Free In the Dark by Heather Graham Page A

That would be terrible.
    But it wasn’t sinking in. At the moment, Alex felt betrayed. She had to admit, it had felt nice to have David following her as if he was desperate.
    “Alex?” he said, and his tone seemed to slip under her skin, no matter how numb she was suddenly feeling.
    Then he walked over to her, put his cup down, and his hands went to her shoulders again, the whole of his length far too familiar against her own, his eyes piercing hers in a way she remembered too well. “Damn it, Alex, believe this—I don’t want you ending up dead, as well.”
    They were talking about life and death, and all shefelt was the texture of his jacket, the heat emanating from him. She breathed him in and remembered the way his hands could move. He was almost on top of her, and she felt a physical change in herself, a tautness in her breasts, with way too much of her body pressed there against his.
    She wanted to shove him away—hard.
    She managed to get a hand between them and place it firmly on his chest, pushing him away from her, and slipped from the place where she had been flush against the counter.
    “Talk, David. Do it quickly. I have a nine o’clock dive in the morning, which means I have to be at the docks at eight.”
    Her voice sounded tight and distant. She wasn’t sure if it was the effect she wanted or not. She should have been concerned, she knew, about Alicia. She had known the woman, after all, even admired her. But she hadn’t liked her.
    But that didn’t mean she would have wanted harm to come to her. So why wasn’t she more emotionally distressed? She was just too numb, unable to accept the possibility.
    “Alicia called me a few weeks ago. Do you remember Danny Fuller?”
    “Of course. He came here frequently, and he was charming.” He had been. An octogenarian, the man had been in on the early days of scuba diving and helped in the later development of some of the best equipment available. He had loved dolphins, and that had naturally endeared him to Alex. “Yes, I knew Daniel fairly well. I was very sorry to hear he died about a month ago, at a hospital in Miami. Of natural causes.”
    “I know.”
    “They were natural causes, right?”
    “Yes. But Alicia was with him a lot at the end.”
    “I can see it—him dying, and Alicia quizzing him about everything he knew until he breathed his last breath,” Alex murmured. She hesitated. Alicia Farr was—or had been, if any of this was true—everything that she had not been herself. She found herself remembering the woman and the times they had worked together. Alicia was the epitome of a pure adventuress, courageous beyond sanity, at times. She was also beautiful.
    Even before the last year, she had frequently appeared at David’s side on TV and in magazines. He, naturally, thought the world of her.
    He’d slept with her, certainly. But before or after the divorce? Alex had never been certain.
    That must be why she was feeling so icy cold now. Good God, she didn’t want the woman to be dead, but still…
    “It’s probably true that she pursued him mercilessly,” David admitted. “But he also sent for her, so I guess she was the one he wanted to talk to in the end. At any rate, soon after he died, she called me. She said she was on to the biggest find of the century, and that she wanted me with her. And something she discovered had to do with Moon Bay.” He seemed to notice the way Alex was staring at him. “Actually, I had already been toying with the idea of coming here, so it sounded fine to me. She set a date, and said that she would meet me here. Whether she made that same arrangement with anyone else or not, I don’t know. But when I tried to get back to her, to confirm, I couldn’t reach her. Then, when I gothere, she was a no-show. I figured she’d gone ahead to check things out. You know Alicia when she’s got the bit between her teeth. I still thought she’d show, though. But I did notice that the place seemed to be