“I’m not sure I want you to see the painting in my office,” Cole told Bree as he unlocked the front door of his Turtle Bay shop, which had Streamin’ and a yacht he’d been working on moored right out the back door. “I know the old pickup line is come have a look at my etchings, but this one may give you a jolt.”
They had just returned from a Sunday brunch at Amelia and Ben’s house where Cole had fallen in love with their two sons—in a much different way from what he was feeling about Bree. So fierce was his desire to protect her that he’d talked Manny into not telling her that Bess had insisted Daria had been meeting more than one man. There had to be a good explanation for that, and he wanted to break it to her gently. Maybe he’d find the right time once they were out sailing this afternoon.
It was a windy but hot, sunny day again, and he was going to take her out to leave a memorial wreath over the Trade Wreck site, where she’d last seen Daria. He knew she needed any kind of shoring up she could get. Not only was she grieving for the mysterious loss of her beloved sister, but Bree was deeply shaken by her discoveries that she hadn’t known Daria as well as she’d thought.
“A painting?” she said. “What about it? Naked women or something? We thought about getting one of mermaids for our front office, but all the ones we found were topless, and we figured it would give the wrong mess—oh, I see what you mean.”
She stood silent at first, staring at the large reproduction of the painting as he closed and locked the door behind them.
“I’ve seen that before—in a book somewhere, I mean,” she told him, leaning lightly back against him as he put his hands on her shoulders. “Such wonderful movement and power.”
“It’s a great reproduction of my favorite painting of all time, a Winslow Homer done right around the turn of the nineteenth century. It’s called The Gulf Stream, so I named the sloop and my business, Gulf Stream Yacht Interiors, for it. It’s kind of my inspiration for my philosophy of life, especially in tough times.”
His pulse picked up. Maybe he could break the bad news to Bree right here, but before he could say more, she interrupted. “Those are bull sharks swimming along with the sloop, right?”
“Right. But what I really love about it—the only reason I brought you through this way, when the sloop’s out back—”
“Is because this is a sloop very similar to yours. And, like the day you rescued me, it protects the sailor from those sharks.”
“True, but I always liked the way the sailor looks calm. The mast is broken, but the sloop’s not sinking or even taking on water. Despite the looming storm and the danger in the water, he knows he’ll get through it all.”
Standing in his loose embrace, she turned to face him. He wanted to pull her to him, but he said, “There’s one other thing I need to tell you about what Manny and I learned at the bar yesterday. Bess swears that Daria met at least two different men out in back there. It was dark, and she couldn’t give a good description, but saw enough to know it was two men.”
“What? But then—then there were two beers the bartender knew to give me. One shandy, two Mountain Brewed.”
She didn’t get the implications of what he was saying, Cole thought, and perhaps that was just as well, but he added, “Not two men at the same time—different times.”
“Maybe she met a couple of guys from her class afterward,” she went on. “I’d hate to go back to the school and make some general, public plea for information. Besides, why would both guys be so secret or taboo that she met them out in the dark in the boondocks?” He could tell she was on a roll now, probably to keep from admitting Daria could have had an entire secret life built on lies. “Or, you know,” Bree plunged on, “Viv Holliman’s hair is really short. Maybe the Hollimans are the ones who met Daria there—to discuss business...at different times...but...”
Her voice trailed off. He saw her shudder. She must know she wasn’t making sense.
“You think I’m clutching at straws,” she said. “If—if,” she stammered, “she was meeting more than one man and they found out and were insanely jealous or something like that, wouldn’t they have gone after each other? You’re thinking one of them might have wanted her to pay for two-timing him, then things got out of hand?”
He pulled her to him. Despite the fact she held the wreath she’d made, she put her free arm around him.
“I don’t know what I’m thinking,” he admitted. “So far we’re still fact-finding and don’t have enough to form a theory to act on. We’ve got a damn multiple-choice quiz going.”
“I don’t know if I can get through the funeral tomorrow,” she admitted, her lips pressed to his shoulder, “especially with this new, dreadful possibility. I mean, if there was some sort of attack on Daria like there was on me...we’d have to convince the police of that. Cole, maybe she accidentally fell and hit her head during an argument with someone, but then, when he left the boat alone to drift and crash, it became sort of—of indirect homicide.”
“Manslaughter.”
“That’s it. If any of that could be true, that it wasn’t an accident, I’ve got to know, to get justice for her. And what if her attacker’s at the funeral? I’ve heard that killers sometimes are drawn there or to the burial place of their victim. Who hurt her? Who hurt her and why?”
He cupped her face in his hands and wiped tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “First of all, let’s concentrate on getting through the funeral, and then we’ll do what we can to find enough evidence to get the cops to open the case. Keep Daria’s room sealed, and we’ll try to get someone in there to take fingerprints, though if someone is truly clever and desperate, don’t get your hopes up. Hey, the good news is that, when I agreed to do the job for Dom Verdugo, I talked him into moving his casino yacht from Miami to the marina here. That way I can stay around to help you. I suggested to him it would be good PR if he had the boat here for people to see. I think he’s even planning a party cruise on it soon for influential people—without the gambling, of course.”
“I know you want to keep the gambling from coming in here.”
“I do, but I think he’s also a good candidate if there was foul play in Daria’s death, and I’ve spoken with more than one of his employees who could fit the description of your attacker.”
“I’d put Sam’s diver, Ric, on the list, too, even if he did make that dangerous dive to find Daria with us. All right, let’s go, Captain. Bon voyage, ship ahoy and all that,” she said, cradling the flower wreath to her. “Oh, I left the pelican float to keep the wreath in place in your car.”
“I’ll get it. Go on out in back and choose a piece of wood you like so we can float that better.”
He kissed her quickly and headed back to his car. When he glanced through the front office window, he saw her still staring up at the picture of the sloop sailing toward the storm with the sharks chasing it.
* * *
“Why hasn’t seeing more of Bree cheered you up?” Ben asked Amelia as they sat by the side of their screened veranda pool, watching the boys race little wooden sailboats in the shallow end. “I don’t mean that the loss of Daria is something you’ll get over quickly, or ever, for that matter, but you’ve been spiraling down. Even Bree seems on a more even keel than you, and she’s lost more than—”
“How dare you say that!” She shoved the book she’d been reading about the grieving process onto her chaise longue. Ben had been going over a stack of affidavits.
“I just meant Bree was her twin, lived with her... Honey, I’m going to call the doctor and have him prescribe something to get you through the funeral tomorrow.”
“No,” she said, reaching over to grab his wrist and trying to keep her voice down. “I won’t be drugged so I say something I shouldn’t.”
“Like what?”
“I just mean your friends will be there, and a lot of important people, I’ll bet. The Austins, maybe even Marla Sherborne. It’s going to be a media event, and I won’t have everyone staring at me because I look comatose.”
Ben shifted his work aside and swung his legs down between their lounge chairs. He bent over his knees to lean closer as Jordan shouted from the pool, “Dad, my boat won that race. James says it didn’t, but I did!”
“You two get along now or you’re getting out of there!” Ben told them. “I’m trying to talk to your mother.”
“Trying to,” Amelia noted. “Meaning, you’re not being very successful at it.”
“Let’s not argue. I know you’re under stress and I underst—”
“You don’t. Not really. Ben, you’re a lawyer and my husband. I have something to tell you, part of the reason I’m feeling so awful about Daria.”
Instantly, his expression changed. His concerned gaze seemed more guarded, she thought. His shoulders tensed. But she had to tell someone some of it or she was going to go right out of her mind and be a raving harridan by tomorrow.
“I saw Daria the day she died,” she blurted.
“And didn’t say so? Why?”
“Please don’t read too much into that. You know her birth caused my mother’s death....”
“Yes, but there was hardly any intent on her part.”
“Would you just listen?” she said through gritted teeth. She wanted to scream at him, but the boys would hear. “I know you’re used to firing questions at people, but just listen.” He nodded, curious now, but he looked like he was holding his breath.
“I made a date to have a late breakfast with her at the Grog Shop at the far end of Turtle Bay Marina that morning. I asked her not to tell or bring Bree. I guess I just thought I’d try to divide and conquer them, or something like that. Anyway, when we met outside on the dock, I told her I was tired of being shut out. That Dad had always shut me out, maybe because I looked so much like Mother, as if he couldn’t bear to see a reminder of her.”
“Go on,” he prompted when she just gripped her hands tightly together.
“And she said, if anyone was the reminder of Mother’s loss it was her and Briana, and they’d gotten along with Dad just fine.”
“That’s all?” Ben prompted when she said no more.
“I—I don’t know what got into me, but I told her she was selfish—that I hated her. Then she got right in my face and said, ‘Amelia, you’ve got to get over your crazy ideas Dad didn’t love you and grow up.’ Crazy ideas, she said. Then I—I shoved her and she shoved me back so hard I bounced into a mooring post and could have gone right into the water. I could have been crushed by one of those big boats tied there, for all she cared. And don’t tell me I started it first, like I’m some kid. She—both of the twins are the ones who started all my problems, first losing my mother and then, in a different way, my dad!”
He stared at her a moment. She could see his wheels turning, assessing her story, probably looking for flaws, discerning motives. “There’s no more?” he asked. “That’s the last time you saw her, so you’re feeling guilty about the way you parted?”
She nodded, kept nodding. Her entire body was shaking.
“I wouldn’t tell anyone else about that unless it comes up somehow,” he said. “You obviously didn’t go in for breakfast together after that, so no one saw you eating with her. Amelia, you have got to find the strength to bury these deep-seated feelings. And don’t argue with me when I make an appointment for you with a therapist I know. There’s nothing else, is there?”
She realized she was still nodding. “No,” she said, and shook her head side to side. There was more to tell, but she was hoping that bleeding out this much of the festering poison would help her get through tomorrow. How ridiculous were those courtroom dramas or funeral scenes, where the guilty party shouted out what they’d done in front of everyone.
“Dad, Mom! He’s looking at me really funny, and he’s splashing me!” Jordan shouted. “Make him quit it! It’s his fault.”
“That’s it!” Ben told them. “I’m coming in to play policeman and the first one of you who messes up is going to his room!”
He leaped up and cannonballed into the deep end to the squealing delight of their sons. Amelia stared at the big splash he’d made as her son’s words—“It’s his fault...fault...fault...”—echoed in her head.
* * *
“I picked this piece of dark wood since black’s the color of mourning,” Bree told Cole as he came into his back workroom with the pelican float from his car. She loved the rich smell of this well-lit workroom, piled high with various exotic woods in long trays. His workbench looked out over the far end of the marina next to the Grog Shop Restaurant. Cole had told her he ate a lot of his meals there, when he didn’t get takeout or delivery. A man who was dedicated to his work, she thought, just as she had been.
“African wenge wood,” he said of the stark piece. “That’s a good choice. It’s very hard wood with not much grain.” He took a minute to attach the peach and yellow hibiscus and blue plumbago blossoms to it so they wouldn’t break up, then they headed out the back toward the Streamin’.
At least it was a cloudy day. Sometimes she thought her hearing was not as acute as it had been at first after the lightning strike, but she was still overly sensitive to light. Perhaps that helped her to see better in low-vis water—Briana Devon, the X-ray-eyed underwater superwoman. Maybe that was why she had spotted the broken piece of Mermaids II and then the wheelhouse with Daria inside, when the other divers didn’t see things as clearly.
The Streamin’ headed out into the bay at a good clip, as if she yearned for a race. Bree didn’t doubt that Cole could make this sloop move, even if it was dead calm. Bree and Cole had life preservers nearby, but she didn’t feel she needed one with him at the helm. Still, she warned herself, as the sails bellied out and they moved from the bay into the gulf, after all she’d learned about Daria since her death, she should know better than to totally trust anyone now. Love might never change but the trust at its foundation could.
The wind tugged at her hair and shirt; they were almost flying. She loved to escape the land and ride the waves, but she could hardly escape her grief at sea. In a way, her sister was and always would be a part of the deep and its mysteries. This great water had given Daria joy and purpose, but it had taken her life—or so the authorities said. She might have drowned, Bree thought, but she was becoming more and more certain that the sea was not the real killer.
She wondered if she should have let Daria’s remains be buried at sea. She could have agreed with the Hollimans’ Eternal Shells offer, but she couldn’t trust them. Too much the shysters, but then, she wasn’t certain who wasn’t. Someone, maybe someone close to Daria, and to Bree, too, could have caused her death.
“You said you can find the spot by heart now,” Cole called to her.
By heart, she thought. Yes, she’d always be able to find the spot she last saw Daria alive by heart, a broken heart.
“It’s right about here,” she told him. “Just a sec, and I’ll eyeball the land coordinates.”
She looked back toward shore and picked out the Naples pier and Gordon Pass to the south, then triangulated those by the reddish roof of the Ritz Carlton Hotel to the north.
“Yes, this spot is good,” she told him, “but go a little farther south before you anchor so you don’t catch the turtle grass meadow. Which reminds me, I’ll have to get someone to come out here to check it with me Tuesday morning before my report to the commission that afternoon.”
“You think you can handle the dive and the report alone—without Daria, I mean?”
“Yes, I can,” she said, her voice strong. “I have to see that all through. Maybe it will flush someone out.”
“Not with you as the bait! And I won’t let you dive alone. I’ll go down with you, if you promise to stay out of the wreck.”
She nodded, but he wasn’t looking as he furled and tied the sails and dropped anchor. As she readied the wreath, he came to help her. How sore she felt from the beating she’d taken yesterday. She was turning black-and-blue—even greenish-gold—in places she couldn’t show Cole.
She appreciated how he let her guide the placement of the wreath, just lifted it to keep its weight off her hands as she balanced everything on the side of the sloop. When the boat listed a bit toward their weight, he leaned farther aport, leaving her to bend over the side of the sloop alone.
For one moment, Bree wasn’t sure she could bear to let it go. How would she ever get through the funeral if she couldn’t even let go of a wreath she’d made?
She gently placed it on the water, threw the pelican float’s sixty-foot tether line in, then dropped the round metal anchor she had tied to the piece of wood. The float bobbed to the surface, its red Day-Glo rings bright and bold. The wreath looked lovely on the wood. It started away, then bobbed almost in place as it rode the waves.
She was grateful that Cole gave her this moment alone, yet she longed to cling to him. Staring down into the gray-green depths, she mouthed the silent words, I love you, my Daria. I’ll always love you, but what did you do? What did you get mixed up in?
She remembered again that she hadn’t heard a motor in the water that day. How had someone approached Mermaids II? Maybe in a sailboat?
At that thought, she jumped when Cole came close again. They sat on the floor of the sloop with his back against the stern seat. He’d been sailing that day of Daria’s death, she thought. Others could have been, as well. That could be why she hadn’t heard a motor.
When he pulled her into his arms, she leaned against him, grateful for his concern and strength. “Did you see any other sailboats out last Tuesday?” she asked. “Since the weather guys were really off that day, others—especially people with big sailboats—might have gone out.”
“I saw a few, at least early. But they seemed pretty distant.”
“From you or from this position?”
“I get where you’re going, but I’m not sure how we’d check into that. Area marinas seldom keep track of when vessels permanently moored at their facilities put out, and a lot of sailboats, just like power boats, are in private berths up and down all the canals.”
“I suppose,” she said with a sigh, “I could inquire of the civil air patrol, but they already put in so many hours. When Dave Mangold, my pilot friend from the patrol, gets back in town, I can have him ask around if any planes were flying the day of the storm and saw any watercraft of any kind. It all just seems like such a long shot. Cole, she must have known whoever approached her. I’ll bet whatever boat came up to her, she recognized someone and let them board our boat or get too close to her. It’s creepy to think of her out here in this exact spot, while someone crept up or tricked her somehow...”
“Don’t think about it now. You’re here to honor her memory today. You need to relax before tomorrow.”
She nodded fiercely and turned so she had her back against the inside of his knee for support. He had one arm around her waist; her bent legs were draped over his other one. It eased her lower back pain to lean into him, and it eased her heart just to touch him.
“Cole, my voice of reason,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder. She knew she was setting herself up to be kissed: she hoped so, the cut on the inside of her mouth and sore muscles notwithstanding.
“I don’t ever feel very reasonable about you,” was all he said before he bent to cover her mouth with his.
It was their first real kiss of mutual, meshing needs and desires. He’d comforted her before; he’d protected her. Now she wanted more.
The boat moved under them in a rhythmic cadence, and they seemed to roll with it, first one way, then the other, their weight toward her, then him. He slanted his mouth over hers and his hard hands pulled her closer. As she wrapped her arms around his neck, his free hand skimmed over her, shoulder, arms, waist, hips, thighs, back up to cup her breast. She arched under him, breathing with him. His merest touch seemed to heal all her body’s aches and pains, if not those of her heart.
The Streamin’ yanked against its anchor and dipped its masts. The lines creaked and the waves rustled incredibly loudly.
A ship sneaking up on us? Bree thought. As she jerked bolt upright, her head bumped his chin. She twisted away from him to look all around.
“What?”
“I just—sorry. I thought I heard something, that there was another boat. Sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too. I wasn’t sure if that was the boat rocking or the entire world. I’d better bring her around.”
Bree steadied herself as he scrambled for the tiller. She saw that the wreath took the push of the waves but stayed firmly in place. That’s what she would do, too, she vowed. Cole brought up the anchor and unfurled the mainsail. “Watch out, or you’ll see where we get the saying, Lower the boom.”
She ducked and he brought the ship about and headed them back in. He’d handled both the sailboat and her skittish behavior smoothly. Amazing that she’d only been with this man off and on for five days, and yet felt she knew him. The same mistake she’d evidently made with Daria.