Below the Surface (14 page)

“You run away like a dog, you spend Saturdays with me on a short leash,” Manny told Lucinda as they entered the Two Mermaids. He handed her a broom and pointed toward the back room.

“That's a big place with lots of junk in it!” she dared to protest.

“I don't care. Just do it and not complain—same with that
quinceañera
party. Now that Daria's half of this business come to me, we have more money for a nice one.”

“Yeah,” she said, taking the broom from him with a frown, “but without Daria to dive with Bree, your profits will be down, won't they?”

“Maybe we hire a part-time diver. When the mourning for Daria is over, we advertise more. But this been a lot of publicity already.”

She just shook her head, glared at him and stomped into the back room. The swish, swish of the broom convinced him he'd at least had a small victory with her.

The front doorbell rang, and Manny saw it was one of Sam Travers's workers, the red-haired one named Lance. He carried a pair of green fins. It looked strange to see him alone. He was usually with his diving partner, Ric, a real stud who evidently worked out a lot.

“Your boss left these on Sam's barge,” he said without a greeting.

Manny was tempted to tell this man he was partners with Bree now, but it hadn't been announced and he hadn't even reminded Bree of it yet. He didn't want to seem too pushy when she was grieving.

“Thanks,” Manny said, taking them and putting them on Bree's desk.

“I can understand why she forgot them,” Lance said, folding his arms over his chest. “Hell of a thing—bad enough her sister was dead, but to find her like that? The whole scene was surreal.”

Manny wasn't sure what
surreal
meant, but he could guess. “We are grateful for Sam's help,” he told Lance.

“Considering that you're our business rivals?” Lance asked, as he headed for the door. He stopped and turned back. “Or that he blames Briana for his son's death?”

“You know that, too?” Manny asked. Lucinda's broom had stopped. He had to check on her.

“Sam hardly makes a secret of it. Man, I'd like to get a glimpse of that attic shrine he's made to his son. Talk about whacked-out…The way he really feels about Briana, I wouldn't be surprised if he isn't up there sticking pins in a voodoo doll of her. Know what I mean?”

Manny wasn't clear on what a voodoo doll was, either, but he got the message. And he was going to make sure Bree got that message when she returned.

Bree ran toward her car so fast that she slipped in the mud and sprawled to both knees and both hands in the mire. Her keys got coated with muck. Cursing but moving carefully, she got to her feet and wiped the keys off on one of the few clean spots on her jeans, then looked around.

For a moment, through the slant of gray rain, she felt disoriented. Was her truck where she had left it?

Of course it was, straight across the tiny parking lot. She'd gotten turned around and was looking the wrong way. Was she losing it?

With a nervous glance, she walked toward it, telling herself to watch her footing. Any thought she'd had of walking around back to talk to Bess in the kitchen or to try to find out why Daria met a man “out back,” as the bartender had said, flew right out of her head. She was getting away from here.

In the driving rain, she tried to get her key in the door lock, but she was shaking so hard it didn't go right in. At least the rain cleaned the last of the mud from her keys.

And then—she wasn't sure where he'd come from—she saw a man striding straight for her, as if he'd emerged from the ditch or the swamp. He wore all black, jeans and old running shoes, windbreaker and a billed hat. The neck of a second black T-shirt was pulled up around his face for a mask. And he held a huge, raised wrench in one hand.

B
ree ducked the man's first swing with his wrench and didn't wait around for a second. Where had he come from? Was he one of the guys inside?

She screamed but a clap of thunder drowned her out. With the rattle of rain on that roof, people inside might not hear.
Save your breath to run. Someone will come out or along the road to help.
Hoping she could beat him to the other door of her truck, Bree dashed around the back with her key out. She and Daria had taken a self-protection class; Ben had insisted on it when they'd moved to the apartment above the marina shop. Hold your car keys between your fingers as a weapon. But nothing she had could take on that wrench.

He was too fast for her. He came around the front end and lunged at her again. Who? Why?

Sidestepping him, she tore for the door of the bar, but he caught up and yanked her back. He didn't swing the wrench this time, but turned her away from him—so strong—and clamped a hard, dirty hand over her mouth. His arm was so tight around her waist she couldn't breathe. She tried to bite his fingers, but he smacked her mouth. Her teeth cut the inside of her lower lip and she tasted blood. When he tried to drag her toward the ditch, she elbowed him in the ribs, then just picked up her feet.

They toppled over, side by side. She screamed, but the rain on the tin roof drowned her out, drowned her…Horrid images leaped at her: Daria trapped in that flooded wheelhouse underwater…her hair wet and waving…her hands upraised, as if for help. Another wayward thought hit her. What if someone—this man?—had tried to hurt Daria? What if her skull had been struck by a wrench and not the boat's steering wheel?

Her attacker half rolled, half jumped to a standing position and dragged her to her feet. She clawed at his wrist with the keys. He let her go but blocked her path toward the bar door. Knowing the woman was out in the back room, Bree tore around that way.

She evidently took him by surprise and got a little lead. Behind the place were picnic tables, two big, shell-shaped planters for cigarette butts, and a crude bridge over the back part of the ditch. Thick, wet vegetation loomed ahead.

Bree heard him coming, his feet fast, his breath loud. She cursed her acute hearing, because her pulse pounded in her ears.

He got to her before she reached the back door. The building had windows here, too, but the louvered wooden shutters were down in the rain.

“Hey, babe,” he said, his voice a low rasp, but the words screamed inside her skull and her soul.

Babe?
Could this be the man Daria had met here, the one who wrote on the coaster? Had their affair gone wrong, and he'd killed her? And now meant to silence someone who looked like her or someone asking too many questions?

The last thing in the world Bree wanted was to run into the Glades, but he would be slowed by the standing water. She was used to it and could handle it, was more sure-footed, she was certain. Then she could go around toward the road, circle back to her truck, or maybe someone would come by. It was only about a half a mile to that little airport, and she'd seen a man there. And on the highway, there were plenty of people to flag down, people who would never turn down little Cypress Road.

She veered away from him and sprinted toward the bridge. She made it that far. It was the first time it registered that she still had her heavy purse over her shoulder, pressed under her arm and that her cell phone was there. If only she could put a little distance between them, she'd call 911. And she had two beer bottles for weapons.

But out on the rickety bridge, he had her by her wrist. Rain tattooed the water in the ditch and enveloped them in a gray, slanted curtain. Bree reached for one of the bottles and threw it at him. Beer sprayed over both of them as the bottle broke on his head, maybe dazing him, but his cap and the T-shirt that covered his face kept him from getting cut. If she could just yank that mask down! But then, if she knew who he was, he would surely kill her. She was hoping he might only mean to scare her. He'd done that, all right.

But she felt power pump through her. She'd aim her keys for his face this time or swing her purse at him. Moving a little slower, he raised the wrench again.

Bree swung her purse. The wrench went flying into the ditch, but he slammed into her. She opened her mouth to scream again, but they broke through the wooden bridge railing and splashed into the ditch.

Water enveloped her with a surge and a smack. She hit her head against something. Was she diving? She'd gone off the boat backward. But no tanks, no regulator, no mask. She held her breath, so dizzy at first. Under the sea, under the sea, Bree and Daria, under the sea.

But it wasn't deep. Her bottom hit bottom, and she bounced right up for a huge gasp of air. A few feet from her, her attacker was trying to stand, sputtering, splashing. Dear God, she prayed, don't let there be gators in here.

She had the choice of either daring to pull down his mask or scrambling out to run.

Clawing her way up the bank, she slid back twice while he reached for her ankles. His fingernails raked her leg. Amazingly, her purse, full of water, was back over her shoulder.

She kicked the man away, lost a shoe, then clambered out and ran, dripping wet, her purse sloshing, her soaked hair flinging water. Gut instinct told her not to run back inside but to get out of here. She had a head start. Beat him to her truck this time!

She glanced back once as she turned the corner of the building. Her attacker's hat but not his mask had come off. He was floundering out of the water, shaking his head and spraying water off dark hair as if he were a dog. She didn't even recognize him bare-headed, but she had water and her own hair in her eyes.

Run!

Gasping, she made it to her truck and steadied her right hand with her other to turn the lock and throw herself in. She slammed the door, locked it, praying he didn't come, hadn't found that wrench to knock out her windows. Could fingerprints be taken from a wet wrench, if it was found later?

Her right hand, which had clutched the keys the entire time, seemed frozen into a claw. She was shaking so hard she almost couldn't shift gears. With a screech, she turned the wheels to roar out onto the small road.

She sped back toward civilization. Throwing water in the rain, the windshield wipers whipped across her vision,
whap-whap, whap-whap.
She should not have tried this alone. She needed Cole or Manny, even Ben.

At the stop sign to the Trail, she didn't see anyone following and had to wait for traffic again. She put her forehead on the steering wheel and sobbed. Maybe Daria, with her good sea legs, had not slipped and hit her head on the boat's steering wheel, no matter how rough the water was. Maybe someone had boarded the boat and hurt her. No matter what Josh Austin reported or the coroner ruled or other people accepted, she had to look into that horrible possibility. Could the storm have cleverly been used to make a murder look like an accident?

After hugging her, then holding her at arm's length, Cole took to furious pacing while she told him everything, starting with the fact Manny had warned her that Sam Travers was as unforgiving as ever and then working up to the worst by blurting out about her attack.

As he walked back and forth, Cole alternated between clamping his hands under his armpits or gripping them on top of his head. Bree could tell he was livid, not only with Sam and the man who'd attacked her, but also with her. She figured he kept his hands constrained so he wouldn't give her a good shaking.

She was just lucky she'd had time to clean up and change out of her wet clothes, so he didn't see what a mess she'd been, but she hadn't had time to shower or wash her hair. She'd toweled it dry but tiny flecks of green algae clung to it, pond scum like the bastard who had attacked her. After she'd dived into the depths of the Trade Wreck with the strobe, she'd seen Cole angry, but he was a lot angrier now. His dark eyes were narrowed; every muscle in his face looked chiseled from stone. A pulse beat at the side of his throat, and his big body seemed coiled tight, ready to strike.

“You said you'd stay here, and that you'd be fine,” he interrupted. “Go ahead, tell me the rest.”

“I'm sure I didn't know him,” she concluded, still clutching a cushion to her breasts as she sat cross-legged on the sofa.

“He was masked.”

“I would recognize you in a mask—or Manny, Sam Travers, Ben, Josh Austin. Lots of people,” she protested.

When he finally sat down beside her, his weight toppled her into him. He lifted and turned her chin to make her look at him. The cut inside her mouth made her flinch. That and the scratch on her leg were her only physical injuries, however achy and black-and-blue she might be tomorrow and for the funeral, two days away.

“So,” Cole said, “it couldn't have been someone from inside that place because you're sure no one left after you entered.”

“Unless he was out in the kitchen with Bess.”

“Yeah, I want to talk to her.”

“The thing is, my attacker fits the vague description of the man Daria was evidently meeting. He could be the one who wrote on the coaster. He called me ‘babe,' too. It's the only thing he said—‘Hey, babe.'”

“It could connect, or not. Lots of guys are muscular and dark haired—including yours truly.”

“He wasn't as tall as you.”

“Great, then it wasn't me,” he said, his voice suddenly dripping sarcasm. “We've narrowed the suspect down to someone we know, such as one of Verdugo's guards—they all look like that. Or Ric, Sam's worker, though his choice of weapon seems to be a speargun, not a wrench. Then there's Frank Holliman, for all we know, not to mention a gazillion guys we don't know. And saying
Hey, babe
doesn't mean much. I could say that to you, too, as a come-on and not a threat.”

“Why are you tearing down everything I say?” she demanded, and threw the pillow at him. He swatted it away as if it were a mosquito.

“I'm not. I'm just a little upset—you could have gotten yourself killed. And I don't want you jumping to conclusions that just because you were attacked, Daria was, too. Don't assume we have more answers than we do.”

He'd said
we
again, she thought. As frustrated as he was making her, she loved that.

“Cole, I admit I shouldn't have gone in there, but you surely shouldn't, either.”

“Why the hell not? I'll take Manny with me, talk to the bartender and Bess, check for that wrench, though you're right. It can't have prints on it if it's in the ditch.”

“I don't want you to get in trouble over this.”

“What's the diff?” he muttered as if to himself, shaking his head. “I'm already in over my head with Verdugo—and you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I'm furious with you—again—for losing your head, and here I've lost mine over you.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Is that the best you can say?”

His hands on her shoulders were more than firm. He bent to nuzzle her cheek, then dipped his head to trail his lips down her throat, which she mindlessly arched back for him. He kissed the hollow between her collarbones, then moved up the side of her neck to her left ear. He nipped at the lobe, then darted his tongue inside the shell of her ear, thoroughly, just once.

Every nerve in her body jumped to attention, screaming for more. She sucked in a sudden breath, teetering on the edge of beautiful oblivion. She was acting like a schoolgirl, she scolded herself, as if she'd never had a man near her before. But this was so different. Cole's merest touch set off a torrent of insane sensations clear down to the pit of her belly.

“I know you hear things too well lately, so I'm whispering now,” he said, his mouth moving against her cheek. “And I'll make it quick because, as luscious as the rest of you is, your hair smells like…gator water.”

She almost laughed. Amidst all this terror, he had the power to take her on a roller-coaster ride of emotions, and that both scared and sobered her.

“Two things,” he said, his voice deadly serious. “You stay put until I get back. And, however helpful he's been, stay away from Sam Travers.”

“He may come to the funeral. After he helped us look for Daria, I can't tell him to stay away.”

“I just mean you don't go near him, okay?” he said, putting her back at arm's length to look hard into her eyes. She wasn't used to taking orders, but from him, she was starting to welcome them.

“All right. I won't go near Sam.”

“Meanwhile,” he said, releasing her and frowning at his hands while he flexed them, “I'll take Manny to cover my back and you can babysit his daughter. I feel the urge to go order a Mountain Brewed at the old laid-back, good-time Gator Watering Hole.”

Bree tried to keep her mind off her own problems by listening to Lucinda's woes, but she was really worried about Cole. With Manny, he was going to do her dirty work, to find out about the man who met Daria on the sly, but also, she feared, to pay someone back for attacking her. She couldn't bear it if he or Manny got hurt.