Still Waters: The Island / Below the Surface. Heather Graham

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      “Are you planning on camping on the island?” Beth asked.

      He waved a hand toward the sea. “I’m not sure yet. I’m with some friends...we’re doing some diving, some fishing. We haven’t decided whether we’re in a camping mood or not.”

      “Where are your friends?” Beth asked. A little sharply? she wondered. So much for being casual, able to easily escape a bad situation, if it should prove to be one.

      “At the moment I’m on my own.”

      “I didn’t see your dinghy,” Beth said. “In fact, I didn’t even notice another boat in the area.”

      “It’s there,” he said, “the Sea Serpent.” He cocked his head wryly. “My friend, Lee, who owns her, likes to think of himself as the brave, adventurous type. Did you sail out here on your own?”

      It might have been an innocent question, but not to Beth. Not at this moment.

      She had been swearing for years that she was going to take kung fu classes or karate, but as yet, she hadn’t quite done so.

      She always carried pepper spray in her purse. But, of course, she had been wandering inland with the girls, just walking, and she wasn’t carrying her purse. She wasn’t carrying anything. She had on sandals and a bathing suit. Like the girls.

      “Are you alone?” Keith Henson repeated politely.

      Politely? Or menacingly?

      “Oh, no. We’re with my brother. And a whole crowd.”

      “A whole crowd—” Amber began.

      Beth pinched her shoulder.

      “Ow!” Amber gasped.

      “Lots of my brother’s friends are coming in. Sailors...boat people...you know, big guys, the kind who can twist off beer caps with their teeth,” Beth said, trying to sound light.

      Amber and Kim were both staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

      “Oh, yeah, all my dad’s friends are, like, big, tough-guy nature freaks,” Amber said, staring at Beth. “Yeah right, the kind that open beer bottles with their teeth.”

      “They are?” Kim asked, sounding very confused.

      “At any rate, there will be a bunch of us. A couple of cops, even,” Beth said, realizing immediately how ridiculous that sounded.

      Time to move on!

      Tugging at the girls’ shoulders, she added, “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you. We’d better get back to my brother before he misses us. We’re supposed to be helping with the setup.”

      “We’ll see you, if you’re hanging around,” Kim told him cheerfully.

      “Yes, nice to meet you,” Amber said.

      “Bye, then,” Keith Henson said.

      A plastic smile in place, Beth continued to force the girls away from the man and toward the beach where they’d come ashore in the dinghy. And where they would find her brother, she prayed. Surely he hadn’t gone wandering off.

      “Aunt Beth,” Amber whispered, “what on earth is the matter with you? You were so weird to that man.”

      Kimberly cleared her throat, “Um, actually, you were pretty rude,” she said hesitantly.

      “He was alone, he appeared out of nowhere—and we had just found a skull,” Beth said, after glancing back to assure herself that they were out of earshot.

      “You said you weren’t sure if it was a skull or not,” Kim said.

      “I wasn’t sure—I’m not sure.”

      “But it looked like he just got here, too,” Amber said. “And the skull—it is a skull, isn’t it?—had been there a while.”

      “Criminals often return to the scene of the crime,” Beth said, quoting some program or other, and anxiously moving forward.

      Amber burst out laughing. “Aunt Beth! Okay, so you got the heebie-jeebies. But puh-lease. Did you see a gun on him?”

      “Or anywhere he could have stuffed one?” Kim asked, giggling.

      They weren’t such bad questions, really.

      “No,” Beth admitted.

      “So why were you so rude?” Amber persisted.

      Beth groaned. “I don’t know. I guess when you think you might have found a skull, you become very careful about your own health and well-being, okay?”

      “Okay,” Amber said after a moment. “He looked like a decent guy.”

      “He probably is.”

      Kim giggled suddenly. “He was hot.”

      “He’s way too old for you guys,” Beth replied a little too sharply.

      “So is Brad Pitt, but that doesn’t mean he’s not hot,” Amber said, shaking her head as if it was a sadly difficult thing to deal with adults.

      “Right,” Beth murmured.

      A thud sounded from behind. Beth jumped, ready to cover the girls with her own body against any threatened danger.

      “Aunt Beth,” Amber said, “it was a palm frond.”

      Beth exhaled. “Right,” she murmured.

      The girls were looking at one another again. As if they had to be very careful with her.

      As if she were losing her mind.

      “Come on, let’s find your dad,” Beth said to Amber.

      * * *

      The woman had to be one of the strangest he’d ever come across, Keith decided, watching as the threesome walked away.

      She’d acted as if she’d been hiding something.

      As if she was guilty of...something.

      He shook his head. No, not with those two teens at her side. They were far too innocent and friendly for anything to have been going on. Not that teens couldn’t be guilty of a lot. But he had learned to be a pretty good judge of character, and those two were simply young and friendly, like a pair of puppies, fresh and eager to explore the world, expecting only good things from it.

      But as for the woman...

      Beth Anderson. She and the tall girl were obviously related. Both had the same very sleek dark hair. Not dead straight, but lush and wavy. And Beth had the kind of eyes that picked up the elements, that could be dark or light, that held a bit of the exotic, the mysterious. СКАЧАТЬ