Deep Waters (35 page)

Charity huddled into her jacket, keenly aware of
the chill wind off the cove waters. A storm was headed toward shore. It would strike before morning.

“It's certainly been cold for August.” Charity winced at the inanity, but she could not seem to help herself. It was as if some primitive communication instinct automatically generated a conversation about the weather when it became clear that there was nothing else to talk about. “Looks like we've had our summer for this year.”

She sounded just like one of the clerks at the checkout counter in the Whispering Waters Grocery, she thought.

Elias did not respond. He walked beside her, but he might as well have been in another world. He had retreated all the way back behind the facade of complete control that his philosophy provided.

Charity's spirits sank lower. She'd ruined everything, she told herself. Then again, perhaps there had been nothing of importance to destroy. Just an illusion of a growing love between herself and Elias. In the end, all illusions crumbled.

The last of the late-summer evening twilight was nearly gone. The cove was an endless, restless sheet of gray steel that would soon turn black as night descended. Charity looked down at the beach. There was just enough light left to see the object that had been deposited on the rock-strewn shore by the incoming tide.

She came to a halt.

“What's wrong?” Elias asked as he stopped beside her.

“There's something down there.” She held her blowing hair out of her eyes with one hand and studied what appeared to be a tangle of seaweed and old clothes. “I hope it's not a dead seal. We get one washed ashore every once in a while.”

Elias glanced disinterestedly over the edge of the bluff. “Probably something lost overboard from a boat.” His attention suddenly sharpened. “Damn. Not another one.”

“What do you mean?” Charity stared harder at the dark shape on the beach. A queasy sensation stirred in her stomach. “Oh, no. You don't think that it's … a person, do you? It can't be. We would have heard if some tourist had been lost or washed overboard or … or—”

“Wait here. I'll take a look.” Elias flicked on the flashlight. He walked along the edge of the bluff until he found the path that led to the beach. He went down it with a reckless ease.

Ignoring his terse instructions, Charity followed at a more cautious pace. By the time she reached the beach, Elias was already crouching beside the object that had washed ashore. He aimed the flashlight at one end of what appeared to be a twisted bundle of rags.

Charity stopped several feet away when she realized that her worst fears had been realized. It was not a dead seal that lay there. “Oh, my God.”

“Looks like we just found out where Rick Swinton went when he disappeared,” Elias said.

Elias stood near Hank Tybern and watched as Rick Swinton's body was loaded into the town's one ambulance. Not that there was anything useful that could be done for Swinton in a hospital, he thought. Swinton was headed for the morgue.

“Have to wait until the county medical examiner does the autopsy,” Hank said. “But I've seen enough people pulled out of the water to estimate that Swinton was in the cove for no more than a day or so. And he sure didn't drown.”

“No,” Elias remembered the large hole in Swinton's chest. “He didn't drown.”

“What do you want to bet that we'll discover he was shot with the same twenty-eight-caliber that was used on Gwen Pitt?”

“No bets.” Elias glanced at Charity. He was worried about her. In the harsh glare of the ambulance lights he could see the sick, stark tension in her face. A body pulled out of the water was not an easy thing to look at. Then again, no dead body was easy to look at, and Charity had seen two of them recently.

“So much for my little theory that Swinton murdered Gwen Pitt,” Hank muttered. “Too bad. I was gettin' real fond of that one.”

Elias thought about it. “You don't have to rule it out. You don't have the autopsy results yet. Could be two different guns. Swinton could have killed Gwen Pitt and then gotten himself killed by someone else. He must have made a few enemies in his time.”

“Can't argue with that. Not a real nice guy.” Hank exhaled slowly. “But I'd stake my job on the hunch that it was probably the same killer using the same gun. Be stretching things a bit to believe that we have us two murderers running around Whispering Waters Cove this summer.”

Elias considered the situation from that logical angle. “Could be the same motive, too. A disgruntled Voyager might have concluded that Swinton was just as guilty of fraud as Gwen Pitt.”

“And said Voyager would be right.” Hank looked at him. “But I don't think it was one of those cult members. I talked to all of them. Double-checked their alibis. They were all clear. And besides, they're getting most of their money back, so why would one of them risk another murder?”

“That leaves you with the possibility that Pitt and
Swinton were killed by someone from Whispering Waters Cove,” Elias said. “Either a local resident or a tourist who's staying in the area.”

“Yeah.” Hank planted his weathered hands on his hips and watched the medics close the ambulance doors. “You know, when you get right down to it, there is one curious similarity between the two murders which strikes me as more than a little interesting.”

Elias winced. “I know.”

Charity stirred slightly. “What's the similarity, Hank?”

“Just the little fact that in both cases Winters, here, was one of the first folks on the scene.”

Charity started as if she'd touched a live electrical wire. Elias watched with a sense of relief as the vibrancy returned to her face. Her eyes widened in anger. Her chin came up swiftly. She glowered at Hank.

“Just what are you implying?” Charity demanded.

“Nothing.” Hank spread his hands in an gesture of complete innocence. “Only making an observation.”

“Well, it's a really stupid observation,” Charity snapped. “You had better not be suggesting that Elias had anything to do with these murders. Just because he's a newcomer in this town is no excuse for you not to do your job properly.”

“Take it easy, Charity.” Elias knew that his voice lacked conviction. A part of him did not want to halt her tirade. “Hank was making a legitimate observation.”

“Really?” She gave him a disgusted look. “It sounded more like an accusation to me.”

Hank waved that off. “Now, Charity, I was only commenting on the situation.”

Elias watched in admiration as Charity drew herself
up to her full five feet, four inches. She was suddenly the dominant presence on the beach. Everyone else, including Hank and Jeff and the ambulance medics faded into insignificance as she rallied to Elias's defense.

It was suddenly very easy to see how Charity had once run a successful corporation, he thought. When she shifted into this particular gear, she was an Amazon.

“If you make any more such comments, Chief Tybern, I will have a whole team of lawyers from Seattle here before noon tomorrow,” Charity said with icy disdain. “Truitt, Inc. has some of the best attorneys on the West Coast on retainer. I'm sure they'll have a few things to say about your observations. And when they've finished saying them, I'll see to it that they sue you and your police department.”

“For crying out loud, Charity,” Hank muttered.

“How do you think the people of Whispering Waters Cove will react when they discover that you, personally, have been responsible for bankrupting the entire town with a lawsuit?”

Hank appealed to Elias. “Tell her to calm down, will you? She's overreacting.”

“I am not overreacting,” Charity said through her teeth. “I am telling you what will happen if you make any more of your not-so-veiled accusations. If you think I'm bluffing, guess again.”

“I don't think you're bluffing,” Hank said quickly. He threw Elias another desperate, pleading look.

Elias gave him a helpless, what-do-you-expect-me-to-do shrug. But inside he could feel a singing relief. The exuberant sensation flooded his veins, driving out the chill.

Charity did care, after all. She had to care. After that fight in his house he hadn't known what to believe.
But no woman would leap to a man's defense with such determination if she did not care for him.

“For the record, Chief Tybern,” Charity continued, “I will remind you that on the occasion of Gwendolyn Pitt's murder, Elias was with me for the entire time period during which you said the murder occurred.”

“I know, I know,” Hank said soothingly.

“Furthermore, he has been with me almost continuously for the past several days. I would like to point out that you, even with all the resources available to you, were unable to locate Rick Swinton after he disappeared.”

“You don't have to remind me,” Hank growled.

“I can assure you that Elias certainly has had neither time nor opportunity to track him down and kill him. I would have known if he had done any such thing.”

“I believe you,” Hank said.

“I should hope so.”

Maybe she was not satisfied with what they had together, Elias thought. Maybe what they had together wasn't enough for her. Maybe her strange mood this evening was a result of having seen Brett Loftus and her sister together earlier today.

There were a lot of maybes in this situation, but he knew one thing for certain, and he seized that knowledge with both hands. Charity definitely cared.

She cared enough to spring to his defense. She cared enough to threaten Hank and the entire town of Whispering Waters Cove, the new community that she called home, with her family's company lawyers.

Yes, she cared, Elias thought. They were bound together by something more than sex and food. He could work with that.

“By the way,” Hank said. “What with all the excitement, I forgot to tell you that I did learn something
of interest from those two punks who broke into your place, Elias.”

“What was that?” Charity asked.

“They admitted that Swinton had hired them to vandalize your cottage last month, Charity.” Hank gave her a considering look. “Mind if I ask what you did to piss off Rick Swinton?”

Elias sensed rather than saw the small shiver that went through Charity.

“I declined his invitation to dinner.” She rubbed her arms. “I'm told he liked to get even with people who crossed him.”

Hank shook his head. “Should have kicked the whole damn lot of 'em out of town last month. Now look at the mess I've got on my hands.”

“Why didn't you run them out of the cove?” Elias asked.

“It's not as easy to get rid of a bunch like that as you'd think,” Hank said. “Besides, the mayor pretty well tied my hands when she decided to let things ride until the fifteenth. Thanks to Her Honor, I've got two murders to deal with now.”

16
 
 

When one cannot stop the rushing river, go with the flow.

—“On the way of Water,” from the journal of Hayden Stone

Charity parked her car two doors down from Phyllis Dartmoor's law office shortly after nine the next morning. She got out and started walking toward the town's one drugstore. She had some errands she wanted to complete before she opened Whispers at ten.

The items on her list included a new bottle of shampoo, some soap, and toilet paper. She also needed a roll of stamps. Life went on, even when one made a hobby of getting seduced by an enigmatic male or happening upon murder victims, she thought glumly.

It was going to be a long day, and she was definitely not in top form. Lack of sleep was part of the problem. Her dreams had been filled with images of Rick
Swinton's body floating on an endless ink-black sea. She had awakened several times during the night, each time instinctively reaching out for the comfort of Elias's warm, strong frame. But he had not been there.

It was her own fault, she told herself. She had been the one who had insisted she would be just fine on her own last night. At the time, she had meant it. When Elias had left her at her front door, she had still been fuming about Hank Tybern's comments. Anger had given her strength. It was only later, in bed, that the grisly images had invaded her head.

Her only consolation was that Elias's parting words had been an invitation to dinner tonight. When she had tentatively pointed out that it was her turn to cook, he had shrugged the issue aside, saying he owed her a meal as payment for the way she had defended him to Tybern.

Charity had not argued. She sensed that, in his own way, he was trying to repair the rift that had opened between them when she'd gone bananas earlier in the evening.

If a sexy friendship was all he could offer now, she would accept it. It was a foundation, she told herself. She could build on it.

She eyed the small cluster of people gathered at the end of the block in front of the post office and had second thoughts about buying stamps. It was a safe bet that the chief topic of conversation this morning was the latest murder. She had no desire to answer a lot of questions.