27
That night, when Kellen slept, she dreamed of running away in the dark from something terrible. When she woke and stared into the darkness, she remembered what Temo had said. She doesn’t have family. She doesn’t understand what they are worth. And From now on, I’ll work as much as I can, when I can. That’s what has to be done.
God, Temo. What have you gotten yourself into?
She slept again and dreamed about a man with brown eyes and long black lashes who pulled her close, kissed her, tasted her, lingered over her lips until she kissed him back. She slid her hands into his hair. He pushed her gown aside, cupped her breast, slid his thumb across her nipple, his skin rough from digging in the dirt…
He spoke her name in longing and need. Ceecee… She looked up at him—and his eyes were blue, and he killed her.
She woke on a gasp.
Madness? Memory? Meaningless nightmare?
Yes. The latter. Her subconscious was a sick son of a bitch, and what she’d seen last night didn’t exist. Gregory was dead and gone, over the edge of the cliff by his own hand. He wasn’t here in Yearning Sands. He would never bother her again.
She didn’t remember a year of her life. Why couldn’t she forget Gregory?
She rolled over and looked at the clock. Six a.m. Good enough. She got ready for a jog and stepped out her door.
No rain. No wind. Not yet.
No Mara.
She went to Mara’s cottage. It was dark and empty. She went to the gym to work out, figuring Mara was there.
Mara wasn’t answering the door.
Kellen lifted weights, punched bags, practiced the turning kick. And cursed. She was never going to get that damned maneuver right.
Still no Mara.
She showered, dressed in the resort’s calf-length black gown and blue scarf. The resort might be short on guests and the staff might be skittish, Kellen herself might be sleepless and afraid, mostly of herself, but right now, at least, Yearning Sands was her home. She would exude excessive amounts of serenity. She would do as Xander urged; she would breathe. To Mara, she wrote a snarky note on the dry-erase board—
DETERMINATION
She ate breakfast in the lobby bar with the resort guests, who straggled in and out. The Shivering Sherlocks came in en masse, not yet in costume but consumed by this year’s mystery and by Carson’s clever script. After a little chitchat, Kellen excused herself and started toward the stairs and Annie’s office.
Frances flagged her down and in a gleeful voice said, “Something got delivered for you. A gift. Gorgeous! Lavish. Come on. We’re all dying to see who it’s from.”
“A gift?” Kellen followed Frances to the concierge desk. Who would send her a present? Why would someone send her a present?
Frances gestured at a wide, shallow bowl of fruit wrapped in glittering cellophane and tied with a wide red velvet ribbon. “A new delivery lady showed up in a town car, brought this in and asked that it be delivered to you. May I?” Frances held the end of one red ribbon.
“Go for it.”
The Shivering Sherlocks came out of the lounge. The desk staff moved closer. Sheri Jean appeared out of nowhere. Xander took a look, disappeared down the corridor toward the spa and returned with Destiny, Ellen and Mara.
If this was the entertainment of the day, Kellen reflected sourly, the resort needed more guests and hustle and bustle. She wandered over to Mara. “Where were you this morning?” she asked.
“I had a party at my cottage last night for my spa people. I slept in. Then I had some calls to make. Did you come by?” Mara busied herself arranging her hoodie to display more of her off-the-shoulder crop tank.
“I’ve already run and lifted weights!” Kellen toned down her indignation. “Did you see my note?”
“I am determined to win the International Ninja Challenge, on television, in front of the whole world! But first, I want to keep my employees safe and happy. I know you understand that.” Mara fixed her clothing to her satisfaction and smiled at Kellen. “Hmm?”
Nothing created as much teeth-grinding hostility as Mara Philippi telling Kellen something Kellen knew was the truth, something Kellen should appreciate. She smiled back. “Yes, of course. Thank you for thinking first of the resort.” And next time you’re not going to work out with me, could you let me know ahead of time?
Frances gestured Kellen back, and Kellen went gladly. “No card that I can see,” Frances said.
Kellen managed a smile and a sensible “I’d say that’s creepy, but probably the card fell off, right? Can we call the delivery person and ask who sent it?”
Chad Griffin wandered over, orange juice in hand. “No card?”
When had the pilot returned to the resort?
“Ooh, a secret admirer.” He sang, “Kellen’s got a lover. Kellen’s got a lover.”
This man was obnoxious, on her list of probables for the Librarian and on her list as first to be slapped for being an ass. She snapped, “Don’t be stupid. It’s a lost card, not a secret romance. What suitor sends a stupid bowl of fruit, anyway?”
Kellen supposed she shouldn’t have said that. The guests and staff were eyeing her askance, and Patty in the Shivering Sherlocks group said, “I like fruit!”
Kellen reined in her irritation. “I do, too.” She pointed at a decorative tin visible behind the cellophane. “Especially when the fruit is covered in chocolate.”
The Shivering Sherlocks laughed.
Crisis averted.
Until Chad Griffin stuck his nose in again. “Sorry. You don’t have admirers, secret or otherwise. I didn’t know that was a tender spot.”
She maintained a reasonable tone. “There’s another storm coming in. Shouldn’t you be getting that plane off the ground?”
“Okay.” He held up his hands. “PMS, much?”
Mara put her hands on her hips. “Really?”
Sheri Jean said, “Your job’s on the line, mister.”
Kellen stepped up to him, nose to nose. “Get. Out.”
He marched away, trailing tatters of offended dignity. But he didn’t get sympathy, and he didn’t put down his drink.
Kellen hoped she hadn’t made a mistake. Nils Brooks wanted to keep his suspects close. But while the events of the past several days had convinced her Nils Brooks told her the truth about the Yearning Sands Resort smuggling depot, and probably the truth about the Librarian, she still wasn’t convinced that Nils Brooks was telling the truth about himself. And that increased her apprehension and her suspicions…about everyone.
Or maybe she was simply sleep deprived.
Frances smiled after Chad Griffin’s retreating figure. “You know, Kellen, I didn’t know if I liked you before, but you’re getting to be almost human.”
Murders. Smuggling. Obnoxious men. Handsome men. Missing law enforcement. A fussy generator. A quirky communications system. Sure. The whole equation added up to a much more likable Kellen Adams. “Thanks,” Kellen said.
“What’s in the package?” Sheri Jean asked.
Kellen poked at the artistically arranged mounds of tangerines, gold-foil-wrapped pears and apples and plums. “It’s cold.”
“They refrigerated the fruit,” Sheri Jean answered.
“You’re not supposed to refrigerate bananas.” Kellen pulled them off the top and started taking the array of fruit apart, searching for the card. “Are you sure it’s for me?”
“The delivery woman specifically said it was for Kellen Adams,” Frances said. “That is you, isn’t it?”
Mostly. “I can’t eat it all.” Kellen didn’t want to eat any of it. A mystery gift made her remember that disembodied head floating outside Nils’s window, made her think about the Librarian and the people who died in agony, their hands cut from their bodies, their pleas for help unheard. In this place, at this time, she had to wonder if someone with less than honorable intentions had sent this.
“Let’s put it out for the guests!” Sheri Jean found a tray of dried chocolate-dipped apricots and a tin of chocolate-covered cherries and made a nummy sound.
Kellen looked up at the gathering crowd: Sheri Jean and her receptionists, Mara and her spa workers, the newlyweds and the Shivering Sherlocks. She could hardly say she feared poison or some other mischief. Unless she wanted to explain herself, and she did not, that could be construed as paranoia. In fact, it might be paranoia. “Help yourselves,” she said and stepped back.
Frances slid the foil off a ripe pear and took a bite, and her eyes slid closed in unadulterated pleasure.
Mara took the tray of chocolate-dipped glazed apricots and danced around to the employees and guests, offering and teasing.
Carson Lennex arrived and watched from the outskirts, arms crossed over his manly chest and a slight, charming smile lifting his lips.
Chad Griffin hid in the lobby bar and sulked.
As the staff and guests passed the chocolate-covered fruits, the tight knot of worry inside Kellen relaxed. This was the kind of treat the troops had loved receiving overseas, luxurious tidbits that reminded them of home and holidays—and so far, no one had dropped dead.
Frances ran her finger around the edge of the bowl. “I wonder if this is really a Japanese Awaji piece. If it is, you’ve got a secret admirer with expensive taste.”
The whole secret admirer thing gave Kellen the willies. “I hate that crackle glaze.” The decorative bowls at the Greenleaf mansion had sparkled with that glaze, and Erin and Gregory had both adored them. Looking back, Kellen thought it was because they enjoyed the idea of something that was prebroken. Like them. “You take it,” she told Frances.
“Really? Okay, I will. Thank you!”
Kellen went back to work unpacking the fruit. Tiny tangerines with their zipper skin smelled like sunshine, summer and citrus. The prickly skin of a fresh pineapple gave off the scent of faraway tropical plantations. Only people who lived where the continual rain bleached the world gray could understand. Kellen lifted one of the last tangerines to her nose, took a long sniff—and something long and slim and alive and colorful slithered out of the bowl.
Guests squeaked and screamed and scattered.
By some trick of levitation, Kellen found herself ten feet back from where she’d been.
The snake, ten inches long, with black, gray and red stripes running the length of its body, slid off the table and onto the floor. It moved rapidly across the cool marble toward the front door.
Sheri Jean moved with intelligence and speed. She dumped the last of the fruit out of the bowl and inverted it over the snake, stopping its escape and the burgeoning panic. “It’s nothing more than a garter snake,” she announced in a loud, firm voice. Then more quietly she said, “Although I’ve never seen one like that.”
“I have,” Debbie said faintly. “In our garden in Maine.”
Maine. Kellen stared at the familiar-looking bowl. She thought about the snake writhing underneath, trying to find a way out. Maine. Her concerns about smuggling, murder and the Librarian changed, and for one moment she reverted to Cecilia, afraid of cruelty, broken bones and violence committed to satisfy a petty despot. She dropped the tangerine and pressed that hand against a marble column. She closed her eyes and breathed in, and banished the memories… They were not Kellen’s memories…
She felt a man’s arm around her waist. Chad Griffin… Or Gregory Lykke?
No! Her eyes snapped open. She turned and…it wasn’t either one of them. Not even close.
A tall man in a dark business suit bent over her in concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She recognized him from her research the day before. “You must be Maximilian Di Luca.”
MAXIMILIAN DI LUCA:
MALE, 30S, 6’5”, 220 LBS., ITALIAN AMERICAN. FORMER FOOTBALL PLAYER. CURRENTLY WORKS FOR DI LUCA WINES. STERN FACE, HANDSOME, TANNED SKIN, BLACK SHADOW OF A BEARD, CURLY BLACK HAIR CROPPED INTO A BUSINESSMAN’S LENGTH, A LITTLE LONG AND DISHEVELED. BROWN EYES WITH LONG BLACK LASHES. GOOD CHEST. RUMBLY VOICE. EYES, VOICE FAMILIAR?
He smiled, a slow signal of delight. “You know me?”
Too much delight. Too much anticipation. She briskly freed herself and stepped away. “You look like your uncle.” Or like Leo had looked fifty years before.
“Of course. You’re right. I do.” He said, “You turned white when you saw that snake. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I don’t like snakes. But who does?” A quick glance around the lobby showed all the guests and all the staff standing close to the wall, staring at that bowl as if the snake could somehow escape. “I’m fine. Really, fine.”
Sheri Jean was glaring at her, head tilted, wanting her to snap out of it.
Kellen did. One didn’t refuse Sheri Jean’s demands, spoken or otherwise. In a loud, firm voice, she said, “Let’s all go into the lounge, shall we? We’ll send the fruit to the kitchen to be well washed and our unwelcome visitor can be taken elsewhere. As fast as he was moving toward the door, he must have been late for an appointment.”
A little ripple of laughter.
But no one moved.
“Come on, we’ll pour some refreshments and give ourselves a chance to relax again.” Kellen made a surreptitious shooing gesture to Mara Philippi and did the head-tilt glare at Frances.
Mara walked to Max Di Luca, took his arm and smiled into his face. “And you are…?”
Frances walked toward the lounge, calling, “This calls for a giant bottle of champagne and some fresh-squeezed orange juice. Any excuse for mimosas, I say!”
Carson Lennex offered his arm to Patty and Rita, two of the Shivering Sherlocks who were indeed shivering. “Let me help you to a seat.”
Now Sheri Jean flashed her evil-supervisor-look at her own staff. Desk personnel began to smile, be the kind of hospitality team that helped guests move beyond their shock and back into a vacation state of mind. Soon the lounge was crowded and buzzing with excitement.
The noise died down when a rumpled Nils Brooks stepped into the doorway, pushed his glasses up on his nose and in a bewildered tone asked, “Did I miss something?”