Shadow's Lady (A Pajaro Bay Cozy Mystery + Sweet Romance) (18 page)

"You okay?" Matt said.

"You're asking again," she said. "And yes, I'm okay."

He looked at his watch, and George said, "yeah. It's time."

Matt turned to her. "I'll take you to the house and get you safely inside, and then we have some work to do."

She nodded, making it clear she understood they couldn't talk openly here. They walked down the length of the wharf to Matt's car. There was an orange Mercedes parked next to it.

"I'll follow you up," George said to Matt. She thought about asking him to take the dog in his car, but Shadowfax stayed close by her side and she wasn't sure the dog would accept that idea, so she just crammed him in by her feet again and they headed up the hill.

Once there, Matt parked the car in Aunt Zee's driveway, while George stayed on the street. Across from Aunt Zee's drive, a sheriff's department truck was parked.

She nodded at Deputy Joe, and he gave her a smile in return. Matt said softly, "don't wave," and he led her up to the front door of the house.

She didn't know what to say. "Oh, Matt."

"I know." He lifted his hand and brushed back a curl from her forehead. "There's nothing to say." He leaned down and kissed her, this time holding the kiss so long she eventually was the one to pull away.

"Come back," she said.

He nodded. "Stay inside and keep the doors locked. If anything scares you...," he nodded toward the deputy parked across the street.

Then he walked out to the street, got into the orange car, and left.

She went inside and locked the door.

•••

She turned on the tv again. Now Aunt Zee was in a detective film, one of her later efforts. Lori checked the guide and saw
Lost Love
was going to be shown next. That was one of her favorites, so she decided to take a shower and put on her pajamas, and then she would settle down and watch the epic romance with a big bowl of popcorn. It was scheduled to start at 11:00 p.m. and end at 1:00 a.m. She hoped that would distract her until there was a knock on the door, and Matt was there on the doorstep, telling her everything was okay and it was all over.

Shadowfax insisted on waiting on the bath rug while she showered. He barked at her once while she was shampooing her hair, but by the time she wiped the shampoo out of her eyes and looked out at him, he was just sitting there with his usual dopey grin on his face.

Then she made the popcorn, determined to
not
look at the clock, and to
not
be worried.

She was concentrating so hard on not worrying that when the phone on the breakfast table suddenly rang, she jumped about a foot. When she answered, there was silence, then she heard a man's voice in the background say, "you're not going to bed until you do this, young man."

Then she heard Zane's voice, sounding even more hesitant than usual. "Um, is this Ms. Potter?"

"No, this is Lori York. Is that you, Zane?"

"Um, see, well...." He trailed off, and she heard what must be Owen's voice in the background saying, "get on with it, son."

Then Zane said, "I need to talk to Mr. DiPietro, Ms. York. Do you know where he is 'cause he's not at the restaurant and I need to tell him something."

"Why, Zane?" She couldn't figure this. If Owen was out to murder Matt, could he really be capable of involving his own son in the crime?

She heard Owen in the background say, "You need to apologize to her, too, young man, so get on with it."

Then Zane suddenly burst out with: "I'm sorry. I lied. I need to tell him I found his kayak and I lied that it was mine and I'm sorry and I need to return it and I'm sorry Ms. York and I know it was wrong but I wanted a kayak and I thought my dad would let me keep it and anyway, I'm sorry I told you it was mine and that was wrong and I'm sorry and all."

Then he stopped suddenly like he'd run out of steam and didn't know what to do next, and Lori felt herself grinning. "Can I talk to your dad, Zane?"

When Owen came on he sounded very gruff, and Lori quickly realized he was embarrassed. "He's a good kid, really, Ms. York. I don't want you to think he's the kind of kid who usually tells stories. I mean, I've tried to raise him right. I know some folks think we don't care about right and wrong down here in the Flats, but we do. I'm sorry about this. Real sorry. And he knows he's grounded. He's in a whole lot of trouble and we'll make it right." He was so transparently ashamed and awkward that she knew in her gut he was telling the truth.

She found herself reassuring him, "It's okay. I understand. I'm sure Matt will be happy to get his kayak back. Yes. That's really good news, and no, of course I don't think Zane's a bad kid. We all make mistakes. No, it's not necessary for him to write me a formal apology. Okay, if you insist. He can drop it off at the house here tomorrow. Of course I forgive him."

When the call finally ended she felt a weight lifted off her. She realized that part of what had bothered her so much about the idea of Owen being a killer had been the fact that she liked the Nunes family. She'd enjoyed the couple of times they'd visited the lighthouse, and the thought that the single father with the tow-headed son was a cold-blooded killer had struck her as just wrong.

But if Owen wasn't the mole, that meant someone else was.

How could she get word to Matt?

The litany of warnings rang through her head: The phone could be bugged. The house could be bugged. Don't trust anyone except George Asher and Joe Serrano. Well Matt and George were way down at the wharf. But Joe was right outside.

She looked at the clock on the breakfast room wall. It was almost 11:00 and she was in her pajamas, but she didn't figure Deputy Joe would care.

She opened the front door and looked out into the darkness. The porch light was on, and she could see the gleam of Matt's sports car parked to the side. And she could see the dark emptiness of the driveway that led out to the street.

And there was a streetlight right there on Cliff Drive right across from Aunt Zee's driveway.

But there was no big, white, sheriff's department truck parked there.

She wondered if the deputy might have moved the truck to a different spot, but then she heard something that sounded like rustling in the bushes to the right side of the driveway.

She ducked back just as the bushes moved again. Then she heard soft voices, two or three, male, and whispering, coming from the same spot. "I think she's still inside," one whisper said.

She shut the door as quietly as possible. The old hinges didn't creak, and she gave silent thanks to Sandy's meticulous maintenance. The door made a very slight thunk as it closed into the doorframe.

The sound seemed very loud now that she knew that Owen was not the killer, that Joe Serrano was not outside where he was supposed to be, and that Matt and George were way down at the wharf, getting ready to walk into a trap.

She locked the deadbolt, dragged Aunt Zee's black lacquer French deco side chair over to the door and braced it under the doorknob, then ran upstairs and got dressed.

Shadowfax followed and watched her with a worried look. "I know," she whispered. "We're supposed to stay here, but we're not staying in this house with murderers right outside and no protection." She put on the same jeans and gray sweater she'd worn earlier, and then grabbed a navy peacoat that was hanging in the back of the closet. It smelled of mothballs, but it was warm.

And it was dark. And she needed dark if she was going to get out of this house and down to the wharf without those killers seeing her.

She put Shadowfax's leash on him, and then, wishing he was an attack dog instead of a dead-body-sniffing dog, she led him downstairs. She grabbed the spare keys Aunt Zee kept on a hook near the phone, then headed into the living room.

The tv was still on. She turned it off, as well as the lamp by the sofa, then stood there in the darkness, listening. She didn't hear anything except Shadowfax breathing next to her.

She went to the lotus door and now that the room was dark, she was able to see that the yard outside looked empty. So very slowly, she eased the door open.

Once outside, she shut and locked the door behind her, and shoved the keys into the pocket of the coat.

"Okay, boy," she whispered to the dog. "Here we go."

She led him toward the side, where she could just make out the steep little roof of the cottage next door. It was all dark and quiet over there, but she knew that was the house belonging to Captain Ryan and the wife who was now in the clinic, probably still in labor.

But how to get there? She soon found a gap in the bushes and squeezed through. On the other side she found she was on a little lawn that made up the back yard of the tiny cottage. The lawn was bordered by a little stone wall where the ocean-front cliff was, so there was no way down that way.

She had to go around the side of the cottage to get to Cliff Drive. But in the front of the cottage, she saw there was a thick hedge, with a giant redwood gate blocking the path to the street. She eased the gate open, intending to sneak out to Cliff Drive without being noticed, but it let out a horrible creak that would have woken the dead, so she just opened it wide and ran.

Shadowfax ran happily beside her as she raced to the street and then hurtled herself down the steep road toward the wharf. She thought she heard voices behind her, but she just kept going.

•••

At the parking lot at the base of the wharf she finally stopped. Both she and Shadowfax were panting hard by then, and she hid behind George's big orange Mercedes and tried to catch her breath.

She looked back up the hill. No one was on Wharf Road. At least no one she could see. But when she turned to look for Matt and George she realized that Matteo's at the end of the wharf was dark and silent, and there was no sign of anyone around. How could she find them? Had they already left for the island?

But then she saw that not everything was still. Down at the marina, to the right of the wharf, there was some movement by one of the boats. Of course.

She would have to cross the nearly empty parking lot to get to the gate that led to the marina. She hugged the dark coat close around her and with the dog at her side, dashed across to the marina gate. It was standing open, so she went down the little wooden dock where the boats were berthed. There was a splash to her left, but she saw it was just one of the sea lions diving into the water, so she kept on.

It was one of the boats at the end where she'd seen the movement, and as she got closer she saw it was a big fishing boat named
Matteo's Prize
. She'd found them.

And it was Matt in the back of the boat, just casting off. She started to shout to him, but then there was a movement by one of the pilings in front of her, and she ducked back.

She pulled the dog in close behind the bow of a berthed boat. From there she couldn't see the person, but could hear.

She realized to her relief that it was George's voice. He was talking on the phone. She stood up to wave to him, but then she heard him say, "Lori York? I wasn't able to get her. She's got a guard on her. But I've got him, and I'm bringing him to you now. He has no idea."

She ducked down behind the boat again. She hugged Shadowfax to her and leaned back against a piling and tried to think. George was the mole. George. The one person Matt trusted. And he was standing between Lori and Matt. How could she warn Matt? She would just have to risk it.

She stood up in the darkness.

But George had already gone over to
Matteo's Prize
. She ran down the decking toward the boat, but he had climbed aboard by the time she got close enough to shout.

She yelled anyway, as loud as she could: "Matt!"

But the engine on the fishing boat roared to life and drowned out her voice. She shouted and waved her arms, but in the dark all she could see was George's back as he headed into the cabin.

They were gone, headed out to the lighthouse where Matt would be killed. She shoved her hands into her pockets, frustrated at her failure to warn him.

She felt the keys in her pocket. Aunt Zee's boat was here in the marina, and the keys must be on the ring. She pulled the keys out, but couldn't see them well enough to make out which one would be for the boat.

She walked over to where a small light marked a set of steps going down to the lower part of the marina. She stood there in the quiet, trying to figure out which keys were which.

Then Shadowfax started pulling on the leash. She turned to see what he was doing, and saw someone in a Coast Guard uniform heading her way.

It was Sam Rogers. "I'm so glad I found you!" Lori said. "We've got to warn Matt. Can you call him from your boat?"

She looked confused. "I'm on duty, Lori. Just heading out into the bay. What are you talking about?"

Lori hesitated. She wasn't supposed to tell anyone. But Matt was walking into a trap. "Matt's in trouble on his fishing boat," she finally said. "Can you go out to the lighthouse with me and help him?"

"Sure," she said quickly. "What kind of trouble? I'd better call it in."

"No!" Lori said. "I mean, I could be wrong, and I don't want to cause any problems if it's not necessary. Do you think you could just swing by there on your way out into the bay and we could take a look?"

Sam nodded. "Come on."

She looked at the dog, but Lori said, "I can't leave him here," so Sam nodded and they headed over to a different part of the marina, where Lori saw the little Coast Guard boat was docked.

Sam soon had the boat underway and Lori stood beside her in the cabin, holding Shadowfax's leash and wondering what to say when they got to the island. It wouldn't be fair to let Sam walk into a situation where there were criminals and guns, so she was trying to figure out what to tell her without giving away everything.

Then she noticed that Shadowfax was doing his sitting pretty routine and looking at her with a questioning expression.

"Oh, no."

Sam couldn't hear her over the roar of the boat's motors, so she tried to figure out what to do. She would have to take Sam into her confidence. If she was about to have a seizure, only Sam would be able to save Matt.

But before she could say anything she realized Shadowfax wasn't sitting in front of her. He was sitting right behind Sam and looking very serious. He was alerting on
her
, not on Lori.

She watched the dog. She needed to be sure.

Yes, he was definitely alerting on Sam. And there was no way Sam had epilepsy and was about to have a seizure.

Lori quietly moved to the back of the tiny cabin. There was a bright red fire extinguisher hooked to one of the aluminum beams that held up the roof of the little space. As stealthily as possible, Lori lifted down the extinguisher. Man, it was heavy.

She moved over to a spot behind Sam, right next to Shadowfax, who was still alerting on the lieutenant.

Lori lifted the extinguisher up over her head and brought it crashing down on Sam's skull.

Sam went down on the deck with a crash. She lay still, and Lori gave her a quick kick to make sure. Yup, she was out.

The vessel was still roaring along and it began to lean to one side as the wheel moved on its own.

She grabbed it and then looked around frantically for some way to stop the boat. She saw a key in the ignition, and she turned it off. With a jolt that sent her and the dog flying forward, the boat sputtered and then just drifted forward in the water.

"Good boy, Shadowfax," she finally said as he scrambled to his feet. She let the boat drift in the water and hunted around for some rope. She went out of the cabin to the back of the boat, where the twin motors were. She fell over a big shape covered by a tarp and went down to her knees on the rough surface of the deck. The tarp shifted and she saw what was underneath it.

It was Vince. Vince Ortiz, the guy whose wife was going to open a soup and sandwich restaurant. The guy who joked about Sam being so by-the-book. The smiling guy who had a young son and a second child on the way. Dead. A bullet hole in the back of his head.

Lori stood up and grabbed one of the tie ropes used for docking the boat. She managed to get it loose from the stanchions and brought it back into the cabin. She worked quickly, tying Sam up by hands and feet. Then she felt around Sam's belt until she found the gun and took it from her.

Her hands shook as she held the gun over the unconscious woman who had murdered Vince.

But then she realized she was wasting time. She picked up the mic on the radio. Nothing happened. She flipped some switches, but no lights came on. Either she was doing it all wrong, or Sam had somehow sabotaged the radio. She didn't have time to try to figure out which.

So she leaned down to the still-unconscious woman, grabbed the navy cap with the gold Coast Guard lettering on it and placed it on her own head. If Moreno was expecting Sam, the cap and her dark clothing might be enough to fool him for a moment. A moment was all she would need to aim the gun and fire.

So she put the gun on the console in front of her, turned the key in the ignition and started the boat again. She had to get to the island before it was too late.

•••

It was a rough berthing. The tide was at its highest, and the waves pushed the boat relentlessly up against the rocks of the little cove where the lighthouse dock now appeared so tiny.

It had looked so easy when Sam and Vince had done it. And when Sandy, as always competent but silent, had maneuvered Aunt Zee's motorboat in for a berthing without so much as a bump.

It was harder than it looked, especially in the dark, with no lights. She managed to get the job done eventually, but in the process she knocked hard into another boat that was tied up there. Not
Matteo's Prize
, which was tied to the far side of the dock, but another boat, black and fast-looking and low in the water. She gave it a good bump coming in, and expected someone on the boat to react, but nothing happened.

With another big scrape that made a pale gash into the side of the black boat, she managed to get hers in close enough to the dock to tie up. She was sure she tied it all wrong, just wrapping loops around the nearest piling. It didn't matter. She doubted she'd be alive to come back to it.

She grabbed Shadowfax's leash and led him off the boat, encouraging him with a silent tug when he hesitated to jump the little gap between the boat and the dock. Then she started up the long set of steps to the lighthouse.

She saw two bodies laid out on the path in front of her. Men, all in black, clearly dead. She didn't even hesitate, but just blew past them, pulling the dog along with her when he tried to alert on them.

It was a long path up the hill, but she ran up it at full speed, driven by the thought of Matt up there, as silent and dead as the three bodies she'd already seen tonight.

At the top of the hill she stopped just before the clearing. In the shadow of one of the gnarled cypresses she crouched, seeing the whole scene laid out in front of her.

Matt stood still, arms raised, very close to the edge of the cliff. She could see the anger on his face. He was looking at George, who held a gun on him and smirked at him.

Moreno was there, too. It must be Moreno, a man dressed all in black, looking more sleek and sophisticated than she imagined
el hombre con las manos sucias
would be.

They all stood silently on the grass in front of the lighthouse, the signal light sweeping over the tableau with each revolution, highlighting the faces: angry, pleased, triumphant.

Moreno turned his head when the light passed again, and saw her crouched there by the tree.

"
Sirenita
," he said with a smile.

She wondered if that meant siren, mermaid. Like Lorelei, the siren who lured fishermen to their deaths. Had this evil man been the macho boyfriend Sam had bragged about? How could she have done this? Betrayed her friends, her fellow seamen, her country?

"
Si
," she said quietly to Moreno, hoping he wouldn't recognize the voice was different.

"Did you bring the girl?" he said then, in English.

"You—!" Matt started to say. "You're the mole?!" Then the light passed over them again and Matt saw her face, saw who she was.

"Now," he said quietly, and George shot into the ground. Moreno moved quickly forward, but Matt ran, his limp slowing him just enough for Moreno to fire once at him, and then Matt jumped.

Off the cliff. Into the endless expanse of sea at high tide.

Lori started forward to the edge of the cliff, but then Shadowfax pulled her backwards. He was looking at something behind her, then she felt a blow to the back of her head, and she was out.

•••

She woke up to find herself lying on something warm that cradled her head gently. She looked up to see George looking down at her. A hispanic woman she didn't know was putting handcuffs on Moreno, and Shadowfax was grinning at her and wagging his tail.

"You!" she shouted at George. "He was a good man! He was the best. And you killed him." She tried to sit up, tried to reach into the pockets of the big coat for the gun, but couldn't find it. "I'll get you, George Asher. If I have to hunt you down for the rest of my life, I'll make you pay for what you've done!"

George just looked mildly at her and then said, "she's quite a melodramatic person, isn't she? Are you sure you can keep up with her?"

He was talking to someone behind her. She sat all the way up, and realized she'd been resting her head on a coat in someone's lap.

She turned around.

Matt said, "I'm going to spend the next sixty years or so trying."

Then he kissed her.

•••

It was about two hours later. They were all at the sheriff's substation on the main street in Pajaro Bay.

Joe Serrano had made a pot of really awful coffee, and everyone involved was sitting around the room, paper and pens in hand, writing up their statements.

The room was silent. Everyone there was acutely aware of what was happening in a little cottage a few blocks away, where a young woman with a son and another on the way was hearing from the Coast Guard captain that her husband had been killed while trying to stop a murderer.

And before Lori had come to the station to give her statement, she'd been checked out at the little clinic just down the street, where in the room next to her, a woman had just given birth to a healthy, eight-pound, two-ounce baby boy.

Birth and death. Beginnings and endings. And in the little room she was surrounded by people who were all somehow connected to both.

Alec O'Keeffe, the newspaper editor, and Kyle Madrigal, the mayor and Matt's childhood friend, were writing their reports on how Joe Serrano had called them in to keep an eye on Lori when Deputy Joe had been unexpectedly called back to work. About how they had scared off an intruder who they now realized had been Sam Rogers, attempting to kidnap Lori and take her out to the island to force Matt to give up.

George was writing his report, a carefully-edited-for-civilian-eyes version of how he'd been pretending to be on Moreno's payroll to lure him to the lighthouse, and about how Sam Rogers, now in custody, had already confessed to shooting Matt in his kayak in a misguided attempt to impress her boyfriend.

And Gloria Montés, the hispanic woman sitting across from her and giving her sheepish, apologetic glances every time she looked up, was writing her version of the same events, telling how she'd infiltrated Moreno's gang to find the real mole, and then, after taking out Moreno's guards, had bashed Lori over the head, thinking she was Sam Rogers.

"I'm really sorry," she said to Lori for about the fifth time.

"It's okay," Lori responded. "I was trying to fool Moreno into thinking I was Sam. I just didn't know you were going to be fooled, too."

Gloria smiled at Shadowfax. "And I'm glad for Sacha—Shadowfax. He's finally got a home, someone who needs him. He deserves that."

And then Matt came in. It had taken him a bit longer to convince Dr. Lil to release him. The doctor hadn't approved when he'd gone cliff diving at the age of ten, and she sure didn't approve now, when he'd deliberately dived into the tide pool and ripped the stitches in his leg and "probably brought on pneumonia, Matteo," she'd said to him with a shake of her head.

He limped over to sit next to Lori. She leaned over and kissed him, openly now, not caring who knew she loved this man.

It took them all a long time to finish the reports, to drink the last of the terrible coffee, and to figure out what they each would do to help Vince's family make it through the next terrible days. As she sat there, listening to all these people who were so connected, buoyed by the birth and wounded by the death in their midst, she thought she finally understood what Aunt Zee and Matt had meant about no one being an island.

Anyone's death, even someone she hardly knew, diminished the world. Needing other people wasn't weakness, it was humanity. Lori couldn't hide out anymore. She was part of the world, part of the community, and she had her own role to play.

"Are you ready to go home?" Matt finally asked when it was all done.

She said, "yes," but she was thinking,
I already am home
.