Karen Harper - Drowning Tides

When Claire stood, he put his arm around her waist again and steered her over to look at the cake as an excuse to get away from Ames. He wanted to assure her that, from now on, he was making decisions—he was going to change their hotel room, get tickets to fly them home, assert himself with Ames, even though he’d promised to do his bidding. He wanted to tell her that he valued her, that they would make key choices together. But, you might know, Ames was right behind them.

“That’s a local wedding cake, so it’s a bit different,” he told them, pointing. “It’s more like the consistency of a fruitcake. Well, we all have to learn to like new things, right? It’s called heavy cake here, quite an island delicacy. What’s in it again, Ginger?” he asked the beautiful, chocolate-skinned woman overseeing the buffet table.

“Coconut, sugar, breadfruit, spices. No flour or eggs,” she told them with a slight smile, “but cassava instead to hold it all together. Mr. Kilcorse,” she addressed Ames, “Eleanor felt funny, so she went to her car, at the other house where she works, to get her medicine.”

“Felt funny? She’s not sick, is she?”

Ginger shrugged. “I can cut the cake instead of her.”

“Actually, Mr. Kilcorse,” Nick said, “as nice as this all is, I’d like to take Claire and Lexi back to our hotel to get some rest. I have new responsibilities now, as you know, so we’re going home tomorrow. I’m sure your staff will enjoy the evening even more than we have.”

“Ah, but Lexi’s been having such a good time. And haven’t we all?”

Nick and Ames stared at each other. Claire, God bless her, stood steady by his side, though she’d been trembling earlier. In the heels she wore, she was slightly taller than Ames, and Nick towered over the man. For one moment, he was sure that bothered the bastard, but what a tiny victory.

“Well,” Ames said, as if he’d blinked first in a staring contest, “of course, I understand how hectic this has all been. And it is your wedding night. Nick, I send you out to take no risks, but to do your duty, as they say. I’m pleased I could stand in for your father tonight. He would have been proud of you too and of your lovely wife and stepdaughter.”

That was almost the last straw. Nick wanted to deck his father’s murderer, the murderer he now worked for and had to find a way to outsmart and stop.

* * *

Jace began to whistle, because he didn’t want to startle the woman from Ames’s mansion who walked ahead of him. When she evidently heard his fast footsteps and turned to look at him in the moonlight, he said, “Hi! Sorry if I startled you. Wow, that’s some party goin’ on up there, isn’t it? How’s a guy going to sleep on the beach with all that noise and those lights?”

“Oh, ya,” she said, starting to walk again. “Mr. Kilcorse’s house.”

Her accent made her sound German. But Mr. Kilcorse’s house? Could he have been watching the wrong mansion? He thought he’d seen which driveway the cab that delivered Claire and Nick had come out of. No, he’d seen Nick up on the balcony so either Ames was using someone else’s house or a different name.

“I thought that was Clayton Ames’s place,” he told her, pushing the motorbike faster to keep up. “I know a guy who works for him,” he added, making things up as he went. “I thought maybe I could get a job too.” He could tell she looked confused, nervous. He didn’t want a scene here or her running back to the house. What if she screamed and people rushed out?

“And I saw a friend of mine up on the balcony too, from the old days, Nick Markwood, so could you just tell me...”

It all happened so fast. She turned and started to run back toward the mansion. He dropped the motorbike and grabbed her arm. Couldn’t let her tell on him but he needed her to tell him what was going on. He was so worried and frustrated, he’d just exploded.

She opened her mouth to scream, but Jace clapped a hard hand over it. He lifted her and pulled her back into the dark space between two buildings about four doors down from the lighted mansion.

“Look, I’m not going to hurt you,” he told her. “Nothing like that. I just want to know what’s going on at Nightshade.”

Her eyes were white and wide in fright. He realized he’d really blown it, but he had to know if Claire and Lexi were all right. If they could leave, he wanted to be waiting back at their hotel to fly them home.

“Mmmph,” she said against his hand, which he loosened and lowered. “I tell you, you let me go. I show you pictures on my phone from the party, you let me go now.”

“All right,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I have to know. I—like I said, I have a friend there.”

He saw for the first time she had a cell phone in her hand. He was lucky she hadn’t called for help. She touched the screen a couple of times, held it up and thrust it at him. The picture was so bright at first it hurt his eyes. He blinked, blinked again.

Claire and Nick stood holding hands under a flowered trellis with Lexi next to Claire. All dressed up. Exchanging rings and vows, it looked like. Till death do us part stuff.

He felt like someone had kicked him in the gut. He had a gun on him. He felt like shooting his way into that balcony party at Nightshade. He might as well be dead. Had they been tricked or had he?

The woman flipped to another picture, another. Same scene. An exchange of rings. Reality. A wedding. Surely, Claire hadn’t known, but at least she had Lexi back. Or was Markwood really behind all this? He knew she felt for the guy.

He heard a man’s voice, close, call “Eleanor? Where are you?”

Jace turned to run for his motorbike out in the street, but someone big tackled him from the darkness. He hit the grass, got a mouthful of it, went for his gun, but couldn’t reach it when another big man stepped on his arm.

“I think he’s a spy,” the woman’s voice said. “Danke, you got my distress call. He was watching the party from the beach, says he knows Nick Markwood, ya.”

The two burly men hauled Jace to his feet. One punched him in the stomach so hard he doubled over and retched. They dragged him to his feet, holding one arm bent painfully up behind his back, and walked him down the street between them.

“Bring his bike,” one man called to the woman. “And don’t go off alone like that. You know the rules and consequences.”

Jace had wanted desperately to get into Ames’s Nightshade, but not this way. Damn, but he was probably going to be the one to suffer consequences for breaking the rules.

* * *

Even though one of Ames’s guards drove the car, Claire was grateful to get away from Nightshade. She still wore her silk wedding dress and the pair of Manolo high heels, no less, outrageously expensive ones, of course. It spooked her that every item of clothing had been her and Lexi’s correct sizes. Had one of Ames’s spies who planted listening devices been in their closets and drawers at home?

“Mommy, I’m tired and my tummy hurts.”

“You didn’t eat anything from the garden with the fountain, did you?”

“No. I don’t eat flowers, but I think they were pretty.”

Claire shuddered. She was grateful to escape Ames’s Nightshade with its weird fish and poison plants. She recalled again the research she had done on deadly nightshade and the mistake she’d made of bringing some in when she presented her paper. She had learned the hard way that merely rubbing against the plant raised pustules on the skin.

“Just too much ice cream and excitement for your tummy then,” she told the child, who was cuddled up between her and Nick on the backseat of the car. “You’ll sleep tonight, and we’ll go home tomorrow.”