Debra Burroughs - Paradise Valley 06 - The Harbor of Lies (22 page)

Awkward didn’t even begin to describe the atmosphere in the room. The thick uneasiness was palpable. How on earth could this possibly turn out well?

“I’m not going to mince words here, Parker. We all thought you were dead. How can you, all of a sudden, be alive again? And at such an inconvenient time?”

“Colin, is it?” Evan arched a brow, as if he hadn’t heard the name clearly in the introduction. “I had to go dark for a bit, to protect Emily and myself. Things have changed and I’m here to ask Emily to come away with me, travel the world, like we’d always planned. We are still married, you know.”

Still married? She hadn’t considered that. With the wedding tomorrow…

Colin spun around to Emily. “Did you know about this?”

“Well, no, I…”

Her mind was stuck mulling over the possibility of still being married to Evan. “He just sprang it on me, right before you guys knocked on the door.”

“And you’re considering it?”

Emily saw such hurt in his eyes. “I…I…” Why wouldn’t the words come? She wanted to tell Colin she wouldn’t dream of considering it, and that she loved him, but instead she sounded like a blathering idiot.

“She’s still my wife, old chap,” Evan said, “and I’ve come back to claim her.”

“Emily is marrying me.” Colin ground out the words through clenched teeth.

“I beg to differ,” Evan replied. “She’s mine, and that’s the end of it.”

“Not if I can help it!” Colin turned on Evan, his eyes wide with anger, grabbing him by the collar, landing a punch squarely on his jaw.

Evan’s head pitched to the right, but his body remained planted. He was every bit a match for Colin and he came back swinging.

~*~

“Stop it! Stop it!” Emily yelled, but neither of the men paid her any mind, appearing intent on doing each other physical harm. “Do something, Isabel.”

“I’m not getting in the middle of this. I warned Ev—I mean—”

Emily’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “What do you mean you warned him? You knew he was alive?”

“Well, I…that is, uh…” Isabel was lost for a response. How could she tell her best friend that she had known all along that her dead husband wasn’t dead, that she had helped him stage everything so he could go into hiding? How could she make Emily understand it was for her own good?

Emily tried one more time to get the men to stop fighting. But all of her hollering did no good. “You handle it, Isabel. I’ve got to get out of here!” She grabbed her jacket and ran out of the room.

“Emily, wait!” she called after her, but she was gone.

Isabel spun back around and grabbed the ice bucket off the dresser. It sloshed around, full of cold water and partially melted ice. With one quick toss, she poured it over the men.

That got their attention. They froze in a jumble of arms and legs.

“What the hell, Isabel?” Evan gasped, his back on the floor.

“Emily’s gone,” she said. “She couldn’t stand you two fighting like playground bullies.”

“I’ll go after her,” Colin groaned, seeming to use all his might to hold Evan pinned down. He released Evan and jumped to his feet.

“No. I’ve got to go after her,” Evan said, getting up as well.

They both started for the door, but Isabel stepped in front of them and blocked the doorway.

“Get out of my way,” Colin ordered.

“No. Stop! She needs some time to cool down and think through this whole mess. This is a lot for anyone to take in. She’ll come back when she’s ready.” Whether Emily would ever speak to her again was another story.

~*~

Emily dashed out of the inn, tugging her jacket on. The wind was picking up and the temperature was dropping as the sun had already gone down. Shivering in the damp sea air, gold and orange leaves rustled past her feet as she marched down the long driveway toward Main Street.

When she reached the street, she glanced around, not sure where to go, but anywhere other than that hotel room would do. She needed to clear her head before going back.

Still, she had a hard time wrapping her mind around the idea that Evan was really alive. She should be thrilled, jumping into his arms, showering him with kisses. But he had deceived her yet again, expected her to overlook the enormity of it, and run away with him like all was forgiven and forgotten.

And then there was Colin, the wonderful man whom she loved unreservedly and had promised to marry the very next day. What must he be thinking?

The sight of these two men punching each other, over her, was too much—she had to get out of there, but now what? She would have to face them eventually, but for now she simply needed time to think.

Her phone rang in her pocket. She saw it was Isabel calling and sent it directly to voicemail. She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone yet. She silenced her phone and stuck it back in her pocket so there would be no more distractions.

Perhaps getting her mind on something else for a while might help. She glanced down toward the boats that bobbed along the dock, thinking about the stunt Maggie had pulled off earlier that day, hoping it wasn’t for nothing.

Had Colin remembered to call the chief about following the GPS transponder? After all, this was the night Whitley had said Caleb and the others were leaving to take the boat down to Boston to pick up guests in the morning, among other things. Maybe she should call the chief herself and make sure. She’d do just about anything to get her mind off the mess she left back at the inn.

She whipped out her phone and punched in the numbers.

“This is Chief Taylor. How can I help you?”

“Hello, Chief, this is Emily Parker.”

“Well, hello. What can I do for you?”

“Did Colin already ask you to monitor that GPS transponder tonight—you know, the one you gave me?”

He cleared his throat. “You must be mistaken, you didn’t get it from me.”

That’s right, no one was supposed to know that. “You’re right, no, not from you,” she said, playing along. “Are you tracking it?”

“No, sorry, I hadn’t gotten the go-ahead from Detective Andrews yet.”

“I have reason to believe the boat is headed out tonight, so if you could…”

She didn’t want to bring Whitley’s name into the investigation any more than necessary, and she had promised her she would do what she could to keep her brother’s name out of it too, if that were possible.

“Sure, I’m on it,” he replied. “Hey, isn’t this the night of Colin’s bachelor party?”

There was no reason to alert the police chief of the change of events in their personal life, but if Chief Taylor discovered anything from tracking that boat, she wanted him to know Colin would be interested in hearing about it. “Yes, that’s tonight. But, please, he would still want you to call him if anything turns up.”

“Sure will.”

Emily hung up, standing under the glow from a streetlamp on Main Street. She glanced to the left, at the shops and restaurants all brightly lit, beckoning the tourists to come in and sample their wares. Looking to the right, toward the wharf, there were a few boats with lights shining from the cabins.

Would anyone be on the Hoosier Daddy? If they were planning to cast off tonight, likely one of those lighted boats was it. Maybe if she strolled by it, she could pick up some important tidbit of conversation.

She zipped her jacket and pulled the collar up around her neck before heading toward the bay. Passing several boats tied to the dock, she could see lights glowing down below on the Hoosier Daddy. She tiptoed toward it, hoping to hear something.

Chapter 21

As Emily approached Eric Malone’s trawler, muffled voices emanated from the cabin, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She inched closer and, as she leaned toward the boat, something hard poked her in the back. She pulled up straight as her heart leapt into her throat.
Now what?

She instinctively reached into her waistband, but her gun was not there. She hadn’t brought it with her in the rush to get out of her room.

“Get on the boat,” a harsh male voice demanded, his face so near the back of her head she could feel his hot breath through her hair.

“I’m not going—”

“It wasn’t a request.” He pushed, what felt like, the business end of a gun harder into her back. “Now, keep your mouth shut and get moving.”

Her room at the inn didn’t seem so bad at this point—two men, both who loved her, fighting over which one would keep her. Would those two men, or anyone else, come looking for her? Probably not, at least for a while.

With the man sticking close behind her, Emily stepped over the gangway, as she was told.

“Down below,” the man ordered.

She glanced over her shoulder. It was Caleb.

“I said move it.”

An icy chill snaked up her spine. Of all the murder suspects, he hadn’t been her first pick, hadn’t seemed the most dangerous. What was he going to do with her?

Her gaze bounced around the stern, looking for something to grab to defend herself. There wasn’t time to focus in the low light before he pushed her toward the door leading down to the cabin.

Thankful Maggie had planted the tracker earlier in the day, Emily trusted that Chief Taylor was keeping an eye on it. However, he couldn’t possibly know she was on board.

Emily eased the small double doors open and descended the steps into the cabin. As she reached the bottom stair, Caleb forced her to the floor.

“Look who I found on the dock,” he declared.

“What’s going on?” Rosco growled. He and Eric had been the ones Emily had overheard on the boat.

Emily drew her knees up and hugged her legs, glaring up at her captor. What were they going to do with her?

Caleb pointed the handle of a screwdriver at her head, rather than a gun. “I caught this one snooping around.”

“You couldn’t have just scared her off?” Rosco barked. “Now what are we going to do with her?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb shrugged. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”

Rosco grunted. “The least you could have done was use a real gun.”

~*~

Colin peered over at Evan, who was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, rubbing a towel over his hair and blotting his shirt. That man couldn’t have chosen a worse time to show up. One more day and Emily would have been Colin’s bride—but now? Colin’s hands balled into fists at the thought. He wanted to deck that guy again.

Evan’s intense gaze focused on Colin. Even from across the room, Colin could see a dark bruise growing under Evan’s left eye and he wanted to knock that smug look off his face. Evan was probably thinking the same thing about Colin, but what right did that pompous Brit have to Emily now?

When Emily had discovered Evan’s real name, she had wondered if they were even legally married. His death certificate would now be invalid, and Evan likely had no legal claim to Emily because he had used a false identity on the marriage license. That gave Colin little comfort after seeing Emily’s reaction. The decision was clearly in Emily’s hands and, before she ran off, she didn’t seem too certain about which man she would choose.

“You two,” Isabel said, pointing at each of the men, “try to get along until she comes back. Don’t make this any harder on her than it already is.”

Evan crossed his arms defiantly. “I won’t make any promises.”

Colin said nothing, but propped himself on the edge of the bed. He ran his fingers through his wet hair, pushing it off his forehead, then he wiped a bit of blood from his lip.

The room was silent for the better part of a difficult ten minutes. But Colin couldn’t stand it any longer. “How much longer do we wait?”

Isabel checked her wristwatch. “Let’s give her twenty minutes. If she’s not back by then, I’ll call her and make sure she’s okay.”

“I’ll call her now,” Colin said, pulling out his phone.

“Wait, Colin. Give her some time to think things through,” Isabel advised. “I think she just needs to be alone for a bit.”

“It won’t hurt to phone her. You could call and just say you were worried and wanted to make sure she was fine,” Colin said.

“All right,” Isabel replied. She dialed Emily’s number and waited while it rang. “It’s just going to voicemail. I told you, she wants to be alone. Give her that.”

Colin nodded.

Evan huffed.

A few more minutes ticked by. “I’m going to call her myself,” Colin declared. “This waiting is ridiculous.” He dialed her number and it went to voicemail for him too.

“I say we go now,” Evan asserted.

“As much as I hate to say it, I’m with Evan. I don’t think we should wait any longer either.” Colin rose to his feet and went to the window and peered out, toward the pool. “The temperature is dropping out there and the rain is starting to come down.” He turned back to Isabel. “The weather is only going to get worse.” Besides, he wanted to be the one to find her before Evan had a chance to swoop in like James Bond and be the hero.

Isabel glared from one man to the other and quirked one side of her lips. “All right,” she conceded, as if they needed her permission. “Let’s get the whole group together and make a plan. But, Evan, you can’t be seen by them—you’re dead, remember? Why don’t you stay here and we’ll check in with you?”

“Not a chance.”

“She’s right,” Colin said. “If that gang knows you’re alive, all of Paradise Valley will know soon too.” Could Colin convince Evan to stay back so he wouldn’t get anywhere near Emily? It was doubtful.

“We can find her faster if more of us are searching,” Evan said.

Isabel moved close to Evan. “Colin’s right, if people find out you’re alive, then you disappearing for all this time will have been for nothing.”

Evan’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Colin, appearing to consider Isabel’s advice. “Ten minutes.”

“What do you mean?” Isabel asked.

“You search for ten minutes,” Evan replied, “and if you don’t call me and tell me you’ve found her, I’m out of here.”

~*~

Isabel and Colin left Evan in Emily’s room, with a promise to call. Even though it was better no one else knew he was alive, could he be trusted to stay there?

They called all their friends to gather in the lobby for an emergency meeting. Emily was missing, they were told, and they needed to find her.