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  Half Moon Bay

  A Key West Novel

  Meryl Sawyer

  This book is dedicated to my Key West friends who know that Margaritaville is a state of mind, not a place. A sunset at Cherry Cove is just as spectacular as the sun setting on Key West.

  Kathy and Phil

  Gina and Paul

  Sally and Jerry

  And, of course, Jeff. Thanks everyone for all your help—especially with the love scenes.

  “The best way to love anything is as if it might be lost.”

  —G. K. Chesterton

  Prologue

  Character determines fate. Amy Conroy crouched in the dark shadows behind the Stop ’N Go gas station, silently repeating her mother’s favorite saying. Once, the words had meant little to her, but now she was convinced the motto had given her courage. And the will to survive.

  Beside her a rat scuttled out from under the trash bin. He sniffed her toes, then slithered across Amy’s sandals, his long tail brushing her bare leg. She remained rigid, holding the little dog to her chest. It was almost midnight; if the right car didn’t come along soon, they would be forced to hide until tomorrow evening.

  She had exactly twenty-three cents left in the small tote she had slung over her shoulder. It wasn’t enough to buy a bag of popcorn to share with Jiggs. In their cross-country trek to Florida, she’d scavenged in trash bins more than once. She could do it again.

  “All right, Jiggs! Check that car. The perfect trunk—and Dade County license plates,” she whispered to the dog. “It’s going our way.”

  An older-model sedan drove into the gas station and parked at the side of the building near the rest rooms. Amy had observed this countless times during the three weeks it had taken her to make her way to the opposite side of the country, where Dexxter Foxx could never find her.

  An attractive blonde got out of the car and hurried into the jiffy mart. A few agonizingly long minutes later, the blonde sauntered out, the paddle with the key to the ladies’ room in her hand. As she struggled with the lock, Amy got a good look at her. The woman was Amy’s size, but a little taller, and her blond hair was slightly longer than Amy’s.

  She guessed the blonde was a bit older than she was. Thirty or perhaps thirty-one. There was a hardness about her, a brittle edge evident in the grim set of her mouth and the angry way she shouldered open the door.

  Amy quickly looked around—the coast was clear—then dashed up to the car. The pit of her belly clenched, the way it always did when she was hitching a ride.

  “Get a grip,” she muttered to herself. Glancing over her shoulder one final time, she popped the lid of the trunk, praying it was empty. It was.

  “No barking,” she cautioned the little dog, who rarely barked.

  Nothing more than a small notebook was in the large trunk. She put Jiggs down beside it, and he scuttled to the corner, while she looped fifty-pound-test fishing line around the latch. A second later she was inside and had the lid closed. “Whew!”

  Amy had traveled across the country in the trunks of unsuspecting motorists. She knew her cars, knew which ones had big enough trunks, knew which ones could be opened from inside, knew exactly how to keep air circulating.

  “The tricky part is getting out without being caught.”

  Amy stretched out as much as she could, then took the penlight and the small screwdriver from her tote. She was in shorts and a T-shirt, but it was beastly hot inside the trunk.

  “Jiggs, with luck, this is our last ride inside a trunk.”

  The dog licked her leg, and she stroked his bad ear. Jiggs was no prize, but neither was Amy. She had experienced a small twinge of envy when she’d looked at the woman driving this car. She was very attractive, the type who turned men’s heads. Amy turned heads too.

  Turned them away.

  A birthmark like a splash of port wine covered the right side of her face. Once, it had bothered her, but years of torment taught her to control her emotions. And ignore men.

  Until Dexxter Foxx.

  “Dexxter is capable of anything,” she whispered to Jiggs. A federal marshal ruthlessly murdered proved how cunning and dangerous an enemy she had made.

  Footsteps interrupted Amy’s thoughts. “Here we go.”

  Amy waited until the car was zipping toward Miami before she turned on the penlight and used the small screwdriver to undo the tail light near her face. Hot, but fresh air streamed into the trunk. She moved Jiggs up so that both their noses were near the air vent.

  She flicked off the penlight, concerned that other motorists or—God forbid—the Highway Patrol would notice. Outside Phoenix, the car she’d been traveling in had been pulled over. She had been ready to yank on the fishing line to release the trunk latch, but luck—character determines fate—had been with her. The officer had cited the driver for a faulty tail light, yet neither of them had bothered to open the trunk.

  “Less than two hours to Miami,” she whispered to Jiggs.

  Smiling to herself, she began to nod off. Amy didn’t dare fall asleep now. She needed to select just the right opportunity to release the latch and jump out of the trunk. Getting in without being seen was difficult; getting out was a work of art. She’d had several close calls, but so far she hadn’t been caught.

  To keep herself awake, she located the small notebook that had been in the trunk. Taking care not to let light shine through the gap from the tail light, she switched on the penlight to see if anything interesting was in the spiral notebook. A business card was paper-clipped to the first page.

  “Matthew Jensen. Exposé magazine.” She read the card to Jiggs, who responded with his usual affectionate lick. “Interesting.”

  She stared at the card for a moment, an idea crystallizing in her mind. She took the card and reached for her tote, but it was at her feet. She couldn’t get it without disturbing Jiggs, so she tucked the card into her bra.

  Using the penlight, she scanned the contents of the notebook. It detailed the blonde’s long—X-rated—affair with Matthew Jensen. He was crazy about this woman, giving her expensive gifts and taking her to romantic places like Bermuda, where they made love in the surf.

  Amy closed her eyes, allowing herself to imagine life without the ugly birthmark. Maybe one day, some man would …

  The car swerved, jolting Amy, and she realized she must have drifted off. A quick check of her watch told her hours had passed. They had driven through Miami some time ago. They must be south in the Keys somewhere.

  “Jiggs, we’re going to have to backtrack—again.”

  A surge of something too intense to be mere disappointment filled her as she remembered the other time she’d miscalculated. She’d thought the car was heading west across Texas, but when it stopped she found herself in a garage in a tiny town in Oklahoma. It had taken her days to get on track again.

  “Surely, it won’t be that long. We’re out of money,” she said just as the driver threw on the brakes.

  Amy bounced into the tail light, then slammed against the roof of the trunk with a bone-jarring whack. The car fishtailed and she rolled over Jiggs. Terrified of crushing the little dog, she scrambled backward and accidentally yanked on the line. The trunk’s lid flew open. A split second later she was airborne.

  Chapter 1

  “We need you to identify the victim.”

  Victim? Even now, hours later, standing in the Key West airport, Matthew Jensen could still feel the sudden weakness in his limbs at the policeman’s words. Oh, Christ, no—not Trevor.

  Before he had managed a response, the disembodied voice on the phone had answere
d his silent prayer. Trevor Adams had not been in a near-fatal automobile crash. His best friend was safe.

  It was a woman who was critically injured.

  Matt had hung up, then he’d tried to reach Trevor. He’d left a message on his friend’s machine before flying to Key West. Matt had told the police he was coming, but he hadn’t expected the officer in charge of the case to meet him so late at night.

  He slung his carry-on bag over his shoulder and followed the man to his squad car. Outside the deserted terminal, the balmy air brought with it the loamy scent of the tropics, night-blooming jasmine and fragrant magnolias. This was the Key West he always enjoyed, the land of endless summer.

  Now that he had quit his job at Exposé magazine, he wanted to spend time with his buddy from college, Trevor. Matt hadn’t planned to come to Key West so soon, but he felt responsible for the comatose woman. The only identification she had was his business card. Undoubtedly, he knew her.

  Matt studied the young officer leading him into the parking lot. During his years as an investigative reporter, Matt had encountered dozens of cops. This kid was green, hardly out of the police academy. He supposed it didn’t matter. Not much went on in Key West. The main problem was tourists who’d guzzled too much tequila at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville.

  “The wreck was a real mess,” the officer told Matt as he drove the squad car out of the airport. “Two people were killed. Your friend is the only one who survived—if she lives.”

  “I’m not sure who this woman is. None of my friends told me they were coming down here.”

  “She was driving an older-model blue Buick. Does that help?”

  “No. Most people I know fly to Key West.”

  “A truck carrying diesel fuel plowed into her car just as she drove off the Oversea Highway. For once, not wearing a seat belt paid off. Everyone was thrown clear. The gas truck exploded. The other two people aren’t much more than charcoal chips.”

  Matt pictured the Oversea Highway. The long, narrow road was flanked by the ocean as it passed through a seemingly endless chain of the tiny islands known as keys. Most were uninhabited, while the others were havens for sport fishermen.

  “The trucker wasn’t supposed to have a passenger. He’d been cited twice for picking up women. Near as we can figure, he’d given a hitchhiker a ride.”

  Matt stared out the window, the disturbed feeling he’d had since receiving the call intensifying. He didn’t want this injured woman to be someone he knew, a person he cared about. Every fiber of his body warned him that he couldn’t take on anyone else’s problems right now.

  He had more problems of his own than he could handle.

  They drove down Flagler Avenue and turned onto Kennedy Drive. Matt had visited Trevor many times, but he’d never been in this part of town. Lying low, surrounded by a shimmering Caribbean-blue sea, Key West was warm sunshine, the smell of frangipani, and the sound of rustling palms swaying in the gentle breeze.

  But paradise always had its dark side, the ugly underbelly tourists rarely saw. This wasn’t the Key West he knew where the quaint, narrow roads were lined with charming Victorian homes originally built by ship’s carpenters trying to outdo one another. Along these streets, shanties splintered to their bones, paint a long-gone memory, crouched beside boxy structures dating back to the sixties.

  The hospital was a concrete bunker with weeds sprouting through cracks in the asphalt. The officer led Matt inside and took him down a long corridor to the ICU. A sleepy-eyed nurse glanced at them, but didn’t bother to get up.

  “She’s in here.”

  Matt followed the officer into the small, dimly lit room, where one other patient was also being treated. The antiseptic smell and the low drone of the machines that clicked and sputtered and gurgled reminded Matt of the hours he’d spent at his mother’s side. The memory triggered a raw ache, a profoundly depressing sensation that knocked him backward in time, to when he was a young kid and vulnerable to the point of being helpless.

  For an instant he imagined himself in a hospital bed. No friggin’ way! Just the thought made him hesitate, breaking his stride.

  Get the hell out of here.

  The officer shot him a questioning glance. He strode forward, tamping down the uncharacteristic surge of anxiety. The woman needed him, Matt reminded himself.

  They stopped beside a bed, and Matt gazed down at the lifeless form. Except for the swell of her breasts, it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. Her face and head were wrapped in gauze, with nothing more than slits at the eyes and an opening at the nose for oxygen prongs. One leg was in a cast from the knee down. Her right hand and arm up to her shoulder were in a contraption hitched to the ceiling by a pulley.

  A suffocating sensation made it difficult to breathe. “How am I supposed to identify her?”

  “Uh … well, we … ah, thought …”

  The officer pulled a card from the small notebook he was carrying and handed it to Matt. He instantly recognized his business card. And the telltale lipstick print across his name.

  Rochelle Ralston. A wild flash of anger ripped through him. Son of a bitch! He’d come all this way, worrying that a friend was near death, only to find it was Shelly.

  Aw, hell. The business card should have tipped him. Shelly had stolen a stack of his cards. She’d left him dozens of them—complete with her hot-pink lip print. She’d written personal messages on each one.

  At first he’d laughed at the notes. Then the messages became menacing. Why are you ignoring me? Why don’t you return my calls? Why won’t you admit you love me?

  He realized how warped Shelly’s mind was. She was totally obsessed with him and convinced he loved her as much as she thought she loved him. They’d had one lousy date and a few kisses. That’s all. She didn’t know him well enough to love him.

  “Your card was inside her bra.” The cop turned the color of an eggplant. “We thought …”

  Damn it all the way to hell. This was vintage Shelly, all right. A wacko who refused to take no for an answer. “I’ll love you until you die,” she had told him over and over and over.

  Matt had been forced to get a restraining order against her when she’d threatened his sister, mistaking Emily for one of his girlfriends. If Shelly had actually carried out those threats—she was dangerous.

  The young officer studied the toes of his shoes. “We thought there might be some identifying mark on her body you would recognize.”

  A pristine white sheet covered the woman, molding her full breasts and outlining her slender hips and legs. The cop expected him to lift the sheet and check for some damn mole or scar. There wouldn’t be any point, because he’d never seen Shelly without clothes.

  “Can’t help you there. I had only one date with her.” He didn’t mention how crazily she’d behaved afterward.

  The young officer read from his notebook. “The med sheet says blond hair, blue eyes, five feet three inches, one hundred and twelve pounds. Approximate age, thirty. Does that describe her?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Shelly was taller though.” He thought a moment, recalling numerous times when she would appear out of nowhere, chasing after him. “She always wore high heels. I guess that made her look taller.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. She has a dog. It was thrown clear. There wasn’t a mark on it. Two people dead, one critically injured, and a dog survives. Go figure.”

  “She never mentioned a dog.”

  He gazed down at the inanimate shape that had once been the vivacious yet deeply disturbed Rochelle Ralston. Shelly was so helpless now. Myriad tubes and wires attached to every part of her body confirmed how close to death she was.

  All alone.

  He didn’t give a rat’s ass, he told himself, but it was impossible to see anyone like this and not feel … something. The unwelcome tightening of his throat reminded him that this was another human being—struggling to hold on to life.

  “It’s Rochelle Ralston,” he heard himself s
ay. “Who else could it be?”

  “Both vehicles rolled. No one was wearing a seat belt, so it was hard to tell who had been in which vehicle. Like I told you, the others were fried. We’ll use dental records to ID them. The trucker shouldn’t be much of a problem, but the John Doe may take time. We’re still waiting for forensics in Miami to let us know if it’s a man or a woman.”

  Matt couldn’t keep his eyes off Shelly’s body. It didn’t seem possible that anyone so critically injured could survive. She hadn’t regained consciousness and might never come out of the coma. Hard to believe. The woman he knew had been animated, full of life and energy.

  A pang of something he didn’t want to label sympathy pierced his emotional shield for a second. Get out of here this minute. Don’t get involved.

  He turned his back and walked out of the room.

  The officer dropped Matt off at Sunset Pier near Mallory Dock. The dock was empty now, but at sunset tomorrow the place would be jammed with tourists as eager to see the fire-eaters and acrobats and jugglers as they would be to watch the sun slide into the ocean in a radiant blaze of color. It was well after midnight, and Duval Street was booming with the dawn-to-dusk revelry that made Key West famous.

  There seemed to be more than the usual commotion coming from the Hog’s Breath Saloon. Like the Hard Rock Café up the street, this open-air bar offered T-shirts whose sales rivaled its drinks. Above the din filling the sultry air, he heard the muted wail of a saxophone playing the blues.

  A trio of guys stumbled down the street toward Margaritaville, singing an off-key rendition of “Margaritaville” that would have made Jimmy Buffett cringe.

  “‘Wastin’ away in Margaritaville’ does not cover it,” Matt mumbled under his breath. “Were you ever that young?”

  “No.” He answered his own question. When he’d been their age, he’d worked two jobs just to stay in Yale. He’d never had the time or the money to indulge himself by vacationing in Key West. By the time he did have the money, his career had consumed all his time.