Diamond Bay (7 page)

The shaking of the bed awoke her, startling her out of a sound
sleep. She sat straight up in bed, her heart pounding. He was moving
restlessly, trying to kick the cover away from him with only his right leg, and
finally he succeeded in getting most of it off him. His skin was hot, and he
was breathing too heavily. A glance at the clock told her that it was well past
the time he should have had more aspirin.

She turned on the lamp beside the bed and went into the bathroom
to get the aspirin and fresh water. He swallowed without fuss this time, and
Rachel got him to drink almost a full glass of water. She eased his head down
onto the pillow again, her fingers slow to move from his hair.

Daydreaming again! She jerked herself sharply away from the
dangerous direction those daydreams were taking. He needed to be cooled down,
and she was standing there fantasizing about him. Disgusted with herself, she
wet a washcloth and bent over him, slowly wiping his torso with the cool cloth.

A hand touched her breast. She froze, her eyes widening. Her
nightgown was loose and sleeveless, with a scooped neckline that had fallen
well away from her body when she bent over him. His right hand moved slowly
inside the neckline, and he brushed the backs of his lean, strong fingers
insistently over her nipple, back and forth, until the small bud of flesh
tightened and Rachel had to close her eyes at the sharp, unexpected pleasure.
Then his hand moved lower, so slowly that her breath halted in her chest,
stroking over the velvet underside of her breast. "Pretty," he
murmured, his voice deep, the single word slurred.

The word echoed sharply in Rachel's mind, and her head jerked
around, her eyes opening. He was awake! For a moment she stared into
half-opened eyes that were so black it was as if light drowned in them; then
his lashes slowly dropped and he was asleep again, his hand falling away from
her breast.

She was so shaken that she could barely move. Her flesh still
burned from his touch, and that instant when she had stared into his eyes was a
moment that was frozen in time, so imprinted on her memory that she felt
branded by his glance. Black eyes, blacker than night, without any hint of brown.
They had been hazy with fever and
pain, but he had
seen something he liked and
reached out for it. Looking down, she saw that the gaping neckline of the
loose, comfortable cotton shift left her breasts completely exposed to his
view, and his touch; she had unwittingly invited both.
Her hands trembled as she automatically continued wiping him down
with the cool cloth. Her senses were reeling, her mind scrambling to adjust to
the fact that he had been awake, that he had spoken, even if it had been only one
word. Somehow during the long two days when he had lain motionless, even though
she had longed for him to wake, she had stopped expecting him to. She had taken
care of him as totally as one would an infant, and now she was as startled as
if an infant had suddenly spoken. But he was no infant; he was a man. Ail man,
if the frank appreciation in that single slurred word was any measurement.
"Pretty," he'd said, and her cheeks heated.

Then the implications of that single word hit her, and she jerked
upright. He was American! If he'd been anything else the first word
he
spoke,
when he was only half-conscious and burning with fever, would have been in his
native language. But that one word had been in English, and the accent, though
slurred, had definitely been American. Part of the slur could have come from a
natural accent, a southern or western drawl.

American. She wondered at the heritage that had given him his dark
coloring, Italian or Arabic, Hungarian or American Indian, maybe even Black
Irish? Spanish? Tartar? The high, chiseled cheekbones and thin, hawk-bridged
nose could have come from any of those bloodlines, but he was definitely from
the huge American melting pot.

Her heart was still hammering in her chest with excitement. Even
after she had emptied the bowl of water, turned out the lamp and crawled into
bed beside him, she was quivering and unable to sleep.
He had opened his eyes and
spoken to her, had moved voluntarily.
He was recovering! A burden lifted from her shoulders with the
knowledge.

She turned on her side and looked at him, barely able to see the
outline of his profile in the darkness of the room, but every pore in her skin
sensed his nearness. He was warm and alive, and an odd mixture of pain and
ecstasy swelled inside her, because somehow he had become important to her, so
important that the tenor of her existence had been irrevocably altered.
Even when he left, as practicality
told her he must, she would never be the same again.
Diamond Bay had given him to her, a strange gift from the turquoise
waters. She reached out and trailed her fingers lightly down his muscled arm,
then withdrew her touch, because the feel of his skin made her heart lurch
again. He had come from the sea, but it was she who had suffered the sea
change.

"He's dead, I'm telling
you."

A slim man, with graying brown hair and a narrow, intense face
that belied the self-imposed calmness and control of his manner, gave the
speaker a look of contemptuous amusement. "Do you think we can afford to
assume that, Ellis? We have found nothing – I repeat, nothing – to assure us of
his death."

Tod Ellis narrowed his eyes. "There's no way he could've
survived. That boat went up like a fuel tank."

An elegant red-haired woman had been silently listening to the
two, and now she leaned forward to put out a cigarette. "And the report
from one of the men that he saw something, or someone, go over the side?"

Ellis flushed angrily. These two had deferred to him when it came
to setting up the ambush, but now they were treating him like a rank amateur.
He didn't like it; he was far from an amateur, and they had damned well needed
him when they were after Sabin. The plan hadn't worked out exactly as they'd
wanted, but Sabin hadn't escaped, and that was the most important thing. If they
had thought it would be easy to capture him, then they were fools, at best.
"Even if he got into the water," he said patiently, "he was
wounded. We saw him get hit. We were miles out. There's no way he could have
gotten to shore. He either drowned, or a shark got him. Why take the chance on
drawing attention to ourselves by searching for him?"

The other man's pale blue eyes looked beyond Ellis, into the past.
"Ah, but this is Sabin we're talking about, not some ordinary man. How
many times has he slipped away from us? Too many for me to trust that it was so
easy to kill him. We found no remains on the boat, and if, as you say, he
either drowned or was attacked by sharks, there still would have been
some
evidence.
We've patrolled these waters for two days without finding anything. The logical
thing to do is to move our search to shore."

"We'll be exposing ourselves if we do."

The woman smiled. "Not if we do it right. We must simply be
discreet. Our biggest danger is the possibility that he was picked up by
another boat and taken to a hospital. If he's had the opportunity to talk to
someone, to make some calls, we won't be able to get near him. First we must
find him, though. I agree with Charles. Too much is at stake for us to simply
assume that he's dead."

Ellis's face was grim. "Do you have any idea how large an
area we'll have to cover?"

Charles drew a map of Florida closer. "Our position was
here," he said, marking the spot with an X. "Given the distance and
the tides, which I've already checked, I think we should concentrate our
efforts in this area." He drew a long oval on the map and tapped it with
his pen.
"Noelle,
check all the hospitals in the area, and also the police blotters, to find if
anyone has been treated for a gunshot wound.
While you're doing that we'll be searching every inch of the
coastline." He leaned back in his chair and surveyed Ellis with his arctic
gaze. "Can you contact your people and find out without arousing
suspicions if he's called anyone?"

Ellis shrugged. "I have a reliable contact."

"Then make it. We may have waited too long as it is."

He would make the call, Ellis
thought, but he was sure
it would be a waste of time. Sabin
was dead; these people persisted in acting as if he were some sort of superman
who could disappear into thin air, then miraculously reappear.
Okay, so he'd had a reputation when he was in the field; that had
been years ago. He would have lost his edge since then, sitting around at a
dull desk job the way he'd been doing. No, Sabin was dead; Ellis was certain of
it.

Rachel sat on the front porch swing, a newspaper spread across her
lap and heaped with green beans. A dishpan sat on the swing beside her, and she
systematically broke the tips off the beans and peeled the string off them,
then broke the pods into inch-long sections, which she dropped into the
dishpan. She didn't like stringing green beans, but she liked to eat them, so
it was a necessary evil. She kept the swing gently swaying and listened to a
portable radio set on the windowsill. She was listening to an FM country
station, but the volume was turned low because she didn't want to disturb her
patient, who was sleeping peacefully.

She had spent the morning expecting him to finally wake up for
good, but instead he was still alternating between periods of deep sleep, when
the aspirin and sponging got his fever down, and restlessness, when his
temperature soared. He hadn't opened his eyes or spoken again, though once he
had groaned and held his shoulder with his right hand until Rachel loosened his
grip and held his hand, soothing him with soft murmurs of reassurance.

Joe eased up from his position under the oleander bush, a rumble
forming in his throat. Rachel glanced at him, then swept her gaze around the
yard and toward the road, to the left, but could see nothing. It wasn't like
Joe to pay any attention to squirrels or rabbits. "What is it?" she
asked, unable to keep the tightness of apprehension out of her voice, and Joe
responded to her tone by moving to stand
directly in front of the steps. The rumble was a full-fledged
growl now, and he was staring toward the pine thicket, toward the slope that
led down to Diamond Bay.

Two men were coming out of the thicket.

Rachel continued to string and snap the beans as if she were
totally unconcerned, but she felt every muscle in her body tense. She stared at
them, openly, deciding that that would be the normal thing to do. They were
dressed casually, in lightweight cotton canvas pants and pullover shirts, with
loose cotton jackets. Rachel eyed the jackets. The temperature was ninety-nine
degrees and it wasn't quite noon yet, so it promised to get hotter. Jackets
were anything but practical – unless they were needed to hide shoulder
holsters.

As the men crossed the road and approached the house Joe's growls
became snarls, and he crouched, the hair along his neck lifted. The men halted,
and Rachel caught the movement one man made beneath his jacket before he halted
himself. "Sorry about that," she called, leisurely putting aside the
beans and getting to her feet. "Joe doesn't like strangers in general, and
men in particular. He won't even let the neighbor in the yard. Guess some man
abused him once. Are you lost, or has your boat quit on you?"
As she talked she came down the
steps and laid a calming hand on Joe's back, feeling the way he shifted a
little away from
her.

"Neither. We're looking for someone." The man who
answered her was tall and good-looking, with sandy brown hair and an open,
college-boy smile that flashed whitely in his tanned face. He glanced down at
Joe. "Uh, do you want to get a better hold on the dog?"

"He'll be all right, as long as you don't come any nearer to
the house." Rachel hoped that was true. Giving Joe another pat, she walked
past him and approached the men.
"I don't think it's me he's protecting as much as his territory.
Now what was it you said?"

The other man was shorter, slimmer and darker than Mr.
All-American College Boy. "FBI," he said briskly, flashing a badge in
front of her nose. "I'm Agent Lowell. This is Agent Ellis. We're looking
for a man we think might be in this area."

Rachel wrinkled her forehead,
praying she wasn't overdoing it.
"An escaped
convict?"

Agent Ellis's gaze had been appreciatively measuring Rachel's
long, bare legs, but now his eyes lifted to her face. "No, but prison is
where we're trying to put him. We think he may have come ashore somewhere in
this area."

"Haven't seen any strangers around here, but I'll keep a
sharp watch. What does he look like?"

"Six feet tall, maybe a little taller. Black hair, black
eyes."

"Seminole?"

Both men looked startled. "No, he's not an Indian,"
Agent Lowell finally said. "But he's dark, sort of Indian-looking."

"Do you have a picture of him?"

A quick look passed between the two men. "No."

"Is he dangerous? I mean, a murderer, or anything like
that?" A lump had formed in her chest and was rising toward her throat.
What would she do if they told her he was a murderer? How could she bear it?

Again that look, as if they weren't sure what to tell her.
"He should be considered armed and dangerous. If you see anything at all
suspicious give us a call at this number." Agent Lowell scribbled a
telephone number on a piece of paper and gave it to Rachel, who glanced at it
before folding it and putting it in her pocket.

"I'll do that," she said. "Thank you for coming
by."

They started to leave; then Agent Lowell paused and turned back to
her, his eyes narrowed. "There are some strange marks on the beach down
there, as if something has been dragged. Do you know anything about them?"

Rachel's blood froze in her veins. Fool! she told herself numbly.
She should have gone down to the
beach and obliterated all those marks.
At least
the tide would have washed away any blood and other signs that had been left
where he had fallen. Deliberately she wrinkled her forehead, giving herself
time to think, then let her face clear. "Oh, you must mean where I collect
shells and driftwood. I pile them all on a tarp and haul it up here. That way I
can get it all up the slope with just one trip."

"What do you do with them? The shells and driftwood."

She didn't like the way Agent Lowell was looking at her, as if he
didn't believe a word she said. "I sell them," she said, and it was
the truth. "I own two souvenir shops."

"I see." He smiled at her. "Well, good luck in your
shell hunting." They turned to leave again.

"Do you need a lift?" she asked, raising her voice.
"You look hot now, and it's going to get hotter."

Both of them looked up at the blistering sun in the cloudless blue
bowl of the sky; their faces were shiny with perspiration. "We came by
boat," Agent Ellis said. "We're going to check along the beach some
more. Thanks, anyway."

"Anytime. Oh, watch out if you go north. It gets
swampy."

"Thanks again."

She watched them disappear into the pines and down the slope, and
chills prickled her skin despite the heat. Slowly she returned to the porch and
sat down on the swing, automatically returning to the task of breaking the
beans.
Everything
they had said swirled in her mind, and she tried
to sort it all out, to get her thoughts in order again.
FBI? It was possible, but they had flashed their badges so swiftly
she hadn't been able to examine them. They knew what he looked like, but they
didn't have any photographs of him; she thought it would be reasonable that the
FBI would have some likeness, even if it was just a drawing of someone they
were trying to find. And they had sidestepped the question when she asked what
he had done, as if they hadn't anticipated that and didn't know how to answer.
They had said he should be considered armed and dangerous, but instead he was
naked and helpless. Didn't they know he'd been shot? Why hadn't they said
something about that?

But what if she were harboring a criminal? That had always been
one of the possibilities, though she had discounted it. Now it swarmed back
into her mind, and she felt sick.

The beans were finished. She took the pan into the house and set
it in the sink, then returned to gather up the paper with the strings and
broken ends on it.
As
she carried it to the kitchen to stuff it in the trash can she cast an
apprehensive look at her open bedroom door.
She could just see the head of the bed and his black hair on the
pillow… her pillow. When he woke up again, and she looked into those night-black
eyes, would she be looking into the eyes of a criminal? A killer?

Swiftly she washed her hands and flipped through the telephone
book, then punched the number. It rang only once before a harried male voice
said, "Sheriffs Department."

"Andy Phelps, please."

"Just a minute."

There was another ring, but this time the answer was absentminded,
as if the person had other things on his mind. "Phelps."

"Andy, this is Rachel."

Immediately his voice warmed. "Hi, honey. Everything
okay?"

"Fine. Hot, but fine. How are Trish and the kids?"

"The kids are doing okay, but Trish is praying for school to
start."

She laughed, sympathizing with Andy's wife. Their boys carried
rowdiness to new heights. "Listen, two guys just stopped by the house.
They walked up from the beach."

His voice sharpened. "They give you any trouble?"

"No, nothing like that. They said they were FBI, but I didn't
get a good look at their badges. They're looking for some man. Are they
legitimate? Has your department been notified of anything? I may be paranoid,
but I'm out here at the end of the road, and Rafferty's miles away. After
B.B…." Her voice trailed away with the sudden pain of the memory. It had
been five years, but there were still times when the loss and regret seared
her, when the emptiness got to her.