Deception Cove

Chapter 6

THE SOUND OF SOMEONE BANGING LOUDLY ON THE front door brought her out of a groggy twilight sleep. Houdini growled. Alice opened her eyes just in time to see him sleek out and hop down from the foot of the bed. He dashed under the curtain, his small claws clicking on the wooden floor.

Alice glanced at the clock and winced. There was only one person who would be pounding on her door at six thirty in the morning. She pushed the covers aside, got to her feet, and reached for her robe. She was tying the sash when she heard Drake speak to Houdini.

“I’ll take care of this,” Drake said. “No need to risk a lawsuit.”

The front door opened.

“Where is she?” Fred Malloy roared. “She owes me a week’s rent. And I swear, if that little rat of hers bites me, I’ll sue.”

Alarmed, Alice whisked the curtain aside. Drake was at the door. He was barefooted and dressed in trousers and a black T-shirt. He had put on his wraparound sunglasses, and Houdini was crouched on his shoulder, all four eyes open. Malloy was backing out into the hall, watching Houdini as if the dust bunny were a snake.

Malloy was a big, burly man who had no doubt been hired because of his intimidating size and junkyard-dog demeanor. He was very good at collecting rent from a clientele that was equally skilled at explaining why they needed one more day to get the money together.

“Houdini, no,” Alice said. She rushed across the room, whisked him off Drake’s shoulder, and tucked him into the crook of her arm. “Please. We don’t need any more trouble.”

Malloy stopped retreating. He glowered at Alice and jerked a beefy thumb at Drake. “I told you, no sneaking in overnight guests. There’s an extra charge if a second person spends the night in the apartment.”

“It wasn’t a whole night,” Alice said. “We didn’t even get here until after midnight.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Malloy announced. “Rules are rules. I already bent one of ’em when I said you could keep the rat here in the apartment.”

“Yes, I know,” Alice said. “It was very kind of you. I realize you’re not going to believe this, but the show closed last night.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe it,” Malloy rasped.

“But I’ve got a new job,” Alice said quickly.

“Is that right?” Malloy did not look impressed.

Drake held up a hand. “How much does she owe you?”

Malloy slitted his eyes. “One fifty.”

Drake looked at Alice, his brows slightly elevated in a silent question.

She sighed. “I’m afraid that’s the correct amount. I had to pay extra for Houdini.” She cleared her throat. “Would you consider advancing me the money and deducting it out of whatever you’re going to pay me for the work on the island?”

“No problem,” Drake said. He went to the small end table next to the couch and picked up his wallet. He took out some cash, came back to the door, and handed the money to Malloy. “You can leave now. And by the way, Ms. North is checking out today.”

“Huh.” Malloy took the bills and glared at Alice. “If you’re not out by noon, you’ll owe me for another full week.”

“We’ll be out by noon,” Alice said.

“Also, there’s a cleaning fee,” Malloy added. “Another one fifty.”

“You got that up front,” Alice shot back.

“We have a policy here at the Dead City Suites. Policy says you pay a move-out cleaning fee as well as a move-in cleaning fee.”

“There was nothing about a second cleaning fee on the rental agreement,” Alice said.

“Policy is policy,” Malloy said.

“You’re right,” Drake said. “Policy is policy, and it had better be in writing because if you really want to collect that cleaning fee, you will have to contact the legal department at Sebastian, Inc. I can guarantee you that the lawyers there will want to see a written agreement detailing cleaning fees.”

Malloy squinted. “Legal department? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Policies,” Drake said. “My company, Sebastian, Inc., has them, too. One of our policies is to make sure our employees don’t get scammed. Ms. North is an employee of the firm so she is entitled to full legal representation in this dispute.”

“Look, I don’t want any trouble with a big-time legal department,” Malloy said uneasily.

“Then get lost.”

Malloy took off, and Drake closed the door.

Alice sighed. “Welcome to my life. It’s a little embarrassing at times.”

“You’d better start packing.”

“That won’t take long,” she said. “I’ve been living out of a couple of suitcases for nearly a year. It’s amazing how much you can do without.”

Drake looked around the sparse space and shook his head. “You’ve been living like this all these months because of Ethel Whitcomb?”

“I told you, the woman thinks I got away with murdering her son. She’s obsessed with punishing me.”

“No question about it,” Drake said. “We need to find out who really did kill Fulton Whitcomb.”

She paused in the bathroom doorway. “Thanks for the cash advance.”

“Money can’t fix everything, but it can make a lot of problems go away.”

THE MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE TOOK PLACE IN THE Crystal City Courthouse. Alice estimated that the short business-like process required about the same amount of time as paying a parking fine and involved possibly even fewer ceremonial trappings. The clerk, a plump, gray-haired woman with a kindly face, tried to put a romantic gloss on it all, but when you got right down to it, there was nothing heartwarming or romantic about an MC.

Alice was pretty sure she knew what the sweet-faced woman on the other side of the counter was thinking. Men of wealthy families—families such as the Sebastians—were notorious for using Marriages of Convenience to placate lovers and mistresses who demanded something more in the way of a commitment. The MCs were always terminated when the next woman came along or when the man finally did his duty by the family and entered into a formal Covenant Marriage. He might continue to have women on the side after contracting a CM, of course, but he could no longer offer his lovers the sop of a quasi-legal relationship. They, in turn, had no claim on him.

Although the clerk’s assumptions were obvious enough, Alice was amused to see that Drake was evidently oblivious to them. He focused on the expeditious handling of the business at hand, working swiftly through the paperwork. It was becoming clear that he approached every task with the same single-minded focus.

The only one who appeared to enjoy the short ceremony was Houdini. He went into full-on cute mode and blinked his baby blue eyes at the clerk.

“Aren’t you adorable,” the clerk cooed.

Houdini stared at a jar of wrapped candies and made encouraging noises. The clerk looked at Alice.

“Is it okay to give him one?” the clerk asked.

“I think so,” Alice said. “He seems to be omnivorous.”

The clerk whipped the glass lid off the jar and plucked a candy wrapped in gold foil from the bouquet inside.

Houdini ignored the offering. He sidled up to the jar and selected a different piece of candy—one wrapped in red foil—instead. Chortling with glee, he scurried back to Alice’s shoulder and went to work tearing off the wrapper.

“He likes red,” Alice explained. “It goes with his bow tie.”

The clerk smiled. “I can see that.”

Ignoring them all, Drake signed the last piece of paper registering the MC and handed it to the clerk.

“How long before the record gets into the system?” he asked, indicating a nearby computer.

“Right away,” she assured him. “I’ll enter it as soon as you leave.”

“We’ll wait,” Drake said. “I want to be sure the MC comes up immediately if anyone does a search.”

The clerk raised her brows but merely nodded and moved to the computer. Alice got the impression that people rarely said no to Drake.

It took the clerk only a few minutes to enter the record of the MC.

“There you go, Mr. Sebastian,” she announced. “Congratulations to you both.” She winked at Drake. “You may kiss the bride.”

“Thanks,” Drake said. There was a distinct chill in his voice now. He clamped a hand around Alice’s elbow and steered her toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. We have a plane to catch.”

So much for kissing the bride, Alice thought, torn between chagrin and amusement. A phony embrace in front of the clerk would have been very awkward under the circumstances, but being hustled out of the building by her new groom was embarrassing, too.

They started down the stairs to the first floor of the courthouse. It finally dawned on her that Drake was not merely in a hurry. He was quietly furious.

“Why were you so concerned about getting the MC registered immediately?” she asked.

“Ethel Whitcomb is obsessed with you,” Drake said. “Trust me, when she hears you’re married to me, she’ll verify the facts.”

Alice glanced at him, fascinated by his certainty. “You’re probably right.”

“If I sent an investigator to find you and he came back with a story about an MC, I’d sure as hell double-check.”

She was not sure how to take that. He sounded as if he would be seriously annoyed if he discovered that she was in an MC with another man. It was hypothetical, but why was he simmering?

Drake whisked her outside and across the street to the parking garage. They walked through the shadowy space to the slot where the rental car waited. Drake opened the door on the passenger side.

Delighted at the prospect of another car ride, Houdini fluttered down from Alice’s shoulder, scurried into the front of the vehicle, and hopped up onto the back of the seat.

“He’s a little speed junkie,” Alice explained.

“He’s going to love the company jet.”

“Probably.”

Alice made to slip into the front seat, but Drake touched her shoulder. She stilled, intensely aware of the energy flaring in the atmosphere around them. Her heart rate kicked up and her intuition went into the hot zone.

“What is it?” she whispered, searching the nearby shadows. “Something wrong?”

His hand tightened gently on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe. No need to disappear again.”

“Sorry.” She tried for a smile. “I have a tendency to overreact these days. Parking garages always make me nervous. So many shadows. So many hiding places. I sometimes wonder if one day Ethel will go over the edge and escalate her campaign of harassment to physical assault or . . . worse.”

Drake searched her face. “Do you really think she might send someone to kill you?”

“That’s just it. I have no idea what she’ll do next. I don’t know the woman. I just know she wants revenge.”

“I can’t even imagine the toll that kind of stress has taken on you this past year.”

“Yeah, well, you get used to it,” Alice said, going for tough and breezy.

“I doubt it.”

“Is there something bothering you?” she asked. “I mean, aside from the situation on Rainshadow? You’ve been acting a little weird ever since we signed those papers a few minutes ago.”

“The clerk back there in the courthouse,” Drake said.

“What about her? I thought she seemed pleasant and efficient.”

“She thinks I’m marrying you in an MC because it’s a socially acceptable way for a man to keep a mistress happy for a while.”

“Oh, that,” Alice said, relaxing. “Well, naturally. What else would she think under the circumstances? I didn’t realize that you had noticed.”

“You didn’t think I was aware of how she was looking at me?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. She has no way of knowing that you married me to protect me from my ex-mother-in-law.”

Drake flattened one hand on the roof of the car and looked off into the shadows of the garage.

“There’s something you should know before we drive out of here,” he said.

“You’re starting to make me nervous. We’ve already discussed sea monsters, paranormal weather disturbances, dangerous ocean currents, and an overheating island. What else is it that you want me to know?”

He turned to look at her. Light from the overhead fixture glinted on his mirrored shades. “When the clerk said that I could kiss the bride, I wanted to.”

Once again everything within her seemed to still. Her intuition spiked but not the way it had a moment ago. There was danger here but not the kind that she had been running from for the past year.

“Oh,” she said. It took everything she had to squelch the thrill that feathered her senses. She managed another stage smile. “Well, why didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t I?” he said a little too evenly.

“I would have understood.” She waved one hand in a dismissing motion. “A kiss would have made the scene look more natural to her.”

Drake did a single staccato drumroll on the car roof with his fingers. His jaw tightened.

“I didn’t kiss you because I knew what the clerk was thinking. Also, I was pretty sure I knew what you were thinking and I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

“Well, that was very thoughtful of you, but I can assure you that after what I’ve been through this past year, it would take a lot more than a fake kiss in front of a courthouse clerk to embarrass me.”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” Drake said. “The kiss would not have been fake.”

She caught her breath. “Oh.”

She did not dare to move for fear of shattering the crystalline moment.

“It would have been this kind of kiss,” Drake said.

He wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, drew her close, and covered her mouth with his own.