Debra Burroughs - Paradise Valley 06 - The Harbor of Lies (20 page)

The air was getting chilly now, so Emily scurried back to the inn, making sure to stay as far as possible ahead of them.

Maggie and Eric hurried back to the inn at a brisk clip as well, reaching the place within a few minutes, not far behind Emily.

From a seat near the toasty fireplace, Emily watched Eric open the door for Maggie, who slid past him and into the warm lobby.

She paused as they neared the front desk. “Thank you so much for showin’ me your lovely boat. That was so fun.”

“Happy to do it. If you’re not busy tonight, I get off in a couple of hours and I’d love to take you to dinner,” Eric offered.

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Maggie replied, “but my boyfriend is due in from Seattle shortly.” She rolled her wrist to look at her watch. “He should be arrivin’ anytime.”

Eric’s expression fell, appearing crushed by her response.

Maggie began backing away with a smile plastered on her pretty face. “But I do appreciate the kind offer.” She turned away from him, covertly glancing across the lobby at Emily. Then with a grin, she headed off down the hallway to her room, apparently proud of pulling off her assignment.

Emily followed after her. When she caught up, Maggie filled in the blanks on how things went. “Wait ’til I tell Peter I helped you on another case. He’ll get such a kick out of it.”

“No. You can’t.” Emily shook her head. “Planting that tracker could get the chief in hot water, so, please, don’t tell anyone.”

“Oh, all right. My lips are sealed.” Maggie gave a pout.

“Thanks, my friend.” Emily gave her a hug. “Good job.”

“Are you ever goin’ to tell me what that little stunt was about?”

“Later, I promise. Deal?”

“Deal.” Maggie checked her watch again. “I’d better get a move on. I’ve got some primpin’ to do before Peter gets here.”

~*~

It was almost five o’clock when Colin and Alex returned from their fishing excursion. Emily and Isabel were seated on a flowered sofa in the lobby, chatting, when the boys came lumbering into the inn, bundled in heavy jackets and hats.

“Hey, guys.” Emily and Isabel rushed over to greet them.

“Where are the fish?” Emily asked.

“Like we’d have any place to store them, or cook them,” Colin replied with slight sarcastic tone. It didn’t appear they had much fun.

“Must have been catch and release.” Isabel laughed a little.

“Ha ha,” Colin said glumly.

Alex grimaced. “Very funny,” he added before letting out a big sneeze.

“Didn’t catch anything?” Isabel asked.

“Just a cold,” Alex replied.

“And a case of motion sickness,” Colin moaned. “The water wasn’t too bad on the way out, but then it turned pretty rough coming back.”

Alex sneezed again. “The captain said we must have caught the outer edge of that storm.”

Isabel put a hand on her husband’s forehead. “You feel a little feverish. Are you going to be okay to go out with the guys tonight?”

“Of course he is.” Colin gave him a couple of hard pats on the back. “It’s my bachelor party.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Alex muttered. “You don’t need to be fussing over me, Isabel.”

“Let’s go back to our room.” Isabel tugged on his arm. She sniffed the air around him and wrinkled her nose. “I think a hot bath and a nap will do you good.”

Alex shrugged and raised his eyebrows to Colin before turning back to his wife. “Yes, dear.” He let her lead him toward their room.

“Now that they’re gone,” Colin said, keeping his voice down, “I was wondering if Maggie was able to plant the tracker.”

“That’s what you were thinking about out on the open seas?”

“I want to get this case buttoned down as much as possible before the wedding tomorrow.”

Emily smiled. “Well, you would have been proud of her.”

“Fantastic. We’ll need to check in with the chief later and make sure he’s monitoring the boat’s movement.”

“Do you really think they’ll still be going out with the water so choppy?”

“It was rocky for Alex and me, but we’re not used to it.” Colin shrugged his coat off. “The captain didn’t seem put off by it in the least. He claims it’s too early in the season for a really bad storm, and the forecast has it moving east. I’m pretty sure that if a great deal of money is involved, they’ll risk running the boat down to Boston tonight.”

“By the time they get back tomorrow, the chief should have the search warrant, right?” If everything went according to plan, that is.

“That’s what he told me. We’ll watch their progress coming back and be waiting on the dock to exercise the warrant.”

“What do you mean
we
?” Emily arched a brow. “What about the wedding?”

“Well, I meant it figuratively,” Colin replied. “What I meant to say was Chief Taylor and his men will be on the dock to search the boat.”

“That’s better.” Emily peeked at her watch. “The rest of the party should be here soon, so you might want to get cleaned up.”

“A nice warm shower sounds like a good idea,” Colin agreed. “I must smell pretty bad.”

Emily tugged his hat off and kissed him. “You smell sexy, like a man of the sea.”

He slipped an arm around her back and pulled her close. “Let me get cleaned up and I’ll show you sexy.”

Chapter 19

“Oh my, Mr. Andrews,” Emily gushed in her best southern accent, fanning herself with Colin’s hat, “you take my breath away.”

The sounds of talking and laughter drew Colin’s and Emily’s attention toward the front door of the inn. Two men and a young woman had just entered the lobby, letting in a gust of cool air.

Colin’s and Emily’s faces lit up. It was the very people they had been expecting—Jonathan, Peter, and Molly.

“Hey, guys!” Colin called out, smiling at them as he hurried over and gave both men a handshake and a clap on the back.

Emily rushed to hug Molly, Camille’s daughter, a college student who had been able to get away from school for this special weekend. She had been like a niece to Emily over the years. She had fiery red hair like her mother, flowing down around her shoulders. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“I thought Red would be here to greet us,” said Camille’s husband, Jonathan, scanning the lobby.

“Where’s Maggie?” asked Peter, glancing around the room as well. He was Maggie’s boyfriend, and also happened to be Camille’s brother.

“Getting ready for you—where else?” Emily chuckled.

“Where’s Mom?” Molly asked.

“In her room, I believe,” Emily answered. “Why don’t you all get checked in and I’ll let them know you’re here.”

“We’re still doing the bachelorette thing tonight, aren’t we?” Molly asked, her deep blue eyes lighting up with eagerness.

Emily nodded with a grin. “That’s the plan.”

“Mr. Andrews?” Eric Malone called out as he approached the small crowd.

Colin raised his hand. “That’s me.”

“I have a message for you.” Eric handed him a small piece of paper. “It came in a few hours ago. They said they tried your phone several times but just got voicemail, so they called here.”

Colin took the note and looked it over. It read that his parents were stuck in Atlanta, Georgia. Because of the storm, their flight from San Francisco had been delayed getting in, so they missed their connecting flight to Portland, Maine. They were now scheduled to take a five am flight to Portland and expected to arrive in Rock Harbor in the late morning, intending to make it in time for the wedding.

“Are they all right?” Emily asked.

“Fine, but they won’t be here until tomorrow.” He handed her the note. “Their flight was delayed.”

Knowing Emily wouldn’t have either of her parents at the ceremony was bad enough, if his parents didn’t make it for the wedding either, that would be such a disappointment. She looked concerned.

“Don’t worry, Babe. They’ll be here.”

She nodded sadly.

“I’m going to go hop in the shower.” He gave her another quick kiss. “I’ll stop by your room before the girls take you out on the town.”

~*~

Emily decided to get cleaned up too, turning on the water in the shower to heat up. She pulled her hair up into a clip to keep it from getting wet, then disrobed, dropping her clothes on the floor. She stepped in for a quick wash before the girls stopped by her room to fetch her.

The water felt good cascading over her body, warm and relaxing. Standing with her back to the flow, her thoughts filled with Colin—the man who made her feel like there was nothing she couldn’t do, the man who appreciated her strengths and balanced her weaknesses.

Their wedding was finally taking place. Tomorrow. The thought of it made her almost giddy. After all they had been through, they would at last be husband and wife.

In her mind, she pictured Colin, dressed in his best suit, standing under the flower-and-tulle-covered arch, waiting for her to glide down the aisle to him. She couldn’t help but smile at the image, which brought a school-girl giggle bubbling out of her.

Tonight would be their last night of single life. She wondered what the boys had in store for him. They had better not keep him out too late—she wanted him at his best for the wedding tomorrow.

After toweling off, she wrapped the fluffy white bathrobe around herself and tied it, then let her hair loose from the clip, running her fingers through it. Checking herself in the mirror, she found her makeup was mostly intact, while a few little droplets of water dripped from the fringes of the curls that brushed against her shoulders. There was no time to doddle. The girls would be knocking on her door before long.

She opened the bathroom door and headed for the closet, with her handsome fiancé still on her mind.

Her peripheral vision caught a reflection in the mirror, and her heart thumped as she turned toward it for a double-take. Emily screamed, her hand rushing to her chest to calm the hammering there. There was a man, standing in her room—but it couldn’t be. “Oh, God! Oh, God!”

“Shhh.” He put a finger to his lips, then reached out to her.

“No!” She jumped back, screaming, her hands wildly beating the air. “No. No. No. I’m just seeing things. This isn’t real.
You
are not real. You are a ghost, and I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Emily squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, he would have disappeared, just as he had before. This was not real.

She felt lightheaded, needed to lie down. Emily shot her eyes open, her heart pounded in her ears, and her chest became tight. She gasped for air as chills slithered all up and down her back. Frozen in place, her feet were unable to move. “You’re. Dead. Evan. Is dead.”

“Not true, love. I assure you, I’m actually very much alive. Here, touch me.”

“No,” Emily gasped. The room began to ebb and flow in and out of focus. Everything was spinning. She was going to be sick.

Staggering backward, she slumped against the dresser, her hands reaching behind her, grasping the surface, trying to steady her balance, but then it all went gray and woozy.

“Breathe, love. Just breathe.”

Her legs turned to rubber and her vision blurred—her world was about to collapse around her, but rather than crash to the floor, he lunged forward, and she felt his arms sliding around her.

“There, there. I’ve got you.”

She blinked her eyes repeatedly, her mind still not able to grasp the enormity of the situation. “It can’t be. You can’t be. You’re dead. I saw you dead.” She leaned against him, dizzy, her knees still weak.

Evan put a couple of fingers under her chin, lifting her face. “As you can see, I am quite alive.” He leaned down and kissed her tenderly.

His lips were sensual and moist, the kiss drawing her into the dream—it was just as she remembered. Instinctively, she melted against his body, a flicker of heat stirring in her.

Then reality set in.

“No.” She pulled away, forcing herself to stand on her own feet, shaking her head and staring at the husband she’d thought she had lost. It couldn’t be, yet on some level she knew it was.

“How can you be alive? I saw the crime scene photos, your body on the floor, the blood…”

“Maybe you should sit down, love.”

Emily settled on the edge of the bed, one hand wrapped around her stomach and the other hand to her forehead. How was this possible?

“The blood,” she said again as she raised her eyes to him. “How can you be standing here, alive and well?”

“It wasn’t real, Emily.” He took a step closer. “
This
is real.” He claimed the space beside her on the bed, reaching out, taking her hand, placing it over his heart.

“I don’t understand.” She recognized the words coming out of his mouth, felt the pounding of his heart beneath her hand, but none of it made sense to her foggy and confused brain.

He brought her hand down to her lap and let it rest there. “Because of the work I did before I met you, my life was in grave danger, and so was yours. I thought I could leave it behind, start over—I tried, but it followed me.”

He stood and poured her a glass of water from the bottle on the nightstand.

She took it and had a sip, the fog beginning to clear. “Followed you?”

“Yes, to Paradise Valley. So I had to disappear, had to fake my death and go into hiding.”

“Why didn’t you take me with you?”

“It had to seem real, or we would certainly have both wound up dead. I needed them to see you grieve, Emily. I’m sorry.”

“But the blood, the funeral, the murder investigation. How could it possibly not be real?”

He paced in front of her. “Drugs are miraculous little things. When one knows what to use, and in what quantity, they can make one
appear
dead. Of course, I had help.”

“Who helped you? Who?” she demanded.

“Sorry, my love, but I can’t tell you that.”

“Can’t tell me or won’t?” she snapped.

Emily felt her lips tightening and her jaw clenching as anger began to rise in her. She glared into his eyes, not sure what else to say, but feeling the need to say something. “And what about the woman sitting in prison for your murder?”

“Well, she
did
shoot at me, after all. Fortunately, she only grazed me, but I assure you, it was her intention to kill me.”