Read Online High Tide by Jude Deveraux - Free Book Online

Ace said as he looked up at her. “You’re wearing your mask again.” He was sitting on the single chair in the room and looking at a magazine. Lying on the table in front of him was a long piece of what looked to be curtain cord. The moment Fiona saw it, she started backing up.
Someone
had killed Roy Hudson, and if it wasn’t her, then it could have been him.
    â€œLook,” she said softly, “maybe we should go to the police. Maybe you should call them now, and—”
    â€œWe’ll go in a while, but if I’ve learned nothing else in the last days, the police don’t give you time to eat, much less shower. I need to be prepared for what’s ahead.”
    When he left the cord where it was, seemingly unaware of its existence, she said, “Sure,” then smiled at him. “You go ahead and shower and shave. I’ll wait for you here.”
    For a moment he blinked at her. “I need to make sure that you don’t run out the door while I shower and …”
    Looking at her, he kept blinking, and it took Fiona a moment to realize that he was perplexed—and embarrassed. How was he going to use the bathroom and shower while keeping watch over her?
    The memory of their shower together came back to her. At the time all she’d thought of was the trauma of Roy’s dead body and Roy’s blood all over her, but now she remembered her nudity and his wet clothes.
    He hadn’t been embarrassed when
she
was the naked one, but now that the tables were turned, he … What? Thought she would jump on him?
    â€œGo on, get in the shower. I promise I won’t look.” Her tone was that of a mother talking to a nine-year-old who’d newly turned modest.
    He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then he turned away from the bathroom. Some tough guy, she thought, chuckling to herself.
    â€œIf I let you walk out the door, I’m an accessory to murder,” he said as he walked to the big window and looked out between the drapes.
    â€œRight, and you have to protect your own skin,” she said.
    â€œLook,” he said as he dropped the curtain and looked back at her, “I know that right now you want to run, but where would you go? You can’t very well fly back to New York and walk into work tomorrow as though nothing happened. Roy was a prominent man, and his murder will make the news.”
    â€œI didn’t kill him.”
    â€œProbably not,” Ace said as he pulled out a shaving case from his duffel bag. “Come in the bathroom and sit.”
    â€œI will not—” she began, but then thought, Why not? She went into the bathroom with him and sat on the toilet while he shaved.
    â€œThe way I see it, I’m doing you a favor,” he said, foam on his face, a safety razor at his throat.
    Fiona was looking about the room for something heavy to hit him over the head with. But the room had long ago had everything stolen from it that could be carried away. Maybe the razor would slip …
    â€œAnd how are you doing me a favor?” she said. If she could get him to turn his back when he returned to the bedroom, maybe she could hit him with the chair.
    â€œIf you ran, you’d be a fugitive from justice, and—”
    She forgot about killing him. “Justice? You can say that word to me? What do you know about justice? I was taken away from Kimberly to go on a slimy fishing trip, and—”
    â€œWho is Kimberly?” he asked as he dried his face.
    â€œReally,” Fiona said with the heaviest sarcasm she could muster. “Bird feathers in your ears and eyes? Do you actually
live
in America?”
    As he picked up the phone, he gave her a puzzled look, but the next moment he was talking to someone. “Ham and eggs, hash browns, toast, coffee, the works. Yeah, and that too. Sure. You can deliver it to—You don’t deliver? But I’m in the motel just across—Oh, I see.” Ace waited