The Bone House - Brian Freeman [9]
'What's wrong?' he asked.
'Those are police out on the beach. The waiter says they found a hotel guest dead out there.'
Mark reacted immediately. 'Dead? Who was it?'
'I don't know.' She saw his eyes dart to the water, and she asked, 'Did you see anything last night?'
'What, like a body? Of course not.'
'Well, I wonder if you should talk to someone,' she said.
'And tell them what? I didn't see anything.'
Hilary shrugged. She saw the glass doors open on the other side of the patio, and she knew the woman who emerged from the hotel lobby. It was Jane Chapman, the mother of one of the dancers from Chicago. She waved at Jane, who made a beeline for their table. Her face was distraught.
'Hilary, it's terrible, did you hear?' Jane asked breathlessly. 'I can't believe it.'
'I heard that somebody from the hotel died. Do you know who it was?'
Jane nodded. 'A teenage girl. She was murdered.'
'One of the dancers?'
'I don't think so. I heard she's from your area, though. Door County.'
'Who?' Hilary asked. Instinctively, she felt a wave of nausea and fear.
'A coach told me the dead girl's name was Glory Fischer.'
Hilary's breath left her chest. She felt dizzy. She heard Jane asking if she was OK, but the woman's voice was at the end of a long tunnel, muffled and distant. Hilary tried to speak and couldn't. She knew. Somehow she knew, without looking at Mark, without saying a word, that this event was a tornado that would suck in her and her husband. Her head swiveled slowly so that she could stare at him. She didn't want to see the truth, but their eyes met, and his expression confirmed all her fears. She saw emotions in his face she'd never seen in him before. Panic. Terror. Guilt.
Mark, what did you do? What happened last night?
She hated it that her first thought had nothing to do with trusting him. She hated it that her first thought had nothing to do with protecting him. It didn't matter that she would never believe for a moment that Mark Bradley could ever harm another human being. It didn't matter that she had faith in his willingness to stare at temptation and walk away from it. Her first thought had nothing to do with his innocence.
Instead, she stared at the man she loved, and all she could think was: Not again.
* * *
Chapter Three
Detective Cab Bolton didn't notice the Gulf wave riding up the beach until he felt salt water lapping at his two-hundred-dollar Hugo Boss loafers. The surf rose above his ankles like a margarita in a blender and soaked inside his shoes before he had time to leap out of the way. As the wave retreated, he squatted in the sand, removed the loafers, and peeled off his wet socks. He shook his head in exaggerated dismay.
'Every time I buy a new pair of shoes, we get a beach body the next day,' he complained.
Cab rolled up the trouser legs of his navy blue silk suit. With his hare ankles and size 13 feet on display at the bottom of his six-foot- six frame, he resembled a great blue heron. His long neck, spiky blond hair, and the ski-jump slope of his sunburnt nose contributed to the impression of a bird on stilts.
Lala Mosqueda, who was the lead crime scene analyst, didn't look sympathetic. 'It's Florida, Cab. You ever hear of flip-flops?'
'I'd sooner wear Crocs,' he said.
The damage to the leather was done, but he took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped the sand from his shoes and blotted the excess water. He hooked the shoes on the fingers of his right hand and let them dangle. With his other hand, he stripped off his amber sunglasses and squinted at the tower of the hotel.
'So what do we have in this place, five hundred rooms?' Cab mused. 'Maybe more? You'd figure somebody had to be up there staring at the beach at three in the morning. Somebody saw something.'
Lala shook her head. 'No way. Too far, too dark.'
Cab pointed a long, crooked finger at the floor-to-ceiling windows, where at least a dozen gawkers followed the activity near the water. 'Look at the binoculars spying on us right now. Beachfront voyeurs are always