Heather Graham Bundle: The Island / Ghost Walk / Killing Kelly / The Vision. Heather Graham
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out here.” He left it at that, but inside he was inordinately pleased that she’d wanted to spend some time with him after all.
She smiled again, then scampered off to change. His heart took a sudden plunge.
It was hard to love someone so much and not smother them with that love.
As he watched his daughter walk away, he felt again the pinpricks that had haunted him in the locker room.
Fear.
Irrational but all too real.
He was scared. And he wasn’t at all certain why.
It just seemed that suddenly a shadow, something dark, had entered his life, stealing away comfort and ease….
He looked up.
The sun was still out, brilliantly shining.
The shadows, he tried to tell himself, were all in his mind.
9
BETH WAS GLAD SHE HAD KEPT her mouth shut about the girls messing with her computer. When she joined her brother and niece out at the pool, she found a number of families engaged in a game of chicken.
Ben, with Amber on his shoulders, was trouncing the opposition. There was a lot of laughter and camaraderie going on. Nice.
She sat on the sidelines, watching, until Amber saw her and waved, then tapped her dad on the top of the head and alerted Ben to her presence, as well.
The competition tried to take advantage of Ben’s distracted state, but Amber turned back, ready to take on the world. Her opponent went down, and Amber laughed delightedly.
Like a child.
Then the two of them, after high-fiving each other in victory, laughed and left the pool, joining Beth on the sidelines.
“Congratulations,” Beth said.
“Thanks,” Amber said. “You’re cool with this, right? Hamburgers okay with you? I’ll go put our orders in. Would you rather have fish, Aunt Beth, or the salad bar?”
Beth shaded her eyes to stare at her niece. “Are you suggesting I should choose the salad bar?”
“No!”
“I’m going to have a hamburger and fries and iced tea,” she told Amber. “Ben?”
“The same.”
Amber nodded, grinned and went off to the counter to order.
Ben stared at his sister. “Dancing?”
“You could learn to dance,” she said defensively. “Salsa, I’ve decided. For a party—‘Summer Sizzler.’”
“I think it’s great,” he assured her. “Summer Sizzler—salsa. What’s not to like?”
“Good.”
“But are you sure that’s all you have in mind?” He leaned closer. “Tell me you’re not still trying to find out more about the Monocos.”
“I happened to see Maria Lopez at lunch. She’s a salsa queen. I spoke with her. It will be fun, good exercise, and Eduardo Shea gave me a great deal, because he thinks some of the members will sign up for dance lessons.”
Ben let out a sigh, shook his head and leaned back in his chair again.
To Beth’s dismay, one of the members, a woman named Tania Whirlque, came over and immediately brought up the same subject.
“Hey, Beth, I hear we’re having a dance workshop at the Sizzler.”
She hadn’t even put the flyers out yet.
“Do you like the idea, Tania?”
“Love it, especially if they’re going to arrange for a few teachers. I’m not so sure I’ll get my husband out on the floor, though.”
“We’ll have to work on the guys,” Beth said.
“You know, when I heard Eduardo Shea’s name, I got thinking about the Monocos,” Tania said. She took a seat next to Beth.
Beth couldn’t keep from casting a slightly guilty glance at Ben. “It seems that no one has heard from them.”
“Quite frankly, I fear the worst.” Tania hesitated. “We have friends from Virginia who lost a boat to pirates.”
“Really? What happened?” Beth asked, all her suspicions on the alert again.
“They were off Chesapeake Bay, in a forty-five-footer by themselves. They were anchored, sunning…I think Betty was cooking dinner. They were attacked by thieves who climbed aboard in dive gear. They thought the divers were in trouble at first, lost…whatever. Anyway, turned out they were armed. While Betty and Sal were being welcoming, the divers pulled knives, forced them overboard and stole the boat.”
“How horrible! But they survived?” Beth said.
“They’re both strong swimmers, and they were able to reach another boat in the area. They called in the Coast Guard, but the thieves got away.”
“When did it happen?” Beth asked.
“About a year ago now. The boat has never been found. But then, you can disguise a boat just like you can disguise a car.”
A year ago. Before the Monocos disappeared.
“Could they describe the…pirates?” Beth asked, finding she still couldn’t quite wrap her mind around such a crazy concept.
“One was male, one was female,” Tania said. “And that’s about it. They both had on wet suits and head covers. I talked to Betty about it. She says when she looks back now, it all happened so fast that she can’t really remember much about the incident. Frankly, she’s just glad to be alive. Where they were…well, even though they’re strong swimmers, they could easily have drowned.”
“The thieves probably meant for them to drown,” Beth murmured.
Ben moved uncomfortably, obviously disturbed. She wondered if it was because of the story Tania had told or because he thought it would fuel her desire to find out the truth about the Monocos.
“Ben is always armed,” Beth said.
“Ben has good reason to be armed—he put away a few unsavory characters when he was with the D.A.,” Tania reminded them. “You’re a crack shot, right?” she asked him.
He nodded grimly. Then he said, “Let’s drop this, please? Amber is coming back with our burgers. I don’t want to scare her.”
Despite the fact that he laughed and teased his daughter as the evening wore on, Beth could see that he remained uneasy.
Finally she realized it was getting late. “I’ve got to go back to my office before I go home. I left my stuff up there. See you tomorrow sometime?”
“Probably. Are you working?”
“For a bit. I usually come in just to see how things are going on the weekends. You know that.”
“Want me to walk you out to the parking lot?”
“You guys have to change, and I’m tired. I just want to go home, and we have a security guard in the parking lot, remember? But thanks. And, Ben, I’m okay—I haven’t gone off the deep end.”
Beth said good-night to Amber, then left, hurried up to her office for her handbag and jacket. After scooping up her things, she turned out the light, and headed downstairs and out the front door.
The club hadn’t completely shut down for the night. The dining room would still be serving until around ten or ten-thirty, and then it would take another hour to an hour and a half to close down completely. And that night, out by the pool, the snack bar was serving late, as well.
There