Deadly Pursuit

22

Kirstie killed the outboard and let the dinghy drift in languid slow motion a few yards from the anchored motorboat.

Steve stood and hailed her. “What brings you out here?”

She rose also, planting her sandals wide apart on the wooden floorboards to maintain her balance. “Got a little worried. You two have been gone awhile.”

“Not that long.” Jack, still seated, trailed a lazy hand in the water. “You’re turning paranoid, Mrs. G.”

She met his smile with a frozen grin of her own. “Maybe I am.”

Relief and anxiety competed for priority in her mind. Steve was unharmed, the gun and knife nowhere in view. Yet she sensed tension between the two men, a false calm ready to explode into violence.

And there was something odd, unsettling, in the way each of them was looking at her-Jack with his vaguely saturnine smirk, Steve with an expression of puzzlement and pain, eyes narrowed in a strangely searching gaze. He seemed to be studying the familiar contours of her face for the answer to some unvoiced question.

“I see you found my inflatable.” Jack was still smiling, his eyes dark.

She nodded. “At the cove. Funny thing, though. The boat was all covered with palm fronds.”

“Camouflage.”

She was surprised to hear him admit it so promptly. “What made you think camouflage was necessary on Pelican Key?”

“You said yourself that the island is private property. I didn’t want to get chased off by the owners.”

“But you thought Pelican Key was deserted.”

“I assumed it was. I wasn’t sure. Besides, someone could always come along. I was planning to stay a couple of days-as I guess you’ve figured out.”

He inclined his head at the trio of grocery bags in the runabout’s bow.

Kirstie didn’t know whether his ingenuousness was authentic or merely the studied technique of a skilled liar. She suspected the latter.

“You did bring a lot of stuff with you,” she said carefully. “Canned goods, mostly.”

“Nonperishable supplies. I had this notion of camping out. For old times’ sake.”

“But you didn’t have a sleeping bag, a camp stove-”

“No, it was a last-minute thing. Sort of half-assed, admittedly. I had no time to get all the items I needed.”

The tender bumped up against the motorboat, then ran slowly alongside it, a cat nuzzling a friendly leg. Kirstie smelled wet wood and briny skin dried in the sun. The wind dragged her hair across her face; she brushed it back with the heel of her hand.

Jack’s answers weren’t entirely satisfactory, but she had failed to catch him in an obvious lie. She decided to drop the subject for now.

“How was the dive?” she asked Steve. “See anything interesting?”

“Nothing too spectacular.” His words came slowly, heavy with thought. “We didn’t stay out long. Got back on the boat at least twenty minutes ago. And talked.”

A change had come over his face, as if, in exploring her features, he had found the solution to the riddle he’d been pondering.

“About high school?” she asked.

He sat down on the transom seat. His right hand dropped to the vinyl case where the snorkeling gear was stowed. He plucked idly at the zipper with thumb and forefinger.

“About all kinds of things. Jack’s been telling me some stories. You might find them worth hearing, too.”

He unzipped the case a few inches.

“Yes,” Jack cut in, a shade too sharply. “I think you would. I was telling your husband about a mutual friend from school. Poor son of a bitch got convicted on a felony charge-accessory to murder.”

The words were addressed to Kirstie, but Jack’s gaze was fixed on Steve.

Kirstie didn’t understand where this was leading. “How awful,” she said tentatively. “Is he still in prison?”

Jack kept his eyes on Steve. “Died there.”

A gull passed overhead, keening, then flew on, leaving an abrupt and weighty silence. Kirstie became uncomfortably aware of the desolation around them, the bleak stretches of open water broken only by the coral ridge’s polished fangs and, in the far distance, the green shimmering mirage of Pelican Key.

“That’s too bad,” she said. To Steve: “Did you know him well?”

He nodded, eyes hooded. “Better than I wanted to.” He fingered the case a moment longer, then zipped it shut once more. “Anyway, it’s not a pleasant topic. Sorry I brought it up.”

She looked at Jack. “What made you want to talk about something like that?”

“I’ve got a morbid streak in me. Didn’t Stevie tell you?”

“As a matter of fact, he did. You used to entertain him with horror stories about these islands.”

“Historical anecdotes, if you please. Although I guess ‘horror stories’ would be equally accurate. There’s no shortage of material to draw on. A lot of people have died in the Keys.”

“But none on Pelican Key?”

Jack got up and stretched luxuriously, displaying the ropy sinews of his arms, the bunched muscles of his abdomen. His powerful physique made a clear contrast with Steve’s obvious lack of conditioning.

“None,” he answered, showing that same ambiguous smile. “At least, not yet.”

A tremor passed over Kirstie’s shoulders, lifting them in an involuntary shrug. Suddenly she felt the need to get away, though she couldn’t quite say why.

“Well,” she said lightly, “it looks like my premonition of disaster was a false alarm. Guess I’ll be heading back.”

Jack stretched again, pectorals flexing. “We’ll follow you in.”

“Sure you were through diving?”

“Yes,” Steve answered. “We’re through.”

He wasn’t looking at her anymore. Wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She wondered why that simple fact seemed frightening to her.

Restarting the motor, she angled the dinghy to face Pelican Key. She throttled forward, running at a slow, steady pace.

Sun rays fractured on the shifting surface of the sea, bursting into multicolored fragments like a kaleidoscope’s whirling shards. On the eastern horizon, a sportfisher rushed noisily into the deeper blue of the Atlantic, plowing a wide furrow in the water, casting spray like seed.

Kirstie glanced back and saw the motorboat trailing at a distance, Steve at the controls.

Her fears had been groundless, it appeared. Her husband had never been in any danger. He and an old friend had simply been passing the time on a summer afternoon, swimming among the coral towers and talking idly about nothing in particular while they sunbathed on the boat.

An attractive picture. She could almost believe in it.

Almost.