Phoebe sipped wine and gave some lazy thought to making love again.
"I feel like I'm on vacation," she told Duncan.
"I should've put little umbrellas in the drinks." His voice was as lazy as she felt. "Something with steel drums on the stereo. Except I don't have little umbrellas or any steel-drum CD. No, Jimmy Buffett. It should've been Jimmy Buffett and margaritas."
"This is fine. This is perfect. I may never move from this exact spot." She turned her head to smile at him. "You'll have to start charging me rent."
"I'll take it out in trade."
"I'm so glad you didn't want to go anywhere tonight. Clubs, bars, movies. It's so nice to just be."
"Clubs, bars, movies, they're not going anywhere. It's nice to just kick back."
"You had a busy week."
"Ava's a slave driver. Beneath that pretty face is the heart of Simon Legree. I think I looked at every tree and shrub for sale in greater Savannah yesterday. And all those drawings and layouts. Sod. Fountains. Statuary. Birdbaths, feeders, houses. What-all. She doesn't care for the concept of 'do whatever you like.'"
"She mentioned you took her by an old warehouse the other day. That you're converting it into apartments and shops."
"Yeah. Thought she'd get some ideas going on that and be too busy to drag me to another nursery. How about we take a sail in the morning? In fact, we can sail over to Savannah."
"That sounds perfect. Everything's just about perfect."
"Give me a couple minutes." He shifted toward her on the wide chaise, then slid a finger down to open the thin robe. "And I'll make it absolutely perfect."
She didn't have a doubt in the world, not when his mouth found hers, when his hands began to cruise. She reached out blindly until her glass clinked against the table. With her hands free, she tangled her fingers in his hair.
The breeze played along her skin; the music thrummed just under it. When her head fell back so he could run his lips down her throat, there was the white ball of moon overhead.
She moved under him, opened for him so when their mouths met again he slipped inside her. Slow and easy now, loose and lazy. Her eyes stayed open so that she could see herself in his. She felt herself rising and falling, rising and falling, in long, liquid waves of arousal and pleasure. When she spilled over the crest, she was still there, trapped in the blue of his eyes.
Why, she wondered, would she want to be anywhere else? "One more." He murmured it, then captured her mouth again, sumptuously. Her heartbeat thickened, her bones softened.
I love you. The words rose in her throat, ached to be said.
They were good words, Phoebe told herself. Good, strong words that deserved to be said. But perhaps saying them for the first time when still coupled with the man on his garden chaise wasn't the best choice of time and place.
Instead, she framed his face with her hands. "You were right. You made it perfect."
"Being with you…" He turned his head so his mouth pressed to her palm.
The gesture had her heart taking another stumble. Something fluttered inside her belly. "Being with me?"
His gaze leveled on hers. "Phoebe-" Her cell phone rang.
"I jinxed it!" She struggled up. "I should never have said perfect." She thought of Carly, her mother, her brother. Snatched up the phone. "Phoebe MacNamara." The sound of Dave's voice didn't loosen the knots in her gut until she was certain it wasn't her family.
"Bonaventure? Where?" Without pen, paper or much of anything else, Phoebe took mental notes. "Yes. For me, specifically? I'm on Whitfield Island, at a friend's. I'll be there as soon as I can. All right. Yes, all right. I'll be headed out in five minutes."
In fact she was already up and hurrying toward the house as she spoke. "Tell him I'm en route. No, no, don't." She glanced at Duncan as he pushed the door open for her. "I have access to a very fast car, but I'll need a kit. I'll call you back when I'm on the road."
She clicked off.
"I need to borrow your Porsche."
"No problem, but it comes with me at the wheel."
"I can't take you where I'm going."
"Yes, you can," he corrected as they ran up the stairs.
"Duncan." She tossed off her robe as she rushed into his bedroom. "There's a man chained to a grave at Bonaventure Cemetery." She grabbed clothes. "All he's wearing, apparently, is a vest of explosives."
"If he's going to blow himself up, I hope he's already got a reservation. Bonaventure's pretty full up."
"He's the hostage," she snapped back as she pulled on clothes. "He's claiming to be, and he claims whoever strapped the bomb on him ordered him to call nine-one-one at a specific time, and ask for me by name. If I'm not there by one, whoever's holding the trigger pushes it, and he goes up."
"Only another reason I'll be driving. You don't know the car, I doand I know the roads better. I'll get you where you need to be. When's the last time you drove a six-speed?" he demanded when he saw the argument in her eyes.
Phoebe dragged on her shoes, nodded. "You're right. Let's go."
It made more sense to have him driving the Porsche like a hellhound over the island roads toward the bridge. She had her hands and mind free to contact Dave, to take notes.
"He claims he can't give his name, not until you get here," Dave told her. "He's saying he's wired for sound as well as the bomb, and the person behind it can hear everything. He's wearing an ear bud and a mike."
"Is he lying?"
"I don't think so. I'll be there inside five minutes myself, but from the sound of it, my professional assessment would be he's scared shitless. On-scene reports there are a lot of fresh bruises on his face, his torso, arms and legs. So far, he hasn't told us who did it, how, when, why. He can't, he says. He can only tell you."
"The way we're moving, I'll be there inside fifteen. What grave is he chained to?"
"Jocelyn Ambuceau, 1898 to 1916."
"Unlikely that's random. It or she means something."
"Having it run."
"Tell me more about the unidentified man."
"White, mid-thirties, brown and brown. Solid build. Accent sounds local. No jewelry, no tats. Arms and legs in shackles, shackles hammered into the ground with posts. He's in his boxers, barefoot. He's broken down twice since officers arrived. Just cried like a baby. He's begging us not to let him die. Begging us to get you here. Get Phoebe."
"My first name? He calls me by my first name, like he knows me?"
"That's my take, yeah."
"Tell him I'm nearly there." As they roared around a turn, she I braced a hand against the dash. "Make sure if anyone is listening, they can hear I'm nearly there." She looked at her watch. "I know it's nearly deadline, but we'll make it. Make sure they know I'm coming in. Ten minutes, Captain."
"I'm turning in now. I'll hold things until you get here." She clicked off, looked at Duncan.
"You'll make it." His eyes stayed on the road as he took the car down the little two-lane road at a hundred and ten. "Have you ever dealt with something like this before?"
"No. Not like this." She spotted the lights up ahead, got Dave back on the phone. "I see the radio cars. Let them know we're not stopping at the gate. Have one lead us in."
The Porsche fishtailed on the turn, grabbed road and lunged forward again. It was a blur of moss-draped trees, ornate statuary that gleamed under the moon. Heat put a shimmer on the air, on the thin spit of ground fog. Then there were lights up ahead, through dripping arches of trees. The Porsche slammed to a halt behind the radio car, and Phoebe jumped out.
"You have to stay back," she shouted at Duncan as she dashed through gravestones and winged angels.