Hide and Seek. Desiree Holt

For an endless moment nothing happened, and he was afraid he’d misjudged. Then the man toppled to the floor, nearly taking Graham with him.

      He had no idea if he’d killed the man or merely knocked him out, but he didn’t stop to find out. If the man was dead, in a few days his housekeeper would find the body, somewhat rancid by then. If it was the latter, he was short on time to get the fuck out of here.

      He picked up the gun and the briefcase that he’d dropped and raced for the garage. He was sweating profusely and shaking so much he bumped into the car, the briefcase slamming into the fender. He yanked his keys from his pocket, hoping he was steady enough to drive. He jumped into the most innocuous of his vehicles, a gray Mercedes, and hauled ass down the driveway to the road.

      When he made the turn onto the highway, he spotted a black utility vehicle parked near the trees with a man in the front seat.

      Fuck!

      The driver, spotting Graham’s car, pulled out onto the road just as his partner, wobbling slightly, came racing down the driveway.

      I should have hit him harder.

      Lucky for Graham the few seconds the driver stopped so his partner could jump in gave him a miniscule lead, but not much. Graham punched the accelerator and hauled ass down Seacliff Road. He had a small window of opportunity to get the fuck out of here, and he wasn’t wasting any of it. That SUV would be on his tail any minute.

      Faster! Faster!

      He glanced at the speedometer and saw he was doing a hundred. He hoped he didn’t wreck the car and kill himself just when he was nearly out of here. He was so focused on reaching the marina that it wasn’t until he touched his pocket that he realized his cell phone wasn’t there. Fuck again! What the hell had happened to it? If the wrong person found it and managed to restore it, his ass would be grass. Of course, first they’d have to find him. Right?

      Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe. Almost there.

      All the way to the harbor he kept checking the rearview and side-view mirrors. The road twisted and turned around the shoreline so at times his view of the rear disappeared. There. Was that a black SUV? No. No, it was a pickup and it turned off into a strip center before it caught up to him. He was definitely going to vomit first chance he had.

      Jesus, Graham, don’t lose it now.

      Or any more than he already had. He just had to get to the boat before they caught up with him. Then he’d be safe. He always kept the smaller of his two boats provisioned and ready for anything, as part of his emergency plan. Just in case. He also made sure he had all the equipment on board he’d need.

      Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Too late now.

      He rounded a curve in the road and there was the marina up ahead. He could see Princess Devon now, its twin hulls bobbing in the water at its berth. Almost there. Still no SUV in his rearview mirror, but it could appear around the curve at any moment if those two guys had gotten their shit together.

      At last he was parked and headed down the pier where the boats were docked. All he needed was another few minutes. A few more steps…

      Chapter 1

      “Your father is missing.”

      Devon Cole tightened her grip on her cell phone and tried to make sense of what Sheridan March had just told her, as fear swept through her. Maybe she hadn’t heard right.

      “What do you mean, missing?”

      “The Coast Guard found the Princess Devon drifting five miles offshore early this morning,” the Arrowhead Bay chief of police explained. “But there’s no sign of him anywhere. And no clue to anything in the house. We went through every inch of it. The alarm was fried, probably needs to be replaced, but otherwise the place was clean as a whistle.”

      Devon clutched the phone. “Was there anything on the boat? Something he might have had with him that could give us a clue?”

      “Nada.”

      “Where’s the boat now? Would the Coast Guard hold on to it?”

      “In its slip at the Bayside Marina. After the Guard went over every inch of it, they had one of the men on the cutter bring it back in and berth it. I have the keys.”

      Devon swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. “When was the last time anyone saw him?”

      “Sunday,” Sheri told her. “As soon as I got the word from the Coast Guard we began checking with his friends. The last time anyone saw him was when Cash Breeland had lunch with him at the Driftwood.”

      “That’s the same day I talked to him.” She rubbed her hand nervously on her jeans. “He didn’t say a word about going anywhere. Did the Moorlands say anything about seeing him?”

      Ginny and Hank Moorland owned both the Driftwood Restaurant and Bayside Marina.

      “Hank was in Miami for a couple of days but Ginny was there. She said she never laid eyes on him.”

      “And Gary at Bayside? Did he see anything?”

      Sheri made a rude noise. “I talked to him myself but he’s usually so off in his own world a marching band could have taken off and he’d never notice. I swear I don’t know why Hank doesn’t can his ass. Besides, it was a Sunday, so the marina was jammed with people arriving and leaving and some just working on their boats. He did say a couple of guys were asking about him, but he thought they were just friends.”

      “Did you talk to anyone who has a boat in a slip near his?”

      “The ones we could find.”

      “God.” Devon tamped back the rising fear. “I can’t believe this could happen. He’s an avid sailor and very, very safety conscious.”

      Her father had been sailing for as long as she remembered. When he still lived in Tampa he was out on the water every Saturday, sailing down the coast, sometimes with business associates but more often with her mother. That was how he’d discovered Arrowhead Bay. But he almost never went out during the week. Saturdays were his days on the water. And, after her mother passed away, sometimes on Sundays. It was something both her parents had enjoyed, and Devon often thought it was a way for him to recapture her presence.

      “I know,” Sheri agreed. “Everyone knows that about him.”

      “And the other boat?” Devon asked. “The Lady Hannah?”

      “Still here. There’s not even a sign anyone was on it.” She paused. “We know he’s an excellent sailor. The Coast Guard thought maybe he’d fallen overboard, but—”

      “I guess that’s possible, except he was a nut about water safety. He’d be careful.”

      “That’s what I told them,” Sheri agreed.

      “The Coast Guard started searching immediately, right?”

      “Yes, but it’s a big ocean. They brought in another cutter to search as well as one of their Dolphin helicopters. I promise you it’s a full-out search and rescue operation. And there’s another thing.”

      “What?” What else could there be?

      “I don’t know if you caught it, but there was a story on the national news yesterday that Vincent Pellegrino, one of your father’s vice presidents, was killed in a one-car accident.”

      Ice chilled her blood. “Are you saying the two things could be related? That my father didn’t just fall overboard?”

      “I’m saying we have to look at all possibilities. This is too much of a coincidence to ignore.”

      “Did you call his office? Ask his admin if he’d decided to take an unannounced vacation?”

      “I did, but she knew nothing. And they are all in a turmoil over Pellegrino’s death.”

      “But who