Dead Reckoning

by Moore, Sandra K.

  “Are you making it up to him now?”

  His gaze snapped to her face. “Yes. But I’ll be done soon.”

  I should be afraid, she thought as she studied his remote gray eyes. A man who could kill another human being suddenly sat here with her in this small vessel being blown lightly away from shore. Guilt and vengeance were bound up together in his face like the blood brothers they were. Her heart ached for him.

  Then Connor abruptly smiled, the determined fury slipping from his expression, a shadow fleeing sunlight. “Being with you helps.”

  The smile she gave him in return felt shy, natural, right. “I don’t see how.”

  “Priorities change.” His gaze flicked to her lips, then back to her eyes. “Maybe it’s time to get a new dream. Quit living in the past.”

  “You have to give up the old dream to embrace a new one.”

  He was silent a moment before he said, “Not always. Sometimes you get to have both.”

  “And sometimes realizing the old dream makes the new one impossible.”

  He stared at her, heat warring with something like regret or sadness. “We should go.”

  His words were as good as turning his back on her. Connor’s complexity, his internal battle, made her wonder what he’d do if he ever caught up with his brother’s murderer. If he’d be able to hold himself back, to choose justice over revenge.

  And if he couldn’t, would it change how attractive he was to her?

  Questions for another time. Time for home. She turned the tiller, guided the sailboat into clear water. “Raise the sail.”

  Connor ran the sail up the mast. Chris nudged the little boat a hair to the east. The sail filled with a whooshing pop and the tender was off, heading more or less in the right direction.

  Chris felt herself smiling like an idiot. The air smelled clear and bright, free of summer’s cloying heat. The tender champed through a light chop, speeding along as if it didn’t have a care in the world.

  For this moment, this very second, she didn’t, either. McLellan had helped her save a seagull. More than that, he’d revealed something of himself, helped her understand a little better who he was. Here she was, sailing her little boat and nearly, finally, ready to save her sister. Here was the tender, dipping her shoulder into the rippling waves. Her smile became a grin. McLellan, drenched by the spray, his soaked shirt clinging to his chest, turned his head to look at her. Then he gave a whooping cry and raised his arms, as though in victory.

  Chapter 8

  Chris latched the door wide open, then dragged a plastic crate filled with quarts of oil in front of it for good measure. Satisfied the door wasn’t going to close on her, she turned to survey the port engine room.

  The hatch leading into the hold was closed, just as it should be. All was well. She wouldn’t be going down there again any time soon. No way, no how. A niggling doubt tweaked her gut—as if she were about to leave on a long trip and had forgotten to pack something important—but she ignored it, tore her gaze away. God, she was sweating ice.

  Chris wiped her clammy temple on her sleeve. Back to business. Hortense’s exhaust leak.

  “Well, old girl, let’s see where it hurts.”

  Chris unlatched the tool chest lid and paused. Was that her screwdriver lodged between the chest and the wall? She leaned over to pick it up. What the—?

  A small black box, no bigger than a pack of cards, sat shiny and new on the floor. She’d bolted the tool chest to the floor herself when she’d first taken custody of Obsession, and it hadn’t been here then. Wires ran from the box along the wall to disappear behind the water heater.

  “What the hell are you?”

  The black box didn’t reply.

  “You’re not much help,” she told it.

  The flashlight showed the two wires, red and green, snaking up the hull behind the water heater. Red and green. If they sucked electricity from the 12-volt system, they should have been black and white. Was it a transponder? Dave’s guys from the boatyard wouldn’t have installed it, would they?

  She could almost hear Dave’s voice now: “If it ain’t on the work order, we don’t do it.”

  A small fear sprouted in her stomach. Before her mind could kick into high gear imagining things, she shook her head. Get a grip. Trace the wires. Find out what this thing is. Get the guys.

  Chris dislodged her screwdriver from behind the tool chest. Her mental map of the boat’s layout told her the wires would run behind the office wall so she headed upstairs. The salon was empty.

  “Smitty?” she called.

  Normally he came running like a puppy, but not this time. McLellan had headed into town to make his hotel arrangements.

  She was on her own. Just don’t disturb anything, she told herself. She slid the office door open. Inside, her charter logs, maintenance records and electronics manuals filled the bookshelf above the desk that bore her laptop. The inkjet printer sat on its little table, strapped down against the threats of waves. Her purse slumped beside the laptop, her cell phone stuck headfirst into the outside pocket. Drawn curtains cast the room into dimness.

  She yanked back the heavy curtain to get more light. The decorative wall panel below the window was like all the others in the boat, screwed into a wooden frame set inside the hull’s fiberglass. She settled cross-legged on the floor and got to work with the screwdriver. A couple of minutes later, the panel dropped loose. She set it aside.

  The wires were there, behind the wooden framing, red and green against the fiberglass. They ended in bare tails just below the window. A transponder. These wires had been broadcasting Obsession’s position to someone—Who? Why?—across the open gulf. The tails were held in position with duct tape, of all things. A temporary solution at best.

  Someone had been in a hurry.

  Was this what Falks had been doing aboard Obsession that night? And why? Why would he need to know where—

  The small fist of fear in her stomach opened and grabbed a double handful of her insides.

  Where Obsession was. Where she was.

  No, that couldn’t be right. It wasn’t Falks. She would have heard him open the engine room door that night he attacked her.

  Someone else had planted it. An accomplice?

  Whatever it was for—whoever it was for—she wasn’t going to touch these wires. She’d show it to McLellan and Smitty when they got back. She thought back to the boat she’d continually spotted following them to New Orleans. This time of year, sure, there’d be plenty of traffic as sailors took advantage of the good weather to make their journeys east and west. And when Obsession had been forced from the ICW to travel into the gulf, it made sense that whatever boat was behind them would do the same to avoid the tanker accident.

  “Problems?” Smitty asked from the doorway.

  “Maybe. Take a look at this.”

  He hunkered down next to her, his aftershave, spicy and clean, closing the space between them. Chris filled him in on the transponder she’d found and pointed out the antenna tails. “You think someone’s following us?”

  His normally open face settled into hard lines and for the first time Chris saw the authority figure, the man of law, in his expression. “Let’s take a look at the transponder.”

  In the engine room, he knelt next to the tool chest and studied the black box for several long moments. “Care to make a guess who put it in here?”

  “I don’t know. I only saw it a few minutes ago.”

  “Do you think Falks could have installed it the night he broke in?”

  She shook her head. “I hadn’t oiled the engine room door. Opening it would have woken me up, no question.”

  “And Dave?”

  “I can call him but I don’t think he or his guys did it.”

  “Not even if Falks paid him to?”

  Chris caught her breath. “Dave’s a friend. I can’t imagine him taking money to do something like this.”

  “But one of his men could have planted it.”r />
  “I don’t see how.” Chris’s mind flickered through days of boat chores. “Most of their work was outside and we were working inside. Wouldn’t one of us have noticed a workman being where he shouldn’t?”

  “Good point.” Smitty stood, his jaw clenched. “Then we’ve got a problem.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, afraid to ask.

  “Sit down.” He steered her to sit on the tool chest and went down on one knee in front of her. “Has McLellan told you what we’re doing?”

  “You’ve been in all the conversations I have.” Fingers of dread started caressing her stomach. McLellan’s brooding silences. Her conviction there was something he wasn’t telling her about. “What else is going on?”

  Smitty rested his hands on her knees, like a parent comforting a child. “The reason we haven’t been able to catch Jerome Scintella is because we have a mole somewhere in the department.”

  He paused to let her take that in, then continued, “Someone keeps telling Scintella when we’re gonna show up. Normally we’d send a huge team out on a mission like this. Twenty, thirty guys. More if Scintella’s as heavily armed as we think he is.”

  “So you’re using only four agents—”

  “Because these are the four we know we can trust.” His grip tightened. “But maybe there’s actually only three.”

  Chris didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she let it go in one long, slow exhale. “You think McLellan planted the transponder?”

  Smitty’s eyes closed. “God, I hope not.” His head bowed, showing her his glossy blonde hair. “I’ve worked with him for years. Trusted him.” His shoulders hunched. “Shit.”

  Chris tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t know for sure,” she said, refusing to accept the theory Smitty was offering. “Why would he do it?”

  “It makes sense.” Smitty rubbed his face with his hand. When he lifted his head to meet her gaze, his eyes were a little red. “It makes too much goddamn sense.” The lines of his face went sharp with anger, with hurt. “You’ve seen the way the guy dresses. We don’t make that kinda money. Nowhere near.”

  “Maybe he inherited…” Her protest died as Smitty shook his head.

  “He used to be like the rest of us, busting our asses to make ends meet. After a couple of years he started showing up in nice clothes, nice shoes. I just never thought—”

  “Okay, so he saved his money and has good taste,” Chris argued. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

  Smitty’s voice was rough when he said, “He’s already made a move on you, hasn’t he?”

  The fingers of dread clutched her heart and her face went hot. Christina, McLellan had said. She swallowed. Nodded, unable to speak.

  Smitty shrugged off her hand and stood as though he wanted to get away from her, not look at her. “I need to talk to Garza. Get him investigating McLellan’s background. See if his bank account says what I think it says.”

  Chris got hold of herself well enough to say, “But he hates drugs. What about his brother? He was killed by a drug dealer—”

  “What?”

  “He told me his brother was murdered.”

  Smitty frowned. “His brother died, but he wasn’t murdered.”

  “McLellan said he was shot by a dealer who wouldn’t let him leave the business.”

  Smitty shook his head, brow still furrowed. “That’s not true. Sean was drunk off his ass. Him and his buddies were playing around with a gun. Coroner’s report said he’d shot himself in the head. End of story.”

  Chris closed her eyes. How could she reconcile what Smitty was telling her with what McLellan had said? “So how did he end up in the water?”

  “You’re nineteen years old and your buddy accidentally kills himself. You’ve already been in trouble with the law. What do you do?” Smitty shrugged. “You weight his body down, toss him in the water and hope he doesn’t wash up.”

  “But he did wash up.”

  “I know,” Smitty said quietly. “I was there.” He knelt in front of her again and took her hands. “I hate like hell it happened to the kid. But it had nothing to do with a drug dealer.”

  The fingers of dread grabbed a double handful of her stomach. “Then why did McLellan lie to me?”

  His snort was short, sharp. Cynical. “It’s a good tactic. You’re trying to save your sister so he tells you a story about a brother. Makes an emotional connection with you. Followed by what? A physical connection?”

  Chris tried to breathe, let her mind play through all the interactions she’d had with Connor McLellan. The haunted look in his gorgeous eyes, his reluctance to share his past, the sense she had that he wasn’t telling her everything. His desire to know all there was to know about the yacht. Because he was making plans for it? To hijack it? Maybe he wanted to keep her aboard because if he hired a man to pilot Obsession to the island, he’d have more trouble subduing that man than a woman who trusted him. She shuddered.

  But there was also his kindness, his care of her the night of the accident. His continued demands she see a doctor. Those kisses. His hand moving on her body.

  “He’s always been good in vice,” Smitty said softly. “Don’t see why he couldn’t go the other way with it.”

  Chris stiffened. The thought of McLellan seducing women in the line of duty made her feel…dirty. Used.

  Smitty tightened his grip on her hand and she clutched his strong fingers like a drowning woman. When his arms went around her, she let herself ease into his embrace. Let herself rest, just for a moment. Every line of his body was taut, strung tight. Smitty’s hands gripped her sides.

  Who was telling the truth? Same facts—a young man shot dead and pulled from the water—but different stories about how he got there. Smitty could be the mole. Or not. McLellan could be the mole. Or not. It all depended on who was telling the truth.

  Then a thought occurred to her and the words she had to say felt like lead on her tongue. “He painted the engine room floor.”

  Smitty released her abruptly and sat back on his haunches. His eyes, sparking with fury, scanned the crisp, white floor marred only by smeared oily footprints. “So he had plenty of time to install the transponder. He could have run the wiring any time we were out looking for spares.”

  “He planted a tracking device in case what? We got away from him?”

  “So Scintella will know where you are.”

  Chris’s stomach churned, hot and heaving. “I’m dead, aren’t I? No matter what I do, Natalie and I are dead.”

  “No, don’t think like that.” Smitty grabbed her arms and gave her a little shake, his expression fearful, almost desperate. “Listen. I’ll call Garza, get him working on this.” As she watched, he gained control over his facial features as if putting on a mask. The lawman was back, ready for the job. “Can you be casual with McLellan? We can’t scare him off. This’ll be my chance to arrest the mole, get him out of the agency. Do that and we have a shot at Scintella.” His fist clenched. “Finally.”

  Chris thought of McLellan’s apparent joy in the seagull, the sailing. If she kept that in her mind—if she used those images to temper her emotional responses to him—she might be able to do it. “Being nice to him isn’t like trusting him.”

  Smitty rose and she stood with him. “If you find anything else,” he ordered, “let me know. We might be able to build a case here, and I don’t want anything to slip through the cracks.” His concern shone in his blue eyes. “And for God’s sake, Chris, be careful with him. Can you get out of doing dinner with him tonight?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. He wants me to meet the other two agents.”

  Smitty frowned, apparently considering, then nodded. “You’ll be safe with Russ and Jacquie. They’re stand-up. Besides, he doesn’t dare show his hand. He needs to stay deep in the DEA, feeding information to Scintella. He won’t jeopardize his position.” He turned to go, but paused and reached back to cup her cheek. “Stay strong, pretty lady. I w
on’t let anything happen to you.”

  Chris nodded. McLellan had said that to her more than once. Full of promises, these men. But Smitty smiled when he said it, with what looked like genuine affection, then left her alone in the engine room.

  It was too much to take in all at once. She sat down on the tool chest again and lowered her head into her hands. Best laid plans shot to hell. And back. In spades.

  One good thing: both men needed her. There was plenty of time between now and the arrival at Isladonata for Garza to do his research and for Smitty to pinpoint exactly what McLellan had been up to.

  Unless it was Smitty up to no good. His story sounded plausible but it was all one man’s word against another’s. She couldn’t know anything for sure right now.

  How easy it would be to give up. Just throw in the towel and go home, let the DEA—if that’s who these guys really were—sort out its mess on its own.

  Lost at sea. That’s how she felt. Totally lost.

  She raised her head and looked around the engine room. This place she knew. Claire hunched, quiet and still warm from her run. The faulty extractor fan Smitty had repaired while they were underway this morning hummed briskly.

  How could so much metal and diesel fuel and electrical wiring feel like home? There was a certainty to it, she mused, not like people. A machine worked or didn’t in predictable ways. Mysteries could be solved with some logical thinking because everything was right there in front of you to see. Hell, she’d torn down and rebuilt both engines herself.

  But this thing with McLellan… She hadn’t imagined the pain in his expression or in the way he carried himself when he talked about his brother’s death. That had been real. And why should he tell her about a mole? That was DEA business, not hers.

  It just upped the ante for her, though, didn’t it? What she didn’t know could hurt her. No wonder McLellan walked around looking haunted. Well, keeping things secret could do that to you.