Authors: Sandra Brown
The man didn’t look up from his drawing.
She picked up her drink and turned away from the bar, toward him, glancing down for the briefest second.
Then she moved across the glittering tiles of the floor to a table overlooking the lagoon. She sat and sipped the icy drink, her heart racing out of control.
In that one brief glimpse she’d seen he had sketched the piece,
her
piece, the jewel-encrusted shell box.
It was a scale drawing—remarkable, really, how precise the measurements were.
And measurements of the display cases and gallery, and the cameras mounted above.
Her fantasy hadn’t been a fantasy at all.
He’s going to steal it.
She sat and gazed over the ocean without looking at him and when he rose from the bar stool she watched him in her peripheral vision. She took her drink off its napkin and let the breeze blow it off the table so she would have to turn.
He was gone.
Then she spotted his dark curly head disappearing down a tiled stairwell leading below the floor that she hadn’t noticed until just then.
She drained her drink—she was feeling quite light-headed now—and followed. The marble stairs descended into a dim cavern with an ethereal blue glow. Melissa stopped in the middle of the floor. The water fountain she had been hearing was at the base of the stairs—and across the grotto a glass wall looked out onto the blue water of an enormous aquarium. Groupers the size of large dogs drifted through the underwater reefs; a school of barracudas skimmed past slowly circling seven-foot sharks.
Melissa tore her eyes away and turned, moving after the man. She hurried through cavern after cavern…the place was endless, but deserted—no sign of him. She stopped, looking through the glass at a puffer fish floating blimplike in front of her.
“The art lover,” a voice said behind her.
She whirled. And he was there, a dark silhouette in the blue-green light of the grotto.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a low, elegant voice. “I hadn’t meant to startle you.”
On top of everything else, an English accent.
Her mind was racing. Had
he
been following
her?
“Not at all,” she answered. “I thought you were a shark.”
He laughed, a warm echo in the cavern. “We keep meeting,” he said, although they had not met at all. “The casino, the gallery.” He cocked his head, looked at her speculatively. “You seemed especially fond of the Chihulys. Thinking of stealing one?”
Although startled to hear her own suspicion voiced, she had to laugh out loud—any one of the pieces weighed at least a half a ton.
“In a good storm, I might be able to float one out.”
“Brilliant. You’re a professional, then.”
A professional what?
He smiled slightly. “I meant—your interest in the Chihulys, in antiquities. Is art a business interest of yours, or personal?”
“A little of both,” she said blithely, surprising herself. She could be as ambiguous as he was being. “And yours?”
“The same,” he agreed. “I must say it’s a pleasure to see at least someone enjoying the gallery. A shame to see all that beauty go to waste.”
She felt herself flush; she was suddenly sure that he was talking about her.
“It’s a more subtle pleasure than this.” She gestured to the glass walls of the aquarium.
“In a way,” he said, with what seemed like a secret amusement. “You haven’t even seen the best part.” He touched her back—lightly, nothing more than that—guiding her into the next grotto.
As they stepped through the archway, Melissa drew in a breath.
They were entirely underwater now, in a long tunnel made completely of glass, arching over their heads. The tunnel allowed them to walk through the aquarium with sea creatures all around them—beside them, above them, as if they were diving through schools of constantly changing fish: the large colorful tropical ones and the schools of barracudas and the sharks, of course, always the sharks.
She looked up through the glass and saw daylight slanting through the surface of the water, fifteen feet above.
He was watching her, or had never stopped watching her.
Why not?
she thought.
A shadow passed over the sun, as above a shark slowly circled.
* * *
They had planned to meet in the lobby. On a hunch
she went down early and drifted by the gallery. He was there again, in front of that case, as intent on the jeweled shell as ever. And she moved quickly back into the elevator and went up again and down another way, afraid that he had seen her.
He took her to a hotel down the beach, on the other side of the island, overlooking the ocean. Far more rustic and natural than anything at the resort—and more private.
The pompano was creamy, the wine mouthwatering, and the gentle rolling of the waves lulled her, lowering all defenses.
His name was Nick, or so he said, and his business was some kind of finance, or so he said. But from the beginning, his interest was clearly in art.
He was surprised to learn, or feigned it, that she was a gallery director.
“You
are
a professional, then.”
“Professional enough to know the gallery director here might be in for more than he bargained for,” she said.
“How do you mean?” He sounded innocently intrigued.
“If I were a thief, I couldn’t ask for a more enticing collection—or security system.”
He looked at her over his wineglass. “You think the collection is vulnerable.”
She shrugged a bare shoulder, and shocked herself with her own daring. “I can see how it might be tempting to someone who was paying attention.”
He sipped the wine, his face betraying nothing. “It would be difficult to fence such high-profile pieces.”
“The pieces, yes. But not if the thief were planning to take a particular piece apart and sell the individual gems.”
He looked startled. “That would be a shame, wouldn’t you think?” He asked gravely. “A treasure like that.”
Suddenly she felt they were talking about something other than the jewels. She met his gaze. “I would think that, yes. I wouldn’t say the same of a thief.”
His face tightened. “Not everyone can recognize the exquisite. Not everyone is worthy of it.” His voice softened. “Myself, I dislike seeing any sort of treasure in the hands of the wrong people. That’s the true crime.”
She looked into his eyes, wondering. He smiled enigmatically. “It’s a lovely night. Let’s walk.”
They walked along the shoreline while clouds raced across the moon. The wind was strong, and the waves equally stirred up, swelling and crashing onto the shore in an insistent rhythm. Melissa’s dress whipped around her thighs, her hair around her head. And finally he spoke.
“Forgive the cliché, but I can’t for the life of me understand…” He paused. “Why a woman like you would be at a place like this alone.”
It was not only the wine, but the sea and the wind and that nothing-to-lose recklessness that made her say it.
“Honestly—all those things a person would normally ask? It’s pointless. All that is over for me now.”
He immediately, tactfully backed off. “So you’re starting over,” he said lightly, and the way he said it made it sound like an adventure, not an end. “You’ve come to the right place. The islands have always been a place for reinvention. Their pirate history, you know.”
“I don’t, actually, not much.” It was her first trip to the Bahamas.
“It’s the location. Seven hundred islands and cays, with all those complex shoals and channels…right off well-traveled shipping lanes like the Windward Passage. It was easy for pirate ships to lie in wait for cargo ships to plunder, and to hide once the plundering had been done.”
They had reached a sea break of piled boulders, no way around but to climb. He mounted the rocks barefoot, clambering up with swift, sure steps, then anchored himself and reached down to her. His hand enclosed hers, warm and strong, and he lifted her as if she weighed nothing, releasing her just a beat slowly as she tested her footing, and he spoke again as they continued over the rocks.
“The islands became a hideout for blockade-runners during the Civil War, and rumrunners during Prohibition.”
Funny how danger can sound enticing…especially with a British accent.
“That’s quite a criminal history,”
she said aloud.
Emphasis on “criminal.”
He smiled. “And that history translated to modern banking practices, too. Hidden treasure turned into offshore bank accounts. You can live on a boat, always keep moving—no one asks too many questions. It’s easy to disappear, here.”
He glanced at her and she felt a frisson of unease. It was late, and there were few people on the beach; the shore on this side of the island was rocky and rough and she suddenly felt very alone. It would take only a second for her to “slip,” to hit her head on a rock. No one knew where she had gone and who with.
Yes…so very easy to disappear.
But something made her press on. “So you’re advocating the life.”
He stopped and looked at her in the moonlight. “Am I?”
“Aren’t you?” He was silent, and she glanced out over the ocean, felt it rumbling over the jagged rocks below. “Do you really believe people can start over?”
A cloud passed over the moon and she couldn’t see his face. “I believe they must. A life is a terrible thing to waste.”
Her entire body was wired and numb; she realized she could die, but there was a sort of peace in it.
As she took a faltering step back, her foot slid, slipping…
He caught her…and kissed her.
At the hotel they moved into the elevator together and she pressed the button for her floor, and felt her stomach sink as the elevator rose, a sensation not unlike flying.
At the door her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the key card. He took the card from her gently and opened the door.
Inside he was not so gentle.
She welcomed the violent sweetness of his arms and mouth, the hot and tender force of his body crushing all that was left of her former self from her.
After, she lay inside his thighs, against the warm curve of his stomach. The balcony doors were open and the breeze billowed the curtains and she listened to his breath and the rolling sound of the ocean.
I’m past the point of no return. Whatever happens, at least I will have lived these few days.
And she drifted on the sound of the waves into an uneasy sleep.
* * *
She dreamed of being underwater, in underwater halls, so far underwater she began to drown, and she panicked, fighting…and then with her last gasp she realized she could breathe after all.
The halls around her looked vaguely like the hotel halls but as blue-green as the ocean. She moved through cool water as silent as space, past an occasional grouper or shark, but the beasts paid no attention to her. Then at the end of the hall she saw a tall, dark, familiar figure. She knew where he was going and what he was going to do.
It’s perfect,
she thought;
he’s flooded the hotel with water so he can slip in and out of the gallery and simply float away with the jeweled shell.
She hurried after him, as much as one could hurry in water, and if there was any need for hurry anyway, which she thought maybe there wasn’t.
Far ahead he turned into the gallery and she surged forward and was there—and she saw the case, the gems of the shell sparkling through the water.
The gallery was empty; the guard had been washed away. Nick moved elegantly through the water toward the case and pushed lightly at the glass and it tipped slowly back on the stand, just as easily as opening a book.
The shell floated out into the water, sparkling like fire, and he caught it gently in his outstretched hand.
* * *
She jolted awake to alarms—and PA announcements of an immediate evacuation of the hotel.
She grabbed for her robe and ran out through the door…to find flooded halls. She darted forward under showers of tepid water from the emergency sprinkler system, heading for the stairs. She rounded a corner—and ran into a tall form.
Nick. As soaked to the skin as she was.
She jolted back, unnerved, but he took her arms to steady her, speaking urgently and precisely through the pulsing alarms. “I woke and you were gone—I stepped out to find you and was locked out of the room, and then the alarms began… .”
Splashing, running footsteps were coming their way. Two security guards appeared down the hall.
“Hold it there!” One of them shouted ahead.
“We’re guests of the hotel,” Nick said quickly and his eyes signaled Melissa in a way she couldn’t interpret.
The guards strode forward. “Room keys, please,” the taller one ordered.
Melissa fumbled her key out of her robe pocket. “Ms. Ballard,” the guard said, reading the card with a scanner. “Sir?” He turned to Nick.
“We’re traveling together,” Melissa said. The lie was so smooth she had not realized she was going to say it until the words were out of her mouth.
The guards looked them over. “Have you been in your room all night?” The tall one demanded.
“Until the alarms started,” she said calmly.
“Both of you?”
“Of course,” she said. “What’s happening?”
“There’s been a robbery,” the guard said.
There was a long moment. No one moved.
“May we return to our room?” she asked finally. “The alarms have stopped, and we’d like to get back to bed.”
The guards looked at each other. “Yes, thank you, ma’am.”
The guards moved down the hallway, and Nick looked once, silently, into her eyes. Then they walked down the wet hall in silence.
He used her key, and closed the door behind them.
* * *
When she woke, in the big creamy bed, to the sound of the ocean, she was alone.
Alone…
She stood slowly, blinking against the sun. She pulled on her robe and stepped to the open doors…
…to look straight out onto open and endless water. The cruise ship cut its wake far below her; the ocean wind teased her bare skin, lifted her hair.