Dead Reckoning

by Moore, Sandra K.

  McLellan had been watching out for her. Chris ignored the train of thought pulling out of that particular station and got back on the right track. “What about my sister? Are we still going forward if the DEA doesn’t haul you all in under arrest?”

  Jacquie and Russ exchanged a solemn look. Then Russ snorted. “Of course.”

  “I’m still in, as well,” Jacquie said, raising her good hand—her gun hand—to forestall Russ’s protests. “You’ll need glamour to get into Isladonata, and I can play debutante like nobody’s business.”

  Russ frowned, looking as if he was building up a good head of steam. “You’re not in any shape.”

  “It’s my arm in a sling, not my face.”

  “Need a designer sling,” Russ muttered.

  “Better to hide my Glock,” she shot back.

  “McLellan can’t ask you to do that, can he?” Chris asked.

  Jacquie raised a brow at Chris. “It’s his call, but I’m ready to go.” Even under the bandage, the agent’s demeanor reflected a steel will. “Provided we’re not all thrown in the brig before then.”

  “We’ll nail Scintella’s ass to the wall,” Russ said. “We’ve come too far not to.”

  “And get your sister out,” Jacquie said in a firmer voice.

  Chris nodded. Jerome Scintella was a terribly dangerous man, she’d learned from personal experience over the past three weeks. A plant in the DEA, a hired gun to terrorize her. Probably more guns on the way to kill her in retribution for Falks’s death.

  Scintella was dangerous enough that three career DEA agents were willing to risk life, limb and their jobs for a mission outside DEA provenance. She didn’t know anything about how the agency worked, but it sounded as if they might end up subject to disciplinary action. Maybe fired or jailed.

  Tears stung her eyes as she said, “Thank you.”

  “Thank you for answering my questions, Ms. Hampton.” The DEA internal investigation officer clicked his pen closed and stuck it into his breast pocket. He smiled reassuringly at her before glancing out Obsession’s salon window at the late afternoon sunshine.

  “So what does all this mean?” Chris asked. “What’ll happen to Smitty?”

  “I’ll have to review all the information you’ve given me before making that call,” he said as he rose.

  Chris nodded. She wanted to ask about McLellan, what would happen to Russ and Jacquie, but she didn’t dare stir trouble. The agents might still get out of this with their jobs intact, and she didn’t intend to jeopardize that possibility.

  “And we have to look into this.” He brandished a baggie containing the rectangle of black plastic Chris had given him, the one with the fingerprint. “I’ll let Mr. LeBlanc know if it turns up anything significant.”

  Chris knew it would. The print on it would tell her who had planted the transponder. All her money was on Smitty.

  The officer’s boots clomped across the salon floor, clattered as he stepped on the fiberglass deck, then punctuated his stride in gunshots down the wooden pier. Chris relaxed back into the plush sofa. On the mahogany table, the brass compass, showing no hint of tarnish after she’d scrubbed Falks’s blood from it, winked at her as the light streamed in from the west-facing side of the yacht. A huge weight of dread had lifted from her shoulders, and now she was free.

  Smitty was gone.

  Chris tried to be angry with McLellan for hiding so much of the truth from her—the mole, the mission’s being outside the DEA, his brother’s having died in a DEA sting operation gone bad. For keeping her hostage for a full day. She couldn’t. She was just too damned tired to be pissed.

  Russ had been right. She was an engineer, not a cop. Why people did what they did was a mystery to her. Their actions she could understand: the sheer mechanics of behavior, do this, say that. But the motivation? She wasn’t made like these people. Everyone around her—Russ, Jacquie, McLellan—knew the games and unspoken rules. They easily navigated the ambiguities, the hazy morality. They spoke a language she didn’t understand. She was in a place and among people where she didn’t belong.

  Ther be Dragynes here.

  Dragynes, dragynes everywhere, and not a one to trust.

  She sighed. How was she supposed to navigate waters like these, with charts that made no sense, with unmarked hazards and threats? All she knew was that somewhere out there in the confusing morass of secrets and lies and monsters, her little sister waited for her.

  Chris couldn’t let her down.

  She was coming to realize that trust wasn’t part of the equation. She had only to get to the next stage of the journey, and if a DEA agent who liked to keep secrets could help her do that, she’d take it. If a pair of his DEA buddies, who let him call all the shots, could make it possible for her to get onto the island, she’d accept their help.

  But that didn’t mean she’d be stupid.

  She rose to close the salon curtains. Outside, red and orange streaked the pristine blue of a sky darkening to purple. She paused. Yes, a perfect sunset, like a gift. Like so many gifts she was beginning to see she’d been given.

  This yacht. Its restoration. The hard work left to do that sat so well on her soul, so satisfying. The promise of Nat’s homecoming. The end of one horrific journey and the start of another. It’d be either wonderful or deadly, and she didn’t much care which, as long as it’d all be over.

  She flicked the curtain closed, then turned toward the dockside windows and forgot about how tired she was.

  Connor McLellan stood outside on the pier, hands in his slacks pockets, looking doubtful about being there.

  Heart pounding, Chris slid the salon’s side door open. His head turned slightly, as though he’d been looking elsewhere and she’d startled him. He didn’t smile. She stepped out to the deck, then raised the hinged deck rail gate to let herself onto the pier.

  As her shoes touched the dock, he said, “You’re okay.”

  She nodded. After a moment, she replied, “You know about Smitty?”

  “Yes.”

  For a long minute they simply faced each other. Chris didn’t know what to say. She knew what she wanted to say, but none of it seemed appropriate. McLellan’s lips thinned as he raised his head to gaze west, toward the fading sun.

  “Come inside,” she interrupted. “The no-see-ums get bad.”

  He studied her, his handsome face registering indecision between his brows. “For a few minutes. I need to talk to you.”

  They stepped inside the salon, McLellan closing the sliding door behind them.

  “You want a drink?” Chris asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Have a seat.” Chris gestured to the salon’s chair. It seemed silly now; he lived aboard, in her home, and would until Natalie was rescued. Treating him like a visitor seemed strange.

  He waited until she sat to speak. “I need to be straight with you.”

  “About more than one thing, from what I hear.”

  He nodded, accepted her accusation. “I had to be careful. I had to make sure you were safe.”

  “Right. I figured that out when you lost me that morning in New Orleans.”

  “I didn’t lose you.” He studied his clasped fingers. “I was at the yacht when Eugene Falks went inside.”

  Everything inside her faltered: air, blood, muscle, sinew, bone. With startling clarity, she saw herself, a small, pale figure behind gray walls, electric fences and razor wire, facing endless days. Her mouth went dry. “You think I killed him.”

  He said nothing.

  Hot tears spilled from her eyes. “I had no reason to.”

  “You had plenty of reason,” he replied quietly. “He threatened your sister. He threatened you. He threatened your boat. He demanded something you claimed you didn’t have—”

  “I didn’t have his money.” Chris shot out of her chair, not caring about tears and pain and fear anymore, and paced to the aft deck door before turning. “I don’t have his money. What does it take to convince you
people of that?”

  “Christina—”

  “I didn’t kill him! You believed me before. Why don’t you believe me now?” Then at his stony face, “What did you find out in Galveston?”

  “That you have a lot of influence with Gus Perkins.” His eyebrows quirked, as though with chagrin. “That you’ve worked hard all your life. That you were just starting to get what you really wanted when all this went down.”

  “And you think I’d risk my sister’s life for money?”

  “Maybe you thought you could get away with both. Maybe you needed the money to finance your dream.”

  Chris squared her shoulders, straightened her spine. This was no different than dealing with Falks. With her grandfather. Here was yet another man with all the supposed answers telling her what she was doing and who she was. As if he knew her at all.

  She leveled her gaze on him. “If you honestly believe that’s who I am, there’s nothing I can do or say to change it.”

  McLellan grimaced, as if in pain. “You thought I was the mole.”

  “Smitty led me to believe you were.”

  “He fooled a lot of us.”

  “And you think I’m trying to fool you now.”

  Neither spoke for a long time. McLellan’s expression, his posture, everything about him said he hated suspecting her. Even though she knew he wasn’t the bad guy, even though he knew the one who’d betrayed him was someone else, the distrust gaped like a chasm between them. This was a job to him, she reminded herself.

  “I want to believe you, Christina.”

  At her name, she paused, hating the way he kept making this situation personal, afraid he wouldn’t. “You’re still not telling me the truth now. You think I can’t see that?” she whispered, digging the chasm deeper.

  “I didn’t want to scare you worse than you already were. After that night—I couldn’t tell you the truth after Falks was killed. Everything changed. I had to look seriously at the idea you and Natalie were scamming Scintella like Falks claimed.”

  Chris’s short laugh sounded like death. “Well, I can’t prove a negative, can I? No matter what I say, I’m guilty.”

  “I’m willing to take the chance you’re not.”

  “I’m honored. And you’re still hiding something.”

  McLellan scrubbed his cheek with his hand. “Scintella was the money man for a guy called Linus von Brutten. Von Brutten had a lot of irons in the fire, but the worst was a biological weapon.”

  “Good God.”

  McLellan nodded. “Untraceable poison. Scintella’s smuggling helped fund von Brutten until he was killed last year. Now Scintella’s working for someone else, but we don’t know who.”

  “So the money that disappeared belongs to this someone.”

  He stood, shoved his hands in his pockets. “We’re playing in a whole different ballpark now. When it was just Scintella, that was one thing. But when we’re talking about men like von Brutten…” he trailed off, head shaking. “My point is, the money Jerome thinks your sister stole was payment for a cocaine shipment. The courier never showed up.”

  “Falks said it was intercepted by Natalie’s accomplice.”

  “It doesn’t matter who Scintella thinks intercepted it. He’s got hell to pay on his end, so as long as he thinks you have it, your life is in danger.”

  “Par for the course.” Chris wiped the residual tears from her face. “What made you suspect Smitty was the mole?”

  “When he showed up at Obsession the night Falks was murdered and asked what you’d done. That question didn’t sound right. Like he’d said it for my benefit. It got me thinking about other things that seemed wrong. Like the broom in the passageway. There’s no way it would have lodged itself there.” He reached as if to stroke her hair, but didn’t. “He had time. I was wrestling the gas can out of that damned lazarette on the aft deck.”

  “Between us hitting the oil rig debris and his coming up to the flybridge, he could have drilled the hole in the pipe.”

  Connor frowned. “But wouldn’t you have noticed the exhaust when you went below?”

  She shook her head. “I’d killed the engines. No real fumes until he started them again.”

  “You found the hole?”

  “I pretended I hadn’t, so he could patch it himself without realizing I knew.”

  His gray eyes warmed with admiration. “Good girl.” Then his pride faded into something else, an intensity she sometimes glimpsed. “God, I didn’t want to leave you with him. But Garza threatened to shut us down after you called Gus. I convinced him to wait until Smith made a mistake. I thought Smitty wouldn’t try to kill you until we’d reached the island. He hasn’t admitted to killing Falks yet. I didn’t see him go aboard, but he had the opportunity.”

  Chris drew in a sharp breath. “I hate to dig my grave any deeper, but they both worked for the same man. What would be Smitty’s motive?”

  “Same as yours. Thirty million dollars is a lot of money.”

  “Would Scintella let him get away with that?”

  “Not for long.” McLellan turned his head to stare out the sliding door to the aft deck. Outside, boats nodded with the waves. “Smitty’s capable of killing a man.” He abruptly met her gaze. “I don’t think you are.”

  “Nice vote of confidence in my innocence.”

  Her sarcasm fell unnoticed between them as he said, “That’s the other reason I’m here. You’re not going to Isladonata.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  He abruptly stood. “No.” His hard jaw meant it. “Now that we’ve caught the inside man, there’s no reason for you to put yourself in danger.”

  “How are you going to get there?” she challenged, rising to meet him. “You’ll blow the surprise if you use anything but a luxury yacht.”

  “That’s a chance I’ll take.”

  “You’ll put my sister’s life at risk!”

  “We’ll handle it.”

  “Absolutely not.” Chris shook her head. “I told Natalie I’d be there and I’m going to be there.”

  “You’re acting like you have a choice.”

  When the winds blew against her, she knew how to take another tack. “You’ll at least have the DEA there to back you up, right? Now that they know?”

  He frowned, studied the faint brown stains left on the beige carpet where Eugene Falks had bled and where no amount of cleaning would scrub away the death. The DEA didn’t know.

  “Why are you going in alone?” Chris demanded. “Don’t you want to arrest Jerome Scintella?”

  “Christina.” Suddenly he strode to her and his strong hands grasped her arms, making her look him in the eye. His face, subtly lined with strain, seemed haunted. His fingers tightened painfully but she didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. He abruptly released her. “Sean was executed by Eugene Falks,” he said flatly. “On the orders of your brother-in-law.”

  Chris stepped back, felt the sliding glass door at her shoulder blades. She reached a hand to steady herself. No, McLellan didn’t want to arrest Scintella. He wanted to kill the man. It was written in the fine lines around his mouth, in the darkness she’d so often glimpsed in his eyes. It was what he’d come so close to telling her once.

  It was why he’d run this mission outside the DEA in the first place. Why he hadn’t told her everything. Why he’d hidden Scintella’s part in Sean McLellan’s death.

  This wasn’t a setup to arrest a drug lord. It was a vigilante mission.

  And there was no way Natalie would survive, not when McLellan was on the blood trail.

  “I want to get Natalie away from him,” she said evenly.

  “The man’s a drug lord, Christina!” Fury bristled in his every move as he paced. “He doesn’t care who lives and who dies as long as he gets what he wants. Natalie means nothing to him. You mean nothing to him. He doesn’t care.”

  “What difference does it make?” Chris shouted back. “You’re just going to kill Jerome, anyway! You’re no different than
Falks. Natalie doesn’t mean anything to you and I sure as hell don’t.”

  Connor stopped his pacing, spun on his heel to face her. “Is that what you think? You believe I want to kill my brother’s murderer?”

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore. Who can I trust? You?”

  Now, all the fury, all the frustration, seemed to drain out of him, leaving him weak. He dropped onto the sofa, leaned his head in his hands.

  “You didn’t tell me the truth about why you were on my boat. In my home.”

  “I wanted to keep you safe,” he said quietly. “I didn’t do a very good job of it, but I didn’t expect my own partner to be the guy I should have been watching.”

  As he bowed his head in what might have been shame or resignation or defeat, Chris felt her own anger fade. Betrayal she understood. Putting your trust into someone close to you, then having that person undermine your every move. Oh yeah, Granddad, you taught me that a long, long time ago. It wasn’t a lesson quickly forgotten.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s part of what I came here to say. I’m sorry. For all of it.”

  She stood, looking down at the dragyne that had frightened and confused her, that she couldn’t stop thinking about and wanting. Everything she feared in those dark waters, she realized, didn’t have to be evil. Not when the dragyne had held her so close, desperation in every rough caress, or when he’d whispered her name over and over until he could no longer speak.

  There were times when you had to give up wanting the maps and charts, when you had to go with what you knew to be true: landmarks, the signs you could recognize, your own gut instinct. Didn’t every navigational chart she’d ever used have the warning in the small print? Open your eyes.

  She knelt in front of him where he sat with his elbows propped on his knees, his hands hanging useless in front of him. “I trust you.” And she knew when she said it that it was true.

  As if of their own accord, his fingers reached out. She raised her hands to meet his, tentative, wishful, fearful. His touch strengthened, exploring. Yes, she thought. It’s okay. Still, he didn’t raise his head to look at her. She disentangled her fingers to stroke his jaw. Suddenly he hauled her to him, his strong arms wrapped tightly around her, crushing her against him.