The Daughter-in-Law (13 page)

But then she heard it again, and this time it seemed closer, as if someone was quietly paddling up to the beach. She nudged Jonathan.

“Someone’s coming,” she whispered. He snorted and turned. “Jonathan, there’s someone out there.”

“Can’t be,” he mumbled. “There’s no one else on the island.” He had answered without really waking up.

She slipped out from under the sheet, found her T-shirt on the floor and raised it over her head. Another sound, this time like something sliding over the sand. She let the T-shirt fall over her shoulders and pulled it down as she stood.

There was moonlight, not bright and full, but certainly enough to set the water sparkling and draw the outline of the beach and dock. If anything were there, she certainly would have seen it. She stepped off the porch and out onto the sand. From her new vantage, she could look up and down the beach. There was nothing but the curve of the sand, marked with a tiny line of surf and disappearing into the mangroves at each end. Whatever she thought she had heard wasn’t there. Nicole walked out on the dock to check the lines on their powerboat. It was tied securely and floating easily. She turned back to the cottage, scanned once more to reaffirm that
she had heard nothing out of the ordinary, and then stepped through the front door.

A hand whistled through the air toward her face. She sensed the motion just in time to flinch, and the fist ricocheted off her forehead. She fell against the doorjamb and tried to scream, but another hand clutched her throat. A form stepped from behind the door, grabbed her flailing arm and twisted it up behind her back. As she twisted away from the grip on her neck she was able to get out a muffled scream. Then she was flying, hurled by a powerful force through the open doorway and out onto the deck. She landed on her face and felt the air rush out of her body. She tried to pick herself up but before she could move she was kicked. From the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of black legs with bare feet. The foot rose and slammed down on her back pinning her to the deck. And then her arms were pulled over her head and she was being dragged. She managed another scream, this time loud and long. Then she was hit again, now on the side of her head. Her vision faded and her mind went blank.

There were sounds. Someone running, perhaps two people. Then Jonathan’s voice shouting. She felt herself being lifted, then dragged. Jonathan was saying something. Then the darkness washed over her again.

It was still dark when she awoke, alone in her bed. There was a cloth across her face, ice cold and dripping water down onto her neck. Outside, Jonathan seemed to be yelling. Then there were other voices. She sat up just as her husband came through the door. Two men in white shirtsleeves followed. Jonathan came to one side of the bed, and the two men went to the other.

Jonathan took the wet cloth from her and carefully brushed back the hair that was matted to her forehead. “These men are police officers from San Pedro Town. They’ve been checking the beach and the mangroves. There’s nobody here. You’re perfectly safe.”

“We’ll just stay on guard,” one of them said in English that was only slightly accented. “The detectives will come from the city.”

Nicole nodded and smiled. She was grateful that they were going to let her get back to sleep.

She was up in the morning, dressed in shorts and a blouse, with just a few bruises on her forehead to show for her ordeal, when the detective arrived. She sat on the sofa, her husband at her side, while the mustached officer made himself comfortable in an open chair. He wore a jacket over an open collar. The rental agent, in slacks and a golf shirt, sat off to one side. Both men listened without interrupting to every detail she could remember, and then the police officer asked Jonathan for his thoughts on the attack.

“I heard nothing. My wife says she woke me and that I spoke to her, but I honestly don’t remember.” He glanced at Nicole. “I’m sorry, hon. I wish to God you had poked me or something.” Then he went on, “I heard Nicole scream, and I jumped up. There was a commotion out on the porch, and I yelled that I was coming. When I got to the doorway, Nicole was lying on the deck. Not so much lying as down on all fours. There was a man—a black man—running away.”

He described a big man, tall and muscular, dressed in shorts and maybe an undershirt. Because of the darkness, he couldn’t provide a detailed description. No, he regretted, he certainly couldn’t pick the man out of a lineup.

“Neither of you got a look at him?” the detective asked. Nicole repeated that she was on the ground before he had emerged from the darkness inside the cottage. Jonathan had been more concerned with tending to his wife.

“Did you see a boat? Did you see him leave the island?” Nicole hadn’t. She had been in a daze, maybe even unconscious. Jonathan had been busy carrying her inside. His first thought had been to get the police. He had used the small radio that had come with the house to contact the rental agent. He was amazed at how quickly the police had come. “If he was in a boat rowing back to Ambergris Cay, then the police boat went right by him.”

The officer went back to Nicole’s story. If she had heard something outside, why had she gone out?

“I don’t know. I looked first to be sure no one was there. Then I thought the boat might be breaking loose so I went out to check on it. I suppose when I didn’t see anyone I thought that everything was all right.”

“In your nightshirt?”

“Yes. Well, we have the island to ourselves. At least, I thought we did . . .”

“And you say there was enough moonlight so that you could see the beach and the water from your doorway? Even the dock?”

“Yes. Not enough to identify someone. But certainly enough to know if somewhere was there.”

“So, then the man who was inside your house could have seen you out on the beach and even out on the dock?”

“I suppose so,” Nicole answered.

The man wrote in his notepad, moving his lips slightly with each word. Jonathan took Nicole’s hand and squeezed it.

“Have there been other intruders out at these cottages?” Jonathan asked the rental agent.

“No, never ...” The officer glanced over at him. “Well, yes,” the agent corrected himself. “But it was a long time ago. More than a year. Burglars came out while the guests were touring over on the mainland. They took money and jewelry. It was just a petty theft. No one—”

The detective didn’t wait for the man to finish. “Is it possible that someone down here would want to harm you?” he asked Nicole.

“Me? I don’t know anyone down here.”

He repeated the question to Jonathan who said that he had made very few contacts in Belize.

“May I ask if either of you work for a large company? Could you be a key executive? Or an owner? In some way connected with a large amount of money?”

Jonathan’s eyes widened. “Well, yes, I suppose so.” He explained his relationship to Sound Holdings. While he was talking, he realized the direction that the interrogation was taking. “You think this may have been a kidnap attempt?”

“No. I have no idea. I’m just looking at everything.”

But, as he explained, the evidence was confusing. The intruder seemed to have come in an inflatable boat, a fairly large one judging by the drag marks at the end of the beach. He had pulled the boat up against the mangrove where it couldn’t be seen and then made his way through the edge of the underbrush around to the side of the house. Up until then, he was just a thief trying to take a wallet from a night table or jewelry from a dresser.

He had apparently entered from the shower room, which was outside the cottage and connected to the bathroom. Since Nicole
was awake, it was unlikely he had gotten into the house while she was still inside. In all probability he entered while she was on the beach or walking out on the dock. Jonathan was asleep, his wallet on the dresser along with Nicole’s diamond ring. “A burglar would have had that stuff in his pocket and been back outside in a split second,” the officer reasoned. “I mean, if he came for money, then he could have had what he came for.”

“How do you know all this?” Nicole asked.

“Because the man was wet and sandy coming in from the beach. He left tracks on the wooden floor, which the first police to arrive noted. According to the sandy footprints, the intruder hadn’t entered the bedroom.”

Then there was the question of the moonlight. The man could have seen Nicole coming back across the beach, obviously to the porch and front door. So then why wouldn’t he have retraced his steps back through the bathroom and made his escape into the mangrove underbrush? Instead he waited inside the front door for Nicole to return, where he surprised her and dragged her back outside. “Suppose his punch had knocked you out. He could have had you over his shoulder without a sound, and carried you to his boat.”

The rental agent was shocked by the possibilities being discussed. All his clients were wealthy Americans and Europeans. He couldn’t have the island cottages portrayed as the ideal place for a kidnapping. He protested vigorously. “It makes no sense. If the intruder wanted to kidnap the lady, he would have taken her right from the dock.”

The officer shrugged. “Just walk after her on a moonlit beach? She certainly would have fled him and screamed for her husband.”

In the end, nothing was certain. The police would, of course, make inquiries. They would round up the usual suspects. But in the meantime, it might be good for the honeymooners to exercise a bit of caution. Join with other groups for diving. Lock their doors at night. The police would keep an eye out, but that really wasn’t very helpful when they didn’t know what they were looking for. Maybe the booking agent should consider hiring a security guard.

Jonathan vetoed the idea. They wanted privacy, not company. He was sure that the whole affair was simply a botched burglary.

Nicole went along with him, but she wasn’t nearly as certain. The memory of being thrown out the door and dragged across the
porch was still with her. She also knew that there were people who might well want to hurt her. Jack Donner, who might send a message if he thought she might be after his money. And Jimmy Farr, who would certainly want to remind her that she still had good reason to be afraid.

They became very cautious. Jonathan bought a revolver that he admitted he didn’t know how to fire, but maybe just the noise would scare off an intruder. It was better than nothing. They took their own boat over to San Pedro Town so they could join with other divers. That way, they wouldn’t be alone when they were cruising out beyond the barrier reef. They planted oil torches out on the beach and lit them at night so they would have no trouble seeing the water’s edge. But because they were on their guard, the freedom of honeymooning on their own tropical island lost its appeal. After two days they moved to one of the resort hotels on Ambergris Cay.

The move helped, but it didn’t really end their anxiety. The sense of violation still hung over them, casting a pall on their pleasure. They found that they could talk of little else. Jonathan tried to make a joke of it. “Can you imagine the poor idiot who kidnapped me and then sent a ransom note to my father?” He roared at the idea, and Nicole found herself smiling. “The guy would want five million to give me back. Jack would make a counter offer—six million if the kidnapper kept me.”

“Hey, I was the one he was dragging out the front door,” Nicole reminded her husband. “What would your father pay to get me back?”

“More than he’d pay for me. You make money. I just spend it.”

The jokes were just a case of whistling in the dark. They were both concerned. Nicole kept wondering if it were really a kidnap attempt. “Do you think that someone might, maybe, just want me dead?”

“Don’t be silly. My parents aren’t killers.”

“I didn’t say your parents ...”

“But that’s who you were thinking of,” Jonathan said, and Nicole didn’t contradict him. “Look, if they wanted to be rid of me they’d just make me head of a startup in Mongolia.”

“That’s you. How would they get rid of me?”

“Maybe an office in Tibet?”

“Be serious. Someone came close to killing me.”

Jonathan sighed. “I am being serious. No one in my family would do anything to hurt you, or get rid of you. That’s not their style. If they wanted you out of my life, they’d just make things very difficult for you. You’d get the message.”

She changed the subject, but only slightly. “Do you think someone might want you dead?”

“Who? One of the women I’ve disappointed? Or some investor who lost his shirt? The people I deal with don’t tend to be violent. At worst, the girls might scratch, and the investor might launch a lawsuit. But hiring a hitman in a foreign country? That’s not something I need to worry about.”

“Well, what then?” Nicole persisted.

“A common thief,” he said. “People who rent islands probably have a lot of money, and by definition, they’re careless with it. We were an obvious mark.”

Nicole shook her head. “The police officer said it didn’t look like an ordinary robbery.”

He sighed in frustration. “Nicole, for God’s sake, the man is the night-duty detective in Belize City. It’s not like he was flown in from Scotland Yard. All he was saying was what the sandy footprints seemed to imply. Hell, they were probably my footprints. You didn’t see them scraping samples into evidence bags.”

But his stance was tainted with the bravado he was putting on for Nicole. He didn’t want her worrying, although he still had anxieties of his own. Either of them could be a mark for kidnappers who would certainly figure that Jack Donner would pay anything to get his son or daughter-in-law back. And, in truth, he had made some serious enemies by both his social arrogance and his business ineptitude. Someone might want to pay him back. Finally, there was his father and mother. If Jack and Alexandra thought that Nicole was interested only in their money, and if she seemed to have cut herself in for a large share, they would come at her from every angle. Jack wouldn’t want her hurt, but he sure as hell wouldn’t hesitate to scare her off.

He found that he was looking around during the day to see if anyone might be taking an interest in them. At night, he quietly made the rounds of his suite to lock all the windows and doors.