Heather Graham - Hurricane Bay

Latham took a step toward her.

Out on the streets, she thought, he wouldn’t have scared her. If she hadn’t known him, he might even have appeared to be a decent looking and friendly kind of fellow. An all-around American male, the type to watch football on a Sunday afternoon, play armchair quarterback and show up for work on Monday morning to talk over the game with the guys.

Except that he smelled a little like fish.

But she did know him. She knew he had taken a belt to Sheila several times when she had lived at home.

And he made her nervous as hell.

She took a backward step toward the door.

“Look, I’m really worried about Sheila,” Kelsey said. “If you do hear anything from her, anything at all, please have her get in touch with me right away.”

“And where would that be, missy?” he asked. He was walking toward her again. She had the strangest sensation that if he touched her, she would somehow be marked for life. The remaining light outside had faded. The living room was lit by one weak bulb in a lamp with no shade. The pale light fell on the carcasses of mounted fish on the wall, and the head and neck of a tiny key deer with glassy eyes.

“Just tell Sheila to get ahold of me if you hear from her. She’ll know where I am.”

“You’re staying out at her place, eh?”

“Mr. Latham, you did raise Sheila. You must have some feelings for her.”

“Yeah, I hate the little bitch.”

“I’m worried, and she’s missing. And the police will be around to talk to you,” Kelsey said, her sense of both uneasiness and indignation rising within her.

“The cops?” Latham said, then he repeated the words, his voice seeming to rise to a roar. “The cops! You called the cops on me because that little twit of a girl has gone off with some poor Joe she intends to milk for all he’s worth?”

At that point he was almost upon her. Dignity and courtesy be damned, Kelsey was getting out. She turned and headed for the door. She heard him following after her. She felt his breathing.

His hand clamped down on her shoulder. She almost screamed as he spun her around. “Don’t you go causing trouble for me, you hear? You mark my words—Sheila is off with some man—a fool with money, with any luck. Getting the police involved is just going to get her into trouble. Maybe she’ll even see some jail time, understand? Don’t go getting the cops involved with Sheila and me. Don’t you do it over that riffraff girl!”

He had powerful fingers. They were digging into her shoulder. His face was taut with tension, and his eyes had a hard yellow gleam about them.

The stench of fish wafted over her.

“Let go of my shoulder.”

He smiled. The man had amazingly good teeth. Very white. It could have been a good smile, but instead it was full of menace and pleasure at the fear he was sensing in her.

“You came to my house to throw accusations in my face, little lady,” he said quietly, not releasing her.

“Accusations?” Kelsey said. “I didn’t accuse you of anything. I asked you if you had seen Sheila, and if you could tell her I’m looking for her if you do see her.”

“If you didn’t accuse me of anything, why are you calling the cops on me?”

His grasp had a definite biting quality. He was strong, or, at least, stronger than she was.

Cindy had been right. She shouldn’t have come here. Alone. At night.

Alone at any time, she thought.

She wanted to remain calm and rational; she also wanted to scream and jerk away from him. She tried to remember all the movies she had seen, all the programs she had watched about dealing with dangerous situations. Don’t show fear? Or scream like blue blazes, push away with all her strength and run like the wind?

She didn’t have to make a decision. She heard the slamming of a car door and a man’s voice. “Hey, what’s going on there?”

Latham’s hand fell from her shoulder. They both recognized the voice. Latham shook his head with disgust, his eyes moving from the newcomer back to Kelsey once again. “There he is, the big military man, ready to knock my lights out,” he said. “I wasn’t about to hurt you, little girl. And you want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”

She’d known from hearing him, without turning, that Dane Whitelaw had arrived. She’d been relieved.

But Latham’s words gave her a chill.

She turned, Latham’s words echoing in her mind. “You want to know where Sheila is? Ask her good buddy, the half-breed coming up the walk.”

Dane was coming up the path. He wasn’t looking at Kelsey; he was staring at Latham.

His hair was combed back, freshly washed, a little long at the collar, but off his face now. He was in khakis and a short-sleeved blue tailored shirt. Dane wasn’t exactly a half-breed. His grandfather had been a Miccosukee Indian who had married a Swedish tourist. The two had set up shop in the Keys, died together in an automobile accident and left his father with ownership of Hurricane Bay. His dad had made a career out of the military, retired, turned to fishing off his peaceful property for an extra income, and then married Mary Smith, a woman who could claim ancestors all the way back to the Mayflower. Kelsey could just barely remember Dane’s mother. She had welcomed every kid in the world into their house. She had been quick to laugh, to entertain, to love children. She had wanted twenty, she had told them once. At least a dozen little sisters and brothers for Dane. But both she and Dane’s father had married late in life, and complications had set in when she’d finally gotten pregnant again just before Dane’s tenth birthday. She had died months before the baby was due. Dane’s father had never remarried. He had always been a wonderful man when the kids were around, but he had seldom left his own little island, except to sell his catch.

Dane Whitelaw seemed to have inherited the best to be had from his background. He had dark eyes, a chiseled face with slightly broad cheekbones, dark-wheat-colored hair that was always sun-bleached to a lighter shade, and the height and stance of a Viking. She had adored him growing up. He’d been her brother’s best friend. But then Joe had been killed, and their little world had changed for everyone.

Dane reached the open doorway, still staring pointedly at Andy Latham. His dark gaze had never wavered once.

“What the hell are you doing here, Whitelaw?” Latham asked.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Dane said, an obvious lie. There was nothing in the immediate neighborhood that could have drawn him.

“You’re trespassing on my property.”

“Don’t worry. I’m getting off it.” He stared at Kelsey.

She was tempted to stay just because she didn’t want Dane helping her, not when he was top on her list of…well, not suspects, but highly suspicious people. And not when he had been such an ass that afternoon. Maybe she had approached him badly. But he should have cared. He should at least have frowned with worry and tried to say something good about Sheila.

Then again, maybe she just disliked Dane because of what had happened after Joe had died.

“Kelsey, were you staying?” Dane asked when she didn’t move.

“No, I have a dinner engagement,” she said.

She turned to walk down the overgrown path, certain this time that creepy things were touching her flesh when the overgrown brush swept over her legs.

She reached her own car. Dane was right behind her, Andy Latham still standing at his door. Dane waited until she had gotten in the driver’s seat, closed her door and started the engine.

Then he walked to his own car, a Jeep with oversize tires. Necessary, she knew, for living out on Hurricane Bay. The road to the little island was private, not state or county. Dane’s grandfather had built it; his father had improved it. Now Dane kept it up. It still wasn’t much of a road. During a heavy rain season or after a storm, it was often underwater, sometimes so deep that the only way on or off the island was by boat.