Hunting Houston

by Sandy Steen

  And hopelessly adrift.

  When he opened his eyes again, it was to a star-filled night sky. Waves gently rocked him in his inflated cradle. For a moment he didn’t realize where he was, and gave himself over to the soothing motion. A part of his now feverish mind wanted to go on forever, rocking, drifting. He would just go back to sleep and drift forever.

  He could drift up to the stars, then. To their twinkling light that looked so clean. So welcoming. If he could just reach out and touch them…

  “’Star light, star bright,’ “ he whispered, trying to remember a piece of poetry from his childhood. “‘First star I see…’” But there wasn’t just one star. The sky was filled with them. Millions and millions.

  “’Starry, starry night…’” he croaked, his overheated brain switching from poetry to the words to an old song. Pretty stars. Nice stars.

  In his delirium he was certain that the shimmering constellations heard him. Certain they sparkled back in response. They were his friends. They were there to keep him company.

  “‘Paint your palette blue and gray…’” Pretty melody. Nice melody.

  It joined the rhythm of the waves, and in tandem they rocked him, rocked him.

  “‘Look out on a summer’s day,’” he rasped, trying to stay in tune. He looked up at the stars. It wasn’t day. It was night. Dark. “Eyes that see dark…darkness in my soul.”

  No, he didn’t want to think about that. Look at the stars. Hang on to the stars, he told himself.

  Some minimally functioning, logical part of his fevered mind told him to forget about stars, and concentrate on survival; assured him that his partner, Gil, would start rescue proceedings as soon as he realized the ship was overdue. Gil would find him.

  Gil.

  The name echoed through Houston’s barely conscious mind. His partner. Lifelong friend. Shelley’s husband.

  But Shelley was dead.

  And it was his fault.

  Memories shoved and pushed, jostled for position in his fever-fuzzy brain. No, no. He didn’t want to remember. Remembering hurt too much. Much too much…

  No. Better not to remember. Just think about the stars. Stars so pretty against the sky. Dark sky. Dark…dark…

  Chapter 1

  “How would you like to take a little trip to Hawaii?” Braxton Hall asked, plopping himself into the ancient wingback chair Abigail Douglass reserved for visitors.

  “I’ve already had my vacation,” Abby replied, remembering the week she had spent at a friend’s isolated cabin in the mountains some ten months past. Solitary time. Time she had needed to rebalance herself.

  “That was almost a year ago.”

  Abby shrugged, knowing full well he was about to hand her a new case, not airline tickets. “We redheads sunburn so easily.” She lifted a lock of her naturally wavy strawberry-blond hair, and twisted it around her finger.

  “So buy some sunscreen.”

  “If this is your bid for me to take on another case, take a look around, Brax.” Abandoning the curl, she swept her hand over the collection of files and notes, and the stack of messages to be returned. “I’m up to my eyebrows in alligators, here. Three cases pending, and one court appearance.”

  “Are you turning down an opportunity to get back in the field?”

  “I haven’t been in the field—not like this, anyway— in months.” The fact of the matter was, she hadn’t been involved in a hands-on field investigation since her last and nearly disastrous case.

  “Like riding a bicycle. You never forget how.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “I am.”

  He tossed another file onto her desk. “Suspected arson. The claim has already been paid.”

  “Great,” Abby said, recognizing determination when she heard it. She pulled the file to her, and opened it. “Couldn’t you have started me back off with an easy one?”

  “Easy is boring.”

  “I could stand a little boredom.”

  “Like hell. You thrive on excitement.”

  That was before…

  Quickly, Abby shoved the thought from her mind. She glanced up from the file, careful not to meet Brax’s sharp-eyed gaze. He knew her too well to be fooled by false protestations to the contrary.

  The truth was, she did thrive—or maybe had thrived was more appropriate—on the thrill of investigating an intriguing case, ferreting out information, uncovering facts and nailing the bad guys when the occasion called for it. Highly competitive and driven to succeed, she loved every compelling aspect of her job. Or was that had loved?

  A year and a half ago she had paid a high price for that love. It had almost cost her everything. Including her hard-earned self-confidence, not to mention her self-respect. And lately she had been asking herself if her killer instincts were a thing of the past. More important, how did she feel if they were?

  “And I suppose this is your idea of exciting?” She flipped the cover back and checked the date stamped in the upper right-hand corner. “It’s over nine months old and a done deal. R.L.G.” She pointed to the initials of the insurance company’s investigator next to the date. “Gunderson, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I know Rob and I’d be willing to bet he turned this case inside out.”

  “Yeah. And it looked clean.”

  “So?”

  “So, we got a call from the insurance company this morning, who got a call from Seattle P.D. yesterday. Seems Seattle picked up a burglar—small-time, really—but he wants to cut a deal. They reduce the charges, and he gives them a guy that hired him to blow up a boat in Hawaii.”

  Abby glanced at the document stapled to the top sheet—a copy of a check in the amount of $232,000, made out to Gilbert C. Leland and Houston Sinclair, for a hull-coverage policy on a boat named, Two of a Kind. The mailing address was Lone Star Dive Shop & Tours, 600 Front Street, Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.

  “Maui,” she interjected, still perusing the file. “Hawaii is the big island.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Brax—-” she looked up from her reading “—you know as well as I do that perps spout off that kind of deal at the drop of a hat. Half the time it turns out to be bogus.”

  “Yeah, but the Seattle perp is an ex-navy demolitionist. And he says he rigged the boat to explode for this man—”

  “Who probably gave him a false name.”

  “Didn’t give him a name at all. This torch told him he was a friend of a friend. He received all his instructions over the phone, and all his money through the mail. But he did remember the name of the boat.”

  Pausing for effect, Brax grinned. “The Two of a Kind.”

  Abby stopped reading, and tented her fingers over the open file.

  She was interested, and he knew it. He always knew when he had her hooked. Only this time, she was feeling like a fish out of water.

  She and Brax had started to work for Rinehart Insurance Investigators on the same day four years ago, he as a management trainee, she as an assistant investigator. Now he was a district manager. And she was— had been, and hoped to be again—senior investigator. They had worked hard to get where they were. Harder than most people knew. Their personal lives had suffered. How many dinners had Brax’s wife kept warm while he worked late? How many of his kid’s school plays had he missed? As for Abby, well…the kindest commentary on her personal life would be to say nothing, to forget she had ever had one.

  Yes, they had come a long way. And both of them had the scars to prove it.

  “Give me an overview,” she said, finally.

  “According to the file, Leland and Sinclair are a couple of charm boys with a taste for adventure. They’re into fast cars and faster women. But they’re not dummies. Leland was on the San Francisco police force for five years, and Sinclair was a pilot… in the navy,” he said, pointing out the obvious connection between Sinclair and the ex-navy demolition expert.

  Charm boys. Just what she needed.

  “
Not exactly your average criminal stereotypes,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “Yeah? Don’t forget we’ve seen a couple of saintly grandmother types take insurance companies for big bucks.”

  “Okay, so there’s cause to reopen. And maybe a possible connection between the torch and Sinclair.”

  “A strong ‘maybe.’ “

  “Other suspects?”

  “Sinclair and Leland own a dive shop. You know, whale-watch tours, scuba diving. That kind of stuff. According to the file, they have one full-time employee and a couple of part-timers. Some possibles there.”

  “What about debts, mistresses, etcetera? Owners or employees?”

  “As for the partners, they’re mostly debt free except for the boat that went up. The manager, a guy named Stuart Baker, is a drifter type. Came to work a few weeks before the explosion. Couple of part-time native divers. No records on any of them.”

  “They replace the boat they lost?”

  “Oh, yeah. But this time they bought a much less expensive, reconditioned, used catamaran.”

  “Any idea what they did with the extra money?”

  “They both said they intended to put it back into the business. Said it under oath, I might add.”

  Abby nodded. “Any ex-wives out to get even?”

  “Leland was practically a newlywed, and Sinclair’s never been married.”

  Abby checked the personal data form, and saw that Houston Sinclair was thirty-four. She wondered why he had never married. Not that it was out of the ordinary for a man to remain single into his thirties. Still, the answer might shed some light on a motive, since Sinclair would undoubtedly be on her list of suspects.

  Who knows? Maybe the guy had a demanding babe on the side, and he needed money to keep her happy. She was doubtful the first investigator would have missed it, but it was possible.

  “Nothing on any of the employees?”

  “Zip. Clean as a whistle.”

  “Any reason someone would want the partners dead or framed for fraud?”

  He shook his head. “I told you, Gunderson came up empty-handed.”

  Abby eyed her longtime friend and superior. “You think the partners are the culprits, don’t you?”

  “Call it a hunch. The torch says the bomb had a timer. Either one could have set it off.”

  “What about the connection between the torch and the money man? What about the friend of a friend?”

  “Seattle is checking into it. But we’ve got an ex-navy pilot and an ex-navy demo man. We’ve got an ex-cop that could have God-knows-what kind of connections.”

  “I don’t know, Brax. From what I can tell, there’s not much in this file to support your hunch. If your suspicions are accurate, these two guys—” she gestured toward the copy of the check “—are serious arsonists.”

  “Assuming they were both in on the arson.”

  “Which is not a stretch, given the fact that they are partners.” She flipped through the forms looking for background information. “Is their relationship longstanding? Personal or strictly business?”

  “They’ve known each other since grade school.”

  Abby arched an eyebrow, and let the pages flop back into place. “I might buy a piece of your hunch if we can establish a strong enough motive. Any ideas?”

  Brax shrugged. “Drugs. Blackmail. It could be anything. Hell, who knows? Maybe they just decided they wanted to downsize. In our business, stranger things have happened. That’s what you need to find out, Miss Abigail.”

  “Gunderson didn’t turn up any hard evidence?”

  “There was nothing left of the boat. Not even a sliver that forensics could check. Sunk like the proverbial rock. Salvage yards were checked, but nothing turned up. Of course, wreckage has been known to turn up on beaches after a time, but as of now, we’ve got nada.”

  “And this Sinclair survived?”

  “Yeah, but he bobbed around in the Pacific for three days with a cut leg and raging fever, and didn’t remember much.”

  “Or so he says.” Abby picked up a pencil and began tapping it against the top of her desk. “And knowing how thorough Rob is, whoever is responsible must have done one helluva job covering their tracks.” The more they talked, the more intrigued she became, yet at the same time, the more her instincts warned her to leave this one alone. Instincts, plus the nagging question of whether or not she had lost her edge.

  “Obviously. When I spoke with Gunderson he admitted the partners were his first suspects, but he was never able to make a connection. As I said, they found nothing of the boat. No physical evidence of any kind. And as for the death of Leland’s wife—”

  “Wife?”

  “She died in the explosion.”

  Abby lifted the copy of the check, for the first time noticing another copy behind it. A copy of a check in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, paid to Gilbert Leland on a life-insurance policy on his wife.

  “Maybe the torch wasn’t after the partners at all. Maybe he was after the wife.”

  “Possible. But Sinclair’s deposition indicates Mrs. Leland came along at the last minute. The husband confirms it. Doesn’t look as if it was preplanned. The most important item as far as I’m concerned is that Leland increased the life-insurance policy three months after they were married,” Brax continued.

  “According to the file, all of the insurance was increased, including life on Mrs. Leland. Could be coincidence.”

  “Yeah, I could be way off base on this one. That’s why I’m depending on you to do your usual excruciatingly thorough best. The insurance company got clipped for almost a half a mil on this one. We get the bad guys, then we get a nice chunk of change. So, I want ‘em.”

  In the past she had been just as eager for the kill. But the old thrill of the chase wasn’t zinging through her blood as usual. What Brax took for a thorough examination of the case was more a cover for her insecurity.

  “I wonder why the insurance company didn’t let Rob take up the case where he left off. He’s a good investigator.” She picked up the pencil, rolling it back and forth between her hands.

  “You’re better. And you’re a good-looking woman.”

  “Flattery? Isn’t that a sneak attack, even for you?”

  “Not if it works.”

  “You should know by now that you can’t flatter me, Brax.”

  “Why, Miss Abigail, don’t you know?” He flashed her a cocky grin, knowing the nickname was not one she cherished. “You’re long and leggy, and definitely easy on the eyes. And you’re certainly one of the best, if not the best investigator I’ve got.”

  “Don’t you mean, used to be?” She crossed and uncrossed the aforementioned long legs, irritated that the little insecurity had slipped out before she could stop herself.

  His smile faded. “If that’s what I meant, that’s what I’d have said. You made a mistake, Abby, and you paid for it.” He looked at her, and his usually stern expression softened. “Dearly, I might add. Personally and professionally.”

  Her gaze darted away, and she laid the pencil aside. “I’m okay.”

  “You are now.”

  And she was. But only because she had finally come to terms with the reality that she was fundamentally flawed.

  She had a weakness for charming men.

  And with one exception, Riley Waterston had been the most charming man she had ever known. At least at first. In the end, he had become as vicious as a rabid dog.

  With startling clarity, Abby remembered only too well the day Riley had been arrested. The day he’d turned to her, and in a clear, emotionless voice had coldly informed her that she pretended a good game, but that was all she could do. She had looks, intelligence and ambition. But that was all. What she lacked was a woman’s heart. A real woman’s heart.

  It had taken some tears and the perspective granted by time, but Abby had finally realized there was a grain of truth in Riley’s words. She had spent a lifetime protecting her heart because she con
sidered it traitorous, at best. Hearts were too fragile. Too easily broken. Particularly by fascinating men. It was a lesson Abby had learned at an early age.

  Yes, she was okay now, but the road back had been long, dark and rough.

  “I have to admit this case has snagged my interest,” Abby said, shaking off thoughts of the gloomy past to concentrate on the present.

  “I knew it would.”

  On the surface, the whole thing looked cut-and-dried: reinvestigation of a fraud. She had done dozens of them, but there was something about this one that made her hesitate. Maybe it was because a woman had been killed. It was horrific enough that the two suspects might have scammed the insurance company. But fraud was a far cry from murder—even accidental murder.

  Or maybe it was because Sinclair and Leland looked to be cut from the same cloth as a certain smoothtalking man from her past. Or maybe she feared she had lost her nerve. Or all of the above.

  Abby cleared her throat and picked up the pencil again, this time nervously tapping the eraser against the thick file.

  She hadn’t thought about Riley Waterston in over two months—something of a record, considering he had almost ended her career, not to mention the fact that he’d shredded her heart. Getting personally involved with a subject under investigation was considered a cardinal sin in her business. It was death to an investigator’s objectivity.

  It had been death to Abby’s faith in love and herself. And the empty hole of loneliness inside her just got bigger and bigger.

  But she had worked her way back with a new resolve, a new strength. And an impenetrable guard around her heart.

  “Don’t take this as a sexist remark, but you’re the right woman for this job. To begin with, we need fresh eyes and instincts. Secondly, someone has to get close to these men. Know anybody better than a woman to get close to a man?”

  Alarm hells went off in her head. Post-Riley alarms that warned against getting close under any circumstances. But she told herself she was a new woman, a much stronger woman. She could handle this.

  “The job could be tough, but you’ve earned a chance to prove you can stand the heat, Abby. You walked back in here with your head high, and fought for the top spot. I think nailing this case will get you a promotion to senior investigator again.”