“I don’t—”
She’d had it with all the men in this house. Hailey grabbed her bag from the floor, headed for the door and pushed her way past Shane. Rafe’s surprised eyes darted to her. “I’m here,” she said. “Are Billy and Nicole ready to go?”
“Uh, yeah.” Rafe shot a curious look between Hailey and Shane.
“Good. I want to get out of here as quick as we can.” She brushed past Rafe and headed for the stairs.
“Hailey, hold up,” Shane called.
She didn’t dare stop. Did not want to get between her ex-husband and the man she’d just spent an amazing night and maddening morning with. And there was no way she wanted to know what kind of male posturing was going on behind her. “I’m leaving in twenty minutes, with or without you, Maxwell. So if you’re still planning on tagging along, you’d better get your ass in gear.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A January storm was rolling in off the Caribbean as they set out across the Keys. Hailey glanced up at the swirling sky and couldn’t help noticing it fit her mood to the letter. After landing the Roarke Bombardier on the short flight strip in Marathon, they’d rented a power boat and set off for her father’s private island. Shane and Billy were above, driving the boat, while Nicole held her head over the side, green as grass. Hailey had retreated belowdecks to get some peace and quiet. And to get away from Shane’s scrutinizing gaze.
She hadn’t been in the mood to talk with him, but he’d needed to fill her in on Chen’s phone call last night. Bryan’s autopsy results had come back, and they weren’t what anyone had expected. Technically, his heart had stopped. He hadn’t actually died from the neck wound after all. Though that was good news for her, it didn’t clear her name completely. And though the toxicology report hadn’t come in yet, Hailey couldn’t help focusing on what it would say when all was said and done.
Would it be the same thing that had killed her father? Digoxin? Or the poison she’d been given that had made her so sick? One thing was eerily clear to her now, though: only one person in her family had a heart condition and also was a horticulture hobbyist. And Hailey had been at his house just before she’d gotten sick.
“How much farther?” Nicole asked as she slinked down the steps from the deck, looking pale. She flopped onto the couch next to Hailey in the tiny cabin of the boat and placed a hand on her stomach with a groan.
“Do you still get seasick?” Hailey asked with a frown, secretly happy for the interruption. She didn’t like where her thoughts were going. And she didn’t want Shane to be right. “I thought you’d outgrown that. Remember the time we sailed up Lake Worth and you puked all over the settee in Daddy’s new boat?”
“Yeah, I do,” Nicole tossed back, trying to get comfortable and looking miserable. “And thanks for reminding me of that fun memory. Though it does explain why you got the deed to Daddy’s boat, and I didn’t.”
“I’m sure if he thought you’d wanted the boat, he’d have left it for you.”
“Yeah, right,” Nicole muttered.
Hailey glanced up the steps. “You’d do better up there where you can see the horizon, rather than down here.”
“No, thank you. Your boyfriend’s biting everyone’s head off. I didn’t particularly want to watch Billy deck him.”
Twisted as it was, the thought of that warmed a cold space in Hailey’s chest. Right about now she’d pay money to see Billy take a swing at Shane.
“What happened between the two of you, anyway?” Nicole asked.
Hailey’s smile faded. “Nothing.” Nothing she was going to get into with Nicole, anyway. Nothing she was going to remember herself, either. If he didn’t want her, well…she wasn’t going to force herself on him. She had more self-respect than that.
Nicole obviously knew a dead end when she saw one, because they sat in silence, the water lapping the hull and the distant muffled conversation from above the only sounds in the small salon. Having Nicole here was more than a little odd. And the fact her sister had suddenly decided to work with Hailey instead of against her was the biggest shocker of them all. Had Nicole finally matured? Or was that Billy’s influence?
“Nicole,” Hailey said hesitantly, not sure if she should delve into this topic but needing to regardless, “about Billy—”
“What about him?”
How could she put this delicately? “He matters to me. Even though Rafe and I aren’t married anymore, he’s family, and because of that, I know he puts on a front, but he’s got a big heart underneath. I don’t want to see him get hurt. If you’re just toying with him—”
“For your information, he used me. And just so you know, I’m the one who’ll probably get hurt in this when it’s over, so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
The defensiveness in Nicole’s tone told Hailey her sister was being serious. But it was the worry on her face that suggested Hailey had misread the entire situation. “You’ve…fallen for him.”
Nicole flicked her a look. “Yeah, right.” Then focused on her hands. Shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Not maybe. Definitely.”
“And you don’t like that, do you?”
Hailey thought about Nicole giving her the numbers last night and figuring out the coordinates of the island and the way Billy had stepped in without being asked and arranged all of Teresa’s funeral plans so Rafe didn’t have to. She also remembered the way Billy had been torn between coming with them today and staying in San Juan and how he’d only agreed to tag along once Rafe had made him go. If Nicole was the reason Billy and Rafe were finally going to get their relationship back on even ground, then maybe her hanging around with Billy wasn’t such a bad thing after all. “I didn’t before. Now…I’m undecided.”
“I’m so excited,” Nicole muttered, sounding put out, but looking like she was greatly relieved.
“Why weren’t you at the will reading?”
Nicole didn’t seem surprised by the question, and she shrugged, focusing on a spot halfway across the floor. “Wasn’t invited.”
“What do you mean, not invited?”
“I mean, our mother didn’t bother to tell me when it was. She didn’t want me involved in this little race. Though she was more than happy to take my sculpture when I came back.”
“She’s collecting them, too?”
“Not for the same reason you are. She’s destroying the ones she gets her hands on.”
Hailey’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know this?”
Nicole pinned her sister with a look, the same one she’d given as a teenager whenever Hailey had come home from college and tried to make nice between the two of them. “I’m not as brainless as everyone thinks.”
“I don’t think you’re brainless, Nicole. Flighty, maybe, but not brainless.”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that a lot of it was an act? Yeah, I like to have a good time, but I graduated college with a 4.0 GPA. I know as much about Roarke Resorts as you do, but not from working there, from studying and paying attention. Did you know that all those years you were trying to get away from Daddy and the hotels, I was just trying to get him to give me a chance? I finally quit because it was obvious he wasn’t interested and I was sick of hearing ‘No, Nicole, you’re not ready.’ Sheesh, getting into Harvard’s MBA program first try didn’t even impress him. So I didn’t go. Instead I did what they seemed to expect of me. I left and I partied and I had a good time.”
Hailey stared at Nicole, for the first time seeing her as something other than the spoiled younger sister. Suddenly, Nicole’s outlandish behavior made sense. All these years, while Hailey thought she’d been taking advantage of their father, Nicole had been doing exactly what a five-year-old did when she couldn’t get someone to notice her. She pushed and prodded and got into all kinds of trouble because even negative attention was better than nothing at all.
“I didn’t know any of that,” Hailey said softly.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,
Hailey. About me and Mother and Daddy and everyone who works at RR.”
Hailey was beginning to think that was true. And it was time those things changed. Especially now, when she was seriously contemplating staying on at RR when all of this was said and done. “So tell me.”
Nicole’s eyes held hers so long, Hailey wasn’t sure Nicole would confide in her. Then Nicole surprised her and said, “You know Mother wasn’t with Daddy the night he died.”
“I know. She was at her country club at some fund-raiser for cancer research.”
Nicole shook her head. “She wasn’t at any country club. She was with Paul McIntosh. They’ve been having an affair.”
“What? How do you know this?”
“Because I saw them together. And because I overheard a conversation they had about it.” When Hailey only stared at her, Nicole added, “There’s that whole brainless bimbo thing. People tend to forget I’m around.”
Holy…Paul McIntosh was a good twenty years younger than Eleanor Roarke. And for the last year, Hailey’s father had been trying to get Hailey to go out with Paul in the hopes they’d one day get married. He was the only non-Roarke executive officer of the company, and it was no secret Garrett had thought of Paul as the son he’d never had.
There was only one reason Hailey could see for the two of them to be together. And it all circled back around to her father’s will. She looked at her sister. “Did you give her the number from your statue?”
Nicole’s lips thinned. “Of course not. I know it’s a horrible thing to say considering she’s our mother and all, but I didn’t trust her. I still don’t. She purposely kept me from Daddy’s will reading so I couldn’t participate.”
Hailey stood and paced the small salon as thoughts of her mother and Paul swirled. Were they working together? If so, that explained why she was destroying statues after she found them.
“Something else you should know,” Nicole said. “Remember your little run-in in the elevator at RR?”
Hailey stopped and looked at her sister. “What about it?”
“It was Paul.”
Hailey had been right. She’d recognized that voice but hadn’t wanted it to be true.
“That means Lucy Walthers is the one who planted your dagger,” Shane said from the steps.
Hailey looked up sharply. He was standing with one foot on the salon floor, one on the step behind him, both hands braced against the narrow walls, his midnight eyes focused right on her. She hadn’t heard him come down the steps, but she didn’t miss the bump in her heart or the way the reaction pissed her off.
She turned her attention to Nicole. “How do you know that?”
“I eavesdropped on a phone conversation when I was home a few days ago. I don’t think Mother intended for you to get arrested, just detained.”
“So I’d be out of the picture while she and Paul looked for the sixth sculpture. But how does Lucy figure in? And does Mother know about her?”
“I don’t know,” Nicole said.
“Did Lucy kill Bryan?” Shane asked
“Now that,” Nicole said, glancing at Shane, “I don’t know.” She looked back at Hailey. “But it’s safe to say none of them have been sitting back doing nothing like you thought all this time. Mother doesn’t have your number or mine, but odds are good she got Graham’s and Bryan’s. And she knows where Daddy’s island’s located. If she happened to recognize the longitude and latitude coordinates—”
“Then she’s already either been here,” Hailey cut in, “or will be shortly.”
“Yeah,” Nicole said, looking between Hailey and Shane again in a way that told Hailey Shane was watching her with that heated look and Nicole was more than a little curious what was going on between them. “But here’s the thing I don’t get. Why does she care who runs RR? It won’t affect her.”
“Some people like power,” Shane said.
“No.” Hailey looked around the salon as she remembered arguments she’d overheard her parents having when she was a child. Eleanor screaming about the hours her father worked at the resort and how she wasn’t his true love. About how much Eleanor hated that company. Every single person who worked there.
Slowly, wheels began clicking into place in Hailey’s mind. “She just wants to make sure a Roarke doesn’t end up running it. Especially one of her children.”
“Murder’s a drastic way to go about it,” Shane said.
A sick feeling settled in Hailey’s stomach. Yeah, it was. But no one in her family ever did anything that seemed to make a lot of sense.
“Not when you’ve never liked your kids in the first place,” Nicole muttered from the couch. “I never understood why they even had kids. You,” she looked at Hailey, “yeah. I get that. You only have to do the math to know she was pregnant when they got married. But me? Seven years later? When it was obvious neither of them enjoyed being a parent? Why bother?”
“I don’t know,” Hailey said. “But lucky for you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“No,” Nicole said. “Unlucky for her. Because we’re going to find that sixth statue before she does. And then she’ll be the one answering the questions.”
“Arnold said the plot your father picked for his burial is located on the top of that hill,” Shane said, pointing across the no-name island that belonged to the Roarke family.
The key was fairly flat, about a mile square, if that, with a small rise covered by a scattering of trees and shrubs, right in the middle of the landmass. They’d anchored the boat off the east side and had split up to hike around and take a look at anything out of the ordinary. Billy and Nicole had gone to the western shore, and Shane and Hailey were taking the east. They planned to meet up somewhere in the middle.
Hailey held out her cell phone to see if she could catch a signal. The clouds were really piling up and the sky had taken on a gray color that didn’t look promising. Though the temperatures this far south didn’t drop drastically, there was a chill to the air.
“Lucky for you I called him back and found out my mother had her lawyers interfere and put a stop to Daddy being buried here.”
Damn lucky, as far as Shane could see. He’d already contacted Tony and had him phone the Dade County ME to have Garrett Roarke’s tox screen run again, and he was more than a little thrilled at the knowledge they weren’t going to have to dig up a dead body after all.
He was also more than a little curious about the reason Eleanor Roarke was so adamant about having her husband cremated when that obviously wasn’t his dying wish.
He followed Hailey through the beach grass. Though she wasn’t ignoring him outright, she’d definitely cooled considerably, and that little spark they’d shared since meeting up again in Chicago was long gone.
His gaze swept the landscape in an attempt to ignore the sway of her hips or the fit of her jeans or the way she’d left her hair down this morning to spill blonde, sexy curls around her shoulders. When she stopped abruptly at the edge of the rise, he nearly ran into her before slamming on his own brakes.
“I’ve been here before,” she said, glancing around.
“Nicole mentioned your father used to bring you here when you were kids, right?”
“But only a handful of times when he needed space from our mother and brought us sailing. Nicole used to get seasick, so it didn’t happen often. And on the rare instance he took us, I was left in charge of Nicole on the beach while he hiked inland for whatever reason.” She glanced toward the hill. “I don’t ever remember walking in with him, but I’d bet a hundred bucks I’ve stood right here before.”
The look in her eyes told him not to bet against her.
They picked their way around flowering shrubs and vines until they came to a rock mass on the opposite side of the hill. Shane would have kept walking, but Hailey stopped him with a touch to his arm. “Wait.”
Electricity zinged along his nerve endings, just as it had last night whenever and wherever she’d touched him. A sense of loss coursed
through him and he contemplated pulling her close and telling her he’d changed his mind. But what would that do? Only prolong the inevitable. Build her up for his eventual crash and burn like Lisa had predicted. Distract him and ultimately put her in danger.
No, he wasn’t willing to risk her safety. He pushed the reaction down and eyed the eight-foot-tall rocks she was now walking around. Following, he noticed what had caught her attention, a separation in the rock that looked like it led to a cave of some kind.
“Did you grab the flashlight from the boat?” she asked.
He tugged the flashlight from his belt and handed it to her. She flicked it on, then moved toward the rocks, turning sideways to get between the two biggest ones and the gap that seemed to lead inside. Cloth rasped against rock, but the cave must have turned abruptly, because from Shane’s position, he couldn’t even see her light anymore. “Anything?” he called.
Silence met his ears, and he was just about to go in looking for her when she appeared from between the rocks with wide and excited eyes. “Call Billy and Nicole. I think I found it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“It’s steel,” Billy said, running his hand down the large metal door built into the rock wall in front of him. “Rusted steel, but still steel.”
They were all inside the narrow cave opening, their flashlights illuminating the darkness. Behind and around them, rock walls loomed, while the musty scent of earth clung to the air.
Shane shined his light over the door again, zooming in on the handle. “Doesn’t take a key like any I’ve seen before.” He glanced at Hailey. “Guess that means the one your father left you wasn’t to this, either.”
Hailey bit her lip and moved forward to trace her finger along the edge of the door. To the left, also in steel and embedded in the rock, was a circle with a rectangular hole cut out of the middle. On the top and bottom of the circle, small indentations could also be seen, like two little balls had been pressed into the steel.
“ ‘The answer lies with me. The key is set in steel.’ This is definitely steel but…” Hailey pushed against the circle, then the small indentations, hoping there was some kind of release somewhere. Nothing happened. “Not a key. This is a lock.”