“So…where’s that new girl of yours, David?” Seth asked.
They hadn’t been there long; but Seth Granger had already consumed five or six drinks—island concoctions made with three shots each.
David had never particularly liked the guy to begin with, and with a few drinks in him, he was pretty much completely obnoxious.
“New girl?” David asked.
“Alicia Farr. Fair Alicia. Since the wife threw you over after all those pictures of the two of you came out, I figured the two of you were an item. She isn’t here with you, huh? I heard tell she had something up her sleeve and was going to be around these parts. Word is she learned something from that old geezer who died a while back. Danny Fuller.”
David wondered if Seth Granger was really drunk or was just pretending to be. He’d spent the day listening, waiting for one of his guests to ask the right question, make the right slip. No go. They might have been any four good old boys out for a day on the water.
But now…
“Sorry, Seth. Alicia and I were never an item. We team up now and then for work. We have a lot of the same interests, that’s all. There’s no reason for her to be at Moon Bay.”
“Actually, there was an article about her in the news a few weeks back. Of course, it was in one those supermarket tabloids, so… Anyway, the headline was something like Dying Mogul Gives Secrets to Beauty Who’s a Beast. The writer seemed to think she’d been hanging on him hoping to get news on any unclaimed treasure he might know about. There was a definite suggestion that she was coming to the Keys.”
Jay Galway thumped his beer stein on the table a little too hard. “So why do you think she was headed for Moon Bay? There are two dozen islands in the Keys.”
“That’s true enough,” David said, eyeing John Seymore. “So you’re up on the movements of Alicia Farr, too, huh?” he inquired, forcing a bit of humor into his voice.
“I’m a wannabe, I admit,” John said ruefully.
“I know what it takes to be a SEAL,” David commented. “I can’t imagine you’re a wannabe anything.”
“Not like me, huh?” Seth Granger demanded, giving David a slap on the back that caught him totally unaware and awakened every fighting reaction inside him.
He checked his temper. “Hell, Granger, with your money? I doubt you’re a wannabe anything, either.”
“The wannabe would be me,” Jay said dryly.
“Jay, you’re running a four-star resort, and your vacations are pure adventure,” David assured him.
“Yeah, but I bust my butt for all of them—and I’m still on the fringes. But you know…I spent a lot of time with Danny Fuller. I’m sure he had a dozen treasure maps stored in his head, things he learned over the years, and Alicia had the looks—and the balls. So…”
“Looks like we’re all here looking for Alicia,” Seth said. “And she’s blown us all off.”
“I don’t actually know her,” John Seymore reminded them.
“That’s right—Seymore’s just here to get warm and cuddly with the sea life,” David said.
“And your ex-wife,” Seth commented.
A tense silence suddenly gripped the table.
Then David’s phone rang, as if on cue. “Excuse me, will you?” he said to the others. “Reception is better out side.”
He rose, flipping open the phone as he walked out, then paused in the alleyway outside the little restaurant, shaded by a huge sea grape tree.
“Can you talk?” his caller asked.
“You bet,” David said. “I’ve been hoping to hear from you.”
“I spent some time at the hospital where Danny Fuller died. Seems Alicia was in on an almost daily basis. One of the nurses heard her swearing to Danny again and again that she wasn’t after money, just discovery. And whatever Danny told her, it had to do with dolphins. Apparently the words dolphin and lagoon came up over and over again. And there was one more thing I think you’ll find of interest.” The man on the other end paused.
“What’s that?” David asked after a long silence. Dane Whitelaw didn’t usually hesitate. An ex–special-forces agent, he had opened his own place in Key Largo, where he combined dive charters with a private investigation firm. Sounded a bit strange, but it seemed to work out well enough. He avoided a lot of the big city slush and came up with some truly interesting work, a lot of it to do with boats lost at sea and people who disappeared after heading out for the Caribbean.
Some of them wanted to disappear.
Some of them were forced to do so.
But if he needed information of any kind, David had never met anyone as capable as Dane of finding it out.
Dane was still silent.
“You still there?” David asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“Apparently, according to the old guy’s night nurse, your ex-wife’s name kept coming up, as well.”
“What?”
“She said the two kept talking about an Alex McCord.”
David digested the information slowly. Finally it was Dane’s turn to ask, “Hey, David, you still there?”
“Yeah, yeah. I need another favor.”