Karen Harper - Drowning Tides

“Mr. Nick, will you live with us now? I don’t want to move too far from Aunt Darcy and Jilly.”

“We’ll work everything out, Lexi, promise,” he told her. “We’ll have to explain some things to your family.”

Some things, Claire thought. How much? What could they say? What would Jace say and do when he heard? She could hardly explain all about Ames or that could endanger Darcy’s family. He’d evidently already been spying on them too.

When they got back to the Sand and Sea Club and Ames’s driver left them with a “Best Wishes,” as if they hadn’t heard that enough from strangers tonight, Nick went up to the desk to see if they could change rooms. Claire wasn’t sure what he was going to tell them as they waited for him in the lobby by the Line Up Here for Cemetery Reef Scuba Trip sign. She felt she was underwater right now, looking through a mask, swimming against the current—with Ames’s hungry fish surrounding them. No way was she going into their earlier room with Lexi. Who knew what other surprises awaited them?

Nick, looking a bit relieved for the first time in two days, came over and told them, “I got one just down the hall, a smaller room with one bed, but Lexi can sleep between us or I’ll sleep on the sofa. Anything to get away from hidden cameras and bugs.”

Lexi came alert at that. “Did you have bugs in your room? Ick.”

“Not those kind of bugs,” Nick assured her as he unlocked their first previous room, flicked the light switch and looked around, then gestured to Claire. “Looks the same,” he said.

They scooped up their things and carried the small brown-and-black checkered Vuitton suitcase that carried Lexi’s things—which Claire intended to go through thoroughly in case there was a bug planted there—and changed rooms.

She and Lexi took showers first, then joined Nick out in the room. He was on his laptop. “Leaving orders for a couple of junior lawyers,” he told her. “Some wedding night, huh?” he added, crossing his arms over his chest as Claire hustled Lexi into bed. The child was still holding on to the green stuffed turtle. “I’ll sleep on that couch daybed thing tonight,” he said, gesturing at the navy blue folding sofa along the wall.

Although Claire had thought Lexi was almost comatose, she piped up, “You know when I said Mr. Ames who is really Mr. Kilcorse or something like that was like a Disney movie, Mommy? Then you said tell you later. Is this later?”

“Yes,” Claire said, darting a look at Nick, who came over to stand by her at the side of the bed. Somehow Lexi had picked up on both names. Claire needed to question her about other things she could have overheard. She intended to help Nick—her husband—somehow defy and defeat Ames. “I guess this is later,” she told Lexi.

“I’d like to hear about that too,” Nick said. “Anything you can remember about things you saw or thought when you were at Nightshade, you just tell us.”

“Okay. I think Mr. Ames has two names like in that Disney movie. Did you see Mulan?”

“No,” Nick said. “Sorry I didn’t, but tell us both anyway.”

“Okay. Mommy saw it. Mulan was just a girl like me, but when men had to go to war and her daddy couldn’t fight, she dressed up like a boy and learned to fight. She took his place. She fought the bad people, but she had a little dragon named Mushu to help her. I have this turtle, so he’s like my dragon. Mommy, if you and Mr. Nick have to fight bad people, I will help you. I think you are both afraid of something, and I will help you even if I have to change my name and what I look like—even where I live—I will help you.”

Claire collapsed to her knees in tears, bending over the bed and hugging her daughter. Nick knelt too and put his arms around them both, and all three of them held tight.

In that double embrace, for the first time since she’d seen the ransom note, Claire felt, not calm or in control, but courageous. She prayed Jace would understand that this was the way things had to be for now. And her heart skipped a beat to think she really was Mrs. Nicholas Markwood, come hell or high water, and she was praying she wouldn’t have to face either of those.

7

When Nick came out of the bathroom after his shower, Lexi was sound asleep, and Claire was standing by the sliding glass doors, looking out at the dark sea. He wore only jockey shorts and had an extra bath towel over one arm. She’d thrown a T-shirt over her knee-length nylon nightgown. She’d been agonizing, not only wishing they had a way to let Jace know they were all right, but about facing Nick on their wedding night.

“Is she a sound sleeper?” he whispered, with a nod toward Lexi.

Her heart thumped harder. “Usually. Almost as much as me.”

“Good. Don’t want this to wake her.”

He dropped his clothes on his carry-on bag and tossed the towel on the sofa bed where he’d said he’d sleep. Then he bent and shoved the sofa about five feet to block the door to the hall.

“I think we’re in the clear,” he whispered. “But right now I’m trusting no one but you two. And Heck,” he added as he came to stand beside her at the glass doors. He was referring to Hector Munez, his tech guru from Naples who had helped them on the St. Augustine case and did a lot of Nick’s online research, including the frustrating task of trying to trace Ames and his spider’s web of companies. “I’ve got him searching for Paul Kilcorse’s permanent residence as well as Clayton Ames’s now.

“Have you taken your night narcolepsy meds yet?” he whispered. “I know you skipped them last night, so you must be really strung out. But, I hope, the worst of this waking nightmare is over.”

“Part of it, at least—until we really get out of here. No, I haven’t taken the meds yet tonight. You changed the airline tickets from the ones he bought for us?”

“Yes. Midmorning flight out. And we’ll call for our own cab for once instead of just waiting for one that’s probably waiting for us. But first, soon as the sun’s up, the three of us will take a walk on the beach together. We can’t leave Grand Cayman without that. He’s not going to ruin—or run—everything for us. Want to sit out on the lanai for a few minutes?”

“I know I said she sleeps well, but I don’t want her to wake up in a strange place without me in sight.”

“Okay. I know you’re worried about Jace too. Frankly, so am I, but we can’t risk cell phone contact in case that lets them trace him.”

“I thought I saw him on the beach, in disguise, looking like a bum when Lexi was coming in from flying the kite. But then when she said the guy who snatched her looked like him, I realized it could just have been another of Ames’s gofers. Like, you know, right now your job is to go kidnap a child.”

“Listen. Jace is a big boy and insisted on coming. You said he’s been in tough spots, in combat.”

“Yes, but he’s a pilot, not some undercover agent!”

“Okay, okay.”

He pulled her to him, maybe a mistake this time. Her breasts through the T-shirt and nightgown pressed flat against his crisp chest hair. Her hips tilted into his thighs. As exhausted as she was, her entire body came alert. Oh, no, but oh, yes. She cared for this man in more ways than one. Thank heavens he set her back fast and kept his hands on her shoulders, as if holding her away.

Some wedding night, she thought. They certainly weren’t strangers, but they had not been lovers, and they had to figure out some rules and regs for this forced marriage—didn’t they? When they got back and could really hash things out, what would Nick want and expect? They would have to live together for appearance’s sake, to keep Ames’s spies at bay, to protect themselves and Lexi. She didn’t fully grasp what that devil was expecting of Nick and her either. She dreaded facing her family at home, probably having to lie to them, having to move, to uproot Lexi.