High Tide Read online

  Fiona wasn’t sure what he was leading up to. This afternoon she’d helped him put sheets on the two ratty old beds in the bedroom, so she knew that he planned to sleep. So what was he trying to tell her now?

  “We’re sleeping together,” he said. “We can’t risk being apart in case … in case someone is out there.”

  “You mean the police? Wouldn’t we have heard them? I mean, don’t they arrive in a fleet of white cars with lights and—”

  “Did you kill Hudson?”

  “Of course I didn’t!”

  “Neither did I,” Ace said. “So that means that whoever did is still out there somewhere. In the morning we get out of here, but now we both need sleep and we need to stay together. We are each other’s alibi.”

  “Great. I can hardly wait to tell the court that I couldn’t have killed Roy because I was in bed with Roy’s other heir.”

  “Why don’t you use that razor tongue of yours on someone else for a while? For now, I want you to get into bed, and we’re both going to get as much sleep as possible. Who knows what tomorrow brings?”

  “It couldn’t be worse than the last two days,” she said as she sat on the edge of the bed, then turned and stretched out. And a Frozen Charlotte doll, with its porcelain torso, arms and legs all one piece, could not have been stiffer than she was.

  When Ace lay down beside her, she didn’t relax one muscle. The bed was narrow and there was one deep dip toward the middle, so their bodies were pressed together along one side.

  “I have a confession to make,” Ace said softly from beside her.

  “What is that?” she asked, and she could hear how nervous her voice sounded.

  “I did kill Roy Hudson.”

  At that Fiona drew her breath in sharply and thought about how she could run. To where? For that matter, from where, since she hadn’t any idea where the hell she was.

  “I killed him just so I could get into bed with you.”

  “What?” Fiona asked as she brought her mind back to the current situation. “You did what?”

  “I planned everything. I planned going to the motel, then the house, then to my uncle’s cabin, all of it, just so I could pounce on you.”

  “Aaaarrrgh,” Fiona groaned. “You are a real jerk, did you know that?” she said; but his joking had made her relax. “The first thing I do when I get out of here is send Miss Lisa Rene Honeycutt a sympathy card.”

  “And I’m sending ol’ Jeremy the lawyer congratulations on finding the last virgin in the country.”

  “Virgin? I’ll have you know that I—” She broke off because she could feel his suppressed laughter; it was shaking his body. “If you think you’re going to get any info out of me about that side of my life, you are mistaken. Now, give me that pillow.”

  For a moment Ace rolled off the bed, and Fiona almost asked if he was coming back. But in seconds he returned, with the pillow from the other bed. “Okay, now let’s get comfortable. In what position do you sleep?”

  The way he asked made it sound almost scientific. “Left side,” she said.

  “Perfect. Me too. Turn over.”

  She did, and the next moment he had snuggled up against the back side of her and his arms went around her. Maybe she should worry, she thought. Maybe she should consider that this man actually had murdered Roy Hudson. But she didn’t think of anything bad, because for the first time in days she felt safe. She snuggled back against him, her head on his arm, and closed her eyes.

  “Not so much wiggling, if you don’t mind,” Ace said sleepily into her hair. “I am human, and you may be skinny, but …” His voice was fading into sleep.

  “But I do have other assets,” she said, and smiling, she drifted into sleep too.

  When Fiona awoke, it was daylight, and at first she couldn’t tell if it was very early or a cloudy day, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. She was lying on her side, and as her eyes began to focus, she saw something scurry across the floor.

  But she didn’t jump. Two days ago she would have leaped up and started screaming, but now she turned onto her other side and tried to go back to sleep. But there was a second pillow beside her, and it had a smell on it that was familiar and strange at the same time.

  Abruptly, her eyes opened, and she lifted her head enough to look about the room. It was not a room that one should look at in daylight. By candlelight it was bad enough, but full morning showed the holes and the dirt and the rot and …

  Where was he? she wondered, frowning, then told herself to calm down. Just because her entire existence depended on this man who was a stranger to her and now he’d disappeared was no reason to panic.

  But in spite of her good intentions, she leaped from the bed, ran through the living room, out the front door and into the Florida wilderness. She was surrounded by palms and vines and more palms and things that looked as though they were just waiting for a human to step into them.

  “What happened to dear ol’ concrete?” she whispered as she looked about her. If there had ever been a path around the horrible old shack, it was gone now. And looking at the vegetation in front of her, she was sure that if she stepped into it and stood still for the length of time that it took for a crossing light to change, she would be enveloped. Or maybe eaten, she thought with a grimace.

  “Over here, and be quiet,” she heard a whisper; then when she looked toward the sound, she could barely make out the shape of a human form.

  “I will not run toward him and throw my arms around him,” she said aloud as she forced herself to walk slowly toward the shadowy outline. In New York, three times she’d walked through scuffles that could have been bad. In one there were a couple of knives being brandished. But nothing that had happened in the city was as frightening to her as walking through those bushes.

  “Do you always talk to yourself?” Ace asked, annoyed. He was sitting on a tree stump, his profile to her, as he stared out at something that Fiona couldn’t see. There was a little opening between the trees that almost allowed what one could call a view.

  “And good morning to you, too,” she said. “And, yes, I slept very well; thanks for asking.”

  He didn’t stop frowning, and he didn’t look at her. “Sit down and be quiet. There’s fruit and bread over there, and since you ran out of the house in terror, you can use the bushes back there.”

  “Terror?” she said, annoyed with herself for showing her fear and with him for seeing it. “I live in New York City, and I’ll have you know—”

  “Quiet!” he said as he lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

  It took Fiona a few minutes to relax, to get over the sense of panic she’d felt when she’d awakened alone in this wilderness. She stepped a few feet away, took care of necessities, then went back to where he was sitting.

  So they’d slept together, she thought as she sat down a few feet away and picked up a slice of melon from the plate near him. So what? What did that mean in this day and age? Even if they’d had sex, it wouldn’t have been any big deal.

  So why was she feeling so warm and cozy toward him? Because she’d not slept so well in years? Was that why? She’d read about that Ann Landers survey in which women said they’d rather cuddle than have sex, but Fiona had never believed it. She liked sex.

  But then, Jeremy wasn’t much of one for cuddling. No, he was more of a wham, bam, I’ve-got-to-go-back-to-work sort of guy. But then, so was Fiona. She’d always had a thousand things to do for Kimberly and time to do only twenty of them.

  “Sleep well?” she said, looking at him but pretending not to.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, but it was more of a grunt than words.

  “So what’s made you so bad-tempered this morning?”

  Putting down his binoculars, he glared at her. “Have you forgotten why we’re here? We’re the objects of a major manhunt because we’re accused of murder. By now, I’d hoped to have found out what it is that connects you and me and the answer to why Hudson left his money to us