Page 155 of Sunset Beach
“I didn’t want to know,” he admitted. “For years, I never stopped looking over my shoulder, wondering if one day, Colleen would just show up, and destroy my life for good. She was… unbalanced. It’s no excuse for what happened, or how I let her down, but looking back, I think now, maybe, she’d be diagnosed as bipolar.”
“And that whole big police investigation, where they dragged lakes andconsulted psychics and questioned sex offenders, all those years, nobody ever connected the two of you to the disappearance?” Drue asked.
“No,” Zee said, shrugging. “Nobody ever even came close. Until you found those newspaper clippings of your mom’s. And then the file.”
“And what would you have done? If the cops had arrested somebody? An innocent man? What would you have done then?”
“It never came to that,” Zee said. “That’s why I waited so long to retire. I figured, if I was still a detective, I could do something, if there was eventually a real suspect. And it’s why I took the file, when I did leave. I probably should have burned it.” He pulled the box closer. “And now I will. Tonight. As soon as I get home. And the whole thing will be done. For good.”
“Do you really believe that?” Drue asked. “Have you seen Vera Rennick’s blog? It’s calledHave You Seen Colleen? She’s determined to solve the case. And she’s got a huge following of amateur cold-case detectives.”
“Oh God, her,” Brice muttered. “That damned woman, stirring things up.”
“She can stir things all she wants,” Zee said defiantly. “There’s no trail. No file. Nothing to connect either of us to Colleen Hicks.”
Brice raised his head and stared at his best friend. “Unless they find the body.”
“They won’t,” Zee said. “It’s been forty-two years.”
Brice clutched his forehead with both hands. “Jesus. I thought this nightmare was over. Honest to God. When I got together with Wendy, I figured, finally. This is happy. No more chasing, no more crazy. I built the law firm, tried to do good, to help people. I’m sixty-eight and we’re having a baby. And now this?”
Zee grabbed Brice’s elbow. “Calm down, okay? If it ever came to that, you’ve got a legit alibi. You were nowhere near Sunset Beach that night. You were clear across the bay taking a class in Tampa. Remember?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Brice said. “I know I didn’t kill her, but I look guilty, even to me.”
“You’re not,” Zee said firmly. “Nobody’s guilty. Not you, or me or Sherri. It was an accident. She fell and hit her head, and if it ever came to that, which it won’t, then I’m the one taking the heat, not you.”
Brice’s shirt pocket lit up, then buzzed. He took out his phone and read the incoming text. “I gotta go,” he announced. “Wendy wants me to pick up Chinese on the way home.”
“Go,” Zee said, making a shooing motion. “Go take care of your wife and baby. I’ll hang here with Drue for a while.”
Drue gulped her glass of wine and when the waiter came back, ordered another round for both of them.
“So,” Zee said. “I can tell, we’re not through with the questions, are we?”
“Sorry,” she said, but she wasn’t, and he knew it too.
“Since we’re laying everything on the table tonight, tell me, Jimmy. You and Mom?” She swallowed more wine, for courage. “Did you two get together?”
He avoided looking at her, gazing around the room, up at the huge mounted tarpon on the wall.
“You know, Big Jim, one of the guys who started this bar? He was a helluva fisherman. He took me out tarpon fishing one time, back in the day. Too much like work for me, you know? You can’t even eat the damn things.”
“About Mom,” Drue said gently.
“I’m getting to that,” Zee said. “Yeah, I’m not proud of it, but we did have a thing. Your dad was in law school at Stetson, and when he wasn’t studying, he was working nights as a security guard for concerts at the Bayfront Center and the Curtis Hixson, over in Tampa. The marriage was in trouble. And by then, Frannie and I were divorced. Sherri was lonely, and I was a shoulder to cry on. We had that shared secret, you know? It only lasted a short while.”
“Do you think Dad knows?”
“No,” Zee said firmly. “Never. It was over, almost as soon as it started. Your mom got pregnant, and it was the happiest I’d ever seen her.”
Drue’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Hold on. Are you telling me…?
“No!” he exclaimed. “God no. I swear it. I’ll admit, there was a moment there, when she told me, I guess I kind of secretly thought, maybe? But Sherriset me straight. The timing was off. And when you were born, and I saw you? Lucky for you, you’re Brice’s kid, no ifs, ands or buts.”
“No offense, but I’m really glad,” Drue said. “I think I’ve had enough shock for one week.”
“None taken,” Zee said. He toyed with his sunglasses again. “Hey, did you know I was at the hospital when you were born? In fact, I’m the one who took your mom to the hospital.”
