Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) (5 page)

I stepped out into the brightness of midmorning in the Caribbean. The sun bathed the world in light not unlike but a million times better than the yellow walls in Nick’s hotel room. Along the side of the building hibiscus clamored, the source of the cuttings in the bathroom, no doubt. I shielded my eyes and tried to make my Shoeless Joe Jackson walk of shame as quickly as I could. Damn, it was a long way to my truck. I started trotting across the parking lot. Just as I reached the truck, my phone rang. It was Ava. I didn’t bother saying hello.

“Don’t start with me,” I said. I crawled in and remembered I had no keys. Shit. But I knew how to hotwire a truck now, didn’t I? I hadn’t paid close attention, but it wasn’t rocket science.

Ava’s island accent danced across the phone line. “Wah? I just checking on you, that’s all. So, talk to me. What happen?”

Nick had left the bobby pins attached to the yellow and green wires. Green for go, yellow for something else. Both of them needed to be connected to the power. Power was red. I knew that whatever yellow was, it came before go. I stuck the opposite leg of the bobby pin with the yellow wire into the red wire. The dashboard lights came on. Ah, yes. Yellow for dash lights. I connected the green to the red with the ends of the other bobby pin. The engine turned and caught. Hot damn.

“Sorry, Mom, but I couldn’t come home because I spent the night with a boy. Am I grounded?”

I maneuvered the truck out of the parking lot onto the short stretch of road that passed Columbus Cove on the way to Ava’s place. A flotilla of kayaks paddled by on my left, creating a neon rainbow across the flat water.

“It seem I a bad influence on you. Lah, he a sexy one.”

“Keep your eyes off him, woman.” Ava was supposedly dating Rashidi, but she didn’t do exclusive very well. “So, tell me, how bad is it going to be with Bart?”

“Bart? He already forget all about you. Heard he dating the recently divorced former Mrs. St. Marcos. I think you know her.” I laughed again. “Speaking of Jackie, you hear her cousin die?”

“I think it’s a stretch to call her a cousin, but she told me. I already knew, though. She was the kitchen manager at Fortuna’s.”

“Yah, bad stuff happening, mon.”

“I just pulled up in the driveway. I’m hanging up now.”

Ava’s small house was white and boxy, without a stick or stem of landscaping to soften its edges, but it had plenty of personality inside. The front door opened onto a miniature great room whose rattan furniture and Formica-topped table overlooked Columbus Cove far below. To the right were a balcony, a cheery galley kitchen, and the bathroom, and to the left were our bedrooms.

“Honey, I’m home,” I yelled as I patted the bouncing head of Poco Oso, then made a sharp right into the tiny blue bathroom. Entering it was like diving into a tiny bay surrounded by a coral reef. The whole room was decorated with seashells. Shells in bowls, shells in box frames, even shells inset into the stucco walls, or “masonry,” as the Locals called it.

I turned on the shower and stripped down.

Ava rattled the knob, then rapped on the door. “Don’t lock me out of there. I need details, and I need ’em now.”

I turned the knob to unlock the door and ducked inside the shower stall as my friend threw the door open.

“That why they call it mooning. You need sun on that bana. I take you to Old Man’s Bay soon and we tan you up.”

“My tush is going to stay as white as God made it, thank you very much.”

“Enough about your flat ole white-girl ass. Spill it,” she said, and planted herself on the toilet seat. “And don’t leave out the good parts.”

I squirted Pantene conditioner into my hand and rubbed it into my hair, only noticing my mistake when it didn’t lather. I stuck my head under the water. “Oh my God, Ava, he came to see me and he’s really sorry and the only reason it took so long is because of the baby, but maybe it will be different whenever he can get rid of it—”

“Baby? Somebody getting rid of his baby?” Ava shrieked.

“No, not getting rid of like
getting rid of.
I meant when the baby
leaves,
because right now the baby is living with him.” I rubbed shampoo into my brillo-pad hair and started scrubbing.

Ava ripped the shower curtain open. She was still in the hot pink silk teddy that she wore like a housedress. Her voice shot up an octave. “You pining over this man who make a brand new baby with another woman and that OK with you? What wrong with you, Katie?” She planted her small hands on her hips and cocked her head.

I snapped the shower curtain shut. “No, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“I only got what you tell me.”

“Let me try again.”

“I listening.”

“Nick’s little sister and her baby moved in with him last year to get away from the baby’s dad, because he had just gotten out of jail. So Nick’s life was really complicated, and it still is, but he said his heart stops when I walk in a room, so he had to come.”

Silence from outside the shower. I took advantage of the break in Ava’s inquisition to rinse out the shampoo and try the conditioner again.

Finally, Ava spoke, her voice lower. “You believe him?”

“Yes, of course. What, you think he’s lying to me?”

“I don’t know the man. That’s why I asking you.” She opened the shower curtain again and I realized I was not going to win a battle over my modesty with Ava. She leaned so close the water beaded on her face. “You got it bad for him. He hurt you once. What make you think he won’t again, and here you go throwing a perfectly good fish back in the sea only to end up with one that rotten in the head.”

“Nick is not a rotten-headed fish, Ava.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. And he’s not. And, besides,” I said as I turned my face away and squirted shaving cream on my leg, “I have had six orgasms since I saw you last night, and that has to count for something.”

I’d just
thought
Ava was shrieking before.

“Six? Six? That man give you six orgasms? Where he staying? What his room number?”

I threw a handful of shaving cream at her, then switched legs. “I’m considering never letting the two of you meet again.”

“What you doing here, then? Hurry, hurry.”

“So, now that you know what the emergency is, could you please help me pack a just-in-case overnight bag and quit badgering me?”

“I got just the thing for you to wear,” she said, and sprinted out of the room, muttering, “I never had six. Six? Six?”

I finished my shower and threw on a robe, then packed overnight essentials and padded wet-footed into my bedroom. Ava had already thrown every garment I owned onto my bed, and most of her stuff, too. Poco Oso was running in and out of the closet, feeding off the excitement in the air. Ava rattled off outfit advice that was nearly as worthless as Oso’s help.

“This one work real well for me,” she said, holding up a black mesh body stocking. I shook my head violently. She shrugged, wadded it in a ball, and tossed it toward her room. It landed ten feet short of her door.

I held up a zebra tube top and shirred black satin miniskirt accusingly. “I couldn’t pull this off in a million years. On you, it shoots sparks. On me, it’s just awkward.”

She harrumphed and threw it on the floor. By the time we’d agreed on my clothes and sleepwear, my canvas overnight bag was bulging. I’d have to hide it in the toolbox, as it screamed “desperate woman making premature assumptions.”

I slipped on my favorite pair of tan linen shorts and a lime-green tank and looked around my room. I felt like I was forgetting something. I patted my pockets. No keys. I went to my bedside table and grabbed the spares.

My phone dinged with a text. Nick. “Ready when you are. Hurry back.” My heart fluttered like a new butterfly with wings heavy and wet, hopeful, vulnerable. I prayed we were done with the sister-mama drama as I stuffed my bathroom case in the top of my bag and slung the straps over my shoulder.

Ava stood in the doorway and studied her long French-manicured nails. “Try not to run into Bart. He may be more upset than I tell you earlier.”

I stood at the door with my suitcase and my dog. “Be a pal. Let me live in denial.”

“All right. Hey, before you go, I met a man last night. He a big-shot music producer, new on island. I invite him to our gig this weekend. So don’t bail on me.”

“We be gigging. I be seeing you later.”

She narrowed her eyes and jutted her chin. “Be careful, now.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I gave her a smacky kiss on the cheek and headed out the door. I stuffed my bag into the toolbox then got inside to un-hotwire the truck.

After I reconnected the wires and steering column cover and turned the spare key, the truck started with a powerful roar. I kind of hated using keys anymore. It felt so safe and boring, although it occurred to me that Ava and I really should change our locks if my house keys didn’t show up soon. I’d have to call Rashidi later and ask him to keep an eye out for them. I hit speed dial for Emily, and drove as fast as I dared.

“Hello?” A three-syllable word, ending in oh-oh. So Emily.

“He’s here.”

“You’re gonna have to do better than that.” Emily’s voice was so loud that I moved the phone an inch away from my ear.

“He’s here and it’s awesome.”

“Thank GAWD,” she said. “I was having second thoughts, but the horse was already out of the barn.”

“It’s going to be OK. Bart is pissed, though.”

“I expect he is. But I wouldn’t have told Nick where you were if I didn’t think he was for real. Still, you be careful.”

Ava first, and now Emily? I needed a sign around my neck that said, “I have it together, really.”

“Love you, Emily. Gotta go.”

“Love you, too.”

We hung up. I really missed that woman. Ava was my best on-island friend, but Emily was my bestest best friend in the world.

I pulled into the Reef’s parking lot and found a spot outside Nick’s oceanside room, right up next to the hibiscus and under one of the coconut palms that ringed the pink stucco hotel. Pink stucco against blue ocean always works.

I strolled toward Nick’s room, trying for nonchalance, but my heart was jackhammering. Less than twenty-four hours ago I had thought I’d never see this man again, and that he liked it that way. Was I supposed to play it cool now, or give in to my urge to leap into his arms and wrap my legs around his waist?

Nick opened the door. I smiled, but it felt stiff on my face. I tried again.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hey, beautiful,” he replied. He leaned toward me and kissed my cheek. “And you smell good.”

“You do, too.” I huffed his scent. Heady stuff. “You really, really do.”

I’m not sure how it started, but at some point I realized that I was totally making out with Nick in broad daylight, and that my hands were desperately seeking skin. My God, I was a cat in heat.

Suddenly my peripheral vision caught unexpected movement in the parking lot and prickles raced up my neck. I peeled myself off of Nick over his mumbled protests and searched out the source. Nick followed my gaze and our eyes settled on a black Pathfinder.

“Looks like your boyfriend’s car,” he said.

It was definitely Bart’s car. He wasn’t in it, but the movement I’d seen had come from that direction.

“Ex-
sort-of
-boyfriend,” I said. I tried not to move my head as I cast panicked glances far and wide. I didn’t see him. Maybe he was here on restaurant business. A girl could hope.

And then I realized I had forgotten to ask about Nick’s sister and nephew. He was going to think I was completely self-absorbed. Make that still completely self-absorbed. I hoped I’d come a long way since the days of shopping Neiman Marcus at lunch and drinking my free time away, but even the thought of that old Katie brought back feelings of deep humiliation. I would not be her.

I put my hand on his chest. “How’s your sister?” I asked. “Are she and the baby OK?”

He put his hand over mine and curled his fingers around it. “She’s at the police department and a buddy of mine is helping her with a protective order.”

“Did they get Derek?”

“No, he was gone by the time the cops arrived. My friend is taking her to stay in a hotel until I get home.”

“I’m glad. Derek sounds scary.”

“He is. He really is.”

“Do you need to be there, Nick?” I said it because I needed to. I tried to sound sincere.

He shook his head vigorously. “No, my friend has it under control. I need to be here.” He held up his phone and turned it off. “With a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.”

Meow. Time for lucky number seven.

By the next morning, I was at the point where Nick could practically just look at me and I’d have to add one to my running total, and I’d completely lost count of what number we were on.

We ordered room service early—for some reason I was ravenously hungry, God
knows
why—and then dressed for the day. Three cheers for the just-in-case bag. We brushed our teeth side by side in the bathroom and Nick retrieved a bottle of Estee Lauder moisturizer from the depths of his shaving kit. I took it from him and raised my eyebrows.

He shrugged. “Years of surfing with no sunscreen.”

“Kind of a girly brand, isn’t it?”

“Show me where it says ‘for women only.’” He held it out for my inspection. “Just because I’m a man shouldn’t mean I can’t use the good stuff. And you weren’t calling me girly an hour ago.”

Good point. “Here, let me put it on for you.”

I stood nose to nose with him and massaged the lotion into his face. His eyes closed. I kissed each temple, his nose, his chin, his forehead.

“You are the perfect woman, you know.”

“And it only took you this long to notice.”

He swiped his nose against mine Eskimo-style, then grabbed a hibiscus blossom from the bowl on the bathroom counter. He smoothed my hair behind my ear with one hand and slipped the hibiscus behind it with the other. My heart thudded in my ears. I didn’t ever want to leave that room, but we had to check out soon. Our plan was to visit Annalise in the daylight before grabbing lunch at the must-see Pig Bar, where Local swine guzzled nonalcoholic beer. Then we’d head to the airport at the last possible second to make it in time for his midafternoon flight. After that, there was no plan, and I didn’t want to think about it.

Nick walked back into the room and packed his bag while I unfolded the
St. Marcos Source
that had come with our breakfast. The headline read “Police Rule Fortuna’s Death Bad Luck.” Apparently, they theorized, Tarah Gant had slipped and hit her head in some freak-accident way when she was closing things up the night before she was found. I cringed and read further. “Ms. Gant’s family expressed outrage at the quick closure of the case. ‘Something not right about how Tarah die. Her baby’s daddy fight dogs, bring the wrong kind of people dem around. Police not even questioning him. She deserve justice.’ Bart Lassiter, executive chef and one of the owners of Fortuna’s, declined to comment other than to wish the family and friends of Ms. Gant his condolences.” The overwrought “family” quote had Jackie written all over it. I was glad to disassociate from the whole scene.

“You ready?” Nick asked.

I dropped the paper. To leave this room, and him? Never. But I said, “I am.”

He opened the door and I crept out into the sun, blinking like a mole. We walked to the truck and Nick threw his bag in the back. I got in the driver’s seat, where a surprise was waiting for me: a single red rose tied with a white ribbon. I picked it up and the sharp thorns bit into my flesh. “Ow,” I said as Nick got into the passenger side.

“What is it?”

I held the flower out to him and he took it. “I had a visitor.” I turned on the ignition.

“Didn’t you lock the doors?” He rolled down the window and tossed it out, his jaw set.

Had I? I thought so. But I’d never given Bart keys. “I must not have.”

“I’m becoming less fond of Bart,” Nick said.

I felt guilty and a little sorry for Bart. Breaking up is a bitch, and even bitchier if you’re the one being broken up with.

Nick reached for my hand. “I can understand why he wouldn’t want to let you go.”

I sure wished he would, though.

We talked all the way from the Reef to Annalise, stopping by Ava’s house – she wasn’t home – to pick up Oso on the way. I told Nick more about Annalise and the spirit that had lured me out of my old life and into this new one. “Tell me the truth. Do you think I’m nuts?”

I twisted my hair around my finger and remembered how I used to get my finger stuck in it. My mother’s scolding echoed in my mind: “If you need something to do with your hands, put them to work, but get them out of your hair, Katie Connell.” Unfortunately, I had no work to put one of them to.

Well, I could . . .

But even thinking about that made me blush.

Nick’s answer pulled me out of the rabbit hole I had fallen into, and surprised me. “Nope. I believe there’s more out there than we can pick up with our five senses. Maybe it’s because I grew up near the water. It gives you a sense of this incredible power, of the existence of things we can’t see.” He gave my hand a squeeze. “Like mini tornadoes in the middle of the night on a back porch. Or identical dreams of palm readers.”

“Exactly.” God, I loved that man. As we drove up the center-island road on the edge of Town, I pulled the truck to a stop to let a line of schoolchildren march across the road to their bus stop, a row of daffodils in yellow shirts and green skirts and shorts. “I want to hear more about your business. What do you call it?”

“Remember I told you about my college band?”

“Stingray?”

“Right. I named the company Stingray Investigations, like a sting operation and as a nod to the other me. People seem to like it and remember it.”

“That’s brilliant.” A passing truck honked at me. It was one of my contractors. I honked back like a Local.

“Thanks,” Nick said. “My work is internet intensive—well, that and phone—and I can do most of it from anywhere. My assistant, LuLu, is trustworthy, and even better, likes being trusted with responsibility. Our offices are modest and we have low overhead, which has been key. It took a lot of careful planning, but it’s working out.”

“I’ll bet you planned for half an eternity,” I said, and punched him lightly on the arm.

“Hey, I think things through. When the situation demands action, I act.”

“I just wish you’d acted a little sooner about us.”

“Well, you did tell me I was a foolish boy for thinking you would be interested in me last time I saw you.”

I scrunched my face. “I don’t think I called you a foolish boy, but point taken.” I changed lanes to avoid a rooster escorting two hens across the road and was careful to avoid the goats grazing on the other side.

He laughed and shook his head. “Unfortunately, there’s a difference between emotions and emergencies for me.”

Not to me, there isn’t, I thought. Oh, well. “You’re here now.”

“I am. And I’m sorry. I wish I had gotten here faster.”

We drove up the last section of winding road toward Annalise. Tarzan vines hung from the branches of the trees that grew over us in a closed canopy. Elephant ears climbed their trunks. The vines knocked into my windshield in a crazy drum solo as we drove under them. I turned in the gate and we passed through a forest of towering mango and soursop trees with avocado and papaya trees in their shade. Passion fruit vines crawled up the tree trunks.

“This is like something out of a movie,” Nick said, shaking his head, a smile growing on his lips. He rolled down his window and we breathed in the scents of bay leaves and fermenting mangoes. The smell was intoxicating.

We pulled up the driveway between the bright beds of crotons I’d planted the week before. The bushes alternated orange and yellow, then pink and green, one after another. In the center of the beds by the kitchen window stood my new little banana tree. I parked beside Crazy’s multi-colored pick-up truck, which was behind Rashidi’s Jeep.

“Look,” I said, pointing to the base of the tree. A green iguana stood there chewing, like I’d posed him.

“That’s so cool,” Nick said.

We hopped out, and so did Oso. The other dogs clustered around to inspect him. Crazy, also known as Grove or William Wingrove, was stalking around behind his workers, hurling abuse at them in a way no continental ever could have gotten away with. I shouted a greeting and he walked over to us. If Crazy found it odd that I was holding hands with someone new, he didn’t say anything, for which I was grateful. I made introductions.

Crazy wiped his dusty hand on his jeans and stuck it out. “Good morning.”

Nick shook Crazy’s hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

Crazy shook his head. “Only Mrs. Wingrove call me sir. Crazy will do.” He turned to me. “Railings dem going up on balconies today. Gonna finish the kitchen, too. Three weeks, Ms. Katie, three weeks.”

“Thanks, Crazy. That’s great. Hey, you haven’t seen my keys, have you? I might have lost them here last night.”

“No, but I tell men dem. We all watch for them.” He went back to berating his crew.

Rather than retrace our steps from the pitch-dark tour through the side door the night before, I wanted to start Nick at the front of the house. He looped his arm around my shoulders and squeezed me as we made our way there. I slipped my arm around his waist. We fit together so perfectly that I moved carefully so as not to break the connection. We stayed melded together as we walked up the stone and red-paver steps.

The front entrance was regal, with island-traditional mahogany double doors that I had commissioned from a local carpenter. A mahogany-framed hurricane-proof window crowned the entrance. I stopped at the top step and slipped out of Nick’s arms so I could press my face against the pillar and breathe in the air. The trade winds were blowing briskly from the east and the sun-drenched porch felt almost cold. Nick leaned into me from behind with his arms raised over our heads and pressed his hands and face to the pillar as well.

“She’s magnificent.”

At his words, I felt a soundless hum. Annalise. Hopefully it meant she would be a supportive friend, rather than a jealous lover. “She likes you, too.”

Nick turned his face so his mouth touched my ear. “I’m glad. Very, very glad.” The current from the house was growing so strong that my body vibrated. “I can feel her through you,” he whispered.

Damn.

“Ms. Katie, where you want to put the—oh, didn’t mean to interrupt, sorry,” Crazy said, coming through the front door.

Reluctantly, I peeled myself out from between the pillar and Nick. I was out of breath and pretty certain I was flushed, but I was too high on the experience to care.

Crazy stared at me, then said, “No rush. I talk to you later,” and walked back into the house.

Nick lifted my hair and kissed the nape of my neck. “I don’t think he’s going to look you in the eye for a week.”

I opened the door and we stepped into the foyer. Our voices laughing together filled the high ceiling, making a new sound altogether, like an enchantment. Adding Nick to the chemistry with Annalise was magical so far.

I steered him left. “Office, with great views.” We went to the south window to look out on the stone ruins of the sugar mill for a few minutes until I led him out the other side of the office to the next room, a half bath. “Company potty, sans actual potty.”

“Details,” Nick said, and winked. We walked back to the master bedroom, painted a cool mud-mask green. He grinned. “I recognize this room.” It was the most completed room in the house, except for the kitchen. Nick marveled at the compact bathroom. “What a good use of space.”

“I couldn’t move the walls, so I did the best I could with the footprint I had,” I said, standing with my hands on the edge of my beloved six-foot-long claw-footed jet tub. “The tub was too expensive and takes up too much space, but I love it, so I left everything really open to make up for it.”

“I think it was a great purchase. Full of possibilities.”

I could think of a few myself, possibilities that had never occurred to me with Bart. But Nick? Hubba hubba.

“Come see my closet,” I said, and took him by the hand.

I had made a dressing room and closet out of a long rectangular space that, oddly, was open to windows all along one side. I’d install curtains soon. I didn’t know what the original builder had planned to do with it, but I liked the idea of choosing my clothes in natural light.

“What’s this hole?” he asked, pointing to the base of a corner.

I knelt down to look. A five-inch-square hole three inches deep marred the surface of the wall. It looked like someone had chiseled it out with a screwdriver. “How strange. I have no idea. I’ll have to ask Crazy.”

I stood and brushed the concrete dust off my knees. We left the master suite, and I walked to the center of the great room and tried to paint a picture of the original Annalise for him. “Except for the tongue-in-groove cypress and mahogany ceilings, it was all concrete. And really dirty. Imagine a whole lot of poo. Horse, bat, insect, you name it.”

“I can’t believe you came in here, much less bought her.”

I laughed. “It has been difficult at times.”

He looked over my shoulder into the kitchen, then walked in and grabbed a box of Clorox Wipes off the brown and green granite countertop. “I knew I’d find these somewhere in here, Helen,” he said.

Helen, as in Helen of Troy. My heart felt like it would explode with happy.

“Busted,” I said, then, “Good morning,” to the three men installing my new stainless steel appliances. In the islands, it’s customary to call out a greeting upon entering a room, or even just a building.

“Good morning, miss,” they rang back in chorus.

“You sound like an island girl,” Nick said.

“Yah mon,” I replied. “Except that Rashidi and Ava would beg to differ.” I stood in the center of the action in the kitchen admiring the subzero refrigerator. “Looks great, guys,” I said.

“Thanks, miss. We working hard, so tell Crazy, now,” one said.

“I will, Egg.” I really liked Egbert. He’d been the only bright spot of working with my original contractor, Junior, whom I’d had to fire after less than a week. Luckily, Crazy picked up Egg for his crew. Unluckily, Junior still claimed I owed him money. I disagreed.

Nick turned around in a circle, taking in the details of the cherry cabinetry and the gaps where appliances would soon be installed. He stopped. “I want to get my hands on her. I want to be part of this.”

Jealousy tugged at me when I realized he was referring to Annalise. “We want to let you.” I was referring to her and me. “She was abandoned, you know. The old owner is in prison. I think she likes all the attention now.”