Saving Grace (Katie & Annalise Book 1) (4 page)

I woke up on my chaise lounge the next morning, fully clothed in my maxi dress from the day before. Same song, different verse. But I was even more disgusted with myself than usual. I was here to look into the deaths of my parents and straighten myself out, which was supposed to include cutting down on the drinking. And thinking about something other than Nick. It seemed that all I had done was bring my baggage with me into this world, and that I was set to make the present into more of the past. Way to go, me.

In a moment of gut-dropping panic, I remembered part of the night before. The email from Nick. The rum punch. The hotel bar. Had I sent him another message? Oh, please no.

I shot upright, my heart pounding in my ears. Blue water was teasing the brown sand of the beach in front of me. In the distance, two small children played with buckets at the waterline. Overhead, the morning sun shone through palm fronds to kiss the carpet of grass in front of my patio. The serenity of my retreat comforted me. Everything would be OK.

I found my phone beside me and scrolled through the sent texts and emails on my iPhone. Nothing, thank God. I had blown it last night. Today, though, today I would begin looking into the mystery of my parents’ deaths, and I would start over on the personal front. After a few hours’ more sleep. I folded myself back into my chair.

“Lah, girl, we party like rock stars,” a woman said. A woman almost right beside me, from the sound of it.

I sat up again, even more quickly. I recognized the husky voice. The name of the woman it belonged to was a blank to me. I searched for it. Abigail? Ariel? Eva? No. Ava. It was Ava.

I forced out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess we did. What I can remember of it.”

I looked down at the chaise on the far side of the patio, and, sure enough, there was Ava. She stood up on her tiptoes and stretched her arms toward the sky, something better done in an outfit other than a yellow lycra minidress. I averted my gaze. She finished and plopped back in her chair, tugging at her eye.

“So, I guess we better get started,” she said, and laid a set of false eyelashes down on the patio table and started working on the other eye. “I vote for a barrel of water and two Excedrin with a mess of eggs first, though.”

I had absolutely no idea what this woman was talking about. I tried to shake the hangover cobwebs from my head. Should I worry? I’d read about pirates and crooks in the Caribbean. Maybe she was a swindler of some sort. I could, in essence, be her prisoner. It was a stretch, but it was possible. Something nudged my brain cells toward memory, then faded out.

Ava kept talking. “I know the cook in the restaurant. He hook us up.” Ava reached for the phone on the patio table beside her.

I listened to her order in her island patois. She had continued her ablutions while on the phone—removing earrings, a bracelet, and a necklace—and she stood up again when she ended the call.

“Chop chop, Katie. They expecting us down at the station.” She pulled off her dress in a single fluid motion, revealing flawless café au lait curves reined in somewhat by a leopard-print satin bra and panties. My hands found my own jutting hipbones, Pippi Longstocking next to her Beyoncé. She ducked into my room.

I clamped my jaw shut and focused on her words. Police station. Yes. That was it. Snatches of our conversation last night floated back to me, including me telling Ava about my quest to find out what had happened to my parents, and her call to some police officer she used to date or that wanted to date her or something. Yes. That was it. I remembered. Relief.

She poked her head back around the door as she gathered her long curly black hair into a topknot. “You mind if I use the shower first?”

“That’s fine,” I said.

She raised one eyebrow. “You OK?”

I jumped to my feet. “Absolutely. Let’s hurry with the showers and try to finish before room service arrives.”

“Yah mon,” she said, and disappeared again.

I tipped my head back with my eyes closed and pinched the bridge of my nose. Just because I remembered last night, it didn’t necessarily make today a good idea. I didn’t even know Ava. Was this insane? I lifted my head back to its normal position.

Well, I was about to find out.

“I can’t believe you’re dropping everything to help me,” I said.

Ava had poured her curves into a bikini top and blue-jean miniskirt, both of which belonged to me, then slipped on one of my button-front shirts and tied its sides together above her belly button. She was barefoot.

“Best offer I got for the day,” she said. “I just move back on-island six months ago. I do the dancing-singing-acting-starving thing in New York, but my parents getting older and, well, I can’t stay away from St. Marcos forever. It get in your blood.” She picked up her phone, searched until she found what she wanted, then handed me her phone. She had pulled up a picture of herself standing between a much older white man and a dark-skinned woman who split the difference between his and Ava’s age. “My parents,” she explained. “So I can understand why you here. If something happened to Mom or Dad, I do the same thing.”

I’d told her plenty last night, it seemed.

“They’re beautiful,” I said. “You’re a perfect mix of them.” I handed her back her phone.

And she was. Ava dripped sexy and, with latte skin and wavy black hair, could pass for almost any race. Italian, Egyptian, Mexican, or all of the above. It was a mix that worked.

She pulled a lipstick out of her teeny pocketbook and walked into the bathroom, still talking. “Yah, they great. So anyway, I home, but there not a lot of work on-island for NYU-trained stage actresses who specialize in Broadway musicals, and no other employable skills.”

I raised my voice so she could hear me in the bathroom. “I can relate. I was a voice major in college before I wised up. I spent three years hearing how little money I’d make in music.”

“You sing? Girl, why you not tell me that last night? We coulda put you up on stage.”

“No way,” I said, and laughed. “It was a long time ago.”

“Don’t mean nothin’. Well, anyway, I glad you here. This much better than watching
Oprah
with Mom.” Ava came back into the bedroom and stood with her hands on her hips, studying me. “Fact is, I think you all right.”

I liked her, even if she was my polar opposite. And I loved to listen to her, was even starting to understand her better. “Da” was “the” and “dere” was “there,” for instance. This wasn’t that hard at all.

I told her, “Well, again, thank you for helping me.”

Ava put her foot next to mine and cocked her head. “I need some shoes. All I got is the fuck-me pumps I wore last night. My feet pretty big, so maybe if we try the smallest shoe you got?”

Her F word jarred me a little, thanks to the upbringing of my kindergarten-teacher mother, but I didn’t take offense about my feet. I was four inches taller than her. “How about these?” I asked, tossing her some Reef thong sandals that were a half size smaller than I should have bought.

She slid her feet into them and struck a shoe-shopping pose. “What you think?”

“I think you look better in my stuff than I do, and we’d better get going or I’ll start to hate you for it.”

She laughed and stuck one arm through mine. “Yah, or I gonna hate you for making my bana look bigger than it already do,” she said, slapping her own posterior with her other hand. “Come, let we go.”

Ava slipped her arm out of mine. I put on my sunglasses, grabbed my purse from the desk, and stuck my feet into Betsey Johnson sandals that were blessedly too big for my new friend. Ava followed me out the door. I walked briskly down the sidewalk, energized by the gorgeous morning, to the rental car that the concierge had arranged to be dropped here for me.

“Slow down and lime a little, Katie. You moving too fast for island time,” Ava called from behind me.

I opened the door to the lovely green Malibu. “Lime, I can lime. Check.”

As we drove, Ava coached me on the niceties of island greetings, explaining how important blending was to my quest’s success.

“Don’t say hello. Say good morning, good day, and good night. Say it when you walk into a room full of people, to no one in particular. You don’t have to make eye contact. Pause a long time after you say it, and give the other person a chance to say it back and make a polite inquiry after your health and family. Then, and only then, get down to your business. If you don’t do this, you get nothing done.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said,  and I saluted.

“I’m serious. If you move fast, talk fast, and don’t say the right things, a West Indian only pretend to listen, and you think things going fine when they not.”

I reined in the mirth. “I know you’re serious, and I appreciate the help.”

“Still, let me do most of the talking.”

I wasn’t all that good at letting someone else speak for me, but I’d try.

We were in the middle of town at this point, and I swerved to avoid a limo that pulled out of a parking place right in front of me. As I pulled to my left, I felt a crunch under one of my tires. I tapped my horn. It was hard enough driving on the left without this. I cut my eyes to the rearview mirror and read the license plate backwards. Vanity plates. It figured. They read, “BondsEnt.”

“That my future husband,” Ava said, pointing back at the limo.

“Really?”

“Nah, he just rich enough to keep me.”

A block later, I heard a thump, thump, thump. Flat tire.

“Shit,” I said, pulling over.

“Sunday morning,” Ava said, as if that explained something to me. I must have looked a question at her, because she added, “Broken glass from the partiers downtown.”

“Ah,” I said. Because I’m profound.

“It not a problem,” Ava said, and jumped out.

I followed her onto the sidewalk. With a toss of her hair over her shoulder, she soon had a crowd of West Indian men ready to lend a hand.

“Ah, meh son, that what those big muscles for.” She flattered her help along, bending over to let a young fellow get a good look at her cleavage.

“I can show you what they for, if you just let me,” he replied.

“Lah, you too much for the likes of me. You must have women dem fighting over you day and night.”

“You the only girl for me, Ava. You just say the word.”

When the tire change was complete, she extricated herself from the throng effortlessly. We got back in the car.

“That was impressive,” I said.

Ava just smiled.

We continued driving through downtown among the old Danish-style buildings. Stucco and arches in a muted rainbow of colors predominated. Nearly every other building was in some state of disrepair. Some were missing their roofs. Hurricanes past, maybe? Others had only crumbling rubble where walls used to stand. Locals loitered in small groups on the street corners. More often than I would have expected, we passed a ragtag vagrant pushing a shopping cart filled with castaway treasures. T-shirt-clad tourists dodged unseeing amongst the locals, shopping bags dangling from their hands, ice cream cones pressed to their lips.

Soon, though, we had passed through downtown. On its far edge, we came to a baby-blue two-story Danish building. Police headquarters. We pulled into the parking lot and got out.

It was time to do right by Mom and Dad.

Ava had arranged for us to meet her friend at the crack of 11:30. We entered the old house-converted-into-a-police-station fifteen minutes late, which Ava assured me was timely bordering on early. Ava, rolling in earthy and sexy, and me, holding back my normal long stride and feeling ridiculously virginal in my white sundress next to her. I took off my sunglasses and snapped them in their case in my purse.

“Good day,” I announced as we walked into the station. A chorus of “good days” rang out in answer. I nearly laughed. Ava looked to see if I was mocking her, then rewarded me with an approving nod.

“Good day. We here to see Jacoby,” she said to the female clerk seated at the desk behind the front counter, interrupting her from doing nearly nothing.

Ava was surrounded by helpful officers within seconds, all claiming to know Jacoby, be Jacoby, or be more man than Jacoby ever would be. They crowded the first-floor lobby, a small room that likely, one hundred years ago, was someone’s front parlor. Now it housed folding chairs and a laminate coffee table covered with well-thumbed magazines and newspapers. I picked up a newspaper while Ava held court, and idly read about the acquisition of the local cell phone company by some big wheeler-dealer on the island. His name was Bonds. Gregory Bonds. I chortled at my secret funny. Ah, yes, this must be Ava’s future husband, the guy with a bad driver. I put it down when I couldn’t stand the reporter’s fawning anymore.

When the real Jacoby came forward, I was shocked. He was a black Shrek, not the ebony island god I had pictured as a counterpart to Ava’s sultry beauty. Ava let out a girlish squeal—another surprise—and threw her arms around his neck to a chorus of disappointed male murmurs, grunts, and a noise that sounded like someone sucking saliva through their teeth. Yuck. The other police officers dispersed, disappearing behind doors and up a staircase visible through a hall adjacent to the lobby.

“Katie, this here Jacoby. We school chums from the time we in kindergarten. Jacoby, Katie.”

He stuck out his hand. “Darren Jacoby.”

I took it. “Nice to meet you, Officer Jacoby. I’m Katie Connell.”

Jacoby gestured toward one of the rooms off the lobby, and we walked over. He opened the solid wood door onto a spare conference room with thick interior concrete walls. Built to withstand Mother Nature. There was a folding-type metal table and more folding chairs identical to the ones in the lobby. Again, my mind regressed the room to its roots. A bedroom, I decided. We took seats around the table.

“So, Ava, I guess I didn’t dream your booty call to me last night,” he said.

If there ever was an example of hope springing eternal, this was it.

“You dream it a booty call, but I did ring you up,” she answered. “Katie need some help. Her parents die on St. Marcos last year, when they here on vacation.”

He tore his attention away from Ava. “I’m sorry, Ms. Connell,” he said.

“Katie, please. Thank you.”

He motioned for me to keep speaking.

Had Ava asked to do the talking? I decided she hadn’t meant it and took over. “The police told my brother and me that our parents died in a car wreck. No offense at all to the St. Marcos police, but, given the circumstances as they were explained to us, it felt all wrong. Unlike them. I was hoping I could talk to the officer who worked on the case, and maybe see the file. Iron out my doubts, come to grips with it,” I explained.

His eyes narrowed. “Do you know the officer’s name?” he asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “I’m sorry.” Collin would. I should have asked him.

“Their name Connell?” he asked.

“Yes. Frank and Heather Connell.”

Without another word, he pushed his chair back. One of the feet had lost its pad, and it made a scraping noise that reminded me of Shreveport, and Nick. Jacoby left the room.

“That was abrupt,” I said to Ava.

“They tend to close ranks, especially if you not bahn yah,” Ava said. “That’s why I told you last night you need me with you, and we need to work with Jacoby, at least as much as we can.”

A thought occurred to me. “I hope he wasn’t the officer on the case. If he was, I just all but accused him of messing up.”

Ava sat there with a Mona Lisa smile on her lips. The seconds ticked forward around the wall clock behind her. One minute passed, then another, and then another. Ava pulled out her phone and started playing with it. I jerked my hand away from my mouth, realizing too late that I’d ripped the cuticle from my index finger. A drop of blood welled up.

Then Jacoby was back, his bristles filling the room. He held a folder under one arm and a small piece of paper in his other hand.

“I talked to my boss, the assistant chief. Tutein. He said to give you this.” He talked in Yank, instead of his earlier Local. He handed me the scrap of paper with fringe along one side that spoke to its notebook origins.

I read the words written in pencil: Walker, 32 King’s Cross. “Is this the name of the officer?” I asked.

“No, the officer that worked the case drowned eleven months ago,” Darren said, his voice black water in a dead calm. He didn’t offer any more details. I didn’t ask.

“I’m sorry to hear that. What about the file? Could I see that?”

He glared at me. “It was just a traffic incident.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “We have an accident report. I made you a copy. Maybe the coroner has more.”

He held out the file, then flipped it open. One page. I took it out gingerly, my eyes tracing the names Frank Connell and Heather Connell. I scanned the rest until I got to the name of the responding police officer. Typed neatly, it said Michael Jacoby. Signed in a cramped forward slant, it said George Tutein. Jacoby. But not this Jacoby, because this Jacoby—Darren—was very much alive.

“Walker is a private investigator, the only one on St. Marcos. Tutein says Walker knows everybody he needs to know on the island, and he works for a couple of the biggest businesses here. Maybe he can help you.” Jacoby started backing away. “But your parents died in a car wreck. There just doesn’t seem like there’s much for you to find.”

“So there’s nobody here I can talk to?” An angry fire started in my core and spread.

“Just Michael. And he’s dead.” He looked at Ava. “Good seeing you.” He turned on his heel and was gone.

My cheeks and ears flamed. Everything about this rang my alarm bells. I opened my mouth but Ava held her finger up to her lips. I shut it and clenched my teeth. She motioned with her head toward the exit, then started toward it, calling out to all within earshot, “A pleasant good afternoon to you.”

A wall of humid heat met me at the door, but I busted through it, fueled by my frustration. Two officers stepped past us and into the building, and then we were alone. I squinted and dug for my sunglasses.

Mindful of their friendship, I dialed my temper down. “Ava, I know he’s your friend, but doesn’t it feel like he stiff-armed me? I know I’m not local, but that felt all wrong.”

Ava’s eyes darted left and right. “Shush, Katie. Things different here than in the states.”

I opened the car door and clicked the locks open. We got in.

“Let me see that report,” Ava said.

I handed it to her. There wasn’t much to see. One car accident, off a cliff and into the rocks below. Driver and passenger deceased. My parents.

Without lifting her eyes from the paper, Ava asked, “What make you so sure their deaths not an accident?”

“I’m not
sure
. I’m a big believer in intuition, and it’s just a feeling I have, from little things that don’t make sense. Like how my mom always wore my grandmother’s wedding ring, but the police never found it. Not on her, and not in her stuff at the hotel. I thought that was odd. Plus, I talked to my parents that night. They’d been to dinner, and they were on their way back to the Peacock Flower. They called me while they were driving. They sounded great. And then they were dead.” Shit. My eyes started leaking.

“OK, OK. It says here your dad was pretty drunk.” Her speech had become more formal. More Yank.

“Yes, that’s the other thing that bothers me. My father was a recovered alcoholic. He didn’t sound drunk when I was on the phone with them. And I can’t picture my mother just standing by letting him drink.” Mom had wrangled kindergartners for twenty years, a job she liked to say made wrangling my father a cakewalk. She was two parts tender and two parts steely resolve. Only the surprise gift of Collin had derailed her plans to become a lawyer.

“Maybe she didn’t know?” Ava suggested.

“Maybe. I don’t know. Anything’s possible.” I made a confession. “That’s what my brother thinks. Collin. He’s a police officer. When my parents first died, he called and talked to an officer here. Collin said he was nice, he was helpful, and that he said they see it all the time on St. Marcos, tourists driving drunk and getting into bad situations. Collin thought maybe Dad had relapsed and was hiding it—the drinking—from my mom.”

Ava put her hand on my forearm. “I hate to say it, Katie, but tourists and drunk drivers are the same thing to us.”

That didn’t help my leaky eyes. “But your friend acted so weird. Don’t you think so?”

She looked at me, and her eyes were soft and sad. “The officer on this case that died? Michael Jacoby? He was Darren’s brother. His kid brother.”

“I’m sorry. Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I’m making everything about me. I—”

A sharp rap on the window behind my head cut me short. I yelped and jumped in my seat, banging my head into the roof. Ava gasped, too.

I turned to see Darren Jacoby’s broad face framed in my window. I started to roll it down but the buttons didn’t respond. Only then did I realize that we were sitting in a hot car without the windows down or air conditioner on. I inserted the keys and cranked the engine, then rolled the window down.

Ava leaned across me, pure Local again. “Jacoby, you scare us good.”

He didn’t smile. “I wanted to tell her,” he looked directly at me, “to tell you, that I sorry about your parents. I know it hard to lose someone you love. I know it make you ask questions. But my brother a good cop, and I trust him. If he say they die in a car accident, that what happened.” He had switched back to Local speech again.

“I’m sorry about your brother,” I said.

He inclined his head, eyes down, then met mine again. “Good day, Ms. Connell.”

I rolled the window up again as he walked away. I was more confused now than I’d been before I came to the station. It would be best to let it go, to trust Collin’s judgment, to look for peace instead of trouble. I knew that. I normally trusted Collin completely, too. But he’d had girl trouble right before Mom and Dad died. His fiancée had dumped him for a woman, and he was just not himself then, distracted with his own stuff. If I had doubts, then I owed it to my parents to do this. I had let them down for a year, letting everything else be more important than my intuition, than them, and as long as a shred of doubt remained in me, I had to keep going.

I backed out of my parking spot and put the car in drive.