Red Sky At Morning - DK4 (39 page)

CECI LOOKED UP from her brush as she heard a throat being cleared. She shaded her eyes, then felt her eyebrows lift. Sue Ainsbright was standing at the edge of their gangplank, looking warm and very uncomfortable. “Hello, Sue.”

“Ceci.” The older woman took a breath. “May I come aboard?”

It was so very naval. Ceci almost gave in to the temptation to refuse the boarding request, which, along with yelling “avast, ye maties,” was something she’d always wanted to do. “Sure.” She put away her brush, unsullied as yet by paint, and stood up as Sue crossed over onto the boat. “You look thirsty; c’mon down.”

“Thanks.”

Her guest followed Ceci down the steps into the cabin. Ceci walked over to the compact galley, gesturing toward the chairs as she did so.

“Sit down. Andy’s taken a walk over to the store.” She walked over and handed Sue a glass of iced tea, then seated herself across the table from her. “This is a surprise.”

The gray-haired woman stared at her glass, turning it slightly between her fingers in silence for a few seconds. “I know.” Sue looked up finally. “I just wanted to come and talk to you.” She hesitated. “To apologize for last night.”

Ceci laced her fingers together and rested her chin on them. “To me? For what?”

Sue just looked at her.

“I mean it,” Ceci said. “If anyone’s got an apology coming, it’s Dar and Kerry, not me.” She got up and got her own glass of tea, more just to do something than anything else. “Poor Kerry. You know, what happened last night was exactly what she was afraid of.”

“She seems like a nice girl,” Sue replied softly.

“For a dyke, you mean?” Ceci shot back.

“Ceci.” Her old friend gave her a wounded look. “I’m trying here, give me a touch of slack, will you?”

Ceci took a sip of her tea, feeling very unsettled. “Sorry,” she said.

“That automatic dismissal and exclusion of anything you don’t understand has always been a peeve of mine.” A breath. “I’ve been on the wrong side of that line all my life.”

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Sue remained silent for a bit, then she, too, sighed. “You know, I’d forgotten all about that.” Her eyes lifted. “Did that make it easier for you to accept her being...ah...”

“Gay?” Ceci supplied the word. “No, it didn’t.” She crossed back over and sat down. “By the time Dar told us that, nothing would have surprised me. Hell, Andy and I talked it over that night and I think...

Yeah, you know, we were mostly just relieved.”

Sue’s eyes opened wider. “Relieved?”

A dry chuckle issued from Ceci’s throat. “We knew she’d been working up to tell us something. Andy was just glad it was that, and not that she was running off somewhere, or pregnant, or on drugs. A thousand things went through our minds before we found out.”

“Oh,” Sue murmured. “She was a...she was pretty headstrong, I remember.”

“Yes, she was,” Ceci agreed. “And is.” She paused reflectively.

“Andy says she gets that from me.” A curious expression centered itself on the slim woman’s face for a moment, and then she shook her head.

“Accepting Dar was never an issue for us,” she stated crisply.

“Welcoming Kerry into our family was never an issue either. Andrew and I made a decision early on in our lives that one of the things we’d never teach our children is how to hate.” Her eyes pinned Sue. “Unlike you, apparently.”

Sue stood up. “Cecilia, that’s not fair,” she snapped. “We most certainly did not teach Charles to hate anyone. We’re good, God-fearing people. I resent that.”

Ceci also stood. “Do you? Let me tell you what I resent.” She put her cup down and circled the table. “I resent my child being called a pervert. I resent your half-assed, no brain, boot-licking son thinking he can judge her, and I really...” she came closer, poking a slim finger at the startled woman, “I really, really resent the fact that you didn’t even have the grace to teach him to hide his sick bigotry in polite company.”

Sue stared at her. “You didn’t have to smear our faces in it, Ceci. To be out in a restaurant like that—”

“Like what?” Ceci’s voice rose. “We were eating dinner, Sue. If you hadn’t been acting like we were lepers, no one in the place would have looked twice. They don’t wear fucking brands on their foreheads.”

“Ceci!” Sue was breathing hard. “I think I’d better leave.”

“Truth sucks, doesn’t it?” Ceci stood her ground.

They stared at each other for a long, silent moment. Then Ceci exhaled and folded her arms across her chest. She eyed the carpet pensively. “Sue, you were the first wife on the base who came to knock on our door.” Her voice was quiet now. “The first one to brave the pagan unknown and reach your hand out.” She looked up. “What happened to that person?”

Slowly, Sue sat back down and laid her hands on the table. They were weathered, and she looked at them as though they were a
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stranger’s. “Time.” She exhaled. “Berkeley was a lot fresher in my mind then.”

“I remember being so impressed by that.” Ceci managed a faint smile. “Wow, she went to Berkeley.”

“I remember,” Sue admitted. “Big shot that I was...I felt sorry for you. So young, so...”

“Feckless.” Ceci nodded.

“Different,” her old friend disagreed. “So out of place there.” She hesitated. “But Dar wasn’t.”

“No,” Ceci said softly. “And she cherishes her childhood, Sue.

Despite everything we went through, she really does; so when something like last night happens, it’s like having to give part of that up.”

Sue nodded and finally took a sip of her tea. She took a deep breath before she went on. “Ceci, there’s no excuse for what my son did.” She pronounced the words carefully. “Jeff and I talked it over last night, and if you—” She stopped and rubbed her temples. “I’m sorry. I sound like such a parent. If Dar wants to press charges, she should.”

Ceci felt like the world had just shifted slightly to the left.

“Charges?” she asked. “For what, Sue? Verbal abuse?”

Her friend’s dark blue eyes blinked twice. “Didn’t—” She stopped, then took a breath. “Ceci, Chuck went after her with a baseball bat.”

“What?”

“I thought surely she’d...” Sue’s voice trailed off again. “Jeff was so angry last night. He...he and Chuck had it out in the living room. It was...very ugly,” she said. “I don’t know what happened, but Chuck just...he broke down and said it was driving him crazy, and how he’d taken the bat and...”

Ceci concentrated on breathing. In, out; in, out. “Oh, dear goddess,” she whispered. “Dar said she twisted her shoulder. We had to drive her car home.”

“She didn’t tell you?” Sue seemed dazed. “I don’t understand.”

Ceci got up and walked across the cabin, coming to the window and looking out at the peaceful, sunlit water. “I do.” She heard steps on the rampway up above. “Dar knows her father too well.” She turned toward Sue. “Don’t say anything to him.”

“But Ceci—”

“I’ll tell him,” Ceci replied. “I don’t keep anything from him, never have, but let me do it my way.”

Sue nodded faintly as the cabin door opened and Andrew entered.

“’Lo.” His eyes raked over her in wary surprise. “Didn’t figure t’see you here.”

“Sue came to apologize for last night.” Ceci walked over and took the grocery bags from her husband. “We’ve been talking.”

Pale blue eyes flicked to Ceci’s face and studied it, then went to their visitor’s. Then they narrowed slightly. “Have you now,” Andrew drawled softly. “Ain’t that special.”

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IT HAD STARTED to rain again. Dar stood by the sliding glass doors and watched it fall in sheets that almost obscured her view of the ocean. A low rumble of thunder sounded overhead, and she could feel the vibration through the hand she had resting on the wall.

She hadn’t expected this.

Petty theft, yeah. Some finagling with the bills, yeah. Fudging on the recruits’ scores, yeah. Maybe even so far as someone falsifying fitness records, to hide old friends they didn’t want to have to make hard decisions on.

But smuggling?

Dar was no fool, and she wasn’t naive. Florida was a prime choice for smuggling because of its relative closeness to South America and because of its multinational population base. It would take a lot to stand out in this city, so hiding in plain sight was something easy a smuggler’s operation wouldn’t have to worry about.

In addition, it was a peninsula. Surrounded on three sides by water, with ample opportunity for someone to slip in to the thousands of small bays and islands unseen and undetected. The largest stretch of continuous coastline in the US, in fact.

So the fact that drugs or anything else was being brought in didn’t surprise her.

That the Navy was involved...

No.
Dar cut that off angrily. Not the Navy. Some pig scum who were using the Navy to break the law and line their own pockets. Who were using a place she considered more than any other to be home, and hurting the people who were a part of that who were not involved.

Maybe even, since they were bringing in recruits who didn’t belong there, endangering the innocent sailors who would be depending on those people to do their jobs. Sailors like her father was, once. Like she might have been.

Bastards.
Dar felt her anger rising. Despite everything, and especially despite last night, she still considered the service part of her family. It had given her a place to belong for many years, had accepted her, given their family a home and put bread on the table, and she was damned if she was going to let a bunch of criminals hurt that.

“So.” Chief Daniel’s grating voice made her wince. “You got a plan, or are you just gonna stare outside for a few hours?”

“Do you have a plan?” Kerry’s voice answered instantly, a distinct challenge in its tone. “If you came here for help, your best bet is to just sit down and shut up and wait for Dar to think.”

Dar watched her reflection smile in reflex.

“If you’re her secretary, then you’d better get your steno pad, kid,”

the chief answered.

Dar held her breath, wondering what her lover was going to hit back with.

Kerry simply laughed. “Boy, do you have your stereotypes crossed.”

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Dar turned and faced them, leaning back against the cool glass and feeling the pressure of the rain outside against her shoulder blades.

“The problem is this. I want to locate and pin down every son of a bitch who’s involved in this. If the Navy sends police in there, they won’t catch one in twenty.”

“They’ll run.” Kerry nodded. “And they’ll dump the systems.

We’ve only got a soft data capture, Dar. We don’t have the file structure or the algorithms you found. I’m surprised they haven’t started doing that already.”

“They went for what they knew I was looking at.” Dar shook her head. “Must have known I found that data hub.” She looked directly at the chief. “Who’d you ask about it?”

Chief Daniel was momentarily taken aback. “It’s my right to ask!”

“That’s not in question.” Kerry took a dried cherry from the bowl on the table and nibbled it. “Point is, someone was nervous enough about it to get it removed, and that says a lot in itself. Dar, I did a trace on the company that installed it. They’re a private fiber house who do a lot of work for the city.”

Dar lifted an eyebrow.

“The last big thing they did was wire the mayor’s place for teleconferencing,” Kerry added, as they both exchanged looks.

“Shit.” Dar closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “This is getting too big for us. Let me go call Alastair and find out what the hell he wants me to do. We stepped into a cesspool here.” She walked past them and into the study, shutting the door behind her.

Kerry released a held breath. “Shit,” she echoed Dar. “She’s right.

This is way outside our contract.”

Chief Daniel snorted. “Sure. Stir up everything, then run, and let us all sink.”

“It’s not that,” Kerry snapped. “Do you understand what we’re talking about here? These are federal crimes.”

“No kidding.”

Kerry turned her back and walked into the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and going into the refrigerator. She studied her options, then gave in and took two squirts of chocolate syrup and filled the glass with milk.

Troubled, she leaned back against the counter and swirled her milk to mix it. So many complications crowded into her mind. First, the problem of the drugs. It was far beyond anything Dar had expected to find, and she knew it had thrown Dar for a loop. That was hard enough, without the possibility of someone Dar knew being involved.

What if it was Jeff Ainsbright? Kerry took a long swallow of her chocolate milk. She’d liked the big commander and had found him open and straightforward, even in the uncomfortable situation they’d found themselves last night. What about little Chuckie? Kerry’s lip curled up into an almost unconscious snarl.
Dear God
, she realized uneasily,
I’m
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hoping he is. I’m hoping they take his obnoxious ass and throw him in the
federal jail for twenty years.
A very unchristian thought stared her in the face.
Maybe he’ll develop a taste for a different lifestyle.

Jesus.
Kerry put the glass down and covered her face.
Do I really feel
that way?
She folded her arms unhappily.
Damn it, yes I do.
He hurt her.

Kerry felt a sense of helpless rage.
He hurt her, and all I want is to...
Her muscles tensed, and her shoulders twitched with tension.
I want to beat
him senseless.

She’d never felt like this before. Even in the bad times, even with Kyle, she’d never thought about physically fighting back. A soft snort left her. “Look at me,” she whispered. “A year’s worth of martial arts and a dark-blue belt, and I think I’m the Terminator.”

A noise at the door made her look up to see Dar quietly looking back at her. “How’d it go?”

Dar entered and walked over to her, taking up a spot leaning on the counter at her side. “He’s as gobsmacked as I am,” she admitted. “All I got out of him was, ‘Dar, do what you have to do, you know I trust your judgment.’”