The Men of Thorne Island (13 page)

Ivan Banning popped into Nick’s head with startling clarity. Nick’s fingers flew across the keyboard. Yes! Banning would be the release Nick needed tonight. In this chapter Ivan would meet a sexy, uncomplicated woman and for a few pages the detective would forget about drug deals.

I
T WAS WELL PAST DARK
when Sara finished cleaning the kitchen. In case Nick turned off the generator, she took a lantern from the parlor and carried it to her room. She was exhausted, and despite her disappointment—or perhaps because of it—she knew she would sleep.

If only she could cleanse her mind of Nick Bass as efficiently as she’d cleaned the kitchen. She glanced down the hallway to his room. His door was open a few inches, letting the glow of his computer screen spill into the hall. She followed the light, stopping just outside his door. She listened to the steady tap
of his keyboard. Imagined his fingers gliding smoothly from key to key. Imagined his fingers…

She shook off the far-too-familiar tingle that rib-boned down her spine. What
was
he doing in there? she wondered for the hundredth time. What was he writing? Did that computer hold the clues to the man Nick really was?

A
S EXPECTED
, Brody’s golf cart rumbled to the front of the inn at daybreak Monday morning. Even if the crunch of tires on gravel hadn’t wakened Sara, Brody’s bellowing would have. Minutes later the front door slammed shut, Nick grumbled something unintelligible at Brody which received an equally gruff response, and the cart set out on its thus far fruitless endeavor to locate a French missionary’s fortune.

Sara yanked the bedcovers over her head in an attempt to drown out the noise. But once the cart had left, she realized she was fully awake and might as well use the quiet time to attend to her own chores. She’d work in the vineyard first and attack spreadsheets later.

She dressed, had coffee and decided to check out the newly painted guest rooms. The lemon walls were cheerful and inviting, and once she ordered new linens from the JC Penney catalog she’d brought from Sandusky, the rooms should appeal to anyone staying at the Cozy Cove Inn.

A total of four rooms had been completed. Dexter had only Sara’s room to work on before he was done. Nick had made it clear that no one would be entering his sacred domain for any reason, and she’d agreed. After all, his idea to have the men do the work was
proving to be a godsend, despite this morning’s leave of absence.

Before she reached Nick’s closed door, Sara turned around and headed back down the hall. But she’d only walked a few feet when an outrageous idea stopped her midstride. She shook her head to clear her mind. Some ideas should definitely be ignored, and this one was far beneath the conduct of any person who considered herself honorable.

Even so, the glass knob on Nick’s door tempted her, and before she could stop herself, she grasped the knob, gave it a quick twist and opened the door. She’d lain awake for hours, wondering what Nick did in this room. She knew the clues to his background lay just across this threshold. If she was ever to discover them, she’d have to take advantage of the opportunity Digging Day presented.

“Sara Louise Crawford, what are you doing?” she chided herself as she stepped into the room. She ought to turn back. She ought to feel guiltier than she did. At that moment, she primarily experienced a jolt of pure adrenaline.

The room was uncharacteristically messy. Clothes were strewn about, the bed had not been made, Nick’s empty coffee mug had been left to form a brown ring on top of his dresser. But his desk was meticulous. The computer beckoned her to power it up and learn the innermost secrets of Nick Bass’s life.

Sara walked to the desk, her fingers flexing with nervousness at her side. “You know you shouldn’t do this,” her conscience told her. She paused, waiting for the devil on her shoulder to offer a counterargument. She reached for the power button and jerked her hand back. “No, Sara! You’re not a snoop. You
have no right to poke your nose into Nick’s private life.”

Seconds passed while she debated her course of action. And finally the pesky devil spoke. Was it fair that Nick knew practically everything about her and she knew almost nothing about him? He knew where she was raised, what she did for a living. He’d even eavesdropped on her phone conversation with Candy. Nick, despite all his claims to support a person’s right to privacy, wasn’t above a little snooping himself!

The devil didn’t stop with that argument. If Sara was going to reinvent Thorne Island, didn’t she owe it to herself to know as much as possible about the men who, by virtue of a totally unfair stipulation in her aunt’s lease agreement, would continue to oppose every suggestion she made?

“There are answers in that hard drive,” she said. “Now is your chance to know the real Nick Bass.”

She reached for the power button again. Her finger trembled above it and fell to her side. She couldn’t do it. She was about to back away from the desk when she noticed several 9" by 12" postal mailing boxes stacked on the floor. Black printing on the spines caught her eye.
Promise of Fear. Double Dealings. Prospect Murder. Blood Money.
All but the top box had been sealed with clear tape.

“They sound like titles,” she said. “Gruesome ones.” She picked up the top box and turned it over. The heavy contents shifted. Before her conscience could speak again, she opened the box and took out several pages. The same three pieces of information were at the top of each—the words
Dead Last
, a page number and Nick Bass’s name.

She recalled her first day on the island, when she’d
gotten a glimpse of Nick’s computer screen. She’d thought then that the image looked like manuscript format.

So Nick Bass was a writer! The sealed boxes probably contained finished manuscripts, and Sara was holding the pages of his current project. Nothing could have surprised her more. And nothing could have made her more curious.

“How does a writer, a person who lives in self-imposed isolation, end up with a bullet in his spine?” she asked the empty room. “And why are these novels—” she stopped and counted seven boxes “—sealed in packages and yet appear to have never been mailed?”

“And—” she scanned the titles again “—just exactly what creepy things does Nick Bass write about?”

Sara walked to the window and looked out. A gentle breeze stirred the budding leaves in the trees. She went to the door of Nick’s room and opened it all the way so even if she missed the sound of the golf cart, she would hear Nick’s heavy footsteps when he arrived back at the inn.

The vines would have to wait. Sara sat cross-legged on the floor, settled the two hundred pages on her lap and began to read.

O
NCE SHE WAS
well into the manuscript, Sara realized she didn’t know a whole lot more about Nick Bass, but she had a clear picture of Ivan Banning. She knew what made the detective stand firm and what made him run. What angered and emboldened him, and what, in his own terms, “scared the shit out of him.”

She knew that he had principles, which he ignored
if the situation demanded it, and that he made rash decisions he couldn’t afford to regret later. He was sensitive to the problems of the downtrodden but abhorred weakness. At the same time, he felt nothing but contempt for the oppressors no matter what their motives were.

All in all, Ivan Banning was not an especially nice man, yet Sara couldn’t help liking him.

So maybe she did know a bit more about Nick Bass, after all.

It was midmorning before Sara stood and stretched her leg muscles. Then she moved to the wicker chair by the side of the door, sat comfortably and resumed reading. As she finished each page, she let it drift to the pile collecting at her feet.

And another hour passed. An hour in which, for Sara, the birds outside ceased to sing, the breeze no longer rustled through the trees, and the waves no longer washed on shore a couple of hundred yards away.

And a man in his stocking feet made no sound entering a silent building.

Sara’s heart leaped in her chest when she realized she was not alone. She responded to the intake of a deep breath, looked to her right at the open door and stared into the menacing gray eyes of Nick Bass. He stood as though carved of marble, his shoes dangling from his hands.

Sara followed his gaze from the stack of boxes by his desk to the pile of papers haphazardly strewn on the floor. And then to Sara herself, her face no doubt brilliant with mortification, sitting in his wicker chair with the few remaining pages of his manuscript in her lap.

Sara gulped back a hysterical shriek. “Oh, Nick…I didn’t hear… Your shoes…”

He threw his Docksiders onto the floor and they landed with a dull thump. “They’re wet,” he said. “If you meant them to be your warning device, perhaps the next time you trespass you should equip me with a bell.”

Oh God, oh God…
Sara pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead and closed her eyes against Nick’s accusatory glare. Then she summoned her courage and looked back at him. “Nick, I can explain.”

He leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms over his chest. “Go ahead.”

What the devil did she mean, she could explain? The situation was obvious. “Well, I could explain, but I don’t think what I’d say would put me in a very favorable light. In fact, I can’t think of any way for me to come out looking good here.”

For an interminably torturous moment, the only part of Nick that moved was a muscle in his jaw. “Then why don’t we start with a simple interrogation,” he finally said. “What the blazes are you doing in here?” A finger darted out from his crossed arms and aimed at the papers in her lap. “And what are you doing with that?”

She picked up the pages from her lap, wishing they would disappear. “I found these,” she said weakly.

“They were lost?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t mean it that way. I was standing by your desk and I found the boxes.”

“Standing? Snooping? Spying?”

She sucked in her guilt in one long, agonized breath
but didn’t speak. His words pretty much summed it up.

Nick pushed himself away from the door frame, came into the room and slammed the door shut with the flat of his hand. Sara jumped to her feet. The rest of the pages fluttered to the floor and fanned around the chair, becoming even more conspicuous.

She backed away from him. His eyes glittered with dark rage.

“You’re not going to…hurt me, are you?” she managed to croak out.

His cold voice matched the threat in his eyes. “I haven’t decided yet, but it’s an option.”

An unexpected and uncontrollable giggle bubbled up from her throat. “You’re kidding, right? You wouldn’t.”

His facial expression remained carved of stone. “Why did you pry, Sara? What were you hoping to find?”

A burst of bravado, drawn from some little-known, foolish part of her formed her words. “Oh, I don’t know, Nick,” she said with false confidence. “A gun maybe? A pair of handcuffs with your initials engraved into them? Something to tell me why a big, strapping guy like you has a bullet in his back and chooses to live like a hermit?”

A sound came from his throat—a roar of disbelief and anger. “It never occurred to you that you don’t have the
right
to come into my room, or the
authority
to go through my things, or my
permission
to snoop for evidence about my past?”

“Of course it occurred to me. In fact, I almost didn’t do it.”

“Wonderful!” He turned away from her and faced
the window. “That’s some consolation. Miss Pure-of-Heart
almost
didn’t do it!
Almost
didn’t violate the sanctity of
my
life!”

Sara took two steps toward him. “Nick, I’m so sorry. Of course you’re right—”

His shoulders tensed. His spine straightened. “Don’t come any closer, Sara.”

She stopped. “Okay, I won’t. I’m just trying to tell you that I can’t argue with you. I shouldn’t have come in here.”

He snorted at the obvious concession.

“But if you’ll just listen a minute, I have something to say. I think we’re missing a very important point here.”

He turned back to face her. His features had not gentled. “You mean the point isn’t that you are a conniving, sneaky little—”

“Well, yes,” she interrupted. “That is one point. And I believe you’ve made it satisfactorily. But I have a point, also, and it’s at least as significant as yours.”

His eyes widened with obvious skepticism, but she had his attention. “And that would be?”

She bent down and scooped up a handful of manuscript pages. “That this is good. It’s excellent, as a matter of fact.” She waved the papers in front of his eyes. “Nick, you are a writer! All morning I’ve been completely absorbed by this story, even to the point of ignoring my surroundings and not hearing you come in.” She pointed to the boxes. “Why haven’t you sent these to a publisher?”

The muscle in his jaw worked again. “I think we’re
back to
my
point again, Sara. What I do in here is none of your damned business!”

“But it’s such a shame…”

He strode to the desk and glared at her. “Don’t you get it yet?” He pointed his index finger to the floor and drew an imaginary line across the front of his toes. “There’s a line here. Maybe you can’t see it, but it’s here, believe me. And you can’t cross it. Understand that? And don’t think for a minute that I’m going to step over that line and bring you to my side so you can get a little peek at the real me, because I’m not.”

“Nick, I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant. You think you can somehow control my actions—that you can turn me into something you believe I am.”

“But you
are
a writer!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t turn you into one, and—”

He held up a finger. “A couple of days ago we made a deal, Sara. In spite of what happened here, I intend to honor that commitment. We’ll get this little dollhouse of yours prettied up so you can go back to Florida where you belong, and I can start packing, if it comes to that!”

The combination of his words and his narrowed eyes made Sara reach behind her for the doorknob.

He wasn’t finished. “And for the time this job takes, stay out of my room, Sara, and stay out—”

“Nick! Come down here!”

It was Brody’s voice, and for once Sara was glad to hear it. Nick walked around her and flung open the door. “What is it, Brody?”

“It’s your father. He’s on the phone.”

Nick rushed out the door to the stairs without looking back. As she made her escape to her room, Sara saw Nick at the bottom of the stairs reaching for the receiver.

His voice carried up to her. “Dad? What’s wrong? Oh, God, I’d forgotten all about it—”

S
ARA DIDN’T SEE
Nick for the rest of that day. When Brody’s ceiling fans and conduit arrived, Nick didn’t appear to help unload. When Winkie came with groceries and a FedEx package from Candy, Nick was nowhere to be seen. But the captain handed a long, narrow parcel wrapped in plain brown paper with Nick’s name on it to Ryan.

Later that afternoon, Sara heard Nick return from wherever he’d been hiding. Ryan met him at the door and gave him the package. Nick’s reaction was abrupt and detached. “Just put it on the counter.” Then he closeted himself in his room.