Dark Moon Walking (16 page)

There were a lot of things he could handle pretty well, but frustration was not one of them. He hated feeling useless, and that's what he was right now. The girl—he had to start calling her Claire—was still sleeping, and waking her up would be a lousy thing to do. Besides, awake or asleep, he couldn't leave her alone on
Dreamspeaker
. And he had no idea where to look for Walker. He had called him five or six times, but the man always had his radio turned off. So what other options did he have?

He couldn't leave. Not only was it impossible for him to walk away from whatever was developing in Shoal Bay, but he could never bring himself to abandon Walker.

He couldn't move closer to the action. He didn't know if White Hair was out prowling or if the crew boat was back in Shoal Bay, and he couldn't expose Claire to more danger.

He couldn't take the dinghy over to see the canisters for himself. That would almost certainly scare them off, and he might get himself shot in the process.

He couldn't do any damn thing except wait . . . and he hated waiting.

His foot brushed against a stanchion and he aimed a vicious kick in its direction. It connected much harder than he had planned and his reward was a stabbing pain in his toe. “Damn, damn, damn, damn . . .” He held on to the railing and hobbled toward the door, his face twisted into a grimace.

“Are you okay?”

Claire was standing in the doorway, watching him, a wary look on her face. She was wearing the T-shirt he had given her last night; her hair was disheveled from sleep, but the color had come back to her face.

He fought to change the grimace to a smile. “Yeah. I'm fine.”

“Okay. If you say so.” She didn't look convinced.

He followed her inside, bracing himself against the wall to keep the weight off his foot. “My foot slipped. Guess I need to be more careful.”

“Either that or get softer stanchions,” she said, moving past the table so that he could slide onto the bench. The wariness had been replaced with the hint of a smile. “My turn to make coffee. You'll have to point me to the supplies.”

The pain in his foot gradually faded as the coffee brewed and he eased his toe around inside his shoe. Nothing broken. It had been a stupid thing to do. He had been lucky.

Claire slid onto the bench across from him. “Have you heard from Walker?”

He looked at her. “He called last night.”

“And?”

“He was in Shoal Bay.”

“Shoal Bay?” Her voice echoed the confusion on her face. “But why? He knew I was coming here with you.”

Dan looked out the porthole. A gull was skimming the water, its wings spread in an effortless glide. He realized she had naturally assumed that Walker had gone to Shoal Bay to check on her, which meant she didn't know about her boat. If she had known, she would not have mentioned Shoal Bay without some acknowledgment of its being sunk. That meant he would have to tell her. Shit.

“Did Walker tell you about your boat?”

“My boat? Do you mean
Island Girl
or the kayak?”

“Not the kayak. The boat you had in Shoal Bay.
Island Girl
.”

Her chin lifted in acknowledgment, and then, as his words registered, her gaze narrowed. “Had? She's still there. I was going back to her when I saw those men.”

It was Dan's turn to nod. “I know. But she's not there anymore.” He took the plunge. “We think those same men you saw towed her out and sank her.”

“What? Sank her? What are you talking about? Who towed her out? What . . .”

He watched her struggle as she tried to take it in. This had been the part of the job that he had hated: the pain and discomfort of being the bearer of bad news. He had hated seeing the sudden look of vulnerability that turned bright eyes dull and made taut muscles slack. It drove a knife into his gut in a way few other things could. On the job, he had used it to fuel his anger and drive his determination to solve the case. Out here, he could only fight a sudden urge to wrap his arms around the girl across from him and comfort her.

The urge jarred him. He had not thought about touching any other woman since losing Susan. In fact, he had spent most of his days and nights for the past many months thinking about little else but Susan. Now he suddenly realized that he had barely thought about her once since this thing started. The knowledge made him feel oddly guilty and he reached for her memory, teasing it like a sore tooth, running his mind across its rough surface, tasting its texture. It was there, as vivid as ever, but he could sense a subtle change. Not in the memory itself, perhaps, but in him. He felt alive again. Complete. A little older and a little wounded, but the wound was healing, scabbing over. There would always be a scar, but for the first time since he had lost her, he could see past her death to the happier times they had shared.

He brought himself back to the present and to Claire, slumped in shock across from him. While the urge to comfort her was strong, it was not sexual. It was simply a reflex, more paternal than hormonal. Still, he needed to take care that sympathy did not become sex. He knew from his years on the force how easily that could happen when the victim was an attractive woman. He had witnessed it time and time again. He also knew that now was neither the time nor the place to restart his love life. He was grateful for the whistle of the boiling kettle, and he used it to distract himself.

Claire sat silent, her head down and her eyes closed, as Dan pushed a cup of hot coffee into her hands. He knew from experience that there was nothing she could say. Image after image was flashing into her brain only to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. The idea that her boat had been sunk was incomprehensible to her. The concept was impossible for her to grasp. She could not believe it. She was in shock. Her brain simply would not accept it.

Dan sat quietly across the table from her, coffee in hand, watching her, waiting for her to give him a cue, and after a time she looked up at him, her face once again pale and her eyes once again dark.

“When?”

He knew exactly what she meant. “The day after you saw the men at Shoal Bay. Walker found her in Half Moon Cove.”

Talking seemed to help her mind start functioning again, and he could see her searching her memory, trying to recall the details she must have seen so often on her charts.

“Half Moon Cove? That's way east of Shoal Bay, right? Over by Turner Island?”

“Sounds right. I haven't been there, but I talked about it with Walker.”

“Is he sure it's her? Maybe . . .”

Dan saw her bite off the rest of the words before the thought could be completed. He was familiar with the pattern, and her actions were so clear, he could almost read her mind. She knew Walker and knew he was familiar with
Island Girl
. Knew he would not make a mistake like that. Tears suddenly flooded her eyes and he watched her shake them away angrily. She was telling herself that crying wouldn't help her make sense of this. Now would come the guilt—maybe it was her fault.

“Maybe I didn't tie her up well enough. Maybe . . .”

Dan reached a big hand across the table and caught one of hers. “Claire. It wasn't you. It wasn't anything you did or didn't do, and it wasn't your fault. Somebody towed your boat out and sunk it deliberately. We don't know why. Not yet. We do know they were looking for you. You saw two of them that night when you were going back to your boat. Walker told me about it. Walker and I saw them again over at Annie's. That means they don't want any witnesses to whatever it is they are up to. You and your boat were a threat to them.”

She stared at him. “But why? I didn't see anybody doing anything!”

“I know that. You know that. But they don't, and whatever it is they're up to, they don't want to risk a witness. The black ship unloaded a bunch of canisters and sank them near the shore there in Shoal Bay. There's another boat there now, that crew boat you and Walker saw, hauling them up again. We had the marine police up here yesterday, watching them, but they had to leave before they could figure it all out.”

Claire closed her eyes again and Dan could see it was all too much for her. It had to be overwhelming and probably nothing made sense. Shaking her head, she shoved herself up from the table and went out into the salon. The door to the aft deck was open and behind her he could see a lone gull perched on the railing. It watched with bright, black eyes as she approached, then spread its wings and lifted off effortlessly, its protest hurled plaintively into the morning breeze. Dan followed her, not speaking, not crowding her but close enough to let her know she was not alone.

“She was my father's boat.”

Her voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear it. She had been leaning on the rail for over twenty minutes, staring blindly out toward the shore, oblivious to the chill of the morning air.

“Your father was a boater?”

“No. He was a fisherman. He spent most of his life on the sea.” She looked over at him. “That's where I grew up. We followed the fish. I went to school wherever we were fishing, did correspondence when there wasn't a school to go to, helped where I could.” She shook her head. “I loved it.”

Dan turned and smiled at her. “So we're both fishermen's brats.”

Claire stared at him. “Your dad was a fisherman too?”

“Yep. His boat was the
Betty Jean
. She was a gillnetter. I can still remember every inch of her. My dad sold her just before I finished high school.”

She gave him a pale smile. It wasn't much, but at least it was something. It was a start.

THIRTEEN