A Dangerous Harbor (5 page)

Raul paused, reappraising this angry young woman—the wet curls of her long honey-colored hair held back in a still damp ponytail, the baggy sweats, the swell of her breasts under a thin white tee-shirt and then down to the flip-flops on her narrow feet, noticing with an odd pang to his heart that her toenails were painted a bright pink.
No,
he thought,
whatever Katy Hunter is, she's not dangerous, at least not tonight.

He took her arm and gently led her through the gate and towards her boat. "I do not think you're a suspect, but perhaps we can take this conversation somewhere more private?"

"It's late, Inspector," she said, jerking out of his grasp. "Unless, of course, you've come with bolt cutters?"

Her voice was pitched for war and it also was attracting an audience. He said, "We should take this somewhere more private. Perhaps you'd like to show me the inside of your boat?"

She turned on him and poked his chest with a forefinger. "If you didn't come with bolt cutters, why're you here?"

"I am not your enemy, Miss Hunter. I see that my presence here seems suspicious to you, but I can assure you that my reasons are honorable."

"That remains to be seen."

"Don't you want to know
how
the girl died?" he asked quietly.

Katy was furious, and nothing in the inspector's statement was going to soothe her temper now. "Why so forthcoming now?"

He lifted a hand to the gathering crowd of curious boaters and leaned in to softly whisper. "Are you sure you don't want to show me your sailboat?"

Katy swung around to see a group of American boaters, their stares turning to concern. One man stepped forward. "This guy bothering you, miss, you just say the word and we'll chuck him over the side."

"
Er
, no thanks, he's uh… a friend."

"Well, if you say so, miss.
G'night
then." The guy nodded and herded his dock-mates away to their own boats

"Follow me, Inspector," she said, and briskly walked to her boat slip.

The inspector followed her onto the boat and down the ladder, filling up her small cabin with his bulk. He appeared grateful when she pointed him to a settee.

"I am here unofficially, Miss Hunter."

She stood where she was, arms over her chest, showing him she was not going to allow him an unnecessary minute.

Raul's lip twitched in a half smile.
In another minute she'll be tapping that cute little pink-toed foot.
Get on with it, Raul. Your motives may be pure but your hormones are not, and once again, your timing sucks.

He sighed and said, "The medical examiner has completed his examination of the body and his report says that though she had water in her lungs, which was the final cause of death, she was also shot."

He was only slightly surprised that she seemed to already know this.

"Caliber?"

"Nine millimeter and though we have the bullet we don't have a weapon." Seeing her confused look, he waved a hand across his face. "A match, if we had the weapon, could take months since our government is up to its armpits with the cartels. I was thinking that you might be interested in this case, since the suspect is an American."

Her eyes widened. "This is why you humiliated me in front of my countrymen, chaining my boat to the dock, so you could bully me into helping you with a homicide case? Not me, Inspector. Mexico is way out of my jurisdiction. Besides, I have exactly two weeks left on my sabbatical, and I don't have any interest spending that time working a murder case in a foreign country, much less helping the likes of you!"

He continued as if she wasn't red-faced and angry. "She was a dancer at a local strip club and it was well known that your Gabe Alexander spent time there."

"He's not mine, Inspector. I haven't seen Gabriel Alexander since I was in my second year of college and he came by to say he was leaving town." Which was true—her dad always told her that when lying, be sure to get as much truth into it as possible.

Deciding she needed to cool her temper, she said, "You asked for a tour of my boat? Let's do that now, shall we?"

He nodded, but seemed wary of her temper.

She began pointing out the items at her interior helm. "I have radar and GPS, depth sounder, single side-band and VHF radios are all here and wired for the cockpit helm outside." Then she turned to the narrow galley and showed him the fridge/freezer box and her storage for food and dishes.

"And you're standing on a bank of six deep cycle batteries under the floor boards. I also have two solar panels mounted on my stern."

Giving the interior of her floating home a nod of approval, he said, "It takes a crew of six to work my brother's fishing boat and he doesn't have sails to deal with. How do you work the lines by yourself?"

"On a sailboat they're called sheets and all kinds of people single-hand sailboats. There was a famous English yachtsman, Tristan Jones, and not even the loss of his second leg to diabetes stopped him from sailing alone. Karen Thorndike was fifty-six when she sailed her thirty-four-foot sloop solo around the world, and besides, I hear that she didn't have an autopilot or a nifty GPS."

"I know radar and GPS. My brother has a big unit on his console."

Turning the tables, she asked, "Is your brother a sport fisherman?"

"No, he does it for a living." The answer was simple and obviously his way of keeping his personal life out of her hands.

Raul turned away and squeezed forward as far as her miniscule shower/head combination and then halted at the line of photos secured on the bulkhead. Behind the Lexan frames were the smiling faces she loved.
 
She tapped a finger on the first one and couldn't keep the smile out of her voice. "My dad. He taught me and my sister to sail this boat on the San Francisco Bay. Said if we could conquer those wily waters, we could sail anywhere. He was right. Unfortunately, he's gone, but my mom," she said, pointing to the next one, "lives nearby and that's me and my sister and the guy… the guy in this photo is my fiancé, David Bennett." She stumbled only once at David's name, causing Raul to lean in for another look at the fiancé.

Raul sat down at her settee and lightly tapped the table top to indicate she should join him. He was enjoying himself, admiring the tidy small boat while he absently rubbed a thumb along the edge of her newly upholstered cushions and watched her trying to keep her composure as well as her distance. But when he noticed a rosy blush rise up from her face it sent a fissure of lust running up his spine.

"So," she said quietly, "have you arrested a suspect?"

"Did I say we arrested a suspect? You must have misunderstood me. Sometimes my English is not so good."

His English was fine, it was his slippery brain and those broad, flexible fingers that were giving her trouble.

"You kept me in your police station for most of the day because you suspect Gabe Alexander and you were afraid I might warn him before you could pick him up, is that right?"

The dark gold eyes wordlessly appraised her. Then he smiled that private smile as he toyed with the edge of her place mat, rolling the edges up and down. "Did you come here to meet Mr. Alexander?"

She choked out a laugh. "That, Inspector, would be stranger than you'll ever know. I'd like to say, for the record, that I haven't seen Gabriel Alexander in ten years but then I stood in the lobby of your police station and practically begged you to arrest him for the girl's murder, didn't I?"

The Inspector slanted a glance at her through dusky lashes. Though she doubted it was meant to be flirtatious, it also took her breath away.
Good God! He ought to wear that wedding ring in his nose where a girl can see it!

Aware of her reaction to him, Raul allowed himself a private smile, then said, "I am very grateful that you had the foresight to call the Mexican Navy and not use your VHF radio. If you had, the wrong person might have heard your message and our ability to take action would have been lost."

Thinking he was still talking about Gabe, she asked, "And that person would be Gabe Alexander?"

He shook his head in the negative. "We have no interest in your Gabe and I have no interest in what you call yourself or what he says you are to him, either."

Unaware that she'd been holding her breath, she let it out and went on the offensive. "You still have a chain and lock on my boat, Inspector."

"I have enough information from your superiors in San Francisco to know that your record as a police officer is, except for shooting your sister's stalker, exemplary. In Mexico, there would have been no forced leave of absence for one who goes to the aid of a woman in distress. He had a gun aimed at her head, no? End of story."

He surprised her again when he stood up, indicating that he was finished.

Katy worked her way out from behind the table to stand in front of him.

Raul looked down at her face tilted up to his, the sweep of her full lips slightly open as he knew she was mentally calculating her next move. She was a scant few inches away and certainly within reach, so close the scent of her freshly washed hair tingled his nose. Without a hint of makeup, she was definitely a beautiful young woman. She would be a stand-out amongst the cosmopolitan model types his friends trotted out like sleek polo ponies. She was also unfashionably curvy, with hips, thighs and breasts that made his insides heat up in a way that he'd thought long forgotten.

The clear tanned skin would be abhorred by the women, and the wonderful tiny laugh lines radiating from the corners of her very blue eyes would only elicit suggestions for a favorite clinic where they could be erased. His guess was that Katrina Hunter would laugh at such nonsense.

He wondered if she'd be here long enough for him to see those eyes sparkle with laughter. He certainly didn't have to be here—alone with her. He had resisted the temptation until it was almost too late and gave himself over to it only because he could convince himself that it was business. He was not one to break his own rules, but this time….

Katy broke the spell when she tilted her head to one side and asked, "Cat got your tongue, Inspector?"

Surely she had a sense of his inner struggle but was making light of it.

Resolving to bring his blood pressure back to normal would be no easy task, but he was sure that any discussion about this case would do the trick. "This will be a delicate case and one we are told to handle with kid gloves."

"A politician?"

"Worse," he said, watching her mouth.

"What do you mean,
worse
? You don't strike me as a man who is easily intimidated."

He almost laughed at her use of flattery to get answers. "You know it is illegal in Mexico for any foreigner to be found with drugs or weapons."

"Yes, it's no secret that your police force is out-gunned by the cartels who can force them to take twice their salary or be shot."

"Yes. There is that. There are some of us who can't be bought, as in my case."

"Politically ambitious, are you?"

He lifted a hand as if to brush away the lock of hair that touched her cheek, then thought better of it. "Not in the way you would think. He's an American who has political influence and to arrest him would mean that the police officers involved would soon be sweeping streets for a living instead of attempting to clean our streets of crime."

The relief on her face was almost comical. "I'd say that leaves Gabe out of the equation, then?"

He chuckled. "Yes, yes, definitely not your Gabe. When I got word of a young woman's body found in the ocean, I left everything to Sergeant Moreno and did a background check on you. After your credentials were verified, I saw no reason to hold you."