On the Rocks Read online

  “What can I get you?” Ruby asked her in a professional voice, trying to delay the inevitable.

  “Are you …” Her voice trailed off. “They, um, said the female bartender found Richard.”

  “Yeah, that was me.” Ruby couldn’t quite meet her eye.

  The woman glanced around, noticing that while nobody was watching, everyone had stopped talking. She lowered her voice. “Is there an office or something where we—”

  “Come around behind the bar.”

  Kristiano and Neville gave her supportive glances as she led the woman to the office. They sat in the two chairs, so cramped that their knees almost touched. Ruby prayed that damn parrot wouldn’t say something stupid.

  For a moment neither spoke.

  “Can I get you anything? A beer? Coffee? Water?”

  The woman shook her head.

  After another long silence she said, “I’m Elaine. Elaine Wainwright. My husband, Richard, and I are staying at the Coast of Dreams.”

  That was one of the most expensive resorts on the island, and clear on the other side of Nassau. Ruby wondered how his body ended up on this side of town.

  Elaine sniffed, wiped her eyes with a damp handkerchief, and whispered, “I don’t know why he’d be in this kind of neighborhood. Did he come in here?”

  “Not that I remember.” Ruby considered for a moment, then probed. “Did he like bars like this?”

  Elaine shook her head. “Richard doesn’t drink.”

  So was that sobriety token his? Did it drop out of his pocket when his killer dumped his body?

  And did the killer come back to fetch it because it might identify him?

  “It makes no sense,” Elaine whispered, as if to herself.

  Ruby almost asked if the guy had been in AA, but held back. She hadn’t mentioned seeing the token to the cops. She was trapped in a lie.

  “This is a rough area of town,” Ruby told her. “He might have been mugged. The police said his wallet was missing.”

  Elaine shook her head. “He would have never come to this part of town.”

  Ruby wasn’t so sure. She’d been a bartender for a year, and that was plenty of time to learn that people got up to all sorts of things behind their spouses’ backs.

  Elaine’s eyed brimmed over with tears. She wiped them.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  Ruby put a hand on hers. “It’s OK.”

  What a stupid thing to say.

  Suddenly Elaine’s face darkened.

  “The police are useless. They’re never going to find Richard’s murderer.”

  “I’m sure they’re doing the best—”

  “Useless! They asked if he used prostitutes. Who goes to a prostitute on their honeymoon? They asked if he knew you. It was like they were trying to make up an excuse to say you were involved.” That made Ruby’s heart run cold. “How could he know you? We’ve never been here before. I don’t know my way around the island. I don’t know anyone here.” She grabbed Ruby’s hand. “But you do. You look like you know how to handle yourself. And you know the Bahamas. I need your help.”

  “My help?” Ruby asked, taken aback.

  “The police will never find who killed Richard. I just know it. I don’t know anyone here. I have no help at all.” Elaine’s voice took on a shrill, panicked edge. “I’m all alone. Please help me!”

  Ruby stiffened. She was in enough trouble as it was. If she got involved, it would only lead to more trouble.

  More trouble than she could handle.

  “Here, let me give you my number,” Elaine said.

  “I don’t know if I can do anything.” Nevertheless, Ruby pulled out her phone. She couldn’t say no to her face. She just wouldn’t call.

  Ruby took the number.

  “I have to go now,” Elaine said, standing up. She wavered a bit as she stood, as if on the verge of fainting. “The police have some paperwork or something. Nothing that will do any good. Call me. I have money. I can pay.”

  “You don’t need to—”

  “Ten thousand dollars.” Ruby’s heart jumped. “At least promise you’ll think about it.”

  “I will,” Ruby said, nodding.

  Elaine put a hand on her shoulder. “Bless you.”

  Then she was gone.

  Oh hell, does she think I said yes to helping? I only said yes to thinking about it.

  Ruby didn’t have the courage to rush after her and set the record straight.

  Ten grand would solve a lot of problems, though.

  No, too risky. Not even ten million would be worth it.

  Ruby sat slumped in Neville’s office, her head in her hands.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The woman’s pleading still rang in Ruby’s head hours later as the sun came up on another beautiful day in the Bahamas. Ruby sat alone on the beach, just her and a nearly empty bottle of Bahamian Gold.

  The beautiful sunrise, the soothing warmth of the dawn air, the gentle crash of the surf, and the island’s best rum couldn’t take away the memory of that poor woman’s face.

  Just another innocent caught up in the evil of the world.

  Ruby had seen that before.

  Far, far too many times.

  A hot sun blazing down on a miserable huddle of tents and lean-tos made of blankets. Women in veils trying to comfort wailing children as the crump of artillery fire draws closer. A jet streaks overhead, making everyone duck. Luckily, its target is something else this time. Maybe next time it will target the five hundred refugees stuck in the borderland between two warring factions. It happened yesterday, and the day before that. To one side of the camp is the fresh mound of a mass grave. It smells of unwashed bodies, human waste, and death.

  Ruby walks among the women and children, hearing pleas in a language she does not understand.

  The woman with her, standing out amid the filth and squalor in expensive business attire, does understand, even though she is American too. She speaks to the refugees in their own language. Soothing. Reassuring. Promising.

  Ruby is Senator Wishbourne’s bodyguard and assistant. She has protected her countless times on trips like this, although there’s nothing Ruby can do against strafing jets and artillery fire.

  “We’ll get them out,” Senator Wishbourne tells Ruby in that confident tone of hers that always predicts success. “A colleague in the State Department owes me some favors. He can pull a few strings and get these families refugee visas.”

  Ruby feels a tug at her hand and looks down at a little girl, no more than eight, with liquid black eyes. The girl squeezes her hand, as if this white woman jetting in from the Land of Plenty is the one who needs reassurance.

  “We’ll get you out,” Ruby tells her in English.

  Although the girl cannot possibly understand, her face breaks into a warm grin that Ruby automatically returns.

  “And we did get them out,” Ruby slurs to herself. “And now here I am, a loser with no life.”

  She had been proud of herself, once.

  She had been proud of Senator Wishbourne, once.

  Ruby took another pull from the bottle, knowing it wasn’t going to help.

  She jumped as her phone rang.

  “Jesus! It’s six in the morning,” she grumbled.

  She fumbled in her pocket and took out the burner she had bought for cash on Nassau’s black market. She expected to see Kristiano calling, or Neville. The sweeties.

  Instead her phone told her it was her friend Maronique.

  Ruby’s hand trembled, and not just from alcohol.

  Maronique was a physician who worked at Nassau’s biggest hospital. Ever since Ruby got to the island, Maronique had been checking on her head injuries to make sure no complications developed. She was a friend, one of the few Ruby had here, but she wasn’t just any friend.

  Because she also helped out at the city morgue attached to her hospital.

  Ruby answered.

  “Ruby! Thank God you picked up. I wasn’t sure if
I should call you this early, it’s—”

  “I was already up.” Ruby could hear how slurred her words came out.

  “Oh … right. Um, yeah, Kristiano mentioned you might be, um, you know.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m you knowing. I’ve been you knowing all night. Did he tell you why?”

  “Yes, not that he needed to. I just got off the night shift. The police were here with the body. That guy was a rich tourist. Some bigshot businessman. I overheard the police talking. They say your story about finding the body doesn’t add up. They think it’s fishy. Ruby, oh God, they think you did it!”

  “What? Of course I didn’t.”

  “Oh, I know that. But you’re an outsider. I overheard them saying that if they can’t find any good leads in the next few days they’re going to charge you. They said you acted really suspicious during your questioning.”

  Ruby stared out at the beautiful sunrise with unseeing eyes. Maronique said more, but Ruby no longer heard her.

  It was ending. Everything was ending. The safe little life she had constructed for herself over the past year was about to come crashing down.

  Ruby mumbled a thanks and hung up.

  I can’t. I can’t get involved.

  You’re already involved.

  Ruby sat, feeling paralyzed. She watched the rising sun for another half hour, then let out a deep sigh.

  “All right,” she mumbled, and pulled out her phone.

  It was early, but Elaine would be up. Ruby felt sure she had been up all night.

  She dialed her number.

  Ruby closed her eyes, praying that Elaine wouldn’t pick up, that she’d get a recorded message saying she’d flown back to the States, or even that in her grief and confusion she had given Ruby the wrong number.

  But no. It rang. Elaine picked up. Ruby closed her eyes and sighed as she heard Elaine’s weary voice. She was committed now.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Coast of Dreams was the kind of place Ruby only saw from a distance, or on television. A taxi dropped her off at the end of a sweeping driveway past a manicured lawn and palm trees to an imposing building of concrete and glass. She entered a vast lobby of smooth white marble she had heard had been imported from Italy. From a high, vaulted ceiling embellished with gold leaf hung a massive crystal chandelier. A black marble front desk stretched across the left-hand wall. Wealthy guests, all of them foreign, strolled past, going to a series of exclusive shops down one side hall or to a row of elevator doors of burnished brass. The air conditioning was on so high Ruby sneezed.

  That failed to clear her swimming head. Despite a shower and a strong cup of coffee, she was still more than half drunk, that horrible early morning drunk that’s just beginning to turn into a hangover. She felt a tightness in her head and a cottony dryness in her mouth. In fact, her entire body felt toxic. Probably smelled toxic too.

  She went up to the nearest smiling Bahamian in the resort’s sky blue uniform and asked directions to the pool. Elaine had asked to meet her there.

  “Straight through the lobby and then take a right past the outdoor café, madam,” he said in the politest tones imaginable, although Ruby couldn’t help but notice him give her the once-over.

  She knew what he was seeing—an obviously drunk woman in cheap athletic gear, wearing shades that hid her bloodshot eyes but not the bags underneath them. His gaze paused for a second at her shoes—mid-priced Nikes that should have been replaced six months ago.

  “It’s the shoes,” an old boyfriend who had worked at an exclusive men’s clothing store had told her once. “You can always tell how rich someone is by their shoes. It doesn’t matter if they’re jogging or walking on the beach, rich people will always have new shoes. Except for old money. They don’t care how they look because they have nothing to prove. They carry themselves a certain way, though. An easy confidence. Dead giveaway.”

  Ruby seriously doubted she carried herself like old money. Obviously the hotel worker didn’t think so either.

  Neither did the three security guards in the lobby. They were dressed just the same as the other workers—the same uniform, the same brilliant smiles—but they were man mountains of muscle and had earpieces. She almost missed the earpieces. They, and the wires disappearing under their shirts, were black to match their skin.

  Neat trick, Ruby thought. I’d bet that ten grand Elaine promised me some white security manager thought that up.

  The security guards followed her with their eyes. She tried to walk casually. About halfway across the lobby she began to think she was going to make it when an unhealthily thin blonde woman who couldn’t have been much shorter than seven feet strolled past her, talking on an iPhone with a gold case. Ruby didn’t notice she was trailing a small suitcase and ended up stumbling on it.

  “Oh, crap!” Ruby shouted, her words echoed through the lobby. Everyone turned just in time to see her stumble forward, nearly faceplanting and having to stagger a good five yards, arms cartwheeling, before she could stop herself.

  One of the man mountains was suddenly at her side.

  “Are you all right, madam?” His face carried a polite smile, but his tone carried more warning than concern. He had also put out his feet wide, one a bit back from the other, and had his hands up, as if to catch her if she fell but really ready to defend and strike.

  This guy was good. He had seen past her shabby clothes and boozy stumbling and noticed the fighter underneath.

  There’s only so much I can hide.

  “Yes, um, sorry. Big night.” She put on a grin. “I have an appointment to see my friend Elaine. Elaine Wainwright.”

  Might as well tell you. You’ll be following my every move anyway.

  His demeanor changed instantly. The last traces of his already fading smile disappeared and he stiffened. “Go right ahead, madam.”

  Ruby crossed the rest of the lobby without mishap and passed through a pair of glass doors that swooshed open at her approach. The warmth of early morning soothed her, taking out the chill of the lobby. She wasn’t used to air conditioning anymore. The one at the Pirate’s Cove barely worked, and no AC unit had ever been installed within a mile of her house.

  Guests sat eating breakfast or drinking the first of the day at tables shaded by giant umbrellas. In the distance, Ruby could hear the shush of surf.

  Beyond the outdoor restaurant stretched a glittering pool. A simple rectangular Olympic pool would have been too mundane for this place, so it was irregular in shape, with little inlets and curves, an island with a bar at the center, even its own waterfall. On the other side Elaine sat alone at a small table under an umbrella, picking at her breakfast as she gazed out at the resort’s private harbor, where giant yachts bobbed in the water.

  At first Elaine didn’t see her. Ruby studied the woman as she approached. Slumped shoulders. Listless movements. The blank expression of someone who had just experienced terrible loss.

  Ruby’s heart twisted. She had let this woman’s husband lie in a dumpster for almost twenty-four hours. Yes, she had to help.

  Elaine looked up and spotted her.

  “You came.” She sounded surprised.

  “Yeah.”

  Elaine rose and shook her hand, an oddly businesslike gesture. The two sat down.

  A waiter was at their side in an instant.

  “Would madam like breakfast?”

  Elaine nodded to Ruby to indicate she was getting it.

  “Yes, please,” Ruby said. “Go heavy on the proteins.”

  “And what would madam like to drink? May I suggest the Morning Glory?”

  Isn’t that Army slang for taking a dump? “What’s the Morning Glory?”

  “Tomato juice with a splash of citrus and vitamin powder.”

  A hangover cure, in other words. This guy is as observant as security.

  “I’ll take two.”

  Once the waiter left, Ruby turned to Elaine.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?” Ru
by asked.

  Elaine shook her head. “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “The resort doctor gave me some sleeping pills. I didn’t take any. I think I’ll take one in a minute and try to get some rest.”

  “I think you should.”

  “Do you want some? Seeing … what you saw must have been quite a shock.”

  “No, thanks.” Maronique had warned her never to take any medication without consulting her first.

  They lapsed into silence for a time. Ruby felt increasingly uncomfortable, but couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound stupid. Breakfast came, heaping portions of eggs, bacon, and tropical fruit. The Morning Glory came too, in a tall glass with a little umbrella like it was a cocktail. Ruby wondered if this was the hotel’s humorous way of warning guests not to overdo it.

  “I’ll bring madam the next round in just a minute,” the waiter said.

  She took a long drink of Morning Glory and felt life shoot back into her veins. Suddenly she discovered she was hungry, and dug into her breakfast.

  “I don’t know how you can eat that and keep such a wonderful figure,” Elaine said.

  “I’m bulimic.”

  Elaine’s jaw dropped.

  “Bad attempt at humor. Sorry. I work out a lot.”

  “Good. I suppose working in that part of town you need to.”

  “Big time.”

  “I noticed a strip club a few doors down from your bar.”

  Ruby nodded. Elaine’s face was unreadable.

  “So you’ll take the job?”

  “I’m not a private investigator or anything. Perhaps you should hire one. I’m sure there are some on the island.”

  “No, I want you. I have a feeling about you. The way you kept working after finding Richard. The way you didn’t shy away from talking to me. The way you carry yourself. Can you start right away?”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Just because I can handle myself in a dive bar doesn’t mean I can solve crimes.”

  “It’s more than that. You know the local scene. Being a bartender, people must trust you, share their secrets with you. They won’t have any barriers up.”