Heather Graham - Still Waters

Soon Ben had set their course for home. She reflected that she hadn’t even said goodbye to the others—any of the Masons, or Brad and Sandy. The Masons she would see again, and as for Brad and Sandy...

Thinking of the pair still gave her an uneasy feeling.

She looked away from the yacht at last and turned her gaze westward, toward the Florida coast. It would all come into perspective, she told herself.

She would get home. She would believe she had been silly, that she couldn’t have seen a skull. That nothing had been going on during their stay on the island. No one had lurked around with evil intent.

And as for Keith...

She would stop thinking about him eventually. In her mind, he would lose the charismatic appeal that had all but obsessed her. She would remember him as a man. As someone special she had once met. Handsome, virile, exciting...but too laid-back, too ready to enjoy good times with his friends, too lacking in ambition.

It would all come into perspective....

But things always came back around to one fact.

She was certain she had seen a skull.

Just as she was certain there was something about Keith. No matter how appealing the man might be, he simply wasn’t what he seemed.

There had been an honesty in the way he’d touched her, but only lies had fallen from his lips.

7

“I admit to still being confused,” redheaded Ashley Dilessio said, easing back in her chair at Nick’s, her uncle’s restaurant on the bay.

Nick’s was everything good about the area, Beth thought. Boats came in to dock, houseboats were moored nearby, and anyone was welcome. The tables were rough wood, an overhang sheltered the outside seating from the sun, and it felt like a continuation of island living in the midst of a hectic, overpopulated, multicultural community.

Not to take anything away from the yacht club, she decided a little defensively. The two establishments were just different. And of course part of Nick’s appeal was that she’d known Ashley most of her life.

Now Ashley was with the police force, in the forensics department, and her husband, Jake, was a homicide detective.

“Okay, you got to the island. You walked with the kids. You thought you saw a skull. A man showed up—you hid it. You went back with Ben, and there was no skull,” Ashley said, her green eyes studying Beth with a slight frown wrinkling her forehead.

“That’s the gist of it, yes. Ben thinks I saw a conch shell,” Beth said, her tone a little sheepish. “It might be nothing, it might be something. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Ted and Molly Monoco.”

“I remember the story, but... I thought they were sailing around the world,” Ashley said. “No wonder no one’s seen them.”

“But what if it was a skull?”

“You said that whatever you saw was gone when you went back.”

“Maybe I just couldn’t find it,” Beth persisted.

Ashley stirred her straw around in the large glass of iced tea in front of her. “This isn’t my jurisdiction, or even Jake’s, you know.”

“But you have contacts,” Beth reminded her.

Ashley nodded thoughtfully.

Beth let out a deep sigh. “Shouldn’t someone check it out?”

“Yes,” Ashley agreed. “We can get the Coast Guard out there to take a look, if nothing else. But...why would the skull—if it was a skull—have disappeared? Did any of the other boaters seem suspicious?”

Beth groaned. “All of them.”

Ashley smiled. “Okay, tell me.”

Beth began describing the other campers on the island: the Masons, who Ashley knew casually, Brad and Sandy, and the three men in the exquisite yacht.

“Three hunks, huh?” Ashley teased.

“Um. They looked the part.”

“What part?”

“Oh, you know, the type who would be out fishing, diving...boating.”

“You mean they had beer bellies and could open the bottles with their teeth?”

“Ashley!” She flushed slightly, remembering the way she’d described Ben’s mythical “friends” who were due to arrive on the island.

“Sorry, just kidding. But they don’t sound like modern-day pirates. Not if they already had such a fantastic boat themselves.”

“So there really are pirates out there?” Beth asked, keeping to herself the thought that maybe Lee hadn’t been the legitimate owner of that boat after all.

“You bet. There’s lots of money—and very little law—once you’re out on the ocean,” Ashley said seriously. She was doodling idly on a napkin. “Describe your guy.”

“Which one?”

Ashley grinned. “The one you’re talking about the most, seem the most suspicious of—and the most attracted to.”

“Ashley...”

“Beth, just describe the guy. Tall? Dark? Face shape—round...long...?”

“Um, really good bone structure. Cheekbones broad, chin kind of squared, really strong. Eyes...” She watched as Ashley sketched on the napkin. Her friend was good. “Farther apart. And the brows have a high arch. The nose is a little longer, dead straight. The lips are fuller. And the hair...well, depends on whether it was wet or dry.”

“Just go for the face.”

“A little leaner there, below the cheekbones,” Beth said. Then she exhaled, leaning back, staring at Ashley. “You’d think you knew the guy. That’s incredible.”

Ashley shrugged, sliding the cocktail napkin with the perfect likeness to the side of her plate. “Let’s hope so. I’m being paid to do it.”

Beth shook her head, staring at Ashley, thinking of the man whose likeness her friend had just drawn.

“Hey! Look what the summer wind brought along,” a masculine voice said, breaking the moment.

They both looked up. Jake had arrived. Winking at Beth, he kissed the top of his wife’s head and pulled out a chair. He was a rugged-looking man; he either looked his part as a cop or could be taken for one of her boat people. In fact, he was both. He’d spent years dealing with the hardest, darkest, ugliest secrets of a big city, and still knew how to come home and smile, play with his toddling son and baby daughter, love his wife and enjoy his friends.

“Beth thinks she might have found one of the missing Monocos,” Ashley said.

Beth was startled when he looked at her sharply, then at his wife again. “I’m not sure they are missing. I just heard a rumor that their boat was seen recently.”

“She might have found a skull on Calliope Key,” Ashley explained further.

“It disappeared,” she murmured, then shook her head. She couldn’t be hesitant. “Actually, I’m sure I saw a skull. But I got scared and tried to hide it. Then I couldn’t find it. And—”

She broke off, then plunged back in. “Well, if someone else had hidden the skull, it didn’t seem like a good idea to make a production of digging it up.”

Jake grimaced, looked at Ashley again, and then smiled at Beth. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll get on it,” he assured her. “I’ll call Bobby—Robert Gray, a friend with the Coast Guard. I’m sure he’ll help. Will that make you feel better?”

“Yes, and thank you,” she told him.

“Hey, are we invited to your next big event at the club?”

“Absolutely,” she assured him. “You can come in anytime, you know that. Just use my name. No, better yet, use Ben’s. He’s the paying member.” She grinned.

“Want to hear more about Beth’s excursion on Calliope Key?” Ashley asked her husband. “Some of her new acquaintances sound fascinating.”

“Oh?” Jake said, and looked at Beth curiously.

“She met three hunks. Rich ones, maybe.”

“Ohhhh,” Jake said.

Beth groaned and stood. “You two are cops—you’re supposed to be taking me seriously. I’m out of lunchtime. Call me.”