Storm Season Read online

  Darcy sighed. “Now we’ll be glued to the television for days.”

  “Yeah, praying it misses us and feeling guilty for wishing it on some other part of the country.” I stood up and headed for my office. “Come on, Roger, we have work to do.”

  By work, I meant reading the Times and the Tribune and finishing the crossword puzzles, because, except for eventually identifying the Lassiter sisters’ tenant, I had no active cases at the moment. The hiatus didn’t disturb me. I had my police pension and a small trust fund from my father. Bill also had his police pension and a small fortune in real estate in the orange groves his father had left him. Pelican Bay Investigations was more a venture to keep us both busy and sane rather than a needed source of income.

  A LITTLE BEFORE THREE, I set aside the completed puzzles, put a leash on Roger, told Darcy I wouldn’t be in again until the next morning and drove a few blocks to the marina. Anvil-shaped clouds towered in the eastern sky and portended evening thunderstorms. In spite of the threatening weather, many of the slips at the marina were empty due to sailors enjoying pleasure cruises and charter boat captains fulfilling the fishing fantasies of tourists in the deep waters of the Gulf.

  Bill’s thirty-eight-foot cabin cruiser, Ten-Ninety-Eight, police code for “mission accomplished,” was docked at the end of one of several piers. It appeared closed and deserted, but as Roger and I approached, I could hear the hum of air-conditioning. I’d already spotted Bill’s SUV in the parking lot, so I knew he was aboard. I stepped from the dock to the rear deck and tapped on the sliders that opened onto the lounge, Bill’s tiny but efficient living area.

  When he opened the glass door, my heart did a little flip-flop at the sight of him, making me feel like a teenager again instead of a forty-nine-year-old. Even at sixty, Bill was a man who turned women’s heads. Tall, tan and in terrific shape, with thick white hair and blue eyes, he grew more handsome with age. But today those baby blues had no twinkle when they greeted me, and his usual grin had gone AWOL.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He pulled me inside, closed the door behind Roger and grabbed me in a brief but fierce hug.

  “We have to talk.” His tone was as serious as his expression.

  Fear threatened to close my throat. For years, Bill had been pressuring me to marry him. Set in my single ways and commitment-shy, I’d dragged my feet until recently. Last Christmas, we’d set our wedding date for Valentine’s Day, still five months away, to give me time to get used to the idea of marriage, but after we’d solved our last case, I’d recognized my delaying tactics as senseless. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Bill, and we weren’t getting any younger, so what was I waiting for? We’d agreed then that we’d marry as soon as we finished furnishing the house we’d bought together a few months earlier.

  Except for a few odds and ends, the house was now move-in ready. Judging by his expression, I worried now that Bill was the one getting cold feet.

  I sank onto the love seat on one side of the lounge, and Bill took one of the folding director’s chairs across the room from me. Not a good sign.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  Roger curled onto the sofa next to me and placed his head on my lap, as if sensing I needed comfort.

  Bill’s face looked pained. “I don’t know how to say this.”

  In spite of his tan, his skin had a strange pallor. I prayed he wasn’t ill. I snapped my mind shut against a dozen dire possibilities.

  “Just tell me.”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled, like a diver getting ready to take a header off the tower. “It’s Trish.”

  The years fell away, and I was once again a rookie, fresh out of the academy, with Bill Malcolm as my first partner with the Tampa Police Department. He had a wife the other male officers envied, a gorgeous woman with magnificent red hair, exotic green eyes, a curvaceous figure and a sense of humor that kept everyone around her smiling. Bill and Trish also had a six-year-old daughter, Melanie. The perfect family.

  Until the strain of having a husband who put his life on the line every day finally broke Trish’s nerves and their marriage. The end came right after I’d saved Bill from being hacked to death by a machete-wielding wife abuser. I’d had to put three rounds in the guy’s chest to stop him, the only time in my career I’d ever fired my weapon. Bill was safe, but the what-might-have-been had sent Trish over the edge. She filed for divorce, moved to Seattle and took their daughter Melanie with her.

  And she’d broken Bill’s heart. He had still loved her and eventually had come to realize that she’d loved him, too, and the only way she could end the marriage that was destroying her emotionally had been to put a continent between them.

  At first, Melanie had returned to Tampa for summer visits with her dad, but as she reached adolescence, she had wanted to remain in Seattle with her friends—and her stepfather. Trish’s new husband, an accountant, had a nice safe job where no one would try to kill him, unless he was caught cooking the books by a client with a temper and the means for murder—highly unlikely for the straight-arrow Harvey in his safe suburban practice.

  So over the twenty-three years since the divorce, Bill had lost touch with both Trish and Melanie and, to my amazement and delight, had fallen in love with me. Even when Melanie had married and had had children, she hadn’t encouraged her father to participate in their lives, a crying shame since Bill would have been a first-class grandfather.

  “What about Trish?” I asked.

  My first thought had been that she’d died. She was Bill’s contemporary, after all, and not everyone lived to the ripe old age of the Lassiter sisters.

  He spread his hands in a gesture of either appeal or frustration. I couldn’t tell. “She’s back.”

  “Back in Tampa?”

  He shook his head, looking more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him.

  Roger, sensing the tension crackling in the tiny cabin, sat up and looked from me to Bill and back and whined softly.

  A devastating second thought hit me. “Trish is back with you?”

  “God, no,” Bill said immediately and with such emphasis, I exhaled in relief. “But it’s complicated.”

  “Apparently,” I said with too much sarcasm, “or I’d have some clue what the hell is going on. You said Trish is back. Exactly where is she?”

  The pained expression returned to Bill’s face, but he raised his chin and looked me in the eye. “She’s living in our house.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “What?” I shook my head, thinking I’d heard wrong.

  “I left her there until I could talk with you.”

  “You left your ex-wife in our house?” I couldn’t believe it. The entire exchange sounded like the script for a bad soap opera. “Why?”

  “Harvey dumped her for a younger model.”

  “So she’s come running back to you?” Insecurity gripped me. Bill had loved Trish, she was the mother of his only child, and now she wasn’t just a distant memory three thousand miles away. She was right here in Pelican Bay.

  In our house.

  “She called late last night, hysterical,” he explained. “Not only did Harvey leave her for a younger woman, but he’d planned every detail of his escape before Trish had a hint that anything was wrong. The creep cleaned out their joint accounts and canceled her credit cards. The deed to their house was already in Harvey’s name only, and he demanded that she move out. What could I do? Trish had nowhere to go.”

  “She has a daughter.”

  Bill pushed his fingers through his hair and frowned. “Trish called Melanie, but Melanie sided with Harvey. Said if Trish had been a better wife, Harvey wouldn’t have left her. Trish asked Melanie if she could stay with her until she can get back on her feet, but Melanie told her that in her present emotional state, Trish would upset the children.”

  Years ago, Bill and I had often discussed how Trish had spoiled Melanie, as if trying to make up to her daughter for the divorce. Now Melanie�
�s resulting self-centeredness was coming back to bite her mother.

  “Trish was desperate, or she wouldn’t have called me,” Bill said. “And she is the mother of my only child. What else could I do?” he repeated.

  He could have hung up on her, I thought, like I would have. But Bill was a better person than I’d ever be, another of the reasons I loved him so much.

  “I wired her money for a plane ticket,” he continued, “picked her up at the Tampa Airport at noon and left her at the house until I could talk to you.”

  “You could have taken her to a motel.”

  “I tried, but Labor Day weekend’s coming up. Every decent motel or hotel in the area is booked solid.”

  “How long do you intend for her to stay at our place?” I tried but couldn’t keep the hostility from my voice.

  Bill rose from his chair, crossed the cabin, sat next to me, and took both my hands in his. “I love you, Margaret. Whatever there was between Trish and me is over and done. Dead. I’m not the same man I was all those years ago.”

  But he’d loved Trish before, a nagging little voice in my head insisted. And if he’s around her long enough, he might love her again.

  “If you don’t want her in our house,” he said, “say the word. I’ll find someplace else, even if I have to rent Abe Mackley’s guest room.”

  Abe, now retired, had been a detective with us in Tampa. I doubted his wife wanted Trish around any more than I did.

  “What’s your plan?” I knew Bill wouldn’t have brought Trish all the way across the country without some thought of what to do with her once she arrived.

  “First, find her another place to stay. Our house is only temporary until she can locate an apartment. I’ll loan her some funds until she can get a job and pay me back.”

  “What kind of job?” Breaking into the workforce at sixty was no easy feat.

  “Trish was a secretary in a law firm before we married,” Bill said.

  “Typewriters ruled in those days.” I shook my head. “She’ll need training, unless she’s already learned computer skills and the necessary programs.”

  “Then she can sign up for courses at the Clearwater campus of St. Petersburg College.”

  Knowing Bill, he’d pay for that, too. Here I was, figuratively rubbing my hands with glee over what-goes-around-comes-around, while he, the person Trish had hurt the most, was bending over backward to bail her out of deep doo-doo. I should have been ashamed.

  But I wasn’t.

  “It’s up to you, Margaret,” he said.

  “Why me? She’s your ex-wife.”

  “Because you’re the most important person in my life, and I won’t do anything that would hurt you or make you uncomfortable.”

  Great. All I had to do was say the word. Bill would leave Trish to fend for herself, and I’d spend the rest of my days feeling like the world’s most selfish bitch.

  I tried to shove emotion aside and let reason reign. What harm would it do to let Trish stay in our house a few days until she could find her own place? Bill and I hadn’t planned to move in for a few more weeks. And just because Trish had been heartless all those years ago didn’t mean I had to follow her example. If Bill could forgive her and show compassion, so could I.

  “You’re right,” I said, feeling magnanimous. “We’d be cruel not to help her.”

  He enveloped me in his arms, and his lips brushed my ear. “I knew you’d understand. You’re a good woman, and I’m a damned lucky man to have you. It’ll all work out, you’ll see.”

  I wished I shared his optimism. I saw potential disaster no matter what decision I made, and I wouldn’t rest easy until the glamorous Trish was once again out of our lives and, preferably, at least three thousand miles away again.

  Bill released me. “We’ll take Trish to dinner tonight to try to cheer her up.”

  I stifled a groan. Talk about a rock and a hard place. I didn’t want to socialize with Bill’s ex, but I didn’t want him alone with her, either. I was mulling over which was the lesser of two evils when Bill’s cell phone rang.

  He answered and handed it to me. “It’s Darcy.”

  “I’ve got a hysterical woman on the other line,” Darcy said.

  My first thought was that Trish had called the office.

  “She says somebody’s trying to kill her,” Darcy added.

  “Tell her to call 9-1-1.”

  “I already did. She claims she’s talked to the police and there’s nothing they can do. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Make her an appointment for first thing in the morning.”

  “Tried that. She wants to see you now. Says she needs a bodyguard.” Darcy paused. “She’s either a total weirdo or really scared out of her mind, Maggie. I can’t tell which over the phone.”

  “Give me her address,” I said with a sigh. One dilemma, at least, was solved. If I was interviewing Darcy’s caller, I wouldn’t have to go to dinner with Bill and Trish.

  “Her name’s Kimberly Ross,” Darcy said, “and she lives in the penthouse at Sun and Sea condos on Sand Key.”

  “Tell Ms. Ross I’m on my way.” I pushed End and gave Bill his phone and a summary of Darcy’s message. “I’ll have to pass on dinner. Can you take care of Roger? I don’t know how long this will take.”

  “Of course.” He grasped my chin and tipped my face to look into my eyes. “You sure you’re okay with this Trish thing?”

  “No,” I answered honestly, “and I need time to think about it. But the woman has to eat, so I have no objection to your taking her to dinner.”

  Okay, so that second part wasn’t so honest, but with Trish back in the picture, the last thing I wanted was to come across as an insensitive jerk or rabidly jealous. I’d wait, assess the situation and then, if I thought Trish posed the slightest threat to our relationship, I’d scratch her gorgeous green eyes out.

  “You’re the best, Margaret.” Bill kissed me to back up his words.

  Leaving Roger with Bill and heading for my car, I could only hope, with Trish back in town, that I maintained that ranking.

  GOING-HOME TRAFFIC was heavy on Edgewater Drive all the way through downtown Clearwater and across the arching bridge that led to the causeway and the beach. I crossed the causeway, navigated the roundabout and headed south on Gulf Boulevard. Beach real estate was in a state of flux. Where mom-and-pop motels and restaurants had once stood, land had been cleared for multistory luxury condos. In the coming years, families that now swarmed the area for a last fling before going back to school would find no affordable places to vacation. Only the rich and richer would be able to afford living on the beach. That famous white sugar sand might as well be gold dust.

  I crossed the Clearwater Pass Bridge onto Sand Key and watched for the sign for Sun and Sea among the towers of condos on the Gulf side. I found the complex south of the Sheraton and turned into the drive. When I pulled up to the entrance, yellow crime scene tape flapped in the onshore breeze just inside the gate.

  Although I’d never been here, the parking lot seemed vaguely familiar. Then recognition clicked.

  No wonder the woman who’d called the office was scared. Sun and Sea had been the location of the shooting Darcy and I had seen reported on the noon news. I waited while the security guard buzzed Ms. Ross for permission to admit me, drove through after he opened the gate and searched for a parking place.

  A Clearwater police cruiser was parked in front of the visitor spaces and a uniformed officer stood outside his car, leaning against the hood. I recognized Rudy Beaton, a former Pelican Bay cop, and rolled down my window.

  “How about moving that heap of junk so a lady can park?” I called to him.

  “Maggie? Is that you?” Beaton pushed away from his vehicle and approached mine.

  “I’m here to call on a client,” I said. “Good to see you. How’s the job treating you?”

  He grinned. “You know how it is. I’m counting the days till retirement.”

  I jerked my t
humb toward the yellow tape. “Did you respond to the shooting?”

  Beaton shook his head. “That was before my shift. I’m here to keep an eye on the scene until CSU has finished up.”

  I glanced around. “Looks like they’ve already left.”

  He pointed to a hotel south of the condo. “They’re processing a room over there. Fifth floor.”

  “That’s where the sniper fired from?”

  “Doc Cline and Adler are working that theory,” Beaton said.

  Doc Cline was the medical examiner. She and Adler must have calculated the trajectory of the bullet that killed the woman earlier today.

  “Did the vic live here?” I asked.

  Beaton shook his head. “She was from out of town, here to visit relatives for the weekend.”

  I looked from the hotel window to the parking lot where the woman had died. “Guess that put a crimp in their holiday plans.”

  “You ever see any of the guys from Pelican Bay…” he asked with a hint of nostalgia “…other than Adler and Darcy?”

  “Not lately. Seems as if they’ve scattered to the four winds.” Political maneuvering under the guise of saving money had shut down the Pelican Bay Police Department earlier in the year and had left everyone from uniformed officers and detectives to support personnel scrambling for new jobs.

  “Me, either. Except for Adler.” Beaton’s face reflected the sadness I felt over the breakup, like a family that had suffered through a nasty divorce. “I’ll move my cruiser,” he said, “so you can park.”

  Rudy returned to his car, drove it away from the visitor parking and I pulled into a space.

  Within minutes, I was exiting the condo’s elevator onto the penthouse floor, twenty stories above the narrow strip of beach that edged the Gulf of Mexico.

  At my knock, a woman with frizzy blond hair, wide gray eyes, stylish gold-framed glasses and tear-splotched cheeks, opened the door.