Nate Curry looked down the length of the bar, saw that everyone seemed to have a full glass and gave a little nod of satisfaction. He’d brought on a new kid, a college junior from the University of Miami, so he wouldn’t have to feel so wed to the place himself. Since he’d been joining his friends tonight, he hadn’t planned on working at all, but hell, being here, he had to kick in. Especially since he was down one employee, after uncovering the thefts. But the new kid, Bill Edgeham, seemed to have everything under control. The Saturday night band was playing as usual, conch fritters and chowder were being served right and left, the tables were filled, and the bar was busy. A good Saturday night—even if the gang had all departed long before he had thought they would. Kelsey and Cindy usually loved to dance. And it was fun to party with the old crowd. Fun…and, of course, intriguing as all hell.
He still felt uneasy. He wished Kelsey hadn’t left so quickly. And he wished that she’d gone straight home, which he knew she hadn’t. Larry had called earlier to say she hadn’t returned to the duplex, wondering if Nate knew where she was. He was worried about her; she was so determined to delve where she shouldn’t in her attempt to find Sheila.
At the end of the bar, he picked up the phone and called the duplex.
Larry picked up. “Have you heard from Kelsey yet?” Nate asked, trying not to sound too anxious.
“Yeah, I talked to her.”
“Well, where the hell is she?”
“At some club. I don’t know what she’s doing. She sounded strange, kept calling me sweetheart, and said something about me being built like Conan the Barbarian.”
Nate frowned. “You?”
“Hey, I resent that. I’m in good shape.”
“Yeah, but hardly Mr. Universe.”
“Don’t go sounding jealous on me. She didn’t mean anything by it. She said she was at a club. She was probably just talking like that to keep the sharks away, though what the hell she was doing in a club to begin with if she was avoiding sharks, I don’t know.”
“But she was all right?”
“She said she was fine, and that she’d call me if she had any problem.”
Nate couldn’t help feeling a little rise of resentment, even though he’d barely been married to Kelsey for a month, and that many years ago now. She’d cried rivers when she’d broken it off with him, sorry that she had used him as solace the way she had, begging him to forgive her. She’d sworn that she would always love him—as a friend.
He wound the phone cord around his fingers. Kelsey and Sheila. As different as night and day. Kelsey, who felt she’d sinned the minute she was with him, because she had to admit both to herself and to him that she didn’t love him.
Sheila, who was generous to a fault. Heedless of anything she did with a guy, whether she loved him or not.
And here he was, feeling a rush of heat to his face and a burn of anger in his soul because Kelsey had said that she would call Larry if she needed anything. Well, what the hell. He and Kelsey had hardly been married. Kelsey and Larry worked together.
But I’m closer to you, Kelsey. Closer in your heart. And I know you. Even if you’ve forgotten the time when we were close. I remember. I’m the one you should depend on.
“Nate, you there?” Larry asked.
“Yeah, sorry. Well, I was just worried. But since you’ve talked to her and know that she’s okay, then I’ll quit worrying.”
“I never said she was okay. She’s got me worried. She’s obsessed with finding Sheila.” Larry’s sigh came through loud and clear. “She just hasn’t gotten it yet, that Sheila will show up when she’s ready.”
Nate felt a prickling at his nape. “Yeah, sure.”
“If Kelsey doesn’t get back soon, I’ll call you.”
“You’re going to stay up?”
“Sure. I’ve got work here with me. I can always stay up.”
“All right. See ya. And tell Kelsey to give me a call in the morning. Unless you don’t hear from her. Then call me, because I’ll be worried.”
“Of course.”
Nate hung up and turned just in time to see Andy Latham, his eyes wild, standing on the other side of the bar.
“Latham, I told you, you can’t come here anymore. The women complain.”
Latham shot out a fist, catching Nate hard in the jaw before he could duck.
“Damn!”
Dane swore as he clamped his hand over Kelsey’s mouth. He looked around the parking lot. No one was anywhere near them, and the music blaring from the club would drown out pretty much anything, anyway.
Cars were going by on US1, but not one of them had even slowed.
“What the hell are you trying to do, get me arrested?” he asked Kelsey angrily.
She caught his fingers, drawing his hand from her mouth. Her blue-green eyes met his with a narrowed anger. “What the hell are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”
“I followed you out to your car. Hell, you saw me. You turned around and looked right at me.”
“I saw someone. I didn’t know it was you. Why the hell were you following me like that?” she demanded.
“That’s not the question of the hour,” he told her, voice harsher than he had intended. It was disturbing, though, to realize how easily he had been able to accost her.
And the way that she had screamed…without anyone noticing at all.
“Why were you following me?” he demanded, his words sharp.
She stared at him where he leaned against the open car door.
“What makes you think I was following you?” she asked.
“How about the fact that you jumped up the minute I left dinner, and then you followed me.”
“Maybe not. Maybe I just decided to check this place out on the same night you did.” She didn’t intend to admit a thing.
“Kelsey, you suck as a liar.”
“Say that I actually did follow you. Maybe my reasons were entirely innocent.”
Dane felt himself growing impatient. “Entirely innocent? Right. You followed a man to a strip club. What were your innocent reasons? You decided to get your jollies by watching me get a lap dance?”
Kelsey looked away from him, hating the flush that filled her cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then what do you think you were doing?”
“Trying to figure out what you were doing.”
“Stuffing money into G-strings. That was obvious, I’m certain. But then I know I don’t have to tell you anything, because you were watching me from the minute you walked into the club.”
She looked startled. “You didn’t see me. I was in the—”
“Kelsey, I knew you were following me all the way north, and I saw you the minute you tried to walk in without paying.”
“I didn’t know you had to pay!”
“Kelsey, I don’t know what the hell to do with you. I’ve told you often enough that you have to trust me. All you do is get yourself into trouble. So far, you’ve had a confrontation with Latham, and you’ve gotten me into a fight with Izzy Garcia. One would think you would have gone home tonight. Will you please listen to me now? I want to find Sheila just as much as you do. More. Dammit, Kelsey, let me handle it.”
She looked straight ahead again. “I can see how you were handling it.”
“Did it bother you?” he inquired, amazed that he could feel amused.
“Your sex life is your own concern.”
“I don’t know, Kelsey. You’re looking like a disapproving schoolmarm at the moment.”
“I don’t give a damn if you fu—” She cut herself off, fell silent, then said, “I’m just not real sure that your current…techniques will do anything to help in your investigation.”
“Kelsey, this is a strip club.”
“A strip club where a murder victim worked,” Kelsey said.
Dane exhaled a long breath, shaking his head. “Isn’t that the point? I’m here, therefore you don’t have to be.”
“I do have to
be,” she said stubbornly. “You’re following the tracks of a murderer known as the Necktie Strangler.” She looked at him then with a certain naked anguish in her eyes. “You think that Sheila is dead, don’t you?”
He was silent for a long time. Then he told her, “Move over.”
“Move over? You don’t need to ride with me. Your Jeep is here.”
“Yeah, and we’ll just leave it here for now. I don’t particularly like the idea of you riding back down to Key Largo alone.”
“Dane, I drive alone all the time. I’m a career woman, living alone in Miami, a fairly street-smart kid.”
“It’s almost an hour’s drive back. Move over.”
“You know, I don’t have to go back to Key Largo tonight. My condo is fifteen minutes away, just down US1, on Brick-ell. I’ll be fine.”
He straightened and quickly walked around to the passenger side, then opened the door and sat before she could think to lock him out.
“Go. I’m just dying to see your condo.”
“You’re not going to stay at my condo. Certainly not tonight,” she told him.
There she was, he thought. The imperious Kelsey.
“I touched a stripper? Does that make me diseased?”
“You didn’t need to touch a stripper to be an unwanted houseguest, Dane,” she said flatly.
“You want to talk, Kelsey? Get to the bottom of some things? Then drive.”
She stared stubbornly at the windshield, jaw clenched. He was sure she was mulling over the possibility of dragging him out of her car.
Evidently she thought better of it.
She twisted her key in the ignition. The car roared to life.
“I hope they tow your Jeep,” she said.
“Oh, I doubt it. The club stays open until 5:00 a.m., and by then the coffee shop is open, so there’s no reason why there shouldn’t be a car parked in the lot.”
“Sounds like you know the place well,” she said, eyes on the road as she pulled out on to the highway.
“Well enough.”
“I see.”
“Just drive, Kelsey.”
CHAPTER 10
It felt strange, having Dane come into her condominium with her, Kelsey thought. He always seemed to be observing everything, dark eyes watching as she flashed her pass to the guard on duty at the gate, looking over the parking beneath the building, noting the security cameras in the lobby as they walked to the elevators.
He didn’t speak, and neither did she, as they rode to the fifteenth floor. He gave his attention to the hallway again as they left the elevator and walked to her unit.
“How many apartments on each floor?” he asked.
“Four. There are actually four towers,” she told him, opening her front door. “Four apartments on each of sixteen floors per tower. In the center of the building, there’s a rec room, and out back, a pool.”
He followed her into the condo. She turned on the lights, wondering why it felt so odd to have Dane here.
Because, she decided, this was her life now. Her life in which she had moved forward. It wasn’t part of the past.
The past was what should bother her. But it had been comfortable, being back at Hurricane Bay, though maybe it had been comfortable in a bad way. She had experienced a proprietary feeling at Hurricane Bay that she never should have felt. The place was his. Just because she had been welcome all the time as a child, that didn’t give her any right to feel as if she were home when she was there.
She stood in the hallway, waiting as he surveyed the entry, living room and kitchen. He walked to the large plate-glass window and looked out on the bay.
“Nice view.”
“Yes.”
“Small rooms.”
She shrugged. “It’s an expensive area. This is what I could afford. I took it because I do like the view.”
He stared out the window for a moment, then turned to her. “Aren’t you going to offer me something?”
“You want a drink?”
He laughed. “You sound as if you’ve joined the Temperance League. No, I don’t mean a drink. Coffee or tea would be nice.”
She walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “Regular, flavored or decaf?”
“Regular.”
He remained by the window, just staring out, as she measured coffee and poured water. While the coffee brewed, she came around the counter, leaned against the wall and watched him.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“We’re here so you can tell me why you’re trying to track Sheila down at a strip club,” she reminded him.
He turned and looked at her, studying her in silence for a minute. “Kelsey, I keep telling you to stay out of this. And I mean it. You’re dangerous to yourself and everyone else. But I have the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. That you have an insight into the whole thing that I’m missing. From just about the minute you showed up, you were on my tail over Sheila’s disappearance. Mine.”
“That’s not fair. You’re the one who followed me over to Latham’s, and you were the one who went ballistic when I went to Izzy’s boat to question him about Sheila.”
“That was after you stormed after me. I was first. Why?”
She shrugged. “Come on, Dane. You know the reason. I got in, there was no Sheila. Cindy hadn’t seen her since she’d been at Nate’s place. Cindy suggested that I talk to you. She said you and Sheila had been talking at Nate’s. She was convinced you two were doing a lot more than talking. And she was right.” He didn’t argue with her; just kept standing by the plate-glass window, watching her. “Cindy told me that you’d been different since you got back. Bitter in a way she’d never seen you before. And prone to, well, like the song says, wasting away in Margaritaville.”
“There’s more to it than that,” he told her. “Unless you’ve really been carrying a grudge all these years. Andy Latham is downright slimy and scary, but you immediately decided to come after me, forgetting all about him until later that day. And Izzy is a pure sleaze, but you only decided that you just had to go talk to him today.”
She was startled by his words, which were spoken dispassionately, as if he wasn’t judging her, wasn’t feeling offended.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You were the last one seen with Sheila, that’s all.”
“That can’t be all,” he said, shaking his head, dark eyes on her intently, giving her the impression that she was a book being read. “When you were making plans to meet Sheila, she must have said something to you, implied something. And anything she said could be important now.”
“She never said she was going to strip clubs, if that’s what you mean.”
Her comment didn’t perturb him in the least. “So what did she say?”
“You mean…after she e-mailed me the first time?”
“Of course.” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did she write something else?”
“No,” she lied.
He didn’t know about the diary. But the diary hadn’t really given her anything yet.
“Dammit, Kelsey, give me something to go on here.”
“Why were you in that strip club?”
He stared at her for a long time. “Because I am trying to track down the Necktie Strangler. I didn’t go in the back for a lap dance, Kelsey. I was showing the girls pictures of people.”
“People? Who?”
“Andy Latham, Izzy Garcia…”
“And?”
“The cowgirl was good friends with the murdered girl. She’s going to study the photos I gave her and see if she can remember anyone.”
“She couldn’t tell you now?”
“She wasn’t sure. She wanted to take time to look at all the faces. And I couldn’t stay.”
“Why?”
“You were leaving.”
“I was only going to drive home.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Where did you think I was going?”
&n
bsp; “God knows. After your visit to Izzy, nothing would surprise me. Kelsey, will you please tell me about Sheila? What she said on the phone or in her e-mail. Anything that might help.”
Kelsey hesitated, then shrugged. “I heard from her for the first time in ages when she e-mailed me after renting the other half of the duplex where Cindy was living. She said that being back as a permanent resident was strange. You were different and distant. One time she’d write that you needed help, the next time she’d write that she needed help. She was chatty about Nate and Cindy, and she wrote about Jorge and Izzy, as well. She admitted to drinking quite a bit, and I think—well, now I know—she was doing drugs, as well.” Kelsey paused for a minute. “She wrote that she was having some strange problems, but that she didn’t want to go into them. That her past was catching up with her. She said she really needed to see me. And that was why I decided to come down and spend a week with her.”
“And that’s it? That’s why you were all over me first thing?”
Kelsey stared at him for a long moment. His dark eyes never wavered in their intense perusal of her.
“No.”
“Then what?”
“She said that she needed to talk to you. Really talk to you. Because she was nervous.”
“If she was nervous about something, and the something was me, why would it be me she wanted to talk to?” he demanded.
Kelsey threw up her hands. “I don’t know. But everything led to you. Her e-mails led to you, Cindy and Nate both told me about Sheila being with you at the bar, then going off after you. And that’s the last time anyone saw her. And you admit to having a relationship with her.”
“It wasn’t a relationship,” he murmured, looking away from her for a moment and staring out at the lights of the city again.
“Okay, so you slept with her.”
“Once. And she couldn’t have written to you about that, because that was the last time I saw her. And I told you how it happened.”
She threw up her hands. “It’s just that Sheila always implied something about you. And your name came up first with everyone. That’s it. Really,” she said.
Dane never seemed to give anything away in his voice, or with his eyes, his face. Yet she thought he looked relieved.