Dark Moon Walking (40 page)

“You want to come along and help show them where Robbie is?”

It was the last thing Dan wanted, but he thought he was right in assuming Walker's answer would be the one he hoped for. In any case, he had to ask. Walker had become both a friend and a partner, and Dan had learned that it was never wise to make any assumptions about his choices. Walker would make his own decisions.

“Nope.” Walker glanced toward the stern, where Claire was standing. “Don't think she should be alone. Too many memories.”

Dan nodded. He too had noticed Claire grow quiet and withdraw into herself as Hargreaves and his team approached. She knew why they were coming.

“Yeah. Probably a good idea. It only needs one of us anyway.”

He was more than happy to have Walker and Hargreaves stay as far away from each other as possible. He couldn't imagine two more different personalities and he figured they would be a bad mix, each of them reacting and pushing the other into more and more antagonistic behavior. Hargreaves's prejudice ran just beneath the surface. Dan had heard it and Walker would recognize it in an instant. In different circumstances, their meeting might end in either a shouting match or a fist fight, but not here. Here, Hargreaves was in charge, and that could only end badly for Walker.

And if he was honest, there was a selfish piece too. It wasn't just about Hargreaves and Walker. Dan thought that any meeting between the two men would inevitably end up in some very uncomfortable questions being directed at him, and considering Hargreaves's authority, he would be required to answer them. And he didn't feel like doing that. Hell, he wasn't even sure that he could answer them if he wanted to. He didn't really know the answers himself.

As it turned out, Hargreaves was perfectly happy to leave both Walker and Claire behind. In fact, Dan was pretty sure that if the man hadn't needed to have someone point out the exact location of Robbie's body, he would have been happy to leave Dan behind too. Inviting a civilian onto his ship—and Hargreaves made it very clear that he thought of Dan as a civilian—was not in the rule book, and that made it something Hargreaves was far from happy about.

The recovery was both quicker and easier than Dan had expected. He joined three of Hargreaves's team in one of the big inflatables and they slid the boat down a ramp and into the water. Dan had already shown them the general location on a chart in the wheelhouse, so they knew where they were going and didn't waste any time. The trip was both fast and rough. The boat could travel at nearly forty knots and the hull bounced off the top of each wave, jolting every bone in his body. In less than half an hour they were flying past the now familiar cove where Tom had his shack, and bare seconds after that they were slowing, settling down in the water, bringing the blur of the shoreline into focus so that he could identify the exact place on the bank where he and Walker had left Robbie's body.

“There!”

He pointed to the jumbled pile of rocks he and Walker had put in place to protect Robbie. They were just as they had left them, the exposed limestone pale in the weak sunlight and out of place on the darker shale of the ledge.

Dan wasn't asked to take part in the retrieval itself. He was not part of the recovery team, and he hadn't expected to be involved. He was content to stay in the boat and simply sit and watch. His job was over.

It was quiet on the water except for the occasional murmur of voices drifting down, and the silence lulled him, pulled his mind back over the events of the past few days. So much had happened. So many lives had been lost or changed forever. He thought—hoped—that it was finished, the bad guys caught, their plans defused, but he really didn't know. Didn't even know what their plans had been. A few months ago, he would have been crazy with adrenalin, his mind racing to sort it all out, tie everything together. Now it didn't bother him. He had done what he could do and it was okay.

He thought he heard a whisper of sound flow through the air and he turned his head to catch it, but it was his heart, not his ear, that had heard. He felt his spirit lift as it once again responded to the remembered rhythm of Walker's chant, echoing it back to the land and the sea and the wide sky. It was finished. The circle was closed. Even when Robbie's remains had been removed, Walker's one simple, primeval act of grace and generosity would ensure that this lonely burial site remained a spiritual place where memories of a life would linger.

The return trip was a slower and more somber affair, with a black body bag occupying most of the floor space in the dinghy and all of their thoughts.

Walker left shortly after Dan's return. He and Claire were standing out on the grid, leaning against the transom as they watched him approach. Walker had worked his magic again. The two of them were both relaxed and laughing, completely at ease. He raised an eyebrow as he caught Dan's eye, seeking an answer but not wanting to ask the question out loud. Dan nodded. It was done. Robbie was on his way home.

“You going to head south?” Walker asked as he leaned forward and peered down at the water running past the swim grid.

“Yeah,” Dan answered. “Probably leave tomorrow. We'll head over to Half Moon Cove first. Have a look at Claire's boat.”

“Huh.” Walker nodded. “Think you can find your way? Don't want to have to send the boys out looking for you.”

He grinned and Dan couldn't help laughing.

“Yeah, Walker, I can find my way. And thank those boys for me. They did a helluva job.”

Walker shook his head. “No thanks required. They didn't do it for you.” He was still smiling, but his eyes, fixed steadily on Dan, carried a message.

“Yeah, I know. But thank them anyway.”

Walker nodded as he untied the line holding his canoe and pulled it up to the grid. The currents that he used to carry him around the islands like a private highway were already running hard.

“
Halakas'la.
”

“Goodbye, Walker. Be safe.” Claire stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. He straightened, his body stiffening in surprise, and his eyes sought Dan's as fear and pleasure warred on his face. Dan grinned at his discomfort but said nothing, and slowly Walker's arms raised to enfold Claire's slight body and his chin settled on the top of her head.

They stood there for a moment and then Claire raised her head to look up at him.

“I'll be back, you know. I don't know how or when, but I'm coming back up here. And I plan on finding you again so we can spend some more time together. Talk some more.”

It was Walker's turn to smile. “Sounds good. I'd like that.”

He looked at Dan. “You planning on coming back too?”

“Yes,” said Dan. It was a spontaneous response. He hadn't even thought about it, but he knew as he said it that it was true. He would be back. And soon. “Yes, I will. Maybe next year.”

“Make sure you bring some of those chocolate-chip cookies for Annie.”

Dan laughed. “I'll bring her a whole case of them.”

Dan and Claire stood and watched as Walker lowered himself awkwardly from the swim grid using his powerful arms, twisting his body into the waiting canoe. He lifted his hand in a brief wave, then pushed off and let himself drift out into the fast-flowing current. The last they saw of him was the stern of his canoe as it disappeared around the point, heading east.

Dan hauled anchor early the following morning and pointed
Dreamspeaker
north. Claire stood beside him at the wheel as they motored back past a silent and empty Shoal Bay. He felt her tense as the wharf came into view, a faint tremor that pulled her body taut, and he reached out and pulled her to his side.

She looked up at him and smiled. “It's okay. I'm fine. It's just hard to believe it all happened.
Island Girl
and Robbie . . .”

“I know. But it's over. They've caught them.”

She nodded, but she didn't pull away and gradually her body curved against him, fitting itself to his side.

In Half Moon Cove, winds and tides had dragged
Island Girl
into deeper water, but part of her port-side deck and the upper side of her cabin were still exposed. Dan and Claire climbed into the dinghy and spent a few hours checking out what they could see, peering through the water and in through the portholes. There wasn't much: a few cushions were floating and the tops of a row of books were barely visible, misshapen and swollen but still in place on their shelf. Everything else was hidden beneath a scum of debris that covered the surface, riding on the waves that lapped against the roof. There was nothing that could be salvaged, and by late afternoon Claire had had enough. She sat back in the dinghy, stretched her shoulders, and looked up at him.

“Well, at least I learned a lot. Should make it easier the next time around—if there is a next time.”

Dan smiled. “Oh, there'll be a next time. You're way too good to lose.”

She frowned at him, searching for a double meaning, but he kept his face bland as he reached for the motor.

“How about we go over and get your kayak? We can anchor in that little cove and get an early start tomorrow morning.”

She nodded in agreement. “Sounds good.”

She called her insurance company on the radiophone as soon as they got back on board
Dreamspeaker
and asked if it would pay to refloat the vessel. The agent told her it was a possibility, but they couldn't make any promises: it was going to take time for them to verify the condition of the boat and make their decision. They asked her to call them again when she reached Victoria. She signed off, put the microphone back in its bracket, and stood quietly, staring out the window to where the waves lapped against the coaming of her boat.

“You okay?” Dan moved up behind her and pulled her back against him, letting his chin rest gently on her head.

“Yes,” she said, her voice soft. “I was just saying goodbye.”

They made love that night as they motored slowly south. A following breeze added an easy swell to their passage and a canopy of stars lit their way, pulsing and brilliant against the black infinity of the universe above. There was a rightness, a sense of shared experience, even an inevitability that pulled them naturally toward each other. A gentle coming together of two people who had been drawn close by circumstance and bonded by loss. Whether it would become anything more than that was uncertain, but for now, it was perfect.

Claire left three days later, the morning after they arrived in Victoria. She said she was going to go up to Nanaimo and report to the Marine Institute. She told him that she needed to explain the loss of her research. She said she needed to tell them what had happened to Robbie. She said she wanted to talk face-to-face with the people who knew him. She said she had to see if there was any possibility of getting another contract. She said she needed to check in with the insurance people. She didn't say she was coming back. She didn't promise to return. He didn't ask her. But they both knew the invitation was open.