Now they were naked and damp and hot-skinned from the shower, sunken into the plush freshness of the sheets and the softness of the down. And all he could think then was that having her hair fall around him was like being wrapped up in gold silk. The taste of her flesh was the sweetest he had ever known. He kissed her and teased her, hands and lips upon her mouth, her throat, breasts, belly, thighs and in between, and she was like a wild nymph in turn, touching him as he was certain he’d never been touched before, doing things with the shimmery slide of her tongue that he’d never felt before and driving to him to a state of hunger and desire that seemed to defy the universe—much like the climax that ripped through him volcanically. He wondered if sex was that incredibly good just because they were both alive—but no, sex was that incredibly good because there was something there, deeper than human instinct, richer than perfection. He loved her smile when, gasping, she strode atop him, tossing her hair. He reached for her, drawing her down beside him. “I’m due time off.”
She tensed slightly and he worried, wondering if this was just great “I’m alive” sex for her, if what they’d shared before had simply been a result of all the tension and fear that had plagued them both.
He smoothed back her hair and continued, “I was thinking of a cruise.”
“Oh—an Alaskan cruise?”
“I wouldn’t want any ordinary cruise. I’d want a historic ship. Something with a rich history. A ship that has survived war and trauma at sea—one that has carried thousands of immigrants. And, of course, been meticulously refitted.”
“Like a Celtic American cruise.”
“Hm, just like.”
“I hear you’ll never get a cabin.”
“Ah, sometimes people are willing to share.”
She crawled atop him again, all smiles having faded, her eyes deep and bluer than the day and night together, beautiful. Touched with emotion.
“You can’t give up anything for me, Thor. You need to be here, and right now...I can’t have another show fall apart and—”
“I have time coming!” he assured her. And he hesitated. “I may be transferring. I get a transition period, too.”
“Transferring?”
He nodded, his hands running down her sides. “I was with Jackson and Mike today—two guys who are great, two super agents. But...”
“But?”
“But...you knew that Amelia led me to you?” he asked softly. She nodded; he’d told her that. They’d both been trying to think of a way to thank a ghost.
“Not that many people really get to speak with ghosts—especially people who have graduated from the academy and have had a good decade plus of work in the field. Jackson and I were especially good together because we could read one another’s minds—not so much ESP, but knowing how we both thought. He’s talked to me about his Krewe of Hunters.”
“Oh!” she said. “But you love Alaska!”
“It will always be home.”
She smiled at that and curled next to him. “I love New Orleans, too. Right now, though...”
“You know, the DC area has some of the finest theaters you’ll ever find.”
“Does it mean that much to you—that we stay near one another? Not just now, but...”
He cradled her head and drew her close to kiss her lips. “Yeah,” he said softly.
“I know an actress who would be happy to share her cabin,” she whispered against his lips.
They made love again. Physically exhausted, still half-aroused, deeply comfortable in his own bed in his own home, Thor drifted toward sleep. Clara moved against him, murmuring, “Something isn’t right.”
“What?”
He realized she’d been half-asleep when she roused and looked at him, puzzled.
“Something isn’t right with me?” he asked.
She shook her head and grinned. “No. You’re perfect.”
“Perfect?”
She smiled and lay sleepily against him again. “Okay, not perfect. But damned close.”
“You are perfect,” he whispered to her.
“Oh, so far from it!” she said. “No, it was something that Amelia said.”
“Amelia?”
“She was walking with me...and then she said ‘something isn’t right’ and went to find you, and bring you to me,” Clara said, and she rose again and kissed him, and he held her tight.
Eventually, they slept.
Life was good. The future loomed ahead.
A future that included...Fate.
* * *
Clara slipped out of bed as silently as she could. She collected her things and smiled as she watched Thor still sleeping—he really was a perfect man, arms tossed about where she had been, limbs entangled in the wealth of the covers, profile striking against the sheets.
She hurried out lest she be tempted to stay.
In the shower she savored the hot water cascading around her, thinking that he might rise to join her. But he didn’t. She dressed and went out and stood on the front porch first. The temperature was somewhere in the midfifties—cold for Louisiana standards! But so beautiful here.
She closed her eyes for a minute, incredibly grateful to be alive. So much adrenaline—fear? Fear for herself, for Emmy, for all of them? Anger, or a combination? A determination that she wouldn’t go down without fighting?—had filled her first hours, she hadn’t even really comprehended what had happened. The hours afterward had made it sink in. She’d faced a monster. And she’d come out of it okay.
Heading outside, she took a moment to really appreciate the compound. It was so handsomely arranged and filled with such beautiful creatures. Astrid and Colin kept massive and gentle draft horses as well as the dogs. The paddocks now were filled with the animals, running about, grazing, doing what horses did. She could see Astrid toward the main paddock, working with a group of puppies, and she walked over to her.
“Good morning! Did you sleep well?”
“You bet. What a beautiful group you have here!” Clara said.
“They have professional names,” Astrid said. “But, I call them Rolly, Polly and Fat Stuff!”
Clara took a seat on a bench by the kennel runs and smiled as the puppies came racing to her.
“Very social dogs,” Clara said.
“There’s always an alpha—I think it’s going to be Fat Stuff, in this group.”
“Bring me to your leader—Fat Stuff!” Clara said lightly.
Astrid took a seat by her side. “We’re so grateful that...”
“We’re alive?” Clara murmured. “I know I am!”
“More than that,” Astrid said. “Tate Morley... I think the case haunted Thor forever. Now it’s at an end. It’s hard to believe that it really is at an end!”
“I guess it’ll feel more real day by day,” Clara murmured.
“Yes, I imagine. Well, anyway, hopefully getting back to work...boarding the Fate! I know you’re working, but I hope you have a wonderful time.”
“I think your brother is going to take the cruise. Time off—and the cruise.”
Astrid nodded, grinning. “Yeah, I think so,” she said.
Clara’s phone rang, startling them both. Clara excused herself to take it.
Ralph was on the other end. He wanted to see if she and Thor wanted to meet up with him and the rest of the cast for dinner. “We’ve got our lovely young Connie Shaw joining us. I thought we’d all welcome her here. This has got to be unsettling for her.”
She grinned. Leave it to Ralph. She was the one who had been in the hands of a killer. But she was glad Ralph thought of her as the strong one!
“Sure,” she said. “Well, I’ll be there. I’ll have to check with Thor.” She went on to tell Ralph that she thought Thor was going to take the cruise. He
was thrilled and told Larry, who was equally delighted.
When she hung up and her phone rang again immediately, she thought that it was Ralph calling back.
It wasn’t.
But it was another invitation—or favor.
She jumped up. “Astrid, could I possibly borrow a car? I’m going to run into town and do a friend a favor. I don’t want to wake Thor—especially since he never sleeps.”
“Sure!” Astrid said. “Mine is the Subaru. Keep it as long as you like.”
She tossed Clara her keys, and Clara asked Astrid if she’d mention dinner with her cast to Thor. “I don’t know if he is going into work today or what his plans are. Anyway, dinner will be later.”
“Of course,” Astrid assured her.
Smiling, and thinking it was a way to really do a good deed, Clara headed out on her errand of mercy.
* * *
Thor should have slept well.
But Mandy Brandt was in his dreams again.
She seemed to hover over him, as if she was worried.
He reached up to gently touch her face and tell her that she could rest in peace. “We got him, Mandy. This time, he’ll never kill again.”
“No, he’ll never kill again,” she said, and she brushed his face with a gentle caress, as well. But she didn’t smile. She was frowning. “Something isn’t right, Thor. Something just isn’t right.”
He woke with a jerk. Mandy Brandt was not with him. He felt a warm body at his side.
With something definitely not right.
An excited half howl and half whine told him that the warm body was that of his husky Boris—and not Clara.
He couldn’t remember when he’d slept so deeply and so hard. He was usually awake in a heartbeat at any sound. “Hey, boy!” He scratched the dog and arose, padded into the bathroom and the shower, and dressed for the day. He figured that Clara was already out with his sister and the horses, dogs and creatures that made up the compound.
He was glad that Clara exceptionally loved huskies. He wondered if he could ever really live without one in his life.
No one was out in the kitchen or the dining room. He headed outside and saw that Astrid was putting one of her new puppies through a training session.
“Hey!” he called to her.
“Hey!” she called back. She stopped what she was doing, told the puppy to sit and walked over to him, studying him anxiously. “You really okay, Thor? You guys seem great, but...”
“We are fine. Really,” he assured her.
“You slept! You never sleep.”
He smiled weakly at that. “Where is she?”
“She was going to go into Seward. Apparently, a friend called her. A friend in need. Anyway, she’s off to do a favor, and she wants to know if you want to meet up with her cast mates for dinner. I don’t need my car back, so whatever you want to do is great.”
“Who is she doing a favor for?” Thor asked, puzzled, and damning the fact that he’d slept so well.
“I don’t know—she didn’t say. She just mentioned dinner. Call her cell.”
He did so.
She didn’t answer.
There were a dozen reasons she might not answer. She might be driving. She might have forgotten her phone; it might have run out of battery. It could be in her purse, or it might have fallen on the floor.
Didn’t matter; he didn’t like it.
“How long has she been gone?” he asked Astrid.
“About an hour. What’s wrong?” Astrid asked him. “You got Morley,” she said quietly. “And the guy working with him.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something isn’t right...” His voice trailed off, and then he remembered the words.
Something isn’t right!
The ghost of Amelia Carson had said the words to Clara before she’d come to find him.
Mandy Brandt had said the words in his dream.
He suddenly knew what wasn’t right.
He was dialing his phone again, even as he ran through the complex to meet his car. He jumped in and found that he’d been followed; Boris and then Natasha plowed in right behind him.
He started to command them out...
What the hell. It might be good to have them, though they were wagging their bushy tails, howling softly in anticipation of a car ride.
“Down!” he said simply, and revved the motor.
Something wasn’t right at all.
It was very, very wrong.
17
Emmy Vincenzo was waiting for Clara when she came around in the hospital driveway; she was smiling and waving—grateful to have her there.
“I can’t thank you enough!” Emmy told her.
“It’s my pleasure.”
“Really, I mean, we hardly know one another. I suppose—and I don’t mean this in a mean way—you’re doing this for me because you are a nice person.”
“Emmy, it’s no problem. I have to be back on the ship for good tomorrow, but I wasn’t rehearsing or anything today. It’s fine, really. Now, where am I taking you?”
“Oh, I guess I can go anywhere!” Emmy said. “He’s not going to be here to say ‘Vincenzo! You’re three minutes late. Vincenzo, I told you the office, not the flat. Vincenzo!’ Oh, I must sound like such a terrible person. I mean, he’s dead. And I killed him.”
“Self-defense,” Clara said.
“Yes, of course, it’s all right in self-defense, right?”
Clara wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“Well, you can go anywhere. Where would you like to go?”
“I should be planning to go home, right? New York. Home. I’ll need a new job. I still have a few things on the island so I should have you take me to the dock. I don’t think I can go back to the island alone.”
Clara glanced at her watch. An hour out, an hour there—and an hour in. She’d have plenty of time before meeting up with the others and Thor. She lowered her head, trying not to smile.
Thor would be on the ship when it sailed.
“Could you? I mean...wow, would you?” Emmy asked.
“I don’t think we have the Coast Guard at our beck and call anymore,” Clara said.
“That’s not a problem. There are dozens of little boats around, ready to take people for a bit of a spin. It’s a moneymaker,” Emmy said drily.
When they reached the dock with plenty of little local boats, Emmy stepped out to hail them a ride. Clara dug around for her phone, but couldn’t find it. It was in her bag, she was certain.
“Hey, I’ve got a guy! Hurry, please, he might not wait long. We’ll get out there, I’ll grab the few things I need...maybe that witch Magda will feed us!” Emmy said, and made a face.
“Oh, she’s just grim. She’s all right,” Clara said. She figured she’d call as soon as they were under way.
The ride to the island was choppy and the little boat they took was small. Clara tried to appreciate the quick beauty of the trip, but the gorgeous whitecaps were throwing them around too much.
It didn’t seem to bother Emmy and the Native American boat master.
And it wasn’t until they were on the island, and it was too late, that she realized she’d never made her call. That was all right; she’d reach him via the Wi-Fi once they were there.
She couldn’t have let Emmy come alone.
She knew that as she looked at Black Bear Island and realized that she’d never, ever wanted to set eyes on the place again herself.
* * *
Emmy Vincenzo had been released; the nurse in charge didn’t know where she’d gone.
None of the security personnel knew, either; she wasn’t being watched for any reason. Once she’d been questioned and interviewed and her statement had b
een taken, she’d been free to go. No charges were being pressed.
Why should they be? The woman was a heroine!
Thor had gotten ahold of Enfield, Jackson and Mike.
Mike was heading to the hotels in the area; Jackson would take the ship and Thor would study the security tapes at the hospital and assure himself that Clara had picked up Emmy; Enfield had seen to it that every officer in the vicinity was looking for Astrid’s car.
A view of the footage of the hospital entry showed that Clara had gotten Emmy; Emmy had waited for her and been ready to hop right into the car when she had driven into range.
On the phone with Enfield, Thor was tense. They needed to find the two women—fast.
Enfield was skeptical. “I don’t get it—so she went to pick up Emmy, a young woman who was browbeaten for years before Kimball beat her up physically and she fought her way free.”
“Something is not right,” Thor said.
“What? I’m sending all these men out to find two women—because something isn’t right? You were there, Thor. You saw it all.”
“I saw what Emmy wanted us to see. Kimball didn’t help Morley—Emmy did. She was the one who screamed—she told us that. The scream took Jackson away from Clara. She slammed herself into the door and made Clara believe she was in danger.”
“But Kimball was at her side!”
“With her knife in his side, not the other way around. Kimball never said a word—I asked Clara over and over again. He never said anything. Emmy pretended he was calling the shots. She’d already stabbed the ship’s security officer. Kimball knew that she’d kill him. He was playing for time—desperate to save his own life. In the end, she killed him anyway. She must have really enjoyed doing so.”
“But we’re studying the letters she told us about—”
“Letters she put in the secret drawer. Letters she’ll claim were correspondence between Kimball and Morley.”
“Thor, this might be crazy.”