High Tide Read online

  Fiona knew it was her turn to be the calm, sane one. “We’re not going to figure out anything if you keep destroying the evidence.” She reached down to pick up the papers, but then leaned back against the couch. How could such a beautiful room feel like a prison?

  The thought of prison made her look back at the papers. They had been reading for hours but they had found out nothing, for there was nothing to find out. Roy Hudson’s life had been without excitement—unless you thought that having three wives was exciting. Each of his former wives had cited his attraction to other women as the cause of the separation.

  “But this is the teddy bear everyone loved,” Fiona said bitterly. “I bet they didn’t love him before he was a national dead man.”

  Ace smiled. “As opposed to a national celebrity?”

  “Exactly. You find out anything at all?”

  “Nothing.” His papers dealt with Smokey, and there was very little information in them. He’d wanted to read them before Fiona in case they needed to be censored. But Smokey was a man who kept to himself and what dealings he’d had with people weren’t put on paper.

  At one o’clock, Fiona yawned and said she was going to take a shower.

  “Another one?”

  “I think some of the mold in that cabin took root in my hair.”

  “When you get back, let’s talk about what you wrote during the night. Maybe you had some ideas.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said as she headed for the bathroom.

  “I’ll put that video in and get started on that,” Ace called after her.

  “Sure,” she mumbled as she closed the bathroom door. Truth was, she wanted privacy so she could give way to the tears she was holding back. She’d spent most of the night trying to find some connection between her and Ace. She’d tried to remember anything her father might have said about his own life, but she’d always been filled with so much that she wanted to tell him, and John Burkenhalter had been an excellent listener.

  She got into the shower and let the tears flow. She was a doer, and this inactivity was maddening to her. If they could just find a clue, some connection in all this, then they could do something.

  It was quite some time before she got out of the shower and went into the bedroom to dress. She put on a scrumptious Italian silk blouse, man-tailored but feminine at the same time. As she fastened the silver belt buckle over gabardine trousers, she thought, I won’t get to wear silk in prison.

  As soon as she opened the door to the living room, Ace muted the TV. “Frank is right,” he said in disgust. “This is the most horrible show I’ve ever seen. I can’t even figure out why it’s called Raphael.”

  She kept her face averted so he couldn’t see her eyes. She’d tried to cover the redness with makeup, but her tears were still obvious. “How’s it bad?” she asked.

  “Mike included copies of reviews printed in Texas and a couple from New York, where the show has already been shown. They can say it better than I can. Listen to this. ‘Raphael is a cross between Home Alone and Treasure Island, and it is deceptively complicated. Six of the most degenerate men imaginable are looking for treasure—and they will do anything to anyone to get it. Is this what we want to teach our children?’”

  Ace looked up at Fiona, but she said nothing. “Here’s another one,” he said. “ ‘Even though Raphael is said to be for children, the show has sexual overtones—especially homosexual. There’s thievery, betrayal, and not a likable or honorable person in the show. Ma Mills is obviously a madam, and Ludlow, with his lisp and twirling pearl-handled knife, is despicable. Craddock has—’”

  “A nervous tic,” Fiona said, her head coming up, her eyes widening.

  “‘A nervous tic,’” Ace said in unison. “‘And Hazen has …’” Trailing off, he looked at Fiona in question. “I thought you said you’d never seen the show.”

  “Give me that paper,” she said, then half snatched it from him. “ ‘Hazen, with his—’” She looked up at Ace. “ ‘Hazen, with his scar across his hand that reaches up his arm as though he had fought some monster and nearly lost—’”

  At that Fiona sat down on the couch, and the paper fell from her hands.

  Ace could see that she was in shock, but he didn’t know why. “Have you seen this show before? Is that the problem? Maybe Hudson knew—”

  “This is my father’s story,” Fiona whispered. “And it’s not called Raphael, it’s Raffles. The bastard stole the story from my father.”

  For a moment Ace just sat there blinking at her; then he smiled; then he smiled some more; then his face nearly cracked as he grinned so wide. The next moment he leaped up from his chair, grabbed Fiona about the waist, and lifted her into his arms. “We found it!” he said, then began to dance about with her. “We found it.”

  Fiona was still in a daze at hearing her favorite childhood story, her own very private story, being read aloud.

  Ace had no mixed feelings as he led Fiona across the room; then he punched some buttons on a sound system and the room came alive with music—ZZ Top.

  And it was the music, the wild acid rock that Fiona played when she was alone and wanted to celebrate, that made her come out of her daze.

  She raised her arms above her head and began to gyrate in a way that she only did when she was alone—and Ace was right with her. Hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, the music blasting away.

  “On the trip to Alaska,” Ace shouted as he leaned over Fiona, making her bend backward.

  “It rained,” she shouted back. “My father loved to tell stories.”

  Ace parted his knees and went down, moving his hips all the way; Fiona was with him. “Hudson felt guilty,” Ace shouted, “so he left everything to Smokey’s daughter.”

  “Me!” Fiona shouted back, then came up, her arms again lifted. “Ahhhhh haaaaa!” she yelled, country style.

  Ace grabbed her in his arms and whirled her about. “We did it. We did it. We did it,” he said over and over as he went round and round. “We did it.”

  Fiona twisted away from him and danced harder and as lustily as she’d ever danced in her life, tossing back her head and letting the wild music seep into her. “Jeremy hates this music,” she yelled.

  “So does Lisa,” Ace shouted back.

  “I’d never have thought you would like it!” she yelled. “Not Mr. Birdman.”

  “There’s lots you don’t know about me,” he said in a suggestive way; then in the next moment their arms were around each other and they were kissing. Fiona’s leg came up Ace’s leg, he grabbed it and pulled it onto his hip, then began to move his hips into hers, closer and closer and—

  The song ended, the CD ended, and suddenly they were in silence. And the quiet was deafening.

  Fiona pulled away first. “I, ah,” she said, her body still wrapped about his.

  “Right,” Ace said, then dropped her thigh.

  Fiona stepped back from him. Her chest was heaving both from the strenuous dance and from the emotion of kissing him, of feeling him close to her. “Jeremy,” she said firmly, as though the word were a battle call. “We have to think of them, of Jeremy and Lisa,” she said. “They’re risking everything for us, working night and day and—”

  “Sure,” Ace said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” With that he left to go into the bedroom.

  And Fiona sat down on the couch, trying to calm herself. Hands off, she told herself. This situation is not real. In a way it was as though they were stranded on a deserted island and they had no choice of companion but each other. In a normal situation she would never, ever be attracted to a man like Ace. A man who could be depended on in any emergency, who kept a cool head no matter what, who protected her, who—

  She picked up the remote control and started the tape. Better to put her mind on getting them out of this unreal situation than to think about what wasn’t to be.

  Fourteen

  “So what have you found out?” Ace asked thirty minutes later. He was wearing a thick sweat s