For a minute, she thought he was going to remain standing there, then he eased out ahead of her. “I’m surprised. Someone who lives out on a ritzy island spends her evenings bowling?”

Dar didn’t react. “Better than spending my time digging through public records in the Dade County Courthouse.”

He got to the door first and leaned against it, holding it shut and smiling at her. “But you find out such fascinating things leafing through those microfilmed titles.” He paused. “I’ve got you, Roberts.”

“With an inherited condo?” Dar glanced at her watch. “Get out of my way, I’ve got a lot more important things to do than this.”

“With your co-owner.”

Uh oh. Dar exhaled inwardly, but kept her composure. “Who?

Kerry?” She managed a completely bland look. “Why? She pays her half of the taxes.”


Eye of the Storm 137

A moment’s doubt shone in his eyes. “You live together.” He’d obviously expected a different reaction from her.

“Yep. Sure do,” Dar agreed amiably. “Best roommate I ever had.

Now, is there a point to this conversation? Because otherwise, I’m leaving.” She shouldered the gym bag and moved several steps closer.

Slowly, he moved away from the door and opened it, watching her face intently. “Roommate, hmm?”

Dar felt like punching him. She really, really did, and maybe he realized that, and it excited him. “Yeah.” Then she smiled with feral intensity. “What’d you think? We were screwing like squirrels on the coffee table?” She almost laughed at the look on his face. “Get your head out of your groin, Ankow, and your ass out of my office.” Dar brushed by him and strode towards the elevator, leaving him behind her in dangerous silence.

At the last minute as the doors opened and she stepped inside, he joined her, the elevator doors closing them both into a charged stillness.

They stared at each other in the oppressive atmosphere, the floors seeming to crawl by. At last the trip was over, and Dar escaped into the cool peace of the lobby, trying to ignore the stalking figure at her side.

He waited until they were past the doors and past the security guard, before he reached out and grabbed her arm.

Dar stopped.

And turned ice cold eyes on him. “Take your hands off me.” She kept her voice down, but it rumbled with intent.

He let go of her biceps, then pointed a finger at her chest. “I’m going to find out the truth,” he promised softly, “and bury you with it.”

Then he turned and headed for his rental car that was parked near the front of the building.

Dar took a deep breath and turned, then almost yelped when she came close to crashing headlong into a tall, menacing figure. “Hey!”

“Easy thar, Dardar.” Andrew peered over her shoulder, his eyes mere slits in the lamplight. “Whointhehell was that?”

“An asshole.” Dar felt like hugging him in pathetic gratitude. “Just a real asshole, who’s got it out for me.” A hand patted her arm awkwardly.

“What brings you here?” She nodded her head towards the Lexus. “Don’t worry about him.”

Andrew turned his attention from the car Ankow was driving back to his daughter. “I need yer help,” he muttered, embarrassed. “Got a minute?”

“Are you kidding?” Dar unlocked the car and motioned him into the passenger side. “What is it?”

Andrew climbed in and shut the door, waiting for her to start up the engine before he blew a breath out and peered sideways at her. “Been trying to figure out…good Lord, all the clock round the past few days how I could get…get my butt in a place where I could…um…”

“Contact Mom?” Dar paused at the stoplight, then turned when it changed.


138 Melissa Good

“Yeah.” Her father blinked and rubbed his eyes. Dar recognized the gesture with a faint smile. “And I want to. Damn, I do. But I can’t figger a way.” He studied his scarred hands. “Picked up the phone a dozen hundred times, started to dial…just couldn’t.” He looked up at her. “What do I say? What kin I say?”

“Hello?” Dar joked faintly, as she drove. “I know what you mean, though. I remember how shocked I was. She’s gonna lose it.”

He remained silent, just twisting his fingers.

Dar thought, turning her mind to the puzzle as she did throughout the day on less personal, less vital matters. Her father was counting on her. Finally, she exhaled. “Let the Navy do it.”

He looked up. “What?”

“Let the Navy do it. Have them contact her, say there was a mistake.

You know it happens,” Dar responded quietly. “It’s damn close to the truth.”

Andrew considered the words. “Doesn’t explain the months I been here.”

Dar had stopped at a red light, and now she turned. “No.” She searched his face. “That’s gonna be the tough part. Your tough part.”

The light turned green and she drove on, trying not to hear the audible sounds as he swallowed a few times.

“Damn it,” Andrew finally whispered. “I want to have the guts to just call up and do this and I don’t, Dardar. That’s a damn tough thing for someone’s stared down death as many times as I have and not cared.” He dropped his head against one hand. “Don’t wanta get the Navy into it.”

Dar pulled into the parking lot and turned off the Lexus, then pulled her cell phone out and checked the charge. “I understand being scared.”

She leaned her forearms against the wheel. “It’s like being in a dark pit and there’s no way out and you only go deeper into it, the longer you stay.”

They looked somberly at each other.

Dar keyed in her phone’s memory, and dialed a number, then held the instrument to her ear, until it was answered. “It’s Dar.” Hesitation, then a quiet response. “I’ve got someone here that wants to talk to you.”

She handed the phone to her father, who took it purely by reflex. “Here, say hello to Mom.”

Then she opened the door and tossed him the keys, closed it, and walked towards the building, without looking back.

Crossing her fingers and hoping they both would forgive her.

“OKAY,. OW, WATCH where you’re swinging that, Col.” Kerry ducked around the heavy blue ball Colleen was swinging. “I have no idea where—ah, there she is.” She spotted her lover enter and stop, her ears visibly twitching at the assault of noise around her. Dar had a strained expression on her face, though, and Kerry set her ball down on the tray.

“Uh oh. Be right back, guys.”


Eye of the Storm 139

She trotted up the stairs and dodged around moving waitresses, relieved when the roving blue eyes fell on her and softened in perceptible relief. “Hey.” She got up next to Dar and tugged her into a corner.

“What’s the matter?”

Dar chewed her lip. “What do you want to hear about first? Ankow figuring out we live together or me calling my mother and handing the cell phone to my father?”

Kerry’s jaw dropped. “Dar, I only left you alone for forty five minutes,” she spluttered in protest. “Jesus…wh…bu…” She rubbed her head in shock.

The tall, dark haired woman managed a faint smile. “Everyone here?

Let’s…just…I um…I need a distraction.” She put a hand on Kerry’s back.

“We can talk about it all later. The Ankow thing wasn’t that big a deal. I just told him we were roommates.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Kerry took her arm and guided her back to the lane, where their friends were waiting, watching with interested faces.

“Well, we are roommates,” she replied reasonably, then stopped. “Wait.

Where is Dad?”

“Outside,” Dar replied quietly. “I didn’t know what to do. I…he was so frustrated, and I…so I just…I…”

“Dialed her number and said ‘here you go.’” Kerry winced.

“Honey…”

“Tactless, huh?”

Kerry sighed. “Well, it’s direct and straightforward, and both you and your daddy are certainly that.” She exhaled again and smiled as they reached the lane. “Hey guys. Sorry about that. Dar had some problems before she left the office.”

“And after,” her lover muttered.

“Mmm. Would you like a drink?” Kerry signaled the waitress.

“Oh, yeah.” Dar ordered a Kahlua milkshake, then paused. “On second thought make that a double.”

The waitress popped her bubble gum and smiled. “Shawer.” Then she rolled happily off.

CECELIA STARED AT the phone, deeply puzzled. Getting called out of the blue like that from Dar was shocking enough, but who in Miami would want to talk to her? Unless Dar wasn’t in Miami, of course. Impatiently, she put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

All she could hear was the faintest sound of breathing.

For no reason she could detect, a chill passed over her. “Hello?” she asked again, softer. “Is there someone there?”

A soft rasp of in drawn air, then an almost inaudible sound came through the phone and touched her ears. “Cec?”

No. She was frozen in place, unmoving. Unbreathing. No. No, that voice couldn’t be what she’d heard. Her chest moved, pulling in air audibly.


140 Melissa Good

“Ceci?” The sound again, a little stronger.

It couldn’t be. It was just another dream.

Just another nightmare. She should hang up. That’s what she should do, hang up and forget about it.

Yes.

Her hand moved.

Her heart spoke. “Andy?”

“Yeah.”

Her world collapsed around her, becoming a small space filled with only that voice. “Andy.” She curled around the phone, cradling it with both hands.

“Ceci, it’s me.”

She gasped softly. “Oh.”

“Cec?”

She closed her eyes. “Yes?”

The voice took on an aching sadness. “I’m sorry.”

Her chest suddenly erupted in a sob. “Where are you?” She managed to get the words out. “Andy, where are you?” She started crying helplessly, hugging the phone to her so tightly it creaked.

“Cec. There’s so damn much I have to say I…”

“I don’t care,” Cecilia whispered. “I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve done. Just come here. Come home. Please.” She stopped, as the tears choked her. “Please.”

He was curled up in the front seat, shaking so badly he could hardly hold the phone. “All right,” he finally choked out.

“When?” came back a barely audible whisper.

Andrew opened his fist, seeing the blood where his hand had clenched down over the set of keys his daughter had given him.

Cast bread up on the waters and it came back to you, didn’t it? God bless you, Dar. “Now,” he answered, hearing the almost hysterical sob on the other end.

God bless you.


Chapter

Sixteen

“YOU OKAY?” KERRY leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she sat next to a very quiet and very pensive Dar. The taller woman was sucking on her milkshake, cradling it in both hands and trying to ignore the chaotic sounds and sights around them. “Worried about your dad?”

Dar nodded slightly.

“Well.” Kerry glanced up as Colleen announced they were ready to start. Everyone was furtively watching Dar, and she realized her friends knew something was wrong. “Listen. I’ve been thinking. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea, you know?” She patted Dar’s knee. “Sometimes, when you think about something too much, you get too scared to do it.”

“Mmm. I know.” Dar sucked on her straw. “Kissing you on the beach comes to mind.”

Kerry felt her train of thought run right off its track and wander down Biscayne Boulevard. “Uh…what?”

“That was a major scared witless moment for me,” Dar remarked.

“It was?” Kerry sounded totally amazed.

A slight cock of Dar’s head. “Would have been an ugly moment if I’d have been wrong, wouldn’t it?”

“Tch. You knew you weren’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” Dar replied seriously. “Sure. I was hoping, but…” She sighed. “I’d been wrong so many times before.”

“Not this time.”

Dar smiled and leaned against her. “No. I got it right this time.”

They watched Colleen grasp her ball firmly and face the alley, flashes of disco light flicking over her sturdy form. Then she walked up to the line with a dignified air, spread her legs, and tossed the ball down the alley with a distinct crashing thump.

“Nice technique,” Dar muttered.

“She got two of them,” Kerry protested mildly. “I’m not much better.”

“You’re going to look a lot cuter with your butt up in the air.”