Enemy Waters

by Justine Davis

  “Then what—”

  “The Peacemaker. We’ll take The Peacemaker. It’ll be harder for him to track you over water. And he may not even have noticed it. He was pretty zeroed in on you.”

  “You want me to trust you, to get on a boat alone with you?”

  “I want you not to be alone and on the run again,” Cooper said.

  Somehow he’d found the right words. He saw in the expression on her face the remnants of the fear and aloneness she must have felt as she made her escape that ugly night.

  “It will give you time to think, Nell. We can figure out what to do.”

  Still she hesitated.

  “We don’t have much time,” he reminded her. “It’ll take a minute or two to cast off.”

  She glanced at Roger. The older man’s gaze had never left him, but now he shifted to Nell. After a brief, silent moment, she nodded.

  “I think it’s all right, Roger. He helped me in there. He stood by me.”

  “He did tie him up. I suppose that’s worth something.”

  “Thanks,” Cooper said. He reached for her duffel. And after a moment, she let him take it. “We’ve got to get underway, fast.” He glanced at Roger. “He may come looking for you, asking questions. He’ll be the one with the swollen lip.”

  Roger lifted a brow at him. “Well, well. More to you than meets the eye.”

  “Or less to him,” Cooper said. That earned him a smile from Roger, and a quick, pleased intake of breath from Nell. He’d take both.

  “I’ll deal with Mr. Brown,” Roger said; obviously he’d been right, Cooper thought, when he’d guessed that Nell would have told him everything. She would never take the chance of bringing something like this down on the old man without warning. “I can play deaf and senile old man if I need to.”

  Cooper flashed a grin at him. “I’ll bet you can.”

  “But in the meantime, I’ll move that—” he pointed at Cooper’s motorcycle “—into the garage. He had to notice it, since he parked next to it. So I’ll tell him you two took off on it. ‘Damned smelly thing, it went thattaway,’” he quoted in a perfect imitation of a querulous old man.

  Cooper’s grin widened. “Roger, it’s a pleasure to know you.”

  “Don’t you make me regret knowing you,” Roger said sternly.

  A noise came from below, the direction of the little cottage that had been Nell’s home, followed by a string of shouted curses audible even here on the other side of the big house. Cooper saw the fear that flashed in Nell’s eyes, saw the utter conviction that running was the only answer. And he discarded his own reservations, his own instincts to turn this all over to law enforcement and went with the needs of the woman who had somehow become the center of his world. And right now, she needed to get away. He wouldn’t betray her again, and that’s what it would feel like to her. She was too frightened, and that tore at him in a way nothing every had.

  They’d figured the rest out later, when she felt safe.

  Nell gave the man a swift but fierce hug. Cooper went to look through the concealing branches of the big cedar at the corner of the house. He saw Jeremy stumbling up toward the patio, one hand pressed to his split lip as if it were a mortal wound.

  “Around the back of the greenhouse,” he said to Nell.

  She nodded.

  And then they were running, toward the dock and The Peacemaker. She did exactly as instructed, untying the lines while he jumped aboard, ran up the steps to the pilothouse, started the engine. Then she scrambled aboard and hauled in the lines. Tidiness would come later, when they were safely away.

  As would a whole lot of talking.

  But for now, The Peacemaker was free and moving. The rest could wait.

  She didn’t know much about boats, other than the idea of such freedom appealed, so she had to assume piloting The Peacemaker really took as much concentration and focus as Cooper was giving it. Although he did it easily, hands steady on the big, old-fashioned wooden wheel she was sure was called something else in nautical jargon. He didn’t seem tense or hyperalert, just competent and at ease as he guided them up the inlet that would open into a larger bay, and then out into Puget Sound proper. After that, she had no idea.

  Once they’d cleared the inlet and moved into the more open area of the main bay, the wind picked up. She was thankful they were inside; she’d not been able to grab her heavy jacket, and while it wasn’t cold out, it was cooler on the water, and the breeze of their passage made it seem even cooler. She was chilled even in here.

  “There’s a couple of spare jackets in the locker behind you,” he said.

  She stared at him as he stood at the wheel. She supposed that perceptiveness stood him in good stead in his line of work. Although she realized she still didn’t know exactly what his work was; he’d only answered “Sort of” when she’d asked if he was a private investigator.

  She got the jacket from the locker, although it took her a moment to figure out the latch. She felt better with the warm fleece on, but still she paced whenever she forgot to stop herself. She was afraid it would irritate him, but she was so wound up…

  She tried harder to make herself stop the pacing. She glanced at him. He didn’t seem bothered by her restlessness. Maybe he really was just giving her time and space to think. Lord knows she needed it. And he probably knew it.

  There was another chair beside the wheel. She contemplated going and sitting beside him, but didn’t think she could settle. She wondered if that was where his mother had sat while his father steered, as he was doing. For the first time she thought about what memories must be tied up in this boat for him.

  “There’s some M&M’s in the galley.” He spoke for the first time in a while, with a gesture toward the three or so steps that curved downward into the main cabin.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I figured. But the crash is going to be ugly, and fuel now will help.”

  “Crash?”

  “Adrenaline. Great while it lasts, but you’re pretty depleted afterward.”

  “Oh.” She gave him a sideways look. “M&M’s?”

  He shrugged, one side of his mouth quirking upward. “A weakness.”

  “Any particular color?” she asked, relieved at the almost normal conversation.

  “I’m not picky.” The quirk became a grin. That killer, disarming grin that seemed so real to her compared to Jeremy’s practiced—literally, she’d caught him practicing it in the mirror more than once—expression. “As long as you eat them right.”

  “There’s a wrong way?”

  “Sure. Some people just grab a handful and crunch them. Way wrong.”

  Distracted, she asked, “And the right way?”

  “One at a time. With your teeth first. Break the shell off, then go for the heart.”

  Kind of like you did with me?

  The thought coalesced in her mind with shocking suddenness, as if it had been percolating for a long time.

  It was a job for him. You were a job. Nothing more, she told herself firmly.

  But if that were true, why were they here, escaping? Why was he helping her at all, when the man he’d left tied up on her cottage floor had been the one paying him?

  The restlessness seized her again, coupled with curiosity, and she couldn’t resist going down those steps for a look. What she saw amazed her. It was amazingly spacious, she thought. And surprisingly homey. It felt warm.

  And safe.

  She noticed a few details: there was a lot of polished wood in the cabin, and the upholstery had a muted blend of blue and green she liked. The plank floor in the main living area was covered with a rug, carefully cut to follow the contours of the edges of the lockers beneath the seats and the curved support mast at the center of the boat. She guessed it would be nicer on bare feet, especially on a cold morning, than the exposed wood would be.

  She found the familiar brown bag on the counter in the galley. The galley itself was as amazing as the rest. There was very norma
l-looking sink, a small but new-looking microwave, and a refrigerator that appeared almost as large as the one in the cottage. There was even a dishwasher. And a trash compactor, which made sense when she thought about being at sea for long periods. The whole setup reminded her of some of the nicer, bigger RVs she’d seen, and she supposed the principle was the same.

  She snagged up the bag and took it back up to the pilot house. Cooper took a couple of the hard-shelled candies and proceeded to eat them exactly as described. She still wasn’t at all hungry but, afraid he was right about the crash, she did the same.

  “Roger’s a tough old bird when he has to be, isn’t he?” Cooper said after a while.

  She smiled despite her roiled emotions. “Yes, he is. He’s remarkable.” Then after a moment she asked, “Did Jeremy…fight you?”

  Cooper scoffed. “Soft city boy,” he said. “Never took a real punch in his life before.”

  “I’m sorry I missed that,” she said, meaning it.

  That grin again. “He went down like a sack of rice. I’ve hooked salmon who fought harder than he did.”

  She laughed. And then her breath caught at the shock of it; how could she be laughing in the middle of this?

  Cooper turned to look at her, full on, for the first time. Something about his expression made her tension ease up a bit.

  “That’s my girl,” he said softly.

  The explosion of warmth inside her finished what that look had started. Her tension drained away, and she knew it had little to do with the fact that they were in wider waters now, for the moment safe from pursuit, and everything to do with the man beside her.

  She stood watching him as much as the view around them as they motored on in silence for a while, or at least as much silence as was possible on a boat powered by the huge—at least to her—motor she’d seen him working on. Apparently the work had gone well, because to her albeit untrained ear, it sounded as smooth as silk. And really, it was amazingly quiet, more of a background hum than true noise.

  And then they cleared the mouth of the bay, and she felt a slight twinge as land receded behind them.

  She didn’t think she’d shown it, but Cooper again proved his perceptiveness, and she had the stray thought that it was no wonder he was a detective, the way he could read her.

  “It’s okay. She’s more than seaworthy, and we’re not really at sea.”

  “Seems like it’s close enough,” she said, looking at the nearest land ahead, miles away. It was better, she supposed, than the open sea, with nothing ahead but the curve of the earth.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “The sound is wide and deep and very, very cold, in its own way deserving of as much respect and caution as blue water.”

  “Blue water?”

  “Open sea. Middle of nowhere, days or weeks away from land kind of water.”

  She suppressed a shudder that intensified as the swells picked up farther out and she had to put a hand on the dashboard—if that was what it was called—to steady herself. “You’ve done that?”

  “Once or twice. Wouldn’t do it for long in a stinkpot, though.”

  She blinked. “Stinkpot?”

  “Power boat. Relying on one source of power to cross thousands of miles of ocean? Always tied to ports with fuel available? No, thanks. Give me power and sail for that.”

  “Oh. That makes sense.”

  “If blue-water sailing ever does,” he said, unleashing the grin again. “Me, I’m mostly a coast-hugger these days.”

  She smiled. Coast-hugger.

  Her breath stopped.

  Trout-hugger.

  The memory of how he’d used that old nickname to fool her rose up like some sort of leviathan from the deep. Wariness bit anew; this man had fooled her so thoroughly, had allayed her early—and obviously well-founded—suspicions.

  Almost involuntarily she backed away from him a step. For all the good it would do. She was trapped, nowhere to go. Overboard wasn’t an option, they were too far out now, and she’d heard all the stories about the short survival time in the cold of Puget Sound without protective gear.

  And she wondered if, instead of escaping, she’d instead gotten herself into deeper trouble. Deeper water.

  Enemy waters?

  She didn’t know.

  And once again she was afraid her ignorance was going to cost her.

  Chapter 21

  He’d been watching the water around them as carefully as a driver in heavy traffic on a freeway, but now Cooper gave her a sideways, curious glance. She wasn’t sure what was showing in her face, but obviously it was enough to tell him something was wrong.

  “Decided you don’t trust me again?”

  She backed up another step this time, more hastily. “How do you do that? Are you a mind reader?”

  “Body language. Facial expressions.” And then, with another quirk of his mouth, he added, “And you’re not a very good liar.”

  “Unlike you.”

  He looked back to the water. As far as she could see there wasn’t another boat anywhere close, but she supposed there were other things you had to watch out for; she’d seen debris, sometimes even big logs, floating out in the sound often enough. She also noticed that there was land closer now, that they’d turned away from the wider reaches of the sound and into a narrower channel.

  “Tool of the trade,” he said at last. “Most times it doesn’t bother me.”

  Most times? But it was bothering him this time? Was she supposed to believe that, that she was a special case to him?

  She didn’t want to delve into that, not now. There lay foolishness of the worst kind. What she needed now was answers. Honest ones.

  “You said you were a private investigator ‘of sorts.’ What does that mean?”

  “It means I do this kind of work when it comes along. But I don’t go looking for it, I don’t advertise and I don’t have an office or a phone listing.”

  He answered without hesitation, not thinking about what to tell her first. Did that mean it was the truth? She hoped so.

  “Then how do people find out about you? Or find you?”

  “Word of mouth, from people I’ve done jobs for. And cops talk to cops, who talk to cops, so a lot comes my way from that.”

  “They send people to you?”

  He nodded.

  “Even if they don’t know you themselves?”

  The nod again. Then, as if he thought it require more explanation, he spoke again. “Some knew my father. Or knew of him. And for a lot of them, the simple fact that I’m the son of a cop killed in the line is enough for them to trust me.”

  Was there a jab in there for her? “So I’m supposed to trust you, too, despite the lies, because of that?”

  He let the accusation of lying go by this time. When he looked at her then, his gaze wasn’t casual in the least. It was intense and penetrating.

  “I trusted you,” he said.

  She blinked. “You trusted me?”

  “I trusted your assessment enough not to do what every instinct I’ve got was screaming at me to do. Call the sheriff.”

  She hadn’t thought of it that way, but she had to admit he had a point. He had essentially taken her word that involving law enforcement wouldn’t work, not with Jeremy. That somehow he’d weasel and worm his way out of it. That he had stature enough to make any cop anywhere think twice about getting tangled up in arresting the guy for some claim by his crazy—as Jeremy would convince them—wife. If they had their own cops would know Roger, maybe. But what they had was a sheriff’s deputy with too much ground to cover.

  And Cooper had gotten her away, safely. He’d stood between her and Jeremy when it had come down to the crunch. He’d changed sides rather quickly, too, all things considered.

  Then again, maybe not. Maybe it had happened over the last week, from the time he’d first walked into the Waterfront.

  “Yes,” she answered, belatedly. “Yes, you did. Thank you.”

  His voice was sof
t, gentle when he spoke again. “What set you off just now, Nell?”

  He deserved that much, she thought. “Coast-hugger.”

  “Coast-hugger?” It took him a moment. Then she saw realization dawn on his face. “Trout-hugger,” he said.

  She thought she heard a touch of sadness in his tone, but it was laced with something else, something harder, edgier.

  “How did you know that name?” she demanded, all the questions welling up anew.

  “He told me.”

  She noticed he didn’t elaborate on what he meant because it no longer mattered. Tris was dead and had been all along. Anger threatened to rise up and take control, but she told herself he hadn’t known. She believed that much; he’d said so to Jeremy’s face, and the man hadn’t bothered to deny it.

  “But he never knew about that nickname,” she said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Tris…didn’t like him. He’d never tell him. And I certainly didn’t. It was private, between us.”

  Obviously Tris had been right all along.

  “When did your brother use it?”

  “Only when we were alone. When we were kids he used to use it all the time, to tease me. When we got older, it was mostly…nostalgia, I guess. To remind us of better times.”

  “When your family was whole.”

  He said it so quietly it shouldn’t have held the emotion it did. But she was suddenly, powerfully reminded that this man understood in the way only someone who’d been through it could.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “When was the last time he used it? The nickname, I mean.”

  She didn’t have to think hard for that one. “In an email. On Mom’s birthday.”

  “So your husband could have seen it.”

  “No. He would have had to figure out my password and snoop into my—”

  She broke off, realizing how silly that sounded under the circumstances.

  “That was stupid. Of course he did.”

  “He wouldn’t necessarily have even needed your password. There are programs for monitoring all computer activity and sending someone else a report. Like they use to track kids.”

  She grimaced. Kids. Jeremy treated her just like one, so why wouldn’t he there, too? And elsewhere? Anger at her own blindness spiked through her.