The sound of the boat’s engine filled the air for several very long moments as neither spoke.
“Oh boy.” Kerry finally exhaled. “We are so—”
“Fucked.” Dar completed the thought succinctly. “Oh yeah. Big time.” She slowly released a breath and concentrated on driving the boat for a moment. Her stomach was clenched in knots, and she struggled to catch hold of the thoughts whirling in her mind.
“You…” Kerry cleared her throat. “You think he was serious?”
Dar replayed the conversation in her head. DeSalliers’ voice had been very different than she remembered from their previous encounter. It had held an edge that was making Dar very nervous.
“He might be, yeah,” she answered softly. “I think we may have pushed too hard by stirring up Wharton.”
Kerry exhaled. “Dar.”
“Yeah, I know. I feel like shit,” Dar said in a small voice. “I didn’t think this through at all.”
Kerry rested her head against Dar’s shoulder as the island’s marina grew ahead of them. “My God, what are we going to do?”
she asked. “Dar, we don’t have anything to give him!” Dar didn’t answer. “He won’t believe us if we tell him that,” Kerry went on, her tone rising. “Jesus!”
“Okay,” Dar said. “Freaking out is not going to help.”
“I’m not freaking out,” Kerry objected. “I’m just…” She paused. “Okay, maybe I am freaking out. But I think it’s justified.”
The buoy approached and Dar steered past it, aiming for their slip. Her hands trembled on the throttles, but she focused on what she was doing. The last thing she needed to do was take out the dock and have that to worry about on top of everything.
Kerry seemed to realize that, and she kept quiet while Dar maneuvered the boat into its place. “I’ll go tie us up,” she muttered softly, using that as an excuse to burn off the churning of nervous energy in her belly. She climbed down the ladder, a thousand screaming thoughts fighting to gain the upper hand in her mind.
Horrified pity for Bud was uppermost. Despite the fact that she’d started out not liking him, seeing him talking to Charlie at the hospital had softened her attitude. The thought that they’d put him 254
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in mortal danger mortified her. How could they have been so damned irresponsible? Couldn’t they see how strung out DeSalliers was getting? How desperate? What made them think he’d just go running away if they challenged him?
Damn
.
With a sigh, she climbed onto the dock and secured their lines, glancing up to the flying bridge as she did so. Dar was still seated at the console, her head buried in her hands. Her heart lurching, Kerry finished her task and jumped back on board, scaling the ladder and approaching the still figure. “Dar?” She put her hands on her partner’s shoulders. Dar had been right. Freaking out wouldn’t help. “Hey.” Slamming themselves or each other wouldn’t either.
Dar lifted her head and rested her chin against her clasped hands. “Yeah?”
“We’ll figure out what to do.” Kerry leaned against her back.
“C’mon. Let’s go meet Charlie, and then we’ll all come back here and just talk this out.”
Dar straightened and let her head rest against Kerry’s chest.
“How could I have been that stupid, that wrong?” she asked in a soft, plaintive voice. “What’s wrong with me?”
Kerry put her arms around Dar’s neck, and kissed the top of her head. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” she said. “We’re just way out of our league, Dar.”
Dar blinked a few times. “Are we?”
“Well, I can’t speak for you, but they never taught megalomaniacal fruitcake avoidance in my IT classes at Michigan,”
Kerry said, taking a deep breath. “Sorry I freaked out.”
The dark head tipped back and pale blue eyes searched her face. “Don’t be. You were right; it’s justified,” Dar said. “I put someone’s life in danger with my own arrogant stupidity.”
“Hey.” Kerry slid around the console and sat down next to Dar.
“Someone I know once told me when you make mistake, know it, then move on and get it fixed.” She took Dar’s hand. “We made a mistake. Let’s just go figure out how to fix it.”
Dar stared at the console morosely. “What if we can’t?”
“Dar, if anyone can, it’s you,” Kerry murmured. “We’ll find a way, somehow.” She rubbed Dar’s shoulder, worried at the pained, lost expression on her lover’s face. “C’mon.”
Dar visibly pulled herself together, rubbing her face with one hand and straightening. “Okay,” she sighed. “We’ll see what we can come up with to fix this cluster.” She shook her head. “God knows it could have been worse.” She moved to stand up.
Kerry moved with her. “How’s that?”
One hand on the console, Dar paused, and then she looked at Kerry. “He could have taken you.” She eased past her lover and pulled her head close as she did, kissing it. “Let’s go.”
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Jesus
. As she turned to follow Dar mechanically, Kerry sucked in a shocked breath.
She’s right. She stopped me from coming down here
alone to check the boat.
She tried to imagine what that would have been like, a flash of her time in the mental hospital appearing stark and vivid in her mind’s eye. How angry she’d been. How ashamed at being taken like that, by her own father. What would Dar have done if it had been her? Kerry watched Dar carefully lock the cabin door. “Hey, Dar?”
Dar turned, apparently having recovered her composure for the time being. “Yes?”
Kerry took her arm as they crossed onto the dock and started the long uphill walk to the hospital. “I was just thinking about what you said.” She folded her fingers around Dar’s. “I was thinking about what I would have done, if it’d been you DeSalliers took instead of poor Bud.”
Dar looked at her. “And?”
“And I think I would have gone after his ugly ass with that shotgun,” Kerry admitted with a wry, brief smile. “I can see me doing a Rambo and getting my fool head blown off.”
Dar squeezed her hand. “Nah.”
“Yeah,” Kerry said seriously. “So, I know this really sucks, and it’s going to be tough on both of us, but I’m selfish enough to be glad I don’t have to be thinking about you locked up someplace in that guy’s clutches.”
“Well,” Dar kicked a pebble out of the way, watching it skitter down the docks past two men working near one of the boats, “I think you know that goes double for me.” She squared her shoulders. “I guess we need to figure out what our assets are, what advantages we have, and decide what to do.”
Kerry felt a tiny sense of relief. “Right.”
They walked along in silence, passing the other boats and collecting a few curious glances from the men working on them.
They left the dock and headed up the road. “Kerry?” Dar finally said when they’d passed the marina and mounted the first of the steps up the hill.
“Mm?”
Dar paused and put a hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have gone after him with that shotgun.”
“Oh?” Green eyes searched her face.
“I would have just used my bare hands.” Dar spoke the words with eerie calm. “And ripped his heart out of his chest.”
“Ah.”
They resumed walking.
“We’ll find a way to fix this,” Kerry stated firmly. “I know we will.”
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Dar grunted softly in response, her eyes fastened on the hospital on the slope above.
CHARLIE REMAINED SILENT for a while after Kerry finished speaking, a look of shock on his face. His eyes slowly went from her to Dar, who was sitting in the chair on one side of the hospital room.
The dark-haired woman had her elbows resting on her knees, her clasped hands resting against her chin. She lowered her gaze to the floor, tacitly accepting responsibility for the situation in which they found themselves. “So, our plan was to get you out of here, then figure out what the hell we’re going to do.”
“Son of a bitch.” Charlie sighed deeply.
Dar’s shoulders hunched just slightly. This was a failure of self that was eating a hole inside her, and she knew it. There had been very few times in her life when she’d known down deep that she’d committed an unfixable error, but this surely seemed to be one of them. Even Kerry’s gentle reassurance wasn’t helping.
She heard Kerry’s footsteps approach and then felt a hand come to rest on her back. Between her shoulder blades, Kerry’s thumb moved slightly, giving her a comforting rub. She would never blame Dar, but she also knew the truth about what had caused Bud’s abduction, and knowing that Kerry knew, that made Dar feel hollow inside. Hollow and empty and sick to her stomach.
Dar could hear Kerry continuing to speak, but the words just seemed to slip past her and without really realizing it, she rested her head against Kerry’s hip and let her eyes close, shutting out the sight of all that disappointment.
“I know this is pretty tough to hear,” Kerry said. “Believe me, I wish I wasn’t here saying it.”
Charlie glanced at the silent figure next to Kerry. His lips twitched slightly. “Y’know, I told that damn fool he shoulda listened to you in the first place, Dar,” he said, with a sigh. “Too damn stubborn, that’s what his problem is; always was.”
Kerry could feel Dar’s breath warm against the skin of her leg.
“About the loan, you mean?”
Charlie nodded. “Don’t blame yourself, Dar. We got ourselves into this mess. We went after that kid’s offer instead of doing the smart thing and accepting the hand of a friend,” he said. “We never’da been here otherwise.”
Kerry scratched Dar’s back, running her fingertips over the tense surface. She could almost feel how upset Dar was. It was like a gray baseball sitting in the pit of her stomach, and she really wanted her lover to shake off the darkness so obviously clouding her mind. “Honey?”
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The truth was too much to shrug off. Dar looked up reluctantly and inhaled. “I know,” she muttered. “What ifs, what ifs. What if Kerry and I had just gone to another island, or picked a different damn wreck to dive…”
“Look.” Charlie collected himself and eased off the edge of the bed onto his newly restored prosthesis. “Bud’s a big boy. I ain’t sure they don’t have themselves a bigger problem than they started out with, grabbing him.”
“Mm.” Dar straightened up a little. “They ready to cut you loose?” she asked. “We figured we’d head on back to the boat and regroup.”
“Good idea.” Charlie nodded. “After what you told me about what happened at that inn, I don’t trust them people further than I can pitch ’em off the cliff.”
Dar stood up, feeling very tired. “All right. I’ll go downstairs and get us a cab.” She gave Kerry a simple, brief hug, then left them to collect Charlie’s things.
Kerry exhaled.
“Dar’s taking it pretty hard, huh?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah.” Kerry glanced at him shyly. “She hates being caught by surprise.” Her eyebrows contracted together. “So do I, actually.”
“Life does that.” Charlie stuffed the last shirt into the small, battered canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder. “She done all right. Guy’s nutters.” He limped slowly toward the door. “Whole thing’s nutters.”
“Well, I thought so.” Kerry opened the door for him and followed him out. “But Dar’s pretty big into situational responsibility.”
Charlie grunted. “Just like her daddy.”
Kerry thought about that. “That’s true,” she mused. “Dad does like to make sure everything’s just so.” She looked up to see Charlie glancing back at her. “I appreciate that about him. I’m glad Dar inherited it.”
“He put up with you calling him that?” The ex-sailor seemed amused.
“What?” Kerry asked. “Dad?”
Charlie nodded.
“Sure.” Kerry walked slowly next to him. “I don’t have a very good relationship with my own family. Dar’s folks treat me more like a daughter than my parents ever did, and they know I love them for that.” She found a surprising lump in her throat and had to take a moment to swallow it. “Besides, I never got the feeling he minded being a daddy.”
“No.” The older man smiled briefly. “Andy wore one of Dar’s nappy pins on his gear for years, and nobody dared say boo to him about it.”
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Kerry had to smile at the vision. “She’ll be all right,” she assured him. “She just has to finish kicking herself, and then we can figure out what the heck we’re going to do about this mess.” Her hand curled around the door handle at the end of the corridor and she pulled it open. “I’ll feel a lot better when we’re back on the boat, though.”
“You and me both, Kerry.” Charlie limped toward the front door of the hospital. Dar’s distinctive form was visible through the half glass. “Me and Bud have some friends out here. Maybe we can get some help from them.”
They emerged into the warmth. Dar was standing with her hands in her pockets, her sunglasses effectively hiding her eyes. A battered cab was waiting nearby.
Kerry followed Dar over to the cab and got in, while Dar held the door open so Charlie could ease gingerly into the front seat.
Dar joined Kerry in the back and they drove off, navigating the winding streets in silence.
DAR WENT BEHIND the galley counter and poured herself a glass of milk, then went into the bathroom and took a couple of aspirin from the bottle in the medicine chest. She swallowed them as she emerged to rejoin Kerry and Charlie in the living space of the boat. Kerry patted the seat next to her on the couch, and Dar detoured from the chair she’d been aiming for and settled next to her partner instead. Now that the shock had worn off a bit, and despite the headache she’d developed, her problem-solving instincts were beginning to kick in again. Facts were starting to sort themselves out from the chaos.
“Okay.” Dar took a sip of milk. “First off, Wharton’s got no home base here in the islands, right?”
“Not that we know of, no.” Kerry had the laptop fired up and had been doing some quick data searches. “Not that he couldn’t be anywhere,” she added with a sigh.
“True,” Dar agreed. “But if he’s on the islands somewhere, we should be able to find a record of him doing business.” She looked over Kerry’s shoulder. “See who has the telecom contract for St.
Thomas.”