Hooked (A Romance on the Edge Novel)

by Tiffinie Helmer

  Which would have made it a powder keg if an electrical fire started.

  “There wasn’t enough evidence that Kendrick had intentionally sold my dad a boat with faulty wiring.” She reached for a pair of socks and mated them. “Did you know that I had to continue payments on the Mystic after she sunk?” She gave an ironic laugh. “It took me ten years to pay Kendrick off.” Her lips tightened into a hard line. “Worse than rubbing salt in a raw wound.”

  “Didn’t your dad carry hazard insurance?”

  “There hadn’t been enough time to obtain a policy. The kicker was that Dad had put up the set net sites as collateral. He’d only made the deal with Kendrick two days earlier.”

  “Two days?”

  “Yeah.” She met his eyes with a raised brow. “Interesting don’t you think?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Yo, Captain,” Peter hollered from the deck. “You awake up there?”

  Sonya jerked her head up from the wheel. “Yeah, I’m awake.” She shook her head and yawned, her jaw popping, and engaged the hydraulics on the large reel which hauled in the net. She’d been resting between the length of time it took for Gramps and Peter to pick the net clean and her needing to operate the reel.

  The sun had risen hours ago. The clock on the control panel confirmed it was just after seven in the morning. The fews hours she’d caught before the fishing period had started, after returning from doing laundry, seemed to have hindered more than helped.

  Wes was convalescing at the cabin with Grams nursing him to death this time. Lucky bastard. He was probably getting a hot cooked breakfast right about now. Sonya’s stomach grumbled, but she couldn’t drum up any excitement over another cardboard-tasting protein bar. She grabbed a handful of Nutter Butters instead, hoping that if she ate something it would help her stay awake.

  Their catch, so far this morning, had been fair, but then she wasn’t fishing aggressively. She knew herself well enough to recognize that she was too tired to fight the line and the cutthroat fishermen today. Instead she’d stayed in view of the docks and the more mannerly-minded group of drifters. Besides, she didn’t want Gramps overdoing it as Wes wasn’t onboard to help pick up the slack. She’d tried to talk Gramps into taking a turn at the wheel and letting her pick fish, but he’d given her a silent stare that was surprisingly loud.

  Peter signaled for her to pull in another length of the net. She engaged the hydraulics and the reel slowly began to spin. Suddenly there was a screeching snap, followed by the reel lurching, and then grinding off its track, careening right for Gramps. Sonya slammed the throttle forward, taking the weight of the net off the runaway reel, but not before she heard Gramps howl in pain.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Gramps lay pinned between the reel and the pole positioned across the middle of the deck.

  “Peter!” Sonya screamed.

  “I got him. Keep the tension off the reel!” Peter pushed his shoulder against the reel and heaved until Gramps crawled out from under it, cradling his left arm with his right. Deep lines of pain bracketed his mouth, and his skin was as white as a ghost fish. Sonya throttled the boat forward as Peter rushed to secure a rope around the base of the reel to keep it from somersaulting out of the bow and into the water.

  “Gramps?” Sonya yelled, her heart beating a drum solo in her chest.

  “Dag nabbit!” Gramps said.

  Sonya almost cried in relief. She’d only heard Gramps swear once in her lifetime. When he’d lost his only child, daughter-in-law, and grand-daughter. While Sonya would have colored the air over this, his version of an expletive reassured her and Peter.

  “Peter, throw out the anchor,” she hollered, powering down the boat once the reel was secured.

  “We still got a net out. A fish cop sees us anchored, we’ll get written up.”

  “Let ’em.”

  Peter hefted the anchor overboard, and Sonya scrambled from the pilot house to the deck. “Let me see,” she said to Gramps, reaching for his injured arm.

  “I don’t think it’s too bad,” he said. Peter flanked one side while Sonya had his other.

  “Let’s sit you down.” She pulled up the stool they kept on deck for when fishing was slow.

  “Now don’t go treating me like an old man,” Gramps bristled.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” She stared into his eyes, letting him know she meant business. “Let me see your arm.”

  With Peter’s help they carefully stripped him of his rain jacket and fishing gloves. His arm was already turning black and blue, but his hand had taken the worst of the blow. It was red and swollen, possibly broken. He put up a blustery front, but Sonya knew he was hurting. They needed to get him to Wanda.

  They couldn’t do that until they pulled in the net. “All right, this is what we are going to do. I’m going to wrap your arm, in case there’s something broken—”

  “I don’t have anything broken.”

  “Doesn’t matter, we’re going to take precautions anyway.” Sonya peeled off her sweatshirt—leaving her in a tank top—and used it as a sling, cradling his arm in the body of the shirt and using the sleeves to tie it around his neck. With that done, and Gramps growing paler by the minute, she and Peter helped him into the pilot house and propped him on the bunk.

  “I don’t want to lay up here like an invalid while you two do all the work,” he complained. The complaint didn’t have his normal fire behind it.

  “When you’re captain, you can order me around. Until that day happens, you’ll listen to me. Peter, let’s round-haul the net in and then you pick while I get us to the Cannery.”

  “Right, Captain.” Peter rushed to follow her orders, which spoke volumes for his worry concerning Gramps. Sonya leveled a narrow look at her grandfather. “Don’t even think of getting off that bunk.”

  “Got it, Captain.” He tried to smile, but the effort fell short.

  Sonya hurried and joined Peter. They round-hauled in silence, thinking of only speed. Once the remaining net was aboard, Peter pulled anchor and Sonya engaged the engines, motoring them to the cannery. She radioed ahead for medical assistance, and then with only a moment’s hesitation, she switched the VHF to the trooper channel and contacted Garrett.

  The steel pin that anchored the reel onto the tracks was in her pocket, sheared in two separate pieces.

  “Well, I have to say this for your grandpa, he’s a much better patient than you are,” Wanda said, joining Peter and Sonya in the waiting room of the Infirmary. “Nothing’s broken. He’d have been better off with it broken. The ligaments and tendons took the brunt of the injury, though I don’t believe anything is torn, just bruised really bad. I’ve splinted his hand—make sure he keeps it on.” She eyed Sonya. “You’re down a crewman for the remainder of the season.”

  This Sonya already figured. She shouldn’t have had him on the boat to begin with. He should be retired, playing golf somewhere warm. Not out here, fighting the waves, the cold, the screw-ups.

  Garrett entered the room like a charging bear. “How is he?” Sonya was taken aback over the height of worry reflected in his eyes. They were usually the color of glacial ice. This morning they resembled blue flames of propane.

  Wanda quickly informed Garrett of what she’d just told Sonya and Peter. “He’ll need to keep his hand elevated with cold packs, fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off. I’ll send him home with pain pills and anti-inflammatories,” Wanda instructed. “Make sure he doesn’t over do.” She turned to go, and then turned back. “Since you’re here, Sonya, I want to check your stitches. After that I don’t want to see any more of your crew in my Infirmary.” She returned to her patient, the door shutting like a final decree behind her.

  “What happened?” Garrett asked.

  Peter slumped into a seat, looking spent.

  “You okay, Peter?” Sonya ignored Garrett for the moment, and took a seat next to her brother. He seemed younger, as if Gramps’s injury had taken years off his already young life
.

  “He could have been killed,” he mumbled, his breathing agitated.

  “He wasn’t. Your quickness saved him from being hurt worse than he was.” She rubbed her hand along his tense shoulders. “He’s going to be all right.”

  Peter raised dark eyes to hers. “How did you deal with losing our parents? Losing Sasha? I don’t even remember them.”

  She tossed his hair, which badly needed a cut, and tried for some levity. “I had you to raise, brat.”

  He smiled, though she knew he pulled it out for her benefit. He jerked his head in Garrett’s direction. “Go talk to Garrett. I’ll wait for Gramps.”

  “Sure?”

  Peter nodded. “I’ll be fine.” Sonya stood, but his next words stopped her. “We need to get this son of a bitch, Sonya.”

  She sucked in a breath. He sounded so much like a man, demanding justice. Part of her wanted to reprimand him for swearing, but then she wanted to get the son of bitch responsible too.

  She motioned for Garrett to follow her outside. In the precarious state Peter was in, he didn’t need to overhear the conversation she was about to have.

  Once outside, Sonya glanced around. The area was deserted, most of the village’s occupants still out on the water. Gramps’s accident had put a halt to them fishing out the opening.

  She brought Garrett up to speed on how Gramps had gotten hurt. Then she pulled the pieces of the steel pin out of her pocket. “These aren’t supposed to break.”

  His knowing eyes met hers. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and drew out a plastic bag. Carefully, he picked up the two pieces without touching them.

  Realization dawned. “Sorry, I didn’t think of fingerprints.”

  “Chances are we won’t recover any. Salt water destroys most evidence, but we’ll see what we can do. I’ll need your prints to rule them out.” He studied the pieces of the pin. “I don’t see any tool marks where someone could have compromised the pin.”

  “They didn’t need to damage it, just replace it with an inferior metal.”

  “When Wes was knocked unconscious?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” She indicated the pin. “When we checked the boat over, it never dawned on me to inspect that.”

  “Even if you did, how would you have known it wasn’t the original?”

  “I wouldn’t have. Not until it failed.”

  “You understand what this means, don’t you?”

  She nodded her head. “Someone wants me or one of my crew dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Now don’t fuss, Maggie May,” Gramps said, though Sonya knew he loved the attention Grams showered on him as she fluffed his pillow and tucked a lap throw over his lower body.

  “You just hush and lay there while I get you something to eat.” Grams had taken the news of his accident better than Sonya had hoped, but then not much ruffled her platinum feathers. She was one classy bird.

  “I’ve got an errand to do,” Sonya said. “You two going to be okay? I’ll be about a half hour.”

  “We’ll be fine, Sonya.” Grams steady blue eyes met hers. “I’ve got Barberella if the need arises. Her nod indicated the sawed-off shotgun hanging on the beam above their heads. Grams always gave her guns female names out of respect for being dependable girlfriends.

  “I’d feel better if you would keep Gracie with you,” Grams said, referring to the small pocket-size pistol she kept beside the bed.

  “I appreciate it, Grams, but I won’t need Gracie where I’m going.” Sonya left the cabin and made her way across the creek to the Harte camp.

  “Earl, Roland,” she greeted Cranky and Crafty who sat on the broken-down porch. “Is Aidan around?”

  “Haven’t seen you around much this summer,” Roland said, smoking a cigarette.

  “You need to get you a man, Sonya,” Earl said. “Help with the load you seem determined to carry.”

  “You sound like Gramps,” she replied with a smile, though it was hard to pull off.

  “How is Nikolai? He didn’t look so good when you brought him home a while ago.” Earl rested an ankle on his knee and reclined farther in his rickety chair. Sonya wondered how it held his weight.

  “He’s fine. A little bruised.”

  “Good to hear it,” Earl said and then quickly followed up with, “That is, it’s good to hear he’ll be fine. Aidan headed up the bluff. He shouldn’t be more than a few hundred yards.”

  “Check out his shoulders, while you’re up there.” Roland stubbed out his cigarette with the heel of his boot. “He could help carry your load.”

  “Thanks.” Sonya gratefully turned and headed up the trail. Conversing with Cranky and Crafty was never something she liked to linger over.

  She found Aidan reclining on his elbow in the tall grass, his long legs crossed at the ankles. A sketchbook lay opened near his side, a charcoal pencil between his blackened fingers.

  “Hey,” she greeted, smiling as she startled him. “Am I interrupting?” She knew how involved he became when writing his graphic novels. “I can come back later.”

  Aidan’s eyes cleared of whatever world he’d been visiting. “No, now’s fine.” He sat up, dropped the pencil in the tin box next to him, and reached his arms over his head and stretched. “I could benefit from a break.” He closed the sketchbook, setting it aside, and then regarded her with his intuitive gaze. “What happened?”

  She sat next to him in the sweet-smelling grass with the warm sun soothing her temper and a slight sea breeze wafting like a lover’s caress over her skin. She told him what had transpired that morning. At first, she hadn’t wanted to include Aidan, but he’d always regarded Gramps as an adoptive grandfather. It was time to set things right between them.

  Besides, she needed a friend.

  She also needed muscle who wasn’t overly concerned about the limitations of the law.

  Later that evening, Sonya and Aidan parked their 4-wheelers side-by-side in front of the Pitt. The gray salt-weathered board-and-bat siding was years behind a new coat of paint. A neon sign in the window flashed “Sorry We’re Open.”

  The front door grated on rusty hinges as Aidan yanked it ajar for her to enter. The acrid smell of smoke drifted over her and helped to dispel the unwashed body odor of the patrons squatting at the bar. Years of fried food and spilled beer gave the floor a dark patina underfoot. On the jukebox, Johnny Cash’s deep baritone sang, “Walk the Line.” Balls clacked over scarred velvet as a few fishermen passed the time shooting pool.

  The one redeeming quality the Pitt had was its view of the South Naknek River as it poured into Bristol Bay. Plate glass windows flanked the north side of the building. Sonya picked out the Double Dippin’ beached below on the muddy sand from the outgoing tide. Peter was keeping watch with Gracie for company.

  Aidan wrapped an arm around her, leaned down and whispered in her ear, “There he is.” He turned her with his body so that she saw Kendrick sitting at the end of the bar. “You sure you want to do this?”

  She took off her sunglasses, getting a better look at Kendrick sitting smug at the bar, and anchored them in the collar of her shirt. “I’m dying to do this.” This moment had been building for fourteen years.

  “The brutes next to him, his crewmen?”

  She nodded.

  He gave a big sigh. “We could’ve used Cranky and Crafty as back up.”

  “I’m counting on those wicked martial art skills of yours to tip the scales.” She shrugged. “Who knows, this might end peacefully.”

  “Uh-huh, and I’ve got a deed to a goldmine if your interested.” Aidan rolled his shoulders. “Remember what I showed you?”

  “Yep, let’s do this.” With all the bravado she could muster, Sonya strutted over to the end of the bar, Aidan flanking her side. “Kendrick, I’d like a word.”

  “Well, if it isn’t the captain of the Double D, and who’s this?” Kendrick swiveled on his barstool, and raised coarse brows at Aidan. “Your sid
ekick?” He threw his head back and laughed at his own joke. While his crewmen belatedly joined in, one stocky with a skull tattooed on his bald head, the other looked like a walking Slim-Jim. Kendrick’s laugh boomed and echoed in the large room, silencing the patrons as everyone turned their direction. A pool ball, still en route, cracked like a gunshot as it sunk a ball into the corner pocket.

  Sonya’s legs trembled and she locked her knees. She replayed the image of the reel ramming into Gramps, followed by the haunting memory of fire, and blood, and deadly water. Anger rushed through her veins like a glacial river in summer. It fortified her, made her relish crushing this pissant bully of a man. The feeling intoxicated, seduced her into believing she could take the monster.

  “Kendrick, it’s time you answered for your sins against me and mine.”

  “You’ve had quite the summer, little girl,” he commented. “Don’t mistake yourself into thinking you’re a match for me.”

  “Oh, I’m no match for bottom feeders.” She enjoyed his halibut mouth opening and closing in an attempt for a quick comeback. Apparently, it had been a while since someone had the nerve to offend him.

  Red color infused his face, making him look like a candidate for a heart attack. “You have any idea who you’re insulting?”

  “Oh, am I insulting? Excuse, me. I thought you were comfortable in your skin. Liked to brag and throw your considerable weight around.” She poked him in the belly. “Might want to lay off the fried food. Bragging can only take you so far, and table muscle gets in the way.”

  “You bitch.”

  “Now, who’s being insulting?” She glanced at Aidan, his lips tilting at the corners. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?”

  “Well, Sonya, as I’ve used the term on occasion myself, I can’t rightly tell him not to.”

  “I see your point.” She turned back to Kendrick.

  “What game you two playing at?” he asked, his mean eyes squinting.