Kingdom by the Sea (Romantic Suspense) (31 page)

Now
he entered the library and flicked on the light.  Not knowing where to look
first.  Not knowing how to look differently at things than he had been.

Who,
in town, was working with Lucius?  And would he be circulating among them
tomorrow at the Harvest Parade?  Was it the so-called handyman who hung around
here all day?  What about Zack Hyat, who seemed determined to interfere from
the sidelines?

But
how would any of them even know someone like Craig Lucius?  How would they know
if Nina Corday had come into possession of an original Demberto? 
Unless...could she have confided that fact?  Was that it?  Could whoever had
orchestrated this operation have been a friend of hers?

Now
Michael walked the perimeter of library, scanning the walls.  He had already
looked over the paintings.  Could another painting fit behind the bookshelves? 
No—the brackets for the shelves were screwed right into the wall.  What about
hiding it behind the
books
?  The height between each shelf might just
accommodate that if the painting were laid on its side. 

One
by one, Michael took books off, balancing them in his arms, his muscles
straining under the weight, pointed corners digging into his bare flesh, but he
kept piling them in his clutch and looking for any signs of a painting, or even
a safe or hidden compartment in the wall.  With an impatient sigh, he came up
empty and shoved the books back on the shelves, hearing them fall like bricks,
and then realized he was being too noisy; he was going to bring Nicole out of
bed.

Okay. 
Think.

He
rubbed his forehead, pinching it with his fingers as he walked toward the
fireplace.  Resting one hand on the mantle, he looked at his own reflection in
the stately mirror that hung there.  Carefully, he lifted the mirror up at the
bottom, pulling it away from the wall but not detaching it.  No safe there,
either.  Gingerly, he set it back down. 

Deep
in contemplation now, he sighed and looked ahead, into the mirror, but not
really focusing on his own reflection—and then he noticed something.  He
sharpened his gaze, as he continued looking into the mirror—and at the narrow
oblong picture that was on the opposite wall.  A framed black and white
photograph of a lighthouse.  It was straight behind him—or anyone—looking in
this mirror.

Behind
you.

He
whipped around.  With his blood pumping, he darted across the room.  Funny how
he had dismissed this thing entirely when he had first surveyed the library. 
Because of its petite dimensions, he hadn't given it a second thought.  Of
course, that was before he realized that Nicole's aunt had left her niece an
abundance of strange clues, all presumably leading her to the painting.

You'd
never look twice at this thing, and yet, now Michael couldn't look away from
it.  Anxiously he reached for it, pulled it off its hooks and turned it over. 
With greedy fingers, he peeled back the brown backing, which was only loosely
adhered on two sides. 

In
that familiar handwriting that Nicole had identified many times as her aunt's
were the words:
Go to a place for princesses
.  With his grip tightening
on the frame, Michael thought,
Finally, this was it
.

***

Sleepily,
Nicole rolled in her sheet, twisting her tee shirt up as she dreamed.  She was
dreaming of the beach, not the one outside her door, but a different one, a
remote, imagined one, and she was there with Michael, and the beach was crowded
and loud, and in her dream everyone was yelling about a shark in the water, but
no one was getting out of the water, and then confused but feeling stuck in the
surf herself, she turned and looked at Michael, who was standing on the shore. 
He wore a baseball cap and had no shirt on, and was squinting in the sun at
her, and he smiled at her and put on a pair of sunglasses.  And suddenly she
was floating up to him, the water carrying her feet and up close it was like
she saw his face for the first time—

She
gasped awake.

In
the darkness of the room, it took several moments for her mind to clear and for
Nicole to realize where she was, that she was now awake.  She could hear her
own breathing, short and choppy—panicked. 

She
played the image back in her mind, arguing against it even as the sinking,
certain déjà vu became worse with each replay.  Michael wearing a cap and large
tinted glasses—and the sudden recognition.  She had seen him before.  And not
here in
Chatham
, but back in
Boston
. 

He
had been the man sitting alone in the restaurant.  She had been out with her
family.  Got up to use the ladies’ room and dropped her phone. 
This
was
no dream—and
that
was real. 

Technically
she couldn’t swear with any certainty that transcended gut feelings or women’s
intuition, but both of those were good enough for her.  Suddenly she was
convinced: it had been Michael at the restaurant that day.  And if she was
right, was she supposed to conclude that it was coincidence?  Destiny? 

Contrary
to both those notions, Nicole now felt a terrible anxiety seize her chest. 
Inexplicably, she felt afraid, as she realized that Michael was not in the room
with her, and she wasn’t sure what scared her more—him being there or not being
there. 

She
didn’t know what to think, so her mind raced without direction.  Her thoughts
ran in frantic laps as she considered that perhaps her memory was deceiving
her.  Perhaps the uneasiness of everything up to now had taken over, because
after all, hadn’t she gone from one person to the next as “suspicious” in her
mind?  Wasn’t Michael just the newest in a string of paranoid conclusions she
had jumped to lately? 

Yet,
as much as Nicole wanted to believe that, and dismiss her concerns altogether,
she couldn’t, because her paranoia, if that’s what this was, was suddenly on
screeching alarm levels. 

Just
then she heard Michael coming up the steps.  Her heart jumped into her throat
as she slid deeper into the covers and turned her body, to pretend to be
asleep. 

“Sweetheart,
wake up, wake up.” 

With
her heart beating rapidly, she decided to say nothing about what she’d
remembered and to behave as normally as possible.  She didn’t trust him now. 
But she didn’t trust her own judgment either.  She was too confused and
unsettled to be certain about anything. 

“Nicole? 
Wake up.”

“Hmm?”
she mumbled, trying to sound sleepy.  She turned to Michael, who had just knelt
on her side of the bed. 

Their
eyes locked. 

Michael
proceeded carefully.

There
was no way he could wait for Nicole to find this clue—the pivotal one, he
suspected.  With one guy dead in the basement, Lucius circling, and the
identity of Lucius's silent partner still a mystery, Michael had to act now. 

“Sweetheart,
I have to show you something,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle and
coaxing, despite feeling urgent.

“What
is it?” she asked softly.  She pulled herself up on her elbow.  Her tee-shirt
clung to her breasts as she twisted to get higher up on the bed.  

“I
found something, Nicole.  Something...important.”

Even
with a sleepy gaze, she had concern in her eyes.  “What?”

He
switched on the bedside lamp.  “Look at this.”  He presented the note that had
been tucked behind the lighthouse photo.  Squinting into the light, Nicole read
the note.  Instantly her mouth curved open.  A spark of something—maybe
recognition—flickered across her face.  “Oh my gosh...where was this?”

Quizzically,
she looked at Michael, who responded way too quickly, “Behind a framed picture
in the library.  I took the backing off and found it.” 

In
obvious confusion, she scrunched her face.  “You were down there...without me?”

“Well,
I…I couldn't sleep so I was looking for clues.  You know, to help you with this
whole thing.”  Slowly, she nodded, but eyes dropped, not quite meeting his
gaze.  “What's wrong?”

After
a pause, she shook her head.  “Nothing.  I'm just surprised that you would look
for clues without me.  Since we've been doing this whole thing together, that's
all.” 

Uncomfortably,
Michael sensed that
that
was not all.  Did she think he was going after
the treasure without her?  That greed was driving him now, not his relationship
with her, and that he intended to steal whatever it was out from under her? 
Jesus, how ironic.  Most of his time in
Chatham
he had been looking for ways to
steal the painting out from under her, but now he was scrambling to find it for
Nicole's own good. 

“Well,
I didn't want to wake you.”  That sounded asinine to his own ears even, given
that he'd just woken her up without compunction.  “I mean, unless I found
something, but I didn't want to ruin your sleep if there was nothing to find.” 

Fuck,
fuck, fuck.  This was backfiring on him; he could see it all over her face. 

“It
was actually more of an accident,” he continued, trying to make it better.  “I
was in the library by the fireplace, when I looked in the mirror and suddenly
remembered those letters you'd unscrambled.  That made me notice what was
directly behind me—which was a photo of a lighthouse.  And that was what got me
thinking...”  His voice trailed off, as he figured Nicole would jump in, become
more animated about his discovery. 

“So,
does it mean anything to you?” he asked casually.  “'A place for princesses'? 
What was your aunt referring to?”

A few
beats passed and she shrugged.  “I don't know what that means.” 

Her
eyes slid up to meet his.  They looked at each other.  For the first time,
Michael felt a brick wall between them that wasn't stacked by him. 

Nicole
was lying.

The
next day Michael paced the confines of his cabin with concern, frustration.  It
was all spilling out of his control.  Whatever tenuous control there had been
to start with; that was the thing when your business was other people, control
was always tenuous—everything was goddamn tenuous.  People might be predictable
but it was that one time they surprised you that fucked you over.  Now the boat
rocked as he walked back and forth, recalculating.

First
thing that morning, Nicole had told Michael that she had some “stuff to do
around the house.”  He had gotten the distinct feeling that she actually just
wanted him to leave. 

He
had blown it last night, and he knew it the minute he saw Nicole hesitate.  She
was questioning what he was telling her.  That question inevitably sparked
others, like:
Who are you?  How much do I really know about you?

Great
time for Nicole's lack of blind faith to kick in.  He had looked out his window
numerous times but had not seen signs of life over there—no taking Puddle out
back, no movement of the kitchen curtains.  Michael wanted nothing more than to
keep an eye on Nicole and see what she did next, if anything, but he could
hardly skulk about if she was already distrusting him. 

The
most frustrating part was that in an ideal situation, he would simply back off
and then set about slowly re-gaining their rapport—but at this point, he didn't
have that kind of time.  They still didn't know how the guy in the basement had
died.

Michael
held back a sigh, rubbed his forehead.  He had this terrible feeling that if
Lucius didn't get the painting soon—if his silent partner in
Chatham
did not get
it—Nicole might be in serious danger.  He recalled her aunt's note:
Go to a
place for princesses
.  Playing the sentence in his head, he wondered what
it meant.  He was almost sure that Nicole knew.  Would she tell him tonight? 

Impatiently
he grabbed his cell phone.  Dialed Lucius and waited.  “Yeah,” Lucius barked
into the phone.  “Did you get it yet?”

“Let's
meet.  I've got something to show you,” Michael bluffed.  “This thing is bigger
than we think.”

“What
do you mean—bigger?” Lucius said, sounding intrigued yet suspicious.

“There's
more involved than your benefactor has led you to believe,” Michael lied,
though it certainly
could
be true.  Either way, his only chance to get
an animal to back off was to appeal to his hunger. 

“What
are you saying, Corso?”

“I'm
saying you haven't been told everything.  Let's meet; it will be worth your
while.  But I wouldn't tell your partner about this.”

If he
could trick Lucius into believing he was being swindled, he might reveal who he
had been working with (or for), and Michael would gain a greater ability to
protect Nicole.  Hey, if it could buy some time, it was worth it. 

He
could only assume that “the place for princesses” held the painting; now he
just had to decode what that place was.  Of course, once he did, if all he
found was another goddamn clue...  No, he couldn't think that.  “How about the
Spoonful Diner on 28?  In two hours,” Michael said.