Safe Harbor (3 page)

* * * *

Clarisse huddled in the V-berth and prayed they didn’t find her.

How would she find Uncle Tad? Maybe the marina would know.

Worse, where would she go? She still had more than five hundred dollars in cash, but she wouldn’t be able to access the other funds in the new account for several days. She’d been gone from Florida for so long that she didn’t know anyone else here but Uncle Tad, unless some of the regulars still had slips in the marina.

Now she’d have to call Raquel and admit this was a dead end. She felt so tired, bone-dead tired, exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Maybe she should have just stayed and let Bryan kill her. No more struggle, no more fighting. She’d be with her dad and mom, right?

Hopefully.

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She closed her eyes and rested her head on a pillow. No, definitely exhaustion speaking. She didn’t want to be dead. She wanted to be free, and it’d been so damn long since she’d been free that she’d forgotten what it felt like.

Her eyes snapped open. She must have slept again because she saw through the tiny port window that night had fallen. She didn’t hear the men, just the sound of the diesels.

What woke her?

Her heart raced. Something had awoken her. Her instincts from all the time she spent on board kicked in.

She closed her eyes and listened, trying to pick out old, familiar sounds. The diesels—they sounded smooth, no problems there. But something…

Then she heard it again and immediately recognized it. The auxiliary aft bait tank circulation pump had clogged or sucked air, jamming the automatic kill switch open. That happened sometimes.

She waited, anticipating one of the men would go below decks and unplug it. Usually Uncle Tad didn’t bother using the auxiliary pump unless absolutely necessary.

The minutes ticked by.
What the fuck are they waiting for? How
could they not hear that?
If it overheated, it could short-circuit and cause a fire in the engine compartment. At the very least, it would ruin the pump.

She sat up and waited, chewing her nails.

The sound grew more shrill.

She heard a noise from the master cabin and realized why the men hadn’t reacted.

Didn’t anyone tell those assholes you have to have someone on
watch?

She waited for several minutes. Unable to take it any longer, she yanked her suitcase out of the way and pounded on their cabin door as she ran past. “Get up! The pump’s burning up!”

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* * * *

Mac jumped, startled by the pounding on the door. He whacked his head so hard against the bulkhead that he yelped in pain and dropped to the berth, swearing and gripping the back of his head.

Sully yanked on his restraints. “Who the fuck is that?”

“I don’t know!” With one hand on the rapidly swelling goose egg on the back of his head, Mac used the other to unclip Sully’s wrist cuffs and grab a pair of sweatpants. The men tumbled out of the cabin as they pulled on clothes. By the time they reached the main cabin hatch, they saw the engine room cover was up and caught a glimpse of a woman’s head disappearing through the opening.

“Shit!” Sully growled. He took the lead, ripping off the leather wrist cuffs as he ran. He raced down the ladder ahead of Mac. The woman had the engine room light on and was already buried headfirst in the far alcove behind the port engine where some of the electrical junctions were located.

Mac reached for the protective earmuffs he kept hanging inside the hatch and found them missing.

What the fuck?

Then he heard the screeching noise, what he didn’t hear before.

Okay, so he’d been distracted, but still.

Sully started to go after the woman. Mac caught his arm and shook his head. Sully wouldn’t have heard him over the engine noise anyway.

After a moment, the screech stopped. The woman emerged. Yes, she wore the earmuffs and held a flashlight. The flashlight that also hung by the hatchway.

Who the hell is she?

* * * *

Clarisse had found the connector and, with no time to waste,

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yanked as hard as she could on the wire. When it broke loose at the junction box connector, the auxiliary pump shut off. Flipping the switch in the wheelhouse wouldn’t have done any good, because when the float switch stuck it overrode the on-off switch. It would have taken twice as long to find the damn fuse and yank it, but that would have killed both pumps. Uncle Tad had always sworn he never should have let his brother-in-law install the damn thing. He’d meant to rewire it properly to eliminate the problem, hence why he rarely used it when the other pump usually sufficed.

Old habits died hard. Even though she wasn’t thin and hadn’t set foot on the boat in years, Clarisse had no problem carefully wiggling her way out of the alcove. She maneuvered around the back of the port engine and avoided the exhaust manifold. Even with the earmuffs on, it was still friggin’ loud.

The two men looked stunned. She glanced at them only long enough to shove past them, her face turned away. She replaced the flashlight and earmuffs before scrambling up the ladder to the deck.

Fear set in. She raced for the V-berth cabin, hoping to get there first. Maybe she could talk to them through the door and they wouldn’t press charges against her for being a stowaway or breaking and entering or whatever since she’d saved their asses.

* * * *

His initial shock waning, Mac raced after her. He managed to grab her jacket and yank her back. “Stop! Wait, who the hell are you?”

She fought, hard and viciously. In the narrow passageway, he had to wrap both arms around her and drag her back to the main cabin area. She still managed to land a few good strikes to his shins with her heels. Fortunately for him her sneakers didn’t cause him much damage.

“Stop fighting! We’re not going to hurt you!” He muscled her into the galley and forced her to sit in the booth table. Sully pushed in,

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blocking her escape. She cringed away from them, her long hair obscuring her face.

“I’m sorry! Please don’t call the police!” She curled into a tight ball against the bulkhead wall.

“Are you on the run from the cops?” Sully asked.

She shook her head.

The men exchanged a glance. They still couldn’t see her face.

With Sully keeping her penned in, Mac slowly slid into the other side of the booth. She cringed. Jesus, she seemed so familiar—

Then it hit him. Betsy. She acted a lot like his little sister had the last time he saw her alive.

Before her husband killed her.

Sully started to say something else but Mac held up a hand. His Joe Friday cop routine wouldn’t fly right then. “What did you do? In the engine room?”

She still wouldn’t look at them, her hair concealing her face. “The auxiliary bait tank pump. You can’t use it. It gets stuck because the wiring’s messed up. I yanked the wire, that’s all. I heard it going. If it’d burned up, it could have short-circuited the panel and caused a fire.”

Mac felt Sully’s eyes burning into him, but he refused to look at his partner. Only someone with intimate knowledge of the boat could know that. He’d stupidly forgotten it, even though Tad had warned him about it and suggested calling an electrician to fix it.

“Look at me,” Mac softly commanded.

She cringed again, but she tipped her head just enough he spotted one eye through her hair. Still not enough to see her face.

“Thank you,” he said.

The girl froze. “You’re welcome,” she finally said.

Mac grabbed her wrist, firmly but not painfully. He reached for her chin and hesitated when she flinched.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I promise, neither one of us will hurt you.” When she relaxed, he tilted her chin so she had to look

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at them. Mac heard Sully’s sharp intake of breath when they got their first good look at her face—and her injuries. Someone had beaten the crap out of her. No wonder she was hiding and scared.

“Who did this to you?” Sully growled.

Mac felt her tremble. He released her chin, but laced his fingers through hers.

“Bryan. My boyfriend. Ex.”

Her soft, scared voice ripped at Mac’s heart. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, protect her, never let her go.

And he didn’t even know her name. Dammit, she looked familiar though, like he’d seen her somewhere before.

“You’re not going back to him,” Sully growled. With Sully, Mac knew that was a command, not a request or even a question.

At least they were on the same page.

She vigorously shook her head. “No, but I have to return to Columbus at some point in the next few weeks to handle the legal stuff and get my things.”

“I’ll go with you,” Mac immediately volunteered.
What the fuck?

His reaction surprised even him.

Sully arched an eyebrow at him over that outburst. Okay, that would cost him some stripes back on dry land, but it’d be worth it.

The girl shook her head and slowly pulled her hands back. “No.

That’s okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you guys owned the Dilly now.”

She dipped a hand into her jacket pocket and withdrew a ring of three familiar-looking keys, laid them on the table, and cautiously slid them toward Mac. “You’ll want these.”

He looked at the keys but didn’t reach for them. “Let’s back up.

Who are you? How did you get keys to my boat?”

“Clarisse Moore. My Uncle Tad used to own her.” She finally glanced around, her gaze quickly skipping over Sully, briefly landing on Mac, before she looked at the table again. “I spent a lot of time here growing up. I didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t have anywhere else to go where Bryan couldn’t find me. I knew it was a

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long shot. I’m sorry.”

He realized why she looked familiar. Tad had shown him pictures of her. “I’m Brant MacCaffrey. You can call me Mac, everyone does.

This is Sullivan Nicoletto, my partner.”

“Sully,” he said from where he stood.

“I’ll leave as soon as we return to the marina. I’ll work while I’m here, earn my keep. I can do everything—fish, shrimp, sort, take watches.” She sighed. “I don’t suppose you know how I can get in touch with Uncle Tad, do you?” The men exchanged a knowing glance. “What?”

“We wrote you a couple of times,” Sully said. “Tad gave us your address. He’s in a nursing home. He had a stroke.”

No way could she have faked the shock on her face.

“When?”

“Last March,” Sully told her. “You never got our letters?”

Clarisse shook her head. “No.” She closed her eyes and swore.

“Bryan probably got them and threw them away. Is Uncle Tad okay?”

Sully must have felt it safe enough to sit. He slid into the booth next to Mac. “He’s partially paralyzed on his right side. He can get around, but he’s very weak. He had to sell the boat, and we offered to buy it from him. We go see him all the time. We were friends with him before he had the stroke.”

She felt a little hope—and a lot of guilt. “Is he close by?”

“Nice place, just south of Tarpon.”

She buried her face in her hands and slumped over the table as she sobbed.

Mac reached across the table again and gently patted her arm.

“It’s okay, Clarisse. He’s got a lot of years left in him. He likes where he’s at. We can take you to see him when we get back.”

This time, she didn’t flinch away. When she finished crying a few minutes later, Sully offered her a roll of paper towels and she gratefully accepted it. She blew her nose and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I fell asleep. When I woke up, we were underway and I saw

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you guys on deck.” Her face reddened. “I didn’t mean to barge in like that. God, could I have messed up my life any worse?”

“Let’s back up,” Sully said. Mac sat back and let him handle the situation now that she’d calmed down. “Where did you come from?”

“I just spent a couple of days on buses from Columbus, Ohio.

What day is it?”

“Thursday night.”

“I left there on Tuesday morning, early.” She looked at the keys, which still lay on the table. Mac hadn’t pocketed them yet. “I guess that means I got here late last night or early this morning. I really lost track of time.”

“You didn’t have anyone in Columbus to stay with? Parents?

Friends?”

“My parents died in an accident a couple of years ago. My only friend Bryan didn’t run off, Raquel, she’s got a baby. I didn’t want to put her family at risk. He would have found me there anyway, probably the first place he looked.”

“Did you file charges?”

She nervously shredded the paper towel. “Yeah.” She snorted.

“They took my report. Fat lot of good
that’ll
do. We lived outside of Columbus, in Maxwell, close to Zanesville. He’s a cop there.

Computer division.”

“In Maxwell?”

“Yeah.”

Mac spoke up. “Well, kiddo, you absolutely ended up in the right place. Sully used to be a cop—” He stopped at her shocked, fearful expression. She pulled away from them and drew tight into the corner again, trying to melt into the bulkhead. “Whoa, what’s wrong?”

She anxiously shook her head. “I saw the looks on their faces. His dad is best friends with the police chief. Two of his cousins work there, too. I don’t hold any hopes of him going to trial. They put him on ‘paid administrative leave’ after they arrested him. That’s bullshit cop slang for they’ll lose my paperwork and give him a pass. Again.”

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Her angry gaze fixed on Sully. “Cops always stick together. They did the first time, they will this time. When his cousins saw my black eye the last time, they’d both sort of smiled and turned the other way.” She snorted in disgust. “He told me they wouldn’t believe me if I pressed charges that time.”

Mac exchanged a look with Sully. “Clarisse, trust me, you’re safe with us,” Mac assured her.

She wouldn’t take her eyes off Sully. “No, thank you for the offer, but I’ll find somewhere to go when we return to port. I’m sorry I ruined your weekend.”

Sully slowly leaned back, trying to open a little space for her. Mac suspected he’d seen this before, the overwhelming fear and anxiety in a victim. “Clarisse,” he softly said, “I promise you, if your ex shows up, I’ll be the first to put a bullet in his brain if he tries to lay a finger on you.”

She burst into tears. “He said he’s going to kill me! He told me if I ever left him, he’d hunt me down and kill me and nobody would stop him or prove he did it! That he’d done it before and got away with it!”

Mac nudged Sully. Sully climbed out of the booth, out of Mac’s way. Mac changed places and sat next to her, drew her into his arms.

At first she resisted. Then she slumped against him and cried harder.

“It’s okay, honey,” Mac said. “I promise we won’t let him hurt you. I swear. We can take care of ourselves and protect you and keep you safe.”

After ten minutes, she cried herself to sleep in his arms. Sully sadly stared at her. “Fuck,” he whispered. “She’s out of her mind.”

“You would be, too,” Mac shot back.

“I didn’t mean she didn’t have a reason. She’s spent days on the run, in fear, looking over her shoulder. She’s past the point of exhaustion.”

Mac carefully brushed the hair away from her face. Fuck, if her face looked this bad, he wondered what other injuries she had.

As if reading his mind, Sully said, “Brant, she’s not Betsy. You

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can’t save her if she decides to go back.”

Mac set his jaw. “Save your goddamn psychology bullshit.” He carefully slipped out of the booth and gathered her into his arms. “Go open the V-berth cabin door, please.”

It was a tight squeeze, but Mac managed to tuck her into the bunk without whacking her head against the wall or hitting his own again.

Sully fetched a blanket for her from their cabin. Then they closed the door behind them and returned above decks. Mac closed the engine room hatch and checked the autopilot and radar. He’d only planned to be below for ten minutes, more than enough time to play. Fortunately, their path remained clear.

Still shirtless, he shivered as he disengaged the autopilot, punched new numbers into the GPS, and turned the boat around. Sully emerged from the cabin. Fully dressed, he carried a shirt and jacket for Mac.

“Thanks.” He took them and dressed.

“We going in?” Sully asked.

“Uh, yeah. Duh, I think we have to, don’t you? We need to get her to a doctor.”

Sully fell quiet for a moment. “You don’t know she’ll want to see a doctor. Or if she can afford it.”

“She has to!”

Sully eyed him, his voice calm and quiet. “Calm down and back down.
Right
now.”

Mac glared at him. “Don’t you
dare
fucking start with me. You can beat the shit out of me for this when we get home, but dammit, I’m not letting her walk off and get killed! Take it out of my money if you have to, but she’s going to see a fucking doctor and get checked out.”

Sully studied him for a long while. When he spoke, his voice sounded firm. “You’re talking back to me, slave. You realize you’re getting too emotionally involved with someone you don’t even know.

She’s an adult. Keep in mind she’ll probably be freaked out by what

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we do.”

Mac slumped in his chair as the full impact of Sully’s words slammed home. He reached for a lanyard hanging on a hook. From it dangled a small silver key. “I’m sorry, Master.” He waved him over.

“I know we’re still on the boat, but you’re right. I’m too emotional about this. You need to handle this.”

Sully leaned over so Mac could unlock the collar and remove it.

Then he cupped his hand around the back of Mac’s neck, touched his forehead to Mac’s and pressed a kiss to his lips. “We’re in agreement about protecting her,” Sully told him. “But we can’t overwhelm her.”

“I still want to go with her to get her stuff.”

“Let’s deal with that when it’s time. It’s too soon to decide that.”

“Please?”

“If it gets to that point, yes, I’ll let you.”

Mac hugged him, burying his face against Sully’s shoulder. Mac struggled not to think about Betsy, about how she’d looked when he’d found her, almost dead and beaten beyond recognition.

Sully whispered in his ear, “Just keep reminding yourself, she’s not Betsy. She’s Tad’s niece, and we’ll protect her. We won’t let anything happen to her, but you have to let me deal with this. Okay?”

“Yes, Master.”