was right. If he didn’t hustle, he’d miss this ferry, and the last thing he needed was to find himself with time to kill on Shaw Island.

Besides, Kate was an adult, and she had made her own plan. Clearly, there was no place for him in it.

The wind blew a sudden gust through the trees, sending a chill through him like a whispered warning. He needed to move on.

He got into his car and started the engine. As he pulled around the horseshoe curve of the driveway, he exhaled long and low. This was all for the best.

He eased the car past the guesthouse and toward the gate, away from any ridiculous hope he might have harbored of a life with Kate.

Chapter 24

Kate jerked forward, freeing herself from her assailant’s grasp. Her leg twisted and she stumbled downhill, landing in an excruciating heap on her hands and knees. Heart pounding, she contorted to get a look over her shoulder.

Stuart towered over her.

Her frantic mind registered his wild hair and shirttails sticking out from the waist of his khaki pants, which looked as though he had slept in them.

His arm flailed in the direction of the guesthouse. “Aren’t you staying there?”

The strangeness of the question baffled her only slightly less than the strangeness of this whole situation. Keeping her eyes on him, she tried to push herself upright, but the slope of the path combined with the pain shooting from her knee made the effort impossible. “No…not anymore.”

“Aw…” His head lolled back and he pounded the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Stupid, stupid…”

Leaning on her right hand, she managed to lever herself to a sitting position, facing him. She held up her other hand in defense in case he came at her again. “Please, just leave me alone.”

Rubbing his eyes, he stumbled backwards, and for a second Kate thought he was going to fall over. She grappled for something to use to pull herself to her feet, but all she could reach was a moss-covered tree root.

“I get it now.” He shook his head. “It figures.”

Fear welled in Kate’s throat. Why hadn’t she accepted Josh’s offer to drive her? If she had, she’d be on the yacht right now instead of sitting on the ground in a tangled heap, facing an overwrought alcoholic who might or might not be dangerous.

He looked at her, his eyes glazed as if it required all his effort to focus in on her. “How am I supposed to live without money?”

An odd question, considering that his dad was a billionaire. She pulled her left foot under her in an attempt to get solid footing. “I…don’t know. I—”

“Dad says I have to leave after the wedding. Get a job or get out.” He narrowed his reddened eyes into a fiery glare. “It’s because of you.”

The blood drained from Kate’s face. This was all starting to make sense. “You think he’s asking you to leave because of me?”

“What I think is that if you were gone, everything would go back to the way it was.” His hard glare didn’t waver. “I have a good thing going, and there’s no reason for it to end.”

Kate’s mind reeled. If he came at her, she’d have no way to defend herself. She was in the thick of the woods, with little chance of being heard if she screamed, and less chance of being seen.

She looked past Stuart up the shadowy trail. If only Josh would come to check on her, but why should he? She had told him to leave. Now, she had no choice but to try to reason with Stuart.

“Listen.” She attempted to make her voice soothing, the way she used to speak to Dakota when he was upset. “Maybe I can help you.”

“Help me?” The fire in his eyes cooled slightly into an amalgam of anger and suspicion. “How?”

“You know…” Stretching to reach a tree root, she managed to push herself onto her good leg. “To get a job. Or go back to school—”

“
Or
…” He held up a finger, as if an idea was brewing. “You could get me a place of my own. In Seattle. With a view of the water.”

Her heart pounded. Did he think Chase had given her access to his bank account? “You mean…you want me to buy you a house?”

“What I
want
…” he clenched his hands at his sides. “…is for you to make up for what you’ve ruined.”

“Okay…” She tried to smile as if his demand were actually rational. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

He stared down at her, a mixture of unreadable emotions crossing his features. He jutted out his jaw. “You think I’m some kind of loser.”

Her hand shot up like a shield. “No…. I just think you’ve had a rough life in some ways—”

“In some
ways?
” His glower reignited. “I practically saw my mother die. That’s not something a person just gets over.”

She gaped up at him, confused. “What do you mean, you
saw
her?”

His gnashed his teeth and looked away, moisture dimming the intensity in his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Stuart.” Kate managed to push herself off the ground to an unsteady standing position. “This is really important.” She hopped a couple of steps, then braced her weight against a tree. “What exactly do you remember from that night?”

As he stared off into the distance, some of the hard lines of his face softened. “I woke up because my parents were fighting. I heard it all.”

“All…
what?
”

“You know. Yelling. Doors slamming. I heard my mom go downstairs and I knew she was going to the pool. She swam all the time, especially when she was mad at my dad.” His voice drifted off.

“So, she went down to swim.” She had to keep him focused. “What do you remember after that?”

“After a while, I got up and went to the room across the hall. I looked out the window down at the pool, and that’s when I saw her.”

“And what was she doing?”

“Lying face down next to the pool.” He swallowed hard. “Not moving.”

Next
to the pool? Kate’s heart drummed in her ears. “Where was your dad?”

“I don’t know. Gone.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I got back in my bed and hid under the covers until Sam woke me up to tell me my mom had drowned.”

“Oh…” The absence of emotion in his voice alarmed her. “Did you tell Sam what you had seen?”

“No.” He shook his head. “But later, I told my dad.”

“And…? What did he say?”

“He said I was wrong. But I know what I saw.”

Kate’s head swam. If this was true, there was more to Emily’s death than just a simple drowning. But Stuart had been a little boy. How reliable was his memory, especially considering the years of alcohol abuse that had followed?

She considered her words, not wanting to trigger his anger. “So you never said anything to anyone else?”

Shoulders drooping, he stared off into the distance. “I told Trina.”

“Trina?” Her breath caught. “When?”

“Last year, when I was in rehab. She believed me.” His voice lowered to a near-whisper. “That’s why she disappeared.”

Kate stiffened, taking care not to let her distress reflect in her expression. “Why would she disappear because she believed you?”

“Because she confronted my dad about it.”

“Oh?” Kate swallowed past the tightening ball of fear in her throat. “And what happened?”

“They had a fight. Then my dad said he was going out of town, and he left. The next night, Trina disappeared.”

“So, you think her disappearance had something to do with her confronting your dad?”

Stuart lifted a shoulder in what seemed to take more effort than the resulting shrug. “All I know is, everyone thought my dad was out of town the last night Trina was here. But he wasn’t.”

“Oh…and how do you know?”

“Because I saw him. He was here.” He looked around ominously. “Hiding in these woods.”

An involuntary shiver that had nothing to do with the chill in the air passed through Kate. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know.” His gaze pierced her with an alarming directness. “Why don’t you ask
him?
”

The wind kicked up, stirring the trees around them to life. Then a different, familiar sound emerged through the rustling of the branches. The sound of a car starting up.
Josh.

She pushed away from the tree she’d been leaning on. “I…I have to go.” She stepped, but her knee buckled in a detonation of pain.

Stuart shifted to his left, blocking her way. “They’re going to find her.”

“What?” Eyes watering, she looked past him up the path. Josh was so close. If only she could cry out. The distinctive rattle of his engine grew louder, and she caught a flash of teal blue moving past the opening at the head of the trail. She was too late. He couldn’t help her.

“They’re going to find her.”

Stuart’s ominous words joggled her focus back to him. “What? Who?”

“Trina. Then what’s going to happen to me?”

Not knowing how—or even
if
—to respond, Kate took a step down the trail.

Stuart blinked, as if his lids were weighted, then regarded her through narrowing eyes. “Where are you going?”

Reaching out again to the tree for support, she took a couple of careful paces backward. “To the yacht to wait for Sam.”

“Right…” He nodded in glassy-eyed recollection. “She’s coming back…” His eyes shot open and he looked at her with a newfound alertness. “So…you’re going out there. Yeah. That’s good.”

With a sudden deftness that caught Kate off guard, he made a couple of clumsy strides up the trail. He faltered, regained his balance, then continued up the hill, laughing like some sort of deranged mad scientist.

She frowned. Had critical connecting points in his brain been shorted out by his excessive alcohol intake, or was it just his personal policy to be cryptic in his behavior?

Grateful to have him gone, she turned and took a step toward the dock, bracing herself for the pain she knew would follow. She stumbled, but kept going. There was no way she was going to stick around with Stuart acting so unpredictable and crazy. She had to get out to the yacht.

A few minutes later, she reached the dock and carefully slid into the dinghy. It wobbled unsteadily under her weight as she worked her way to the seat next to the motor.

She stared at it. If she couldn’t get the motor to start, at least the dinghy had oars. She could row if she had to, but who knew how long that would take.

Remembering that Sam had said it was easier to pull the cord from a standing position, she carefully pushed herself back up, keeping all her weight on her one good leg. She pulled the cord, but the engine sputtered and she fell sideways, nearly clocking her head on the edge of the dock.

Great.
She was lucky she hadn’t taken a plunge.

As she clutched the edge of the boat in an attempt to push herself back onto the seat, something in the water under the dock hooked her attention. Cautiously, she leaned as far over as she dared, then gasped.

From deep down under the surface, the hollow sockets of a skull stared back at her.

Chapter 25

Kate slumped down in a chair on the deck of the main house, shivering and clutching a cup of tea which had long since gone cold. Tears choked her, and she’d hardly gotten a good breath since making her gruesome discovery several hours before.

Trina.
It had to be Trina.