Safe Harbor (40 page)

"Fifteen!" Obviously not Sam's marquis. "Let's have a look. Nice and easy, please."

Hans reached slowly into his hip pocket and pulled out what was clearly a
very old ring filled with gem-
stones, chief among them, a startling emerald.

Holly gasped. "That's my
grandmother's
ring. Give me that!" she said, snatching it out of his hand.

"What can I say."

Sam said, "And meanwhile you're crawling all over the island because—why? You didn't believe that
Eden
had given away the money?"

"Shit, I didn't know what to believe. First I hear she's missing, presumed dead. Then suddenly she's in touch, saying she'll try to get me the money back. Then she says it's already gone to the hospital. Then she says she'll pay it back in installments. Then, a day later, she ships me the ring as a sign of good faith. No addresses during any of this; she's on a boat, she says."

Holly muttered, "How the
heck
does she keep track of her lies?"

"Meanwhile, I'm doing some checking around," Hans said grimly, "and I find out there's a
Vixen
on the Vineyard, just like the newspaper says, only now it's getting fitted out for a long voyage. Uh-huh. Like she's gonna pay me from
Tahiti
."

"Very perceptive.
Eden
's good at playing all ends toward the middle."

Hans shrugged and said, "Makes no difference to me. I'll get my money if I have to go to
Tahiti
to do it."

"Sam, we have to stop her!"

"Don't worry," said Sam. "Your father won't be taking
Eden
to the south Pacific or anywhere else. He's finally figured her out."

But that didn't mean that their problems were solved. "Do you have any rope around?" he asked Holly.

Holly perked up. Something to do. "Of course!" she said, completely revived by now.

He had to be careful not to grin like an idiot and to pay attention to the task at hand. When she brought him a sturdy line, he said, "You know how to use a gun?"

"A gun, are you crazy? But I know how to use a rope."

Sam moved in closer, keeping the semiauto aimed at the chest of the luckless collector. Holly had the man bagged and tied to the chair just as sirens began wailing in the distance.

They walked outside to wait for the cops, but by now Sam was wild with impatience to track down
Eden
. He said, "Explain everything to the police when they arrive. I've got to go after
Eden
before she takes off with the money again."

"What? And leave me here? I'm going with you."

"No way."

"Yes I am. Get
used
to it, Sam."

Get used to it.
Sam loved the idea of getting used to Holly Anderson, but then and there didn't seem like the time and place to say so. So he grunted something that might or might not have been permission, and when the police arrived they gave them a quick rundown and were told to go to the station to fill out a report. Hans was hauled away, and the paramedics cleaned Holly's wound. After trying unsuccessfully to get her to return with them to the hospital for follow-up care, they left with their wagon.

By then Sam had moved Holly's pi
ckup to the front of the barn.
             

"Let's go," he said, as good as his word. "If I'm right about where the money's hidden, we might still be in time."

"But you said that my father is done with her," said Holly, climbing up to the passenger's seat.

"Yeah, well, I've been wrong before," Sam acknowledged.

"Have
you," she said with a sly sideways look, and he had his inkling of what was to come in their old age.

It was a wonderful inkling. He got behind the wheel and was about to put the truck into drive when he thought,
What the hell am I doing?

He turned to her instead and said urgently, "First things first. I haven't said I love you. I love you, Holly. Madly. Truly. I love you." To the rumble of thunder he leaned over to kiss her—not a long kiss, not a kiss that was going to lead to anything like imminent sex; but a kiss that was meant to reestablish the connection between them. It was a little like plugging in an electric cord. Now he had the power to see.

"I love you," he said again, "and I'm sorry."

"I love
you,"
she answered, her breath fanning warm against his lips, "and you're forgiven. Now let's go find your parents' money."

"Technically, it's not their money," he felt bound to say as he took off, spinning shells in the pickup's wake. "The Durer's a fake, after all."

"So
what?"
Holly answered, sounding outraged at his scruples. "You saw Hans. How do you think he made that money? Selling tie-dyed tee shirts on a
Boston
sidewalk? He's a criminal; he got the money exploiting people. I can't imagine a more just scenario than Hans in jail with a forgery hanging on his cell wall, and your parents having a little security in their old age. Don't you
dare
tell them it was a forgery."

"Okay," Sam agreed, awed by her absolute conviction of right and wrong. "Have you ever considered becoming a federal magistrate?"

"Sure, as soon as I finish med school. Oh—shoot; it's starting to rain. At least it held off for the crowds at the
Camp
Ground
."

After a spatter of raindrops, the skies opened and torrents of rain pounded them, washing over the pickup in blinding sheets and forcing them to slow to a crawl.

"This'll slow
Eden
down, too, hopefully," Sam said, wiping the inside of the windshield with the palm of his hand.

"Why are you so convinced she's trying to get aboard the boat if my father's on to her?" Holly asked again.

"I dunno. I guess, because she's
Eden
. Nothing can stop her. She just keeps going and going and going."

"How
did
my dad figure out her game?"

"He, ah, overheard her proposition me." Among other things.

"Yikes! In the middle of the
Camp
Ground
?"

He was relieved that Holly didn't press on with a third degree, wanting every little detail of the confrontation between Eden and him. It was a sign, the very first sign, that she was prepared to begin trusting him.

"You know what?" he said, reaching over for her hand. "I love you."

"And so does
Eden
, it sounds like," Holly said ruefully.

"Nah. She needed me to explain to my parents why the money wouldn't be coming, that's all; she had to get me involved in whatever way she could. It was all part of her plan, along with convincing Eric that she had in fact paid my folks the money. She knew Eric would never have insulted her by verifying it. After that, I imagine she planned to squeeze him for some or all of the amount to pay back Hans."

"You're right about my dad not wanting to check with your parents. But how could he not have missed the ring? He's not
that
blind."

Sam said, "She could have told him she'd lost it overboard while they were sailing. He would have believed it. He wanted to believe."

I
know how it feels,
Sam thought, amazed to realize that he didn't have to cross his fingers and ho
p
e for the best anymore.

The squall passed on, leaving them rolling down the windows in search of a breeze. "My next truck will have air conditioning," promised Holly.

"Our
next truck," Sam said. It was as close to a proposal as he could come, encumbered as he was. But oh, that
our
tasted sweet on his lips.

They drove through huge puddles, sending sheets of water flying in both directions, and turned off into the marina where the
Vixen
was berthed. The air temperature had dropped maybe five or ten degrees, but the rumble of thunder told them that the evening's fireworks weren't yet over.

"If she's not here, then what?" Holly asked as they parked the car.

"Let's first find out if she is or not."

She wasn't—but then, neither was the
Vixen.

T
he
Vixen's
slip was empty, though that hadn't been the case a couple of hours earlier. Holly, for one, couldn't believe it.

She stood in the spitting rain and said, "Unless my father was drugged or hypnotized, I don't see how
Eden
—even
Eden
—could have talked him into taking the boat out now."

They had heard on the weather radio that a line of severe squalls was going to pound the island for the next couple of hours. Boaters had been advised to seek shelter immediately, and in fact a sailboat was headed—much too fast—directly for the
Vixen
's
empty berth even as they stood on the float overlooking it. The man on the bow, wearing a foul-weather jacket and holding a coiled dock line in his hand, was shouting over the wind to his wife on the helm; "Hard astern, hard astern!"

But the boat kept coming forward, bouncing off a piling before heading toward the float where Sam and Holly were standing. They jumped out of the way as the boat slammed directly into it, its bow nudging over the edge like a friendly horse in search of an apple. Sam grabbed the bow rail to steady the vessel, while Holly caught a dockline from the owner and secured it with a half-hitch to the nearest bit.

"Lash it to the bit!" shouted the owner, still issuing orders after the fact.

He jumped down to the float and, with Sam and Holly's help, tied down the boat fore and aft in the darkness, doubling up on the spring lines against the wind, which was now driving walls of on-and-off rain before it.

By the time they were done the squall had passed, leaving Sam and Holly soaked through. The owner of the boat thanked them, blaming his seamanship on his wife, who was below—probably packing a bag before she ran away.

Sam said, "Did you pass any boats going out as you came in?"

The owner laughed and said, "Yeah. A single nutcase, headed on a course for Woods Hole."

"Sailboat, or power?"

"Sail, but moving under power and not getting very far in those choppy seas."

"Size?"

"I don't know—forty, forty-some feet. Why?"

"You didn't see the name on the transom, by any chance?" asked Holly. "Or whether the dodger was a dark color? Or how many people were aboard?"

"At the time, I wasn't paying much attention," the sailor said dryly. "I passed it near the gong off West Chop."

Holly turned to Sam. "Now what? We don't even know if my dad's on board."

In thirty more seconds, they had their answer to that one, at least: Eric Anderson appeared on the dock, just as drenched as they were.

"Dad!" cried Holly as he approached. "Then
Eden
really is on the boat
alone?"

"She must be—crazy fool," said her father. "She can't handle the
Vixen
alone on a night like this!" His voice held more agony than outrage, although Holly couldn't tell whether that was for the boat's sake or for
Eden
's.

Another wave of heavy rain, simultaneous with a roar of wind, drove down on them, making it almost impossible to hear. The owner scrambled back aboard to the comfort of his boat, heedless of the fact that he was a poacher.

With her back to the driving rain, Holly shouted to her father, "Where were you when she was stealing your boat, for God's sake?"

He echoed Holly's posture, presenting his back to the onslaught of weather. "She asked to meet me at the Bouchards," he said, raising his voice over the howl of the wind. "Said she wanted to give me my ring back. I was confused
... she'd told me she'd lost it
 
... But I went out there anyway
... they hadn't seen her. When I got back here, the boat was gone. I've just got off the radio with the Coast Guard
... they won't go after it until the weather clears," he said as he staggered off balance under a gust of wind.

"We think she's headed for Woods Hole," said Sam, bowing his head to avert the stinging rain.

"She'll never be able to take that boat through Woods Hole herself, not against the current; she doesn't know the channel!"

"We need a fast boat," Sam decided, looking around him through squinty eyes. He looked as if he was about to steal the first one he saw.

Holly had a more legal idea. "Dad—do you still have keys to Robby's Robalo?"

Holding his forearm above his eyes as a visor against
the pounding rain, her father nodded and said, "That's where I called the Coast Guard from just now."