Fortunate Harbor (29 page)

“I’m convinced this is a prize place to fish, only I haven’t caught anything except somebody else’s fishing pole. I think the fish are gearing up for one mad rush in my direction.”

“What is it about fishing that attracts you? Apparently not the idea of man defeating nature.”

They had almost reached the water before he spoke. “Being quiet in a quiet place. We’re fast using them up, you know, the quiet places. They’re harder to find. Most people talk just to hear their own voices. I don’t mind that, but I need the break, too.”

He tugged her toward the shore. “This is where I like to stand. Of course, I can only fish when the tide’s high enough. Evening’s best. Just before dark.”

“Pete, how would you know it’s best if you haven’t caught anything?”

“Sometimes I don’t even bring my rod.”

She was touched that he’d revealed so much. “You just come here and…what?”

“I stand here and watch night fall.”

“The sunset’s better on the other side of the key.”

“It’s not sunset. I like that, too, but here, you can feel the world growing still. Then, if you listen, the night sounds begin. A little at a time.”

She listened to the waves gently lapping against the shoreline and the calls of waterbirds.

He pulled her close and kissed her. “I knew this place was missing something. Now I know what.”

His lips were warm and salty. He perched a hand on each hip, his fingers settling at her waist. She smoothed her palms
up his T-shirt. They took their time exploring, tongue teasing tongue, her breasts flattening against his chest.

“You said spots,” she said at last. “Fishing
spots
. Are there more?”

“One more. Do you really want to see it?”

“Is it sufficiently different that I’ll get my money’s worth?”

“Come on.”

They followed the sandy path back to the road and ambled in the direction of the point again. The air was growing even cooler as evening fell. She couldn’t remember just strolling this way with a man. Her husband had possessed a driving, restless energy that propelled him at warp speed through life. He’d been happy on crowded sidewalks, at parties where he could circle the room and talk to every stranger, in stadiums surrounded by thousands of people he would never meet. But strolling? No, that had been beyond him. He had needed a destination and a fast car to get there.

Only when Pete began to veer into the brush did she realize where he was going. For a moment she held back.

He stopped. “You want to go home? Maybe we’ve done enough for one day?”

She had easy excuses. Heat. Fatigue. The desire to get him into her bed, which was the only excuse that was real. She almost used one of them, any one would do, but something stopped her. She wondered what it would be like to walk this way with Pete. There were so many memories. She wondered if walking down to the water with him would send some of them scurrying back into dark corners, a better place to reside.

“Your call,” he said. “I don’t want to wear you out.”

She liked the way he said that. Just a hint of promise. She
wondered if he would be restrained in bed. Somehow she doubted it.

“I’ve been here.” She wasn’t sure how that slipped out. Worse, she wasn’t sorry it did.

“Exploring?”

“Yes. But you can show me where you like to stand and tell me about all the fish you’ve caught.”

“How did you find it? I think there used to be a genuine path back this way, but when I found it, there wasn’t anything but some broken branches and trampled weeds.”

There was so much she could say, and nothing she could really tell him. Except one thing. She wouldn’t tell him how she knew this story, of course. But the little lie that would preface it was nothing. Sharing the story? That seemed right.

“When I worked at The Dancing Shrimp, an old man told me about this place, and the story that goes with it,” she said. “Do you want to hear it?”

“I’m all ears.”

“He told me how to find it. He was too old to come and show me himself, but his directions were good.”

“Sounds lucky for you.”

They walked single file, and she let Pete take the lead. Clearly he, and maybe others, had walked this way since the night she had come bearing ashes. The brush had been trimmed back, and the path was smoother. She followed him, thinking of other times.

After a few minutes they came to the clearing. It, too, seemed larger now, although probably only a few branches had been removed.

“It’s some view of Palmetto Grove, isn’t it?” she asked.

“That’s probably why I come. I do catch fish, but not many.

It’s like being in another world. Green everywhere you look, and the sand extends out at low tide, so I can wade into the bay.”

“I hope you watch for alligators. They aren’t as rare as some people think.”

“I haven’t seen any here, but I always watch out.”

She had seen one. A small one sunning itself right beside the water. She and the other children had run screaming back to Happiness Haven, their day a complete success. Of course, because of that, she’d warned Lizzie so many times about the possibility that Lizzie knew exactly how careful to be.

“So there’s a story?” Pete asked.

“I don’t know if it’s made up or if it’s really true.”

“Does it matter?”

“Years ago all the locals called this place Fortunate Harbor.” She gestured to include a much wider area. “It wasn’t always the way we’re seeing it. Hurricanes and changing tides and probably even climate change have affected the shorelines. Lots of what used to be beach is now underwater. I’m told,” she added. “People who used to come to this area on vacation probably can’t find a lot of their old haunts because they’ve changed, or they just don’t exist anymore.”

“That’s true in a lot of places.” Pete had been looking at the water, but now he looked at her. “Why did they call it Fortunate Harbor?”

“It’s a love story.” She smiled. “Sure you want to hear it? You don’t strike me as a man who goes for that sort of thing.”

“Try me.”

“Well, once there was a lot more land out that way, toward the point.” She gestured. “Palmetto Grove Key wasn’t shaped the way it is now. Even just twenty years ago there was quite a bit more. But it dipped in right here, so this was more or less
a protected cove, sheltered by land on three sides, because it broadened out again on the other.”

“That’s not hard to imagine. It’s still something of an inlet, and the land fans out on both sides, at least a little. You can see it from the water.”

“You’ve been out this way in a boat?”

“A couple of times.”

“Then imagine being on a ship trying to sail to the harbor in Palmetto Grove. There used to be a real one there, you know, before it silted up and was no longer commercially viable.”

“What kind of ship?”

“That I don’t know. Maybe only a fishing boat, but a terrible gale whipped up while they were far out in the gulf, so they tried to make for land. First they lost their sails, then they lost their main mast, and finally, the ship began to break up out there somewhere.” She pointed. “Much too far from Palmetto Grove Harbor to make it. Some of the ship’s crew jumped overboard and tried to swim to shore in the high winds, which wasn’t easy, because the waves were fierce and the key was wild, with no bridge to the mainland, and few people lived out this way to rescue them.”

“I can imagine this.”

“There was a woman on board, maybe the captain’s daughter, I’m not sure. The captain was swept overboard trying to save the mast, but the first mate took over and tried to see his daughter to safety. He was young and handsome, and I think she’d had her eye on him.”

“Are you making this part up?”

“Are you going to let me finish?”

He put his arm around her. “Go on, then.”

“By the time they got around the end of the point and into
the bay, most of the crew had abandoned ship, and they were listing badly, swept wherever the waves wanted the ship to go, and taking on water quickly. The first mate tried to get the woman to swim with him, but she had never learned, and he knew she would drown immediately. The lifeboat was useless. One of the masts had fallen on it. And he knew he couldn’t tow her all the way. They would both drown.

The first mate wasn’t willing to leave her to die alone. So he told her he would stay with her, no matter what. And they clung together expecting to die. Except that before the ship could break up entirely, the waves swept what remained of it here, into this very cove, which was protected a little. And by the time what was left began to sink, they were close enough to shore that, by clinging to some of the wreckage, they were able to ride out the worst of the waves until he could help her to land.”

“And so this was actually a very fortunate harbor for two young people who might have died,” Pete finished.

“Fortunate in many ways, the old man told me. Because the couple went on to marry, then settle here on the key and raise their family. And every year, on the date of the shipwreck, they came to this cove and spread flowers in the water. In fact he told me, when he was a boy, their descendants still came and continued the tradition. But I guess there’s no one left to do it anymore.”

“I never guessed you would be such a romantic.”

“Did you like my story?”

“I liked it a lot. Two people clinging together in the face of disaster. Then fortune gives them a chance at a new life.”

“It’s as bad as a fairy tale, I guess. Life’s not like that.”

“Don’t give up on it, Dana.”

She turned, her breasts pressing against the side of his chest, her hip and thigh resting between his legs. “Do you believe we
can be a harbor for each other in times of storm? People, I mean? All people, if we care enough?”

He pushed her hair back from her cheek, as if he wanted to make sure she could see his face. “I’d like to be your harbor. At least while I can.”

“I would be fortunate to have you.”

He pulled her into his arms, but he didn’t kiss her. He just held her close, her head resting against his shoulder, her body full against his. She could feel the inevitable changes in him and feel her own body responding. The passion would come later. She could feel it tightly leashed inside him. But first came the healing.

She didn’t want to guess how Peter Knight knew she needed healing. Nor did she want to think about how, in one of the sacred and secret places of her childhood, and now the grave of a man she had loved, she could feel the ragged pieces of her life slowly coming together in his arms.

She just leaned against him and let time stand still.

The number of missing children sites was staggering. Children who had been snatched from one parent by the other, even taken illegally to foreign countries, made up the bulk of the cases. Stranger abductions, though far more newsworthy, accounted for only a fraction.

Tracy had no idea what she was looking for. She was fairly certain that if Dana and Lizzie were running from Lizzie’s father, Dana had taken the girl some time ago. Lizzie seemed too well-adjusted to have recently gone through something that traumatic. She also seemed not to know her father’s identity.

Which certainly matched the information on her birth certificate.

If Dana hadn’t acknowledged Lizzie’s father, the chances that he had legal custody and wanted her back seemed small. Perhaps, since that time, he’d used DNA testing or other evidence to establish his claim. It was even possible Lizzie’s father wanted to find her so he
could
prove parentage. So many
things were possible, and the more she delved into the matter, the less she was sure which direction to go.

Lizzie was ten, nearly eleven. What would she remember? She herself was three times Lizzie’s age, which meant she’d had a lot more time to forget, but looking back, she thought she could remember details from her first year of preschool.

If Lizzie’s memory was similar, then it seemed probable she and her mother had run away by the time Lizzie was three, not much later, or Lizzie would remember troubling things about her past. And as far as Tracy could tell, Lizzie wasn’t troubled by anything except the frequency of their moves.

Although she knew her reasoning probably had Swiss-cheese-style holes, she decided to concentrate on Lizzie’s earliest years. She plugged each one into a search with keywords like missing child, kidnapping, California girl missing. On the theory that the birth certificate could be a fake, she looked at cases nationwide and couldn’t believe how many turned up. Luckily—for her, not the children’s parents—a huge proportion had been runaways and could be discounted immediately.

She had planned to go through the cases year by year, one by one, but midnight—along with three rice crackers, a small handful of almonds, an orange and two cups of hot tea—came and went before she finished the first year. She stood and stretched, wondering, as she had since early in the evening, where CJ was. While she’d been out for a quick jog, he had left a message telling her not to expect him until late. But now it was more than late, and he still wasn’t home.

“Make that
my
home,” she corrected out loud.

She was reminded of all the times CJ had disappeared and never mentioned his reason or whereabouts when he returned. She showered and got ready for bed, but by one o’clock, when
she finally turned out her light, CJ still wasn’t cozied up on the sofa. She hoped that wherever he was, the bed was even harder and narrower.

By noon on Sunday she was at the end of her search. She had three leads. One, a two-year-old girl in Modesto, California, had disappeared with her mother just as the court was about to make a custody ruling. Details were sketchy, but there was one photo of a blond cherub with a flat baby nose and plump cheeks. She didn’t really look like Lizzie, but Tracy remembered her own baby pictures and the progression of school photos that had followed. No one would have been able to match her photo at two with the one of her at eleven.

The only photo of the runaway mother was blurry and un-revealing. Her face seemed rounder than Dana’s, but the poor quality of the photograph made that a judgment call. And perhaps, if this was Dana, she had lost weight in the intervening years, which could account for the differences.

The second lead was even more of a long shot. Infant twins, a boy and a girl, had disappeared from a farmhouse in central Oregon where they’d lived with foster parents. Their mother, who had been given permission to visit for the afternoon, had vanished with them. There were snapshots of the babies, and a few years later some age-progressed photos that showed a dark-haired boy with a crooked smile and a little girl with curly blond hair. But Tracy hadn’t been able to find anything recent.

Of course, if the girl was Lizzie, where was the boy? And except for the hair—which was a computer-generated guess—the girl really didn’t resemble the preteen Tracy knew. The photograph of the mother was no help. Taken at a distance, it
showed a woman holding two babies. She could have been almost anybody, even Tracy herself.

The third lead was the most interesting, and Tracy’s excitement mounted as she read. Ten years ago authorities in Missouri had investigated the kidnapping of a toddler by her maternal aunt. According to the authorities, the child’s mother had been at home with the baby on the night she’d tripped and taken a fatal tumble down the steep basement stairs. The aunt insisted the police investigate the sister’s husband for murder, but the death was ruled an accident.

Shortly afterward, the child disappeared from the home she shared with her newly widowed father, and Auntie disappeared from her job and life in St. Louis. The photo of the aunt set this possibility apart from the others. The woman had a long face, like Dana, and hair that was neither curly nor straight, blond nor brown. In the photo she had her arm around her sister, the baby’s mother, and
her
hair was lighter and curlier. Something like Lizzie’s might be when she was a young woman.

Okay, nothing to jump around the house about, but a lead of sorts. Now she just had to figure out how to get more information than the Internet was providing.

She got up and stretched, tired from too many hours of computing. She wondered if somebody had abducted her ex, who hadn’t bothered to call this morning, either. She took her emotional temperature and realized she didn’t know how she would feel if CJ disappeared from her life again. Right now she was too annoyed to gauge.

She was making lunch when he finally walked in. She met him in the living room, half a tomato sandwich in her hands and eyes narrowed. “Well, this is a new definition of
late
. Or did you say late morning
tomorrow
and I missed it?”

“TK, I can explain. Really.” He smiled disarmingly, a smile she remembered oh-so-well. “And you’ll probably find it funny.”

She glared at him. “I’m laughing on the inside.”

“I was on Nanette’s yacht. Sort of an impromptu party. We went for a sail. I, well, I haven’t been sleeping soundly, so I was tired. I had a couple of drinks and started feeling woozy. I asked her if I could lie down, and went down to the guest cabin and fell sound asleep. When we docked she tried to wake me, but I guess I was really out of it. So she left me there for the night.”

She remembered the occasional morning when she hadn’t been able to wake him, no matter how hard she tried. Most of the time CJ had boundless energy, but it sometimes led to exhaustion.

“And this morning?” she asked.

“I remember how much you like to sleep on weekends. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Look around. I used to do a lot of things I don’t do anymore. I got up with the sun this morning.”

He turned up his hands as if to say, “How was I to know?”

“Just don’t assume
anything
is the way it used to be,” she said.

“So you’ve pointed out more times than I can count.”

“If you’re going to stay here, do me the courtesy of letting me know you’ve decided to sleep around.”

“Got it.”

“And why aren’t you living somewhere else, anyway? I bet Maribel Sessions would melt into a warm puddle of goo if you asked to crash with her.”

“As a matter of fact,
she
asked
me
.”

Despite a healthy survival instinct, a jolt of jealousy shot through her. Annoyance followed quickly. Why did she care?

“So why aren’t you there?”

“I’m beyond needing women who hang on every word I say like it was a Mikimoto pearl.”

“I’m so sure…” she said sarcastically.

He sent her the same smile he’d started with. “Which is why I like sleeping on your sofa.”

“Where apparently you are, in addition to getting little attention, getting little sleep.”

“I think I’ve solved that.”

She sent him a thumbs-down signal. “You are
not
going to share my bed.”

“No, I’m going to be Nanette’s guest for a while.”

This surprised her. She knew Henrietta liked CJ. But to invite him to live on board her yacht? She felt instantly protective of the older woman.

“CJ, what are you doing?”

“Finding a more comfortable place to close my eyes.”

“Henrietta is the patroness of the rec center, where I happen to work. I
so
don’t want you screwing up my job.”

“How could my sleeping in her guest cabin interfere with your job? I thought you’d be happy to have me out of here.”

“Isn’t it time to go back to California and see what’s going on with your case?”

“I have a cell phone. When they need me, I can fly out the same day. And who knows, one day maybe the Feds will come to escort me.”

She studied him. “There’s something here I’m just not seeing.”

“Who taught you to be so cynical?”

Her gaze didn’t flicker.

He held up his hands again. “Okay, okay. But if you don’t trust me, look up all the legal gobbledygook on one of those
legal databases, and you can read everything about the case you ever needed to know.”

“Fix yourself a sandwich if you like.” She gestured to the kitchen.

“May I still come by and see you?”

She considered. He looked like a little boy trying to get back into Mommy’s good graces after tracking in mud. “Is there anything I can do to stop you?”

“Do you want to?”

That, of course, was the question she couldn’t seem to answer. In fact, there was another one, too. Why was she even the tiniest bit sorry he was trading her sofa for a berth on Henrietta’s yacht? These were questions too complex for simple answers. Unfortunately, she couldn’t deny she was going to miss having him here, miss having him bring her dinner and entertain her when she was down.

“I want to be something more to you than a boarder and a burden,” he said, his voice low, almost a caress.

“What’s the next step up? Pain in the ass? “

“You know what I mean. I want you to trust me. I want you to know you can count on me. I want you to smile when you see me coming.”

She knew he wanted more—and hated that she knew it. She’d lived with him too long not to understand his bottom line. CJ wanted back into her life and bed. He was inching his way forward, and she was letting him.

It was a darned good thing he was clearing out.

“I’m leaving in a little while,” she said. “A good time for you to pack.”

“I don’t have much.”

Why did she think
that
wouldn’t last long? Despite traces of
nostalgia, she couldn’t shake the feeling CJ was after something besides her. Or maybe she was just part of a larger scheme. And therein, of course, lay all their problems. She wondered what it would take to make her really trust him.

“A miracle,” she said out loud.

He cocked his head. “Excuse me?”

She realized she’d answered her own question. “Miracle Whip,” she improvised. “Fat free. It was on sale this week. And tomato and bread. All on the counter. Help yourself.”

She was pulling into Marsh’s driveway before she let herself think about her destination. In her heart, she’d been heading toward this end of the key all weekend. All she’d needed was an excuse. Strangely enough, CJ had given it to her when he mentioned legal databases. Now she just had to find the courage to use it, even though Marsh might well reject her.

The tin roof of the Cracker house shimmered in the afternoon sun, and she could hear the whir of an air conditioner from the back. Marsh only used air-conditioning in the worst weather, and today qualified. As she turned off the engine and slid out of her seat, her blouse stuck to her back. Her hair felt as flat and lifeless as a day-old soft drink.

At moments like this she missed California. Had she still been married to an unindicted CJ, she would have spent the morning at the country club, on the golf course or tennis court. About now she would be lunching with a friend, eating a beautifully presented salad and sipping sparkling water with a twist of lime. They would be gossiping about, well,
somebody
, and the service staff would be standing by, in case they needed a crumb brushed off the table or a napkin straightened.

And she would be bored. Not that her life had needed to
be boring. There’d been plenty of women in her circle who made each day interesting and relevant. She just hadn’t been one of them. Apparently she had needed to fall flat on her face before she picked herself up and took a good look at the world around her. Even she could see that was pathetic.

She had parked next to Marsh’s car, and thankfully, the rental Sylvia drove was gone. She had hoped to catch Marsh or Bay outside, but the yard and porches were empty. For a moment she almost used that as an excuse to leave. Then she steeled herself. Now she was a woman who made things happen. She could do this. If Marsh didn’t want to help her, see her, have anything to do with her, that would be his loss.

That sentiment got her to the door. She was trying to dig up another that would move her hand to the doorbell when the door opened and Marsh appeared on the threshold.

“Last person I expected to see,” he said.

“Obviously you’re the first I expected, since I’m standing on your doorstep.”

“It’s cooler inside.”

“A bonfire is cooler.”

She was careful not to touch him as she moved past him into the house, although some part of her thought throwing herself into his arms might be just the thing.

“Just in the neighborhood?” he asked.

She stalled. “Where’s Bay?”

“Spending the day with Adam.”

Last summer Bay and Adam had been archenemies, but now they were inseparable. She wasn’t surprised. Childhood was like that. Adulthood? Unfortunately, a different story.

“I’m guessing you know Sylvia’s not here,” he added.