Tidewater Inn (8 page)

“It's not a crime scene,” she said.

“There may still be clues to what happened to her.”

He hadn't been nearly so unfriendly at his office. And even Alec was tense. “H-Have you found her?”

The sheriff whirled and glared at her. “You mean her body? Is there something you want to tell us?”

The kidnapping had changed into a murder, and she was a suspect. That was the only possible reason for his change of demeanor. “You found her body, didn't you?”

“What was on that video that you were so eager to make sure no one saw?” the sheriff asked.

His accusing tone made her swallow hard. He knew she'd erased the video. “It was an accident. I was trying to save it so I could show it to the police. The screen went blank and it was gone.”

“I might have believed you if you'd admitted it from the first. But you said nothing about it when you were in my office.”

“I was going to, but—”

“Right.” He turned around and stared at the room. “Delilah, did she touch anything in here?”

“No, sir,” Delilah said. “I could see her when she was in the bathroom too. She didn't do anything.” The phone rang in the distance. “I'll be right back.” She dashed out of the room.

“Alec, take a look in the suitcase. I'll go through the drawers.”

Libby curled her fingers into her palms and prayed that he would find something that would lead them to Nicole and those two men. “Just so you know, I did touch the hairbrush.”

Tom looked her over. “Thanks.”

Alec pulled shorts and tops out, then dumped out a bag with suntan lotion, sunglasses, and other sundries in it. The sheriff was opening the furniture's drawers and looking through them.

Libby spied Nicole's laptop on the desk and picked it up. “Maybe there's something on this.”

The men glanced up. Tom scowled. “I told you not to touch anything. Alec, you know more about computers than I do. Have a look.”

Alec lifted a brow and reached out his hand. “May I?”

Surprised he was gentlemanly enough to ask in spite of the suspicion in his expression, she handed it over. “You know anything about Macs?”

“I have one myself.” He set the laptop on the desk and opened the lid. Pulling out the chair, he sat down and began to peruse the files. “She has a lot of files on this.”

Libby stood behind him and watched over his shoulder. “Sort by date,” she said.

He did as she suggested, then leaned forward and read through the sorted files. “What's this one?” He clicked on a file titled “Hope Beach.”

The file opened with the picture of a woman. “Who is that?” Libby asked.

“Your sister, Vanessa. Definitely a family resemblance,” Alec said, his voice distracted.

Libby drank in the woman's photo before the sheriff blocked her view.

He bent down to read the document. “It's kind of a diary. Ms. Ingram is talking about everything she saw and did since she came. Scroll to the bottom first. Maybe there's an entry for yesterday.”

Libby peered over his shoulder and read the entry.

Someone was outside my door last night. He whispered my name. I think it was Brent trying to scare me into doing what he wants. I'll have a talk with him tomorrow
.

Libby drew in a breath. “Would Brent have hurt her?”

Tom straightened and stared at her. “Let me handle the investigation.”

She clasped her hands together. “Look, Sheriff, I know it looks bad that I didn't tell you about the file, but you're wasting precious time by investigating me. I didn't have anything to do with her disappearance. I can prove where I was when she went missing.”

He said nothing at first and continued to stare at her with those accusing eyes. “What kind of proof?”

“For one thing, you can track the time on my cell phone when I called in the abduction.”

“You could have disposed of her and gone back to Virginia Beach before you made the call. It's not that far.”

Delilah poked her head into the room. “Hurricane warning just came through. That smaller one has veered this way. We need to get the hurricane shutters in place.”

“Is the Tidewater in danger?” Libby asked.

“We're on higher ground here so we're safe from the surge,” Delilah said, “but we don't know how much wind we're going to get.”

“I'd better check in at the station,” Alec said. “I'm off duty, but they may need me to begin evacuations. How long do we have?”

“Twenty-four hours or so,” Delilah said.

This was her place now. Libby roused herself. “I'll help with the shutters.”

The wind had freshened, but it was far from gale strength yet. The hurricane wouldn't be here for hours, if it even hit. Storms were notoriously capricious. Alec strained to see any sign of movement on the tiny strip of land below as the helicopter powered toward it. He'd already helped evacuate several families to the mainland.

“What's wrong with McEwan?” he asked Curtis.

“Said he thought he might be having a heart attack. The boat is too far away, so they called us.”

Alec winced. “We're nearly there. We'll have Sara check him out.” She had a manner that generally soothed patients.

The chopper reached an open field just past the pier on the small island below. Though the island had no official name, those in the Banks referred to it as Oyster Island, because some of the best oyster beds were found a few hundred feet offshore. Five families lived on it, all related in some way. McEwan lived in a shanty on the north side. He'd built the place when he was forty and hadn't left the island since. He had to be in his eighties now. He relied on his son to go for supplies. Alec had always liked the old fellow's stories about life in the old days. Alec suspected McEwan had been a rumrunner back in the day.

The rotors were still whirring when he ducked out of the helicopter with Curtis and Sara. They ran through the pelting rain toward the small cabin. The three of them rushed with the stretcher into the building, where they found McEwan moaning on his cot.

“Took you long enough,” he gasped. “Ticker's acting up.” He hadn't shaved in several days, and the gray stubble added to his pallor. He wore a dirty T-shirt and cotton pajama bottoms that looked like they hadn't been washed in a month.

Sara brushed past the men and knelt by the bed. “Let me take a peek.” She pulled out her stethoscope and listened to his heart. “I'm going to give you a shot to relax your arteries,” she said. “We'll get you to the mainland where the doctor can look at you, but I don't think it's a heart attack. Might be indigestion or gall bladder.”

“I knew I shouldn't have had those raw oysters,” the old man said. “They smelled a little nasty.”

Alec grimaced. Oysters could contain dangerous bacteria when eaten raw, though oysters found offshore here were generally safe. It was hard to say what the old man had consumed. “We'll get you taken care of.”

Once Sara administered the shot, the pain lines around the old man's face eased. Curtis and Sara got him onto the stretcher while Alec gathered a few items from the battered dresser by the bed. “Anything else you need?” Alec asked.

“My gun.” McEwan pointed to a shotgun leaning by the door. “And the old suitcase under my bed.”

Alec grabbed the gun, then reached under the bed for the battered old metal case. “Here, Sara, you take this stuff and I'll help Curtis carry the stretcher.”

“I'm perfectly capable of doing my job.” Sara grabbed the bottom of the stretcher.

Touchy. Alec raised his hands. “Suit yourself.” Sara leaned in to whisper in his ear. “We'd better take him to the doctor at Hope Island first. I don't think there's time to get him clear to the mainland. I don't like the sound of his chest.” Carrying the old man's belongings, Alec led the way back to the helicopter.

“Did that boat get back okay?” McEwan's voice was slurred and his lids droopy.

“What boat?”

McEwan waved his hand to the east. “Saw two men motor by yesterday. They didn't look like no watermen to me. One was yelling at the other one about how to steer. Didn't seem to bother the woman who was sleeping though.”

Alec exchanged a glance with Curtis. Two men and a woman? Could it possibly be Nicole Ingram? Or was the old man out of his head? “Where were they headed?”

McEwan's eyes fluttered, then closed. “Out to sea. East.”

Alec wanted to ignore the information, but what if the men were heading out to dump Nicole?

The inn was dark and gloomy with the hurricane shutters closed. Libby had never been in a hurricane before, and the breathless quality of the air added to her unease. “I think I'll sit on the porch and give my stepbrother a call,” she told Delilah, who was instructing the housekeeping staff to ready some extra rooms.

Delilah nodded and Libby stepped out into the twilight air with the inn's portable phone in her hand. The sun was almost down and the sound of the cicadas enveloped her as she settled on the swing at the end of the porch. Could the police seriously think she might have hurt Nicole?

Libby put down the phone and clasped her knees to her chest. She had to figure out a way to prove her innocence. As long as the sheriff was investigating her, his attention wasn't on the right person. She should have told him about her mess-up with the computer. Everything was spiraling out of control because of her lapse of judgment. She could kick herself.

She still hadn't opened the items from her father. There hadn't been time, and she wanted no interruptions when she took a peek at the letters and the contents of the envelope.

The sand glimmered in the moonlight. The scene reminded her of when she was a little girl. She and her mom usually spent two weeks along a beach. One year it was California, another year the Texas Gulf, and yet another the cold water of the Pacific Northwest. The various vacations were a kaleidoscope of memories, all slightly hazy with an aura of warmth and love.

That zany woman with the long braid and beads who had been her mother was hard to reconcile with a parent who would lie and deprive her daughter of all contact with her father. Yet that was the situation, if everything she'd learned today was true. But was it?

Libby stood and walked restlessly to the other side of the large porch. No matter what, she knew her mother had loved her. In spite of their constant travels and the many men in her mother's life, Libby's well-being had always been primary. She would cling to that fact for now.

Headlamps pierced the gloom and tires crunched on gravel. Her pulse jumped when she recognized Alec's truck in the glow of the security light. His door slammed, and he went around to the passenger side and helped an old man out.

Libby met them at the foot of the steps. Alec was assisting the man to the inn. “Is he all right?”

“This is Mr. McEwan. He lives on one of the unnamed islands. He had a little bit of angina, but the doctor says he's going to be okay. We generally bring people to the inn during a big blow. I assume that's still okay?”