Dark Waters (2013) (8 page)

“The head honcho is a senior military guy, and former advisor to the White House. If he’s involved in something dodgy, he has a hell of a lot to lose.”

And a lot of connections.

She stopped moving.
Dammit
. Her teeth chattered. She was so out of her league it was ridiculous. “What do you think I should do?” She didn’t like asking for advice. Especially from an ex-con. Her father’s buddy. She didn’t like relying on him for anything, but she didn’t have the first clue how to deal with something like this.

“Look, let my PI guy ask around for a few days. In the meantime we can sort you out some false ID, which should slow down the bad guys when you go back to the States. Your daddy said you could trust me, remember?” He smiled, and it looked like a deliberate attempt to put her at ease. The tired lines disappeared. Dimples cut into his cheeks, making him appear years younger. It was like being smacked in the face with sunshine and rampant sex appeal. His gaze drifted absently down her body and an unwanted answering heat fired in her veins.

And just like that, she was caught in the web of another silver-tongued snake-oil salesman, the same way her father had charmed her mother after yet another row about money. And with that body and those dimples, Brent Carver would be devastating to any woman foolish enough to fall for him. But despite her body’s instinctive reaction to that rugged masculinity, she was immune. She nodded curtly and walked away, leaving him on his incredibly beautiful, isolated beach. Alone.

Brent fired up the boat’s engine and motored around to the mouth of the inlet, past the lodge that sat high on the ridge, and dropped his speed below seven knots to reduce wake. He maneuvered around a couple of kayaks and a hapless rower who was heading to the store, and angled toward the marine station dock on the east side of the inlet. He tied up in an empty slot and gave a nod to the new dive master who’d taken his brother’s place last summer when the latter had fallen in love and gotten shot.

Brent didn’t know which was worse.

He ambled up the steep gravel path, passing students who carried heavy-looking buckets, and headed into the marine station. He nodded to the secretary, who eyed him like trouble but didn’t call the cops. Things must be looking up.

“Is he in?”

She nodded, and the authoritative tilt of her head had him moving past her with a small salute. He knocked, eased inside, closed the door after himself, and leaned against it. Thomas Edgefield, director of the Bamfield Marine Science Center, looked up from his desk, gray eyes widening in surprise.

“I need a favor,” said Brent without preamble.

Thomas’s brows rose. Tall and gaunt, he looked like the sort of man who’d be a pushover, but he had a titanium core and had shown such dogged determination to solve his wife’s murder and children’s disappearance that Brent knew better than to underestimate the older man. Plus, Brent owed him.

“What can I do for you?”

“I need one of your cabins. I can pay.”

Thomas swept a hand through his thinning hair as he blew out a tight breath. “When?”

“Now?” He couldn’t rest with someone in his space. Anna would be safe here as long as she didn’t go around spouting off her real name. He frowned. He should have told her to start using an alias.

Thomas grimaced and shook his head. “We’re full up. Just about every physiology prof in Canada has descended on us with
not only their entire labs, but their families too. It’s like Disney World.”

Brent stared up at the ceiling. “Well, shit.”

“Who’s it for? Because I have a spare room in my house…” The same spare room he’d opened up for Brent’s younger brother, Finn, who’d been a badly beaten, undersized thirteen-year-old when Brent had been arrested. There were some things you could never repay, and looking after his kid brother was one of them. A cloying sense of failure started to press down on his chest. He didn’t want this man to always be clearing up his mistakes. And, thinking about it, he couldn’t risk that the bad guys might track Anna down and hurt not only her, but someone else in the process. He couldn’t let Anna stay at Thomas’s house alone. With Davis gone, she was his responsibility. Whether he liked it or not.

Sleep was overrated. “Doesn’t matter.”

Thomas opened his mouth to argue but Brent shook his head. “Forget it. It was a stupid idea.” He cleared his throat. “I never did thank you—”

“Thank me?” Thomas looked confused.

“For taking care of Finn when I was arrested.”

There was a pause. The phone rang but Thom ignored it. “You don’t need to thank me, Brent. You gave everything you had to protect that boy. After what happened to Bianca”—his voice got rough talking about his first wife, who was murdered thirty years ago—“I was grateful someone was out there protecting others from violence. I just wish someone had been there to save you…”

Brent planted his hands on his hips and frowned down at the man. He wasn’t that shit-scared sixteen-year-old anymore and this wasn’t what he’d come to discuss. Frankly, his battered dysfunctional heritage was something he spent most of his time trying to forget.

Thom avoided his eye, but kept talking. “To be honest I was glad to have someone around to look after.” His lips drew back on one side. “That sounds terrible—”

“No, I get it.” Sometimes, when you lost everything, you had to take comfort where you could find it.

“Laura likes her painting, by the way,” Thomas said softly. Laura Prescott was Thomas’s girlfriend and Brent’s lawyer. An unlikely ally for a man like him, but a good person to have in his corner. As a thank-you for her help last year, he’d painted her an enormous canvas he could barely get through his double doors.

“Does she have a wall big enough to hang it on?” He opened the door back to the secretary’s office.

Thomas laughed and followed him out. “If she doesn’t, she’ll probably build a new house. It’s a good thing she isn’t attracted to—” He cut himself off.

“Ex-cons. You can say it, Thom. Not like everyone isn’t thinking it.” He gave Gladys a pointed stare. She sniffed and looked away.

“I was going to say artistic types,” he muttered under his breath, obviously still trying to keep Brent’s alter ego a secret. “Anyway, I always thought what you did was more in the line of self-defense than—”

Brent held up his hand to cut him off. He did not want to talk about it. Thomas looked upset, obviously wanting to say more, but Brent wasn’t looking for absolution. And when had he gotten so soft that he cared what other people thought? But he knew when. Last spring, when Gina was murdered, and these people had helped him through the second worst day of his life.

“You going to marry her?” he asked Thom.

Gladys’s chin jerked up then, and her eyes brightened. If anyone deserved a Happy Ever After, it was Thomas Edgefield.

“You think I should?”

Brent laughed bitterly. “I’m the last person you should be asking for romantic advice.”

Thomas followed him outside and they both looked across the inlet to the other side of Bamfield. “I was thinking about it, but…” He shuddered and, despite the heat, huddled deeper into his V-neck sweater.

“It’s hard to let go of the past sometimes.” Brent understood.

“What if I’m bad luck?”

Brent pressed his lips together, because wasn’t that one of the reasons he guarded his privacy so fiercely? Not just because he didn’t like people—which he didn’t—but because he was terrified that getting involved was sure to get any friend—or lover—killed.

But he’d sacrificed his soul years ago and didn’t deserve that sort of happiness. Thom did.

“I’m pretty sure if any of us has earned the love of a good woman, Thom, it’s you.” And he strode away because he didn’t want to think about love or what it did to people when it all went pear-shaped.

Rand figured Vancouver was everything they said and more. It had ocean, mountains, enough Oriental restaurants to satisfy a horde of invaders—everything a guy could want, minus a cute, petite brunette who held his balls tightly in her sweet little hands.

Anna Silver was putting him to a lot of trouble. If she got hold of that envelope before he did, she’d have the power to put them all inside. That was not going to happen.

“You seen this girl?” He’d given the local transportation people some bullshit about being US cops with no jurisdiction in this country, looking for a woman who’d kidnapped her children. It was a good way of garnering sympathy from a largely male workforce, but they needed to be careful to avoid the attention of the Canadian Border Services Agency.

A grease monkey stripping down an engine of a Cessna glanced at the picture of the woman, paused, and shook his head.

“Were you here Friday night, Saturday morning?” The man shook his head again and went back to his wrenches. The place stank of motor oil and avgas, manual labor, and a lifetime of drudgery.

He curled his lip.

Petrie had found no record of the girl on any passenger manifests out of Vancouver International Airport. Rand and Marco
were canvassing the car rental companies and smaller regional airports. Boundary Bay was only a short hop from the international airport, and Rand had a feeling about the place. Unfortunately no one was giving them jack.

She could have jumped on a bus and headed to downtown Vancouver. The chances of finding her without a money trail were about a million to one.

He walked to the hangar door, looked out at the flat delta that surrounded them. Called Kudrow. “Give me something to work with. I’m pissing in the wind here. Fucking Canucks don’t know a damn thing about anything.”

“Here’s something.” He could hear the excitement in the other man’s voice. “Davis’s ex—Anna’s mommy—still lives in Victoria on Vancouver Island. It’s where the teacher grew up and where Davis committed his crime.”

He felt a tingle low in his spine. She’d bolted for home. “Got an address for me?” He motioned for Marco to join him as he memorized the address, then hung up. He headed back inside the hangar and into the manager’s small office. “We need a flight to Victoria. Any chance one of your boys can give us a ride?”

The grease monkey followed him inside, listening in on the conversation. “You find that girl you’re looking for?”

Rand gave him a smooth smile. “Was the damnedest thing. She’s been spotted on Vancouver Island.”

The grease monkey’s eyes slid away and Rand knew the fuckchop had lied to him. “I’ll give you twice the going rate if we can leave in the next thirty minutes.”

The manager’s eyes lit up. “Andy here can take you.”

“Sorry, boss, I’m going to have to order another part for the Skyhawk.”

“I thought you said you were almost done?”

“I just noticed a crack in the prop and we don’t have a spare in the warehouse.” Andy, the grease monkey, backed away a few steps and refused to meet his eye.

Rand and Marco exchanged a look. If leaving a trail of bodies in their wake wouldn’t be a problem, this guy’s neck would have been snapped. Unfortunately they’d questioned too many people, and had been caught on several surveillance cameras. If they got nowhere in Victoria, Rand would come back and work on the bastard until he spilled more than his guts.

“There’s another pilot heading to Victoria via Nanaimo in fifteen minutes. You can catch a ride with him.” The boss shouldered past his employee and Rand followed him out. Excitement started to spread along his nerves. Most soldiers balked at taking human life, but it had never bothered Rand. Murder was easy to hide in a war zone, but in a civilian world it was more of a challenge. He wasn’t worried. He knew how to escape and evade, and he had no intention of ever getting captured.