High Tide (27 page)

“Would it be too much to ask that you tell me what you're planning?” he asked. “Or maybe I should ask where you're going.”

“Hunting,” she said quickly. “This isn't going to stop until those—” She meant to say, “those damned lions are
found,” but the warning look on his face stopped her. “I'm going to look for what's lost,” she finished.

“With or without me?” he asked. He was leaning against the doorjamb, his arms folded across his chest.

“Your choice,” she said.

“I see. You're going to go to
my
park, tramping through the swamp by yourself.”

“Maybe I can hire a guide. I'll cut him in for the profit. No, better yet, I'll make him a present of the … the lost goods once we find them.”

“Ever hear of ‘trespassing'?” Moving away from the door, he started to take her arm, but she pulled away from him. “Since when did
I
become the enemy?”

“Since I became a prostitute's daughter,” she snapped, then looked at him in horror. She hadn't meant to say that; she hadn't meant to even think that.

At that, Ace put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to face him. She tried to jerk away from him, but he held her firmly.

“We don't have time for this right now. Do you understand me? It doesn't matter who your father was, or your mother. Right now all that matters is that we find out who is killing these people and clear our names.”

“Your name maybe,” she said, jerking away from him, “but my name will never be cleared. It will be all over the papers about my … my ancestry.” She stopped shoving clothes into the backpack and took a deep breath. “You could never understand,” she said softly.

“I couldn't understand that you have lived your whole life believing you knew who and what you were and in a
few days you've found out that everything in your life is a lie?”

“Yes,” she said, deflated; then she sat down hard on the bed.

Ace sat beside her and put his arm around her, drawing her head down to his shoulder. “I know what it's like not to belong. I grew up in a family that thinks they're alone if there aren't a dozen people around them. All I wanted was to live with my uncle in a shack with no plumbing and look at birds. There would be days at a time when he and I never said a word to each other, and when we did talk, it was …”

“Birdcalls?” Fiona heard herself say, then looked at Ace in surprise. How could she make a joke at a time like this?

Ace laughed. “That's better,” he said; then, as naturally as a bird flies, he bent his head to kiss her.

“Is she all right?” Suzie said from the doorway.

Fiona laughed when Ace said a bad word. “Padlocks,” he added under his breath before turning to look at Suzie. “Fine!” he snapped. “She's just fine.”

“Oh. Right,” Suzie said as she started backing out the door. “I was just wondering what you planned to do with, uh, with Rose.”

“Take her with us,” Ace said loudly, then put his finger to his lips and pointed around the room. Had both women forgotten about the listening devices planted in the house?

“Yes,” Fiona said, standing. “She'll go with us. You know Rose, the most natural person on earth. It would be natural to take her with us, since we're ‘going back to nature' so to speak. Right, darling?” she said to Ace. “You
are
going to take me on that daylong picnic, aren't you?”

“Right,” Ace said a little bit less loud. “A picnic tomorrow. I think it's a bit late to go today, though, don't you, dear?”

“And I'm so glad that you've invited me to go with you,” Suzie said. “I'd be happy to go with you.”

Both Fiona and Ace vigorously shook their heads no, but Suzie tightened her lips and nodded yes, that she was going whether they liked it or not.

“In fact,” Suzie said, “I think I'd better spend the night here with you, so I'll be ready to leave bright and early in the morning.”

“But first, how about a swim?” Ace said. “It might do us all good to get outside for a while.”

With that the three of them ran for the doorway and tried to get through it all at the same time. After some shoving, Ace stepped back and let the women go first; then he followed them down the stairs. Once they were outside, he turned on them.

“I think I can handle this better by myself,” he began. The women were sitting while he stood, his hands behind his back. “I'm the only one who knows the park, so I should go alone.”

“How will you know which map is the right one?” Fiona asked, a small smile curving her lips. “Suzie, would you like some iced tea?”

“Love it.”

“Sit!” Ace ordered when Fiona started to get up.

She sat. In fact, both women sat still, their hands clasped on the tabletop, looking up at him as though awaiting his orders.

After a moment of looking down at them with his most stern face, Ace sat down hard on a chair. “All right, go on. Make the tea, then get out here fast,” he said to Fiona.

“And leave you two here alone to plot my future,” she said sweetly. “Not on your life.”

With a sigh from Ace, the three of them silently trooped into the kitchen and made a huge pitcher of iced tea, added salsa and chips, then carried the tray out to the table by the pool.

“Okay, so which of you goes first?” Ace asked. When neither woman answered, Ace narrowed his eyes at them. He would, perhaps, have been more threatening if he hadn't had a mouthful of corn chips. The crunching seemed to take away his edge.

“If you two don't tell me what you know, I'll take you into the swamp and leave you there. With the snakes.”

“He's bluffing,” Fiona said. She had the strangest feeling that nothing horrible could ever happen to her again. It was as though the worst had happened and now nothing could top what she'd seen and felt. Her father wasn't what she'd thought. Only once in her life had she asked her father about her mother, and he'd told her a beautiful story she now realized was worthy of a Pulitzer.

In between having her personal life shattered, Fiona was finding dead bodies with regular frequency. Right now there was a dead woman just inside the house, yet here she sat munching chips and drinking tea. And all she could think was that she should have dumped some vodka into the tea.

“All I know is what we—” Breaking off, Suzie looked at Fiona. “What Lavender and I found.” With that she reached out to clutch Fiona's hand but the younger woman moved away and Suzie stiffened. “Actually, I don't really remember too much about anything. It was a long time ago.”

“You think Lavender might remember something?” Ace said softly.

It was one thing to learn that your mother wasn't the fairy princess that your father told you she was but quite another to think that she was alive. Fiona wasn't ready for that.

“I don't think the story of where the lions came from will be of any use to us but, if it helps, we should get the information tonight,” Fiona said loudly and quickly.

Both Ace and Suzie looked at her sharply. It took Ace only seconds to start scowling, as it seemed that, once again, she had concealed information from him.

“Don't start on me,” Fiona snapped. “You never asked if
Raffles
was the
only
story my father ever wrote me. It was just the best one. There were others.”

“Let me guess,” Ace said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “There was a story that came with the Nail Map.”

“Aren't you clever?” Fiona said, smiling at him.

“I thought the papers said you two weren't married,” Suzie said. “You sound as though you're married.”

“Actually, we're both engaged,” Ace said.

“But not to each other.”

“No, she likes some lawyer who calls her ‘darling.'”

“You were eavesdropping,” Fiona snapped. “You were listening in on my private conversation.”

“I hate to interrupt you two, but could we stick to the subject?” Suzie said, looking from one to the other. “Did Smokey send you the story of the lions?”

“Yes. And the map. But I didn't realize they were real until …” She took a breath. “Until today. And the truth is that I still don't see the significance of the story.”

“Maybe if we knew the story, we could judge for ourselves,”
Ace said. “Oh, but then both of you know it, don't you? I'm the only one who's left out in this.”

At his whining, petulant tone, both women laughed.

“I called my friend—” Fiona began.

“One of The Five?” Ace asked, interrupting.

“Exactly. After my father's letters from when I was eleven were stolen, I spent a few evenings typing the rest of his letters into my computer. I had an idea of someday publishing his stories in a book for children, and—”

“Children!” Suzie exploded. “You'd want to have children read something like
that?”

“I read them as a child and I came out normal,” Fiona said, defending her father.

“If this is going to turn into a catfight, let me know. For some reason, I have an extreme aversion to cats.”

Fiona thought that was a very funny statement, but Suzie, who didn't know him, didn't understand and didn't laugh.

“So you have the stories on floppy?” Ace asked.

“All of them. And The Five—well, I guess it's The Four at the moment—are going to get into my apartment in New York tonight and get the disk. Jean will print it out and fax me the pages as soon as possible.”

“That's wonderful,” Suzie said, smiling.

Ace reached across the table and took Fiona's hand in his. “If your friends live all over the U.S., then that means they've stayed in New York since … since all this began. They're staying until they know you're safe.”

With her head down, Fiona nodded. She didn't want to look into his eyes or she might start crying, but she didn't let go of his hand.

“I think maybe friends like them are worth more than the reputation of a woman you never knew,” Ace said quietly.

“Right,” Suzie said cheerfully. “And that they're willing to risk their own necks to break into your apartment, which must be under police quarantine, and risk getting involved in two brutal murders—three if you count Rose—as well, is a real show of friendship.”

At the end of that little assessment, both Ace and Fiona were looking at her with their mouths open.

When she'd recovered enough to speak, Fiona stood. “I have to call Jean and tell her not to go. It's too dangerous.”

Ace pulled her down to the chair; then he went to get the cell phone. But when Fiona called her friend, she only got her answering machine. “Too late,” she said, looking at Ace. “They must have already gone. What is wrong with me that I didn't think of this? If Jean gets caught, I'll never forgive myself. I'll—” Pulling her into his arms, Ace held her tightly. After a moment, Suzie stood up and went into the house.

“Don't think about this,” he whispered, “because tonight I'm going to make love to you. I have wanted you from the first moment I saw you, and I have waited long enough. For one whole night we're going to put all this aside and we're just going to enjoy each other. There's cold champagne in the fridge and the water in the tub will be very hot. Are you listening to me?”

She could only nod against his shoulder. Oh, yes, she was listening, listening with every cell in her body. “Tonight,” she whispered. “Tonight.”

Eighteen
 

Bad didn't begin to describe the mood of Ace and Fiona the next morning as they got into the Jeep and headed for Kendrick Park. Fiona wanted to sit in the back with the bags they'd put in the car the night before, but Suzie insisted she sit back there, so the front seats were occupied by two people who weren't speaking to each other.

After last night when he'd made his declaration of intention to make love to her, Fiona had been nothing but a quivering mass. It was embarrassing to be her age and certainly no virgin and yet suddenly find herself thinking about sex as though it were her first time. When she thought about it, she didn't know when she'd started lusting after him. But then if she were honest with herself, it was probably at the airport when he came at her with the double row of teeth attached
to his arm. There'd been something truly primitive in that situation, something very Tarzan and Jane, that appealed to her.

Of course since then, there had been the days spent in each other's company. So, all in all, last night his hot words had done to her what no amount of touching had ever done. She could have ripped his clothes off and leaped on top of him right there beside the pool. Then in the pool. And in the kitchen. And in …

But there had been Suzie. For days and days there had just been the two of them, but now suddenly there was another person: Suzie in her tiny shorts with her bouncing blonde ponytail, with her high firm breasts that didn't jiggle when she moved. Whether or not parts of her were real, the fact that she was actually there was certainly real enough.