Shadowed Paradise (31 page)

The door opened. Laughter. “Out of my way,”
called a young female voice. “I’ve had to pee since halfway through
the movie.”

“
Don’t you just love Johnny Depp, even
if he’s
old
?” declared a
second voice, equally young.

Claire’s legs wobbled, collapsed. Somehow she
managed a creditable landing on both feet. Gathering her
belongings, she moved out of the stall, slowly washing her hands
until the two teenage girls came out of their stalls. When the
girls left, Claire was dogging their heels.

Jet-propelled
imagination
, Brad had said. But it wasn’t. Someone had
been there. Someone with big feet. Someone who had not planned to
use the ladies’ room for its intended purpose.

She had been stalked.

By whom?

And why?

Much as it hurt to admit it, this time he’d
been the fool. He’d caught a glimpse of her, and temptation had
overwhelmed him. There was Little Miss Bitch licking a fucking ice
cream cone while Mom’s cross was sitting in a plastic bag on a
shelf in the evidence room in the goddamned sheriff’s office. It
was all her fault. The cross should have stayed out there under the
pines. Mom liked pines. No one should have found it. Moved it.

So he’d followed her. Watched while she
bought out that artsy fartsy store. Nothing ordinary for lil’ Ms.
Upper East Side. No way. Nothing but the best for the little whore
who stole Mom’s cross. Blue’s whore, that’s what she was.

He’d had time to think about it, and now he
knew. Finding Mom’s cross was the beginning of the end. Fucking
bitch. It was all her fault. He had sinned, and God was going to
punish him. And he knew whose hand had been picked to smite him
down.

But first, he’d have his revenge. He wouldn’t
go down alone.

No way. He wanted company in hell.

“
Some women have big feet. And wear
designer sneakers,” Brad pointed out later that night. Once again
they were on the living room sofa at Palm Court, and he was holding
Claire’s hand, the intensity of his piercing blue eyes demanding
that she recall every detail of the incident at the
mall.

“
They were
men’s
feet,
men’s
sneakers,” Claire insisted, lower lip protruding defiantly.
“It wasn’t imagination. I know what I saw.”

She hadn’t breathed a word of the incident at
home. Ginny Bentley had no reason to suspect that her
granddaughter’s dash to the car after tucking Jamie in bed was
precipitated by anything other than romance.

Brad, large, confident and totally
male, gave Claire’s hand a comforting squeeze. And yet, there was
something so damnably . . .
superior
about his cool assessment of the incident. As if she were one
of those stupid little women in old fifties movies who were
constantly being patronized by boyfriends, husbands, fathers. Of
course the women were always shrieking, crying, or wringing their
hands. Their pioneer ancestors must have been turning in their
graves. Claire was not about to become one of them.

Of course the incident
was
incredible. Fantastic. She could
scarcely blame Brad for wondering if it were all a figment of her
imagination. “I suppose,” she ventured, the words creeping out with
reluctance, “it could have been someone coming in to
clean.”

“
Did
he
clean?”

“
No.” Perhaps Brad wasn’t as skeptical
as she’d thought.

“
You say the restroom sign was pretty
obscure. What about the door logos—those cute little pictures?
Could your stalker be some poor guy who got into the Ladies by
mistake?”

“
Oh, my God,” Claire cried, relieved
and horribly embarrassed. “I never thought of that. Of course! It’s
entirely possible.”

And yet, Brad reasoned, any man would have
instantly spotted the lack of urinals and been out of there in a
flash. He wouldn’t have walked up and down in front of the stalls.
Or rattled the bolt of the only closed door.

Brad’s silence gave him away. “You don’t
think that was it, do you?” Claire inquired in a very small
voice.

“
Afraid not.”

“
Do you . . . do you think it was . . .
?” Claire shook her head, ducking away from Brad’s thumb, which had
begun to trace the fullness of her lips. “No, it couldn’t be. It
wouldn’t make sense.”

“
It might be helpful if
you
made a little sense,” Brad
suggested dryly.

“
I know this is silly,” Claire mused,
her brain off and running in high gear. “I’m not a Realtor, but
I
am
in real estate. You don’t
suppose . . . not in a mall full of people . . . I mean, surely it
couldn’t be . . .
him
?”

“
You know, you’re cute when you’re
incoherent,” Brad said, ruffling her hair, then tucking an errant
strand behind her ear. “What’s happened to my sharp-as-a-tack city
slicker?” And yet Claire was absolutely right. If the killer was
from Golden Beach . . . if he was someone they knew, he could have
recognized her.

Or the faceless man in sneakers could have
been some totally different nut case out for a fast fuck in the
exciting danger of a Sunday afternoon crowd.

No way. Nobody was that crazy. Someone
could have walked into the ladies’ room at any moment.
Someone
had
walked in. (And
surely there was a God). Supposing worst case, what had been so
urgent that the killer made a move in a place as public as a
shopping mall? What could have set him off?

The bastard recognized her. Knew her.

Knew she worked in real estate? Wanted her in
the same way he had wanted the others? But the others had all been
isolated. The s.o.b. had taken great care to stay away from
witnesses. So why this? Why now?

It had to be someone else. Not a killer or a
rapist, but some random perv, probably harmless, getting his
jollies out of scaring a woman witless. Unless . . .

Unless—there it was again—unless the killer
wanted Claire. Personally.

Shit!

Brad wanted to reassure her, tell all the
right lies, but the words stuck to his tongue. No matter how slim
the facts, his gut said she was in danger. He gathered Claire into
his arms and hung on, cupping her head into his shoulder.

It was a long time before Brad rose to his
feet, pulling Claire up with him. She was still tucked into his
side, his arm tightly around her shoulders as they mounted the
stairs.

“
South Bridge, South Bridge, this is
the
Lori
, southbound,
requesting bridge opening. Over.” Garrett Whitlaw spoke into the
small round microphone he was holding in the palm of one hand while
he steered with the other. Keeping his face averted from his
companion, he grimaced as he heard his own words. Only a damned old
fool like himself would use a boat named after his wife to take out
another woman. What the hell was a man to do? Short of the
vulgarity of dragging Phil to some obscure motel, he hadn’t been
able to think of a way to be alone with her. And thought of an
intimate evening interrupted by one of his children pounding on the
condo door was enough to curdle his blood.

“
Lori
, this is
South Bridge,” the speaker crackled. “Hold for traffic.”

Garrett swiftly powered down the twin diesels
to idling speed and waited. “I can’t believe it,” Phil Tierney
mocked from the tall swivel stool beside him. “I thought you fat
cat boater types always got the right of way.”

The wail of a siren echoed through the early
evening air. In a flurry of flashing red lights, an ambulance
streaked across the bridge and disappeared in the direction of the
hospital. “That explains it,” Phil said. “I’m delighted to know
that some poor soul is going to make it to the emergency room
without being held up so we wealthy types can cruise on without
interruption.”

“
You know,” Garrett drawled, “I always
wondered about the Blue family. Maybe they were commies after all
and some of it rubbed off on you.”

Except for a pained groan, Phil ignored the
bait. She knew, perhaps better than anyone, just how fond Garrett
Whitlaw was of his colorful nephew.

A siren sounded on a different note—the
warning that the drawbridge was about to open. On each side of the
bridge stoplights turned red, steel gates swung down. Disgruntled
drivers prepared to endure the long wait. Garrett powered up while
the bridge was still making its slow ascent and headed the
forty-five-foot cruiser straight at the center of the channel. In a
matter of minutes they were past the bridge and the rocky
revetments along the man-made portion of the waterway and into the
serene and scenic beauty of the nearly landlocked bay south of
Golden Beach.

To their right, close to the channel, was the
narrow sandy stretch of the barrier island, a mix of sea grass,
palmetto and palms, the rise of the bank barricaded by a dark green
border of mangroves. To their left, the bay widened to include
small islands, overgrown with mangroves whose gnarled limbs were
frequently covered with birds—seagulls, heron and egrets. Phil
gasped as a dolphin broke the surface, frisking alongisde the
cruiser.

“
Keep watching,” Garrett instructed.
“He’ll come up again.” Suddenly embarrassed, Garrett clamped his
jaws shut. Who was he, to instruct Phil Tierney in the habits of
dolphins? She too had lived here all her life.

So this is what it’s all about, Phil thought,
recalling all the people she had steered toward the good life in
this particular corner of paradise. And yet, when was the last time
she had been on a boat, seen a dolphin, taken the time to look
around her? Years, hissed the rusty voice of reflection. Years and
years and years. Real estate was a twenty-four/seven job. Phil
Tierney sold paradise. She didn’t live it.

“
That’s Ginny Bentley’s house,” Garret
said, pointing across the shallow bay to the imposing white Key
West with its large square cupola rising above the surrounding
trees.

“
Today was Claire’s last day,” Phil
said, her voice carefully neutral. “She’s going to sit Brad’s
models.”

“
I heard. Not the best timing, is
it?”

“
I understand Brad’s taking
extraordinary security precautions. Claire’s going to be wrapped up
like a mummy. She’ll be lucky if Brad doesn’t hedge her about so
much he scares the customers off.”

“
Do you mind?” They were both well
aware that Garrett wasn’t asking about T & T losing its
marketing specialist.

“
Brad and I will probably always be
best friends,” Phil admitted, “unless Claire slits my throat. But
I’m the one who walked out. I’m the one who wasn’t there when he
came back from whatever godawful mission he was on that time. I’m
the one who had an opportunity to take over daddy’s business, and I
didn’t say no. Until that moment I thought I was a starry-eyed kid
content with all the traditional goals, and then . . . then I
discovered I wasn’t. I leaped at something that required all my
time and attention. I loved Brad to distraction . . . and found it
wasn’t enough. I couldn’t just sit around all day wondering what
was happening to him. I guess . . . I guess, as a human being, you
could say I failed the test.”

“
It was a long time ago,” Garrett
assured her, thoroughly regretting he had to keep his hands on the
wheel. “You’ve both mellowed since then.” For a moment he seemed to
give his attention to a heron’s nest perched precariously on top of
a tall channel marker. “I thought . . .” he added cautiously, “I
thought when Brad came back you two might get together
again.”

“
Claire will be perfect for him,” Phil
said. “She’s independent, but not cursed with my driving ambition.
She’ll fight Brad, but not all the time. And in the end . . . in
the end she’ll let him win. I was never any good at
that.”

Damn!
Garrett
still couldn’t tell if, deep down, she still wanted Brad. He
powered down and, keeping an eagle eye on his depth gauge, nosed
the
Lori
out of the main
channel. When they were in a sheltered area behind one of the
mangrove islands, he told Phil to take the wheel and keep the
cruiser steady while he tossed in the bow anchor. Later, as he
popped a champagne cork and poured the sparkling bubbles into the
two glasses that had come with the elaborate picnic he had ordered
from Golden Beach’s finest caterer, Garrett began to feel more
cheerful. He’d done it. He’d gotten Phil to himself. Far enough
away from the world so he could actually talk to her. Of course he
might have to throw her cell phone over the side. And
his.

“
There was a nasty scene today,” Phil
confided as she opened a container of caviar. “Diane Lake showed up
at the office. I don’t understand that woman. Brad broke with her
before he started dating Claire, and she just won’t accept it.
She’s been calling him almost constantly. And yet I’ve heard she
goes through men like a shark through a school of fish. She’s left
a trail of bruised egos, if not broken hearts, through three
counties, so what’s she so exercised about just because the shoe’s
on the other foot?”

“
That’s just it. She’s not in control.
You ought to recognize that,” Garrett said, biting his tongue the
minute the words escaped his mouth. He was a politician, for God’s
sake, rapidly developing a reputation as a negotiator, a man of
sound common sense. Women were a menace. They could make any man
play the fool.