Eyes of Fire (16 page)

This baby was a dead ringer for Hank.

His heart seemed to squeeze. Someone had to be able to tell him. Someone had to know.
He
had to know. He itched to hold the baby. He wondered if he would break down if he did. He couldn't let himself break down. Why ruin a perfectly good image?

So, Sam, what the hell went on? he longed to demand. He wanted to shake the truth out of her. To wake her up and force her to tell him.

He smiled at the thought. If she wasn't ready to tell him, she
wouldn't
tell him.

He moved a hand gently over her bare arm. She didn't move. She was sleeping so deeply. A slight tremor shot through the length of his frame. Damn, it had been good. She reeked of sensuality. He would never forget the first time he'd seen her. He'd arrived on the island in much the same fashion as he had this time, completely undercover. She'd been in a yellow bathing suit that day, and she'd climbed atop the mainmast of a friend's sailboat. A barefoot, hoydenish daredevil, diving into the depths below from the mast. She'd been a picture of grace and beauty, so natural, so fluid. Diving into the water, rising from it. Seeing him. Flirting. She'd been an outrageous flirt. And he'd been good, so damned good at first. He'd tried to explain things to her. But it hadn't mattered.

He'd tried to keep his distance from her, but the attempt had been no good at all. He'd fallen in love. Any emotion he'd felt for another woman paled at what she awoke within him. Still, he'd meant to do everything the right way. Once he'd been in love, he'd planned on telling Becky the truth. But then Becky had shown up on the island, and Sam had thrown him out before he'd had a chance to explain anything to anyone.

He wasn't in the clear. Older and wiser now, he knew he'd handled things wrong, no matter what his intentions had been.

Oh, well. At least he and Becky had made a clean break. He'd thrown himself into work. Becky had married a banker, and now she lived in Palm Beach and had two cute kids. The right life for Becky.

He shook his head, smiling, remembering the past.
I'm sort of involved,
he'd tried to tell her. There had been horror on her face.
Oh, my God, you're married?
That had been easy to deal with. His answer had been,
No, but…

Somehow, he hadn't gotten to the “but” part of it. He had wound up naked with her on the sand, feeling the sun striking them both, warming them against the coolness of the water sweeping over their limbs.

It had been easy to forget what he should have been saying.

No excuses on his part.

No matter how much sensuality radiated from the woman at his side.

He smiled suddenly, glad of the honesty they had shared today. He'd been itching to touch her. Burning to feel her, taste her. He'd fought off his own climax so he could have more and more of her. He could see her in the darkness, every part of her, could see her with his eyes closed, recall her scent, her taste. He knew the texture of her flesh, the size and shape of her breasts, the color of her nipples, the feel of the red thatch at the top of her thighs. Knew the misty look of her eyes, the curve of her lips, the taste of her mouth. He knew those things in his dreams, waking, sleeping. At the strangest times in his life, he would recall something about her, the slope of a shoulder, the beautiful curve of her back, the pureness of her flesh. In the midst of a business dinner, beneath the currents of a river, he'd recalled Sam.

And now…

Now, for the moment, she had given up the fight. After the last explosive session of lovemaking between them, he'd had the God-given sense to keep his mouth shut. So she'd curled up beside him.

And slept.

Her hair was drying. Deep, dark tendrils of fire, it swept over the pastel-hued sheets. Her body was gloriously tan against that pale background, as well, except for the strips of more intimate flesh that hadn't been bared to the sun. She was naturally toned and perfect, an athlete with the most feminine curves. He smiled, remembering what she'd once said about breasts.

“Yours are perfect, darling,” he whispered, kissing the classical sculpture of her cheek lightly. “Perfect. Not too much, not too little. Perfect.”

He was tempted to test that perfection again with the cup of his hand, but he rather liked the idea that she was sleeping. He needed to make a phone call.

He rose, pulled the covers over her and found his swim trunks. They were damp. Oh, well. He had no choice. He slipped into them, wincing as the cold hit personal places that had so recently been so warm.

He padded out to the kitchen and put coffee on, hoping that would ease some of the clammy feeling assailing him. When the coffee perked, he poured himself a cup and sat down at the desk in Sam's small sunken office area.

He reached into the small inner front pocket of his bathing trunks and pulled out the encrusted article he had found caught in the step just at the cliffside nearly sixty feet below the surface of the water.

Sea growth was so attached to it that it was almost impossible to realize what the article was. He rubbed at the green and earth-toned growth. Gold appeared. He turned the article over in his hands. Studied it. Felt a plummeting of his heart. Pain. Squeezing.

He pocketed the article and sat thoughtfully for several seconds.

He picked up her private line. Unless the phones were tapped, he was safe.

It took him about sixty seconds to put his call through. He reached Sergeant James Estefan of the Mainland Metro Station dive squad at his desk.

“It would be you—I'm just about to go home,” James said.

Adam could picture him. James was thirty-three, blue-eyed, dark-haired. Dark, eternally touslehaired. James spent half his days in the water and the other half running his fingers through his drying hair. He was a good man and a good cop, an intuitive one.

“I've got your home number anyway,” Adam told him. “What have you got for me?”

“Well, I checked the death records, like you asked, and you were right on the money.”

“Yeah?” Adam leaned forward.

“A Marcus Shapiro was washed up around Daytona Beach exactly one week after the reported disappearance of Justin Carlyle.”

“Shapiro.” Tension seized Adam. “He was one of the main divers with SeaLink, right?”

“Had been,” James corrected.

Adam frowned. “So who was he working for when he was found dead?”

“Private concerns.”

“Oh, shit,” Adam muttered.

“Annoying, ain't it? By the way, have you shared your own private concerns with your hostess yet?”

“No. Help me here, give me more. What was Shapiro's cause of death? Drowning?”

“Stabbed to death.”

“Stabbed!”

“Right.”

“Carlyle's disappearance and Shapiro's death may have no connection whatsoever.”

“True. Maybe not even likely. You asked me to find whatever I could. I found Shapiro's corpse.”

“Do you know anything about what Shapiro was doing?”

“No. His wife had reported him missing. She'd known he planned on going out diving, but she hadn't known with whom or for whom. He could have been working for Robert Santino. Santino made no bones about the fact that he was sending divers out to scrounge around for the
Beldona.
”

“Anything else? Have you found backgrounds on any of the people I asked you to check up on?”

“I have.”

“Well, damn it, James—”

“You know, if this gets solved, I want one hell of a nice vacation out there on that island of yours.”

“Done.” Adam looked toward Sam's bedroom and shrugged. “Sure. Now, talk to me.”

“You've got two people on the island who've changed their names a time or two.”

“Who?”

“Well, Mr. Joseph Emerson, for one.”

“Joseph Emerson? The honeymooner? Come on, James. Spit it out for me.”

“All right. Emerson was born Shapiro.”

“You don't mean—”

“I do. His father's body was the one washed up on the Daytona shore.”

“Go on,” Adam said.

“This one may hurt someone more than a bit,” James warned.

“Well?” Adam demanded.

“Might be better if I don't tell you.”

“James, you'd damned well better tell me now,” Adam insisted. Then he listened. “What?”

James repeated what he had learned. Slowly.

And Adam sat back, stunned, staring toward the bedroom.

“Adam, you there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. I, uh, thanks, James. You've gone above and beyond. I'll keep in touch.”

He hung up and walked into the kitchen. He stared at his freshly brewed coffee. Then he dug around in the cabinets until he found a bottle of booze. Rum. He hated rum.

He swigged it right down.

Oh, God.

He looked toward the bedroom again. Leaned against the counter. Groaned.

He was going to have to hold out on her about this one. Until…

Until…

Oh, hell.

 

Sam awoke, vaguely aware of voices in some other room.

She started to jump out of bed in a disoriented panic, then remembered why she was in bed and that she had fallen asleep.

Asleep!

She looked around for her clothing, then remembered that she had dropped her bathing suit in the hall. Shaking her head in disgust at what had surely been a complete mental breakdown, she reached into her closet for a robe. By the time she had belted it on, she had traced the voices to the kitchen. She hurried down the hallway, only to discover that Jem was in her cottage, along with Adam. She must have slept a good while, because both men were showered, shaved and dressed in casual dinner attire.

They had drinks in their hands. And they both stared at her strangely as she joined them.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Well, other than the fact that something's going on. Actually, nothing's right, but then, you know that already.”

She glanced at her watch. “Seven!” she exclaimed. She looked at them both accusingly.

“I just got back here myself,” Adam said. “I had to change,” he explained awkwardly.

“Dinner will be on. Yancy should have come for me. I can't just ignore this entire business.”

“It's not going to make any difference if you miss the cocktail hour and show up late for one evening meal,” Jem assured her.

“I've still got to shower,” she began, looking at Adam. She felt color filling her cheeks. “And dress.”

“We'll wait,” Adam said.

She nodded. “I don't believe I fell asleep like that. I don't believe that…” Her voice trailed away. “I…excuse me.”

 

Sam showered in the hottest water she could find, then dressed quickly in a calf-length, teal silk off-the-shoulder dress.

She didn't allow herself to think the entire while.

When she walked into the living room, she still felt that Adam was watching her peculiarly.

The strange thing was that he looked away when he caught her staring at him in return.

Was he feeling guilty again? she wondered. No, he'd never behaved so strangely before. Not now, not in the past.

“Are you sure nothing else has happened?” she demanded, walking toward the door and waiting for the men to follow.

“Nothing,” Jem said.

“At all,” Adam added.

They were lying.

Well, it didn't matter. They weren't going to tell her anything.

“Let's go to dinner then, shall we?” Dinner. A meal. Everything felt different. She'd been with Adam again.
She
was different.

No control, she mocked herself.

Yet…

Had the past been her own fault? Could things be different now that she was older and wiser?

Sure, she told herself. She could just go for the good sex now.

Like hell. She cared about him, she was entwined with him. She wanted more than what she'd had.

And her business, her island and her life were falling apart.

“Dinner, guys,” she persisted, since they seemed to be moving slowly. “That meal that everyone else will be eating or getting ready to eat by the time we get there. I've already missed cocktail hour. You two have had yours while you were waiting, I see.”

She spun around, leaving the two of them. The hell with them if they weren't ready to come. This place was her business. Her livelihood. Jem's, too.

They were right behind her, then beside her, Jem to her left, Adam to her right.