Rock Harbor Series - 03 - Into the Deep

by Colleen Coble

  “How old is your father?” Bree asked, pushing a tangle of vines out of her way.

  “Sixty-five.”

  “Young for Alzheimer’s.”

  “He’s got the early-onset kind,” Cassie said, panting as she tried to keep up with Bree. “Some of the time he’s pretty good. It’s just that you never know when he’ll get one of his fuzzy days and go wandering.”

  “I didn’t see him when I was at your house last week. He’s done this before?”

  “Never. I hoped this day wouldn’t come, though Salome tried to warn me.” Her voice sounded thick. “He sleeps a lot—he was napping when you were there—and he’s not any trouble. I’d hoped to keep him home until . . .” Cassie looked away.

  The dogs began to bark, then Samson came running back to Bree with a stick in his mouth. Charley was right behind with a small branch as well. “They’ve found him!” Bree petted her dog. “Show me, Samson.”

  Samson, his tail waving proudly, led her toward a stand of white pine. The tree limbs drooped close to the ground. She couldn’t see into the thick branches, but the dog stopped in front of it and barked. “Shh. Quiet, boy.” He whined and pressed into the branches.

  Bree stooped and peered under the trees. A heavy scent of pine wafted up her nose. “Mr. Hecko, are you in there?”

  “Doggone dogs. Won’t give a body peace at all.” The grumble from under the pine boughs sounded strong, and Bree looked over her shoulder at Cassie and smiled. “Sounds healthy enough,” she said.

  “Daddy, come out from under there,” Cassie said. Her voice sounded strained.

  Bree parted the boughs and shined her flashlight into the shadows under them. The man sat on a bed of pine needles. His hair stuck up on end, and he had five pens clipped to his pajama top. A fancy calculator was in his pocket, and he clutched a small microscope. “You ready to go home, Mr. Hecko? It’s almost time for supper.”

  He shrugged then crawled on his hands and knees out from under the trees. Once in the open, he brushed the debris from his pajamas. He looked pale, and he was shivering. Bree whisked a solar blanket from her ready-pack and wrapped him in it. He clutched it around his chest, and she noticed his hands. Long, slender fingers like those of a pianist. They looked firm and supple and younger than his age.

  “I’ve got work to do. The lab is expecting me,” he muttered.

  “Let’s get you inside.” Bree took his left arm, and Cassie took the other. They walked him out of the woods and across the road to the house. Naomi called in the rest of the team and dismissed them, then called the ambulance.

  Bernard was shivering so hard by the time they got to the house, Bree was beginning to worry. They got him inside, and Cassie wrapped an electric blanket around him while they waited on the ambulance.

  “My discovery will benefit the world,” he muttered. “You have to finish it, Cassie.”

  “I will, Daddy.” Cassie thrust a cup of hot tea in his hands. “Drink this. It will help warm you.”

  “I can’t find my notes. Did you take them?”

  “No, you filed them away, remember?”

  He nodded. “I must find them. The research is so important.” He touched Cassie’s face. “You’re a good girl, Cassie. I never told you how glad I am you’re continuing my research.”

  “You told me, Daddy.” Tears spilled over Cassie’s lashes, and she stood and stepped away. “What am I going to do, Bree?”

  “I think you’ll have to hire full-time help for him. Either that, or—” Bree looked away.

  “Or a nursing home,” Cassie concluded. She rubbed the tears from her face with the back of her hand.

  Bree wished she could help. Mr. Hecko seemed a fine man, and she could tell he and his daughter were close.

  Bernard scratched his chin and looked up at Bree. “You look just like your mother when I first met her,” he said.

  Bree smiled. The poor guy must be mistaking her for Cassie, though they didn’t look alike as far as she could tell. “Are you getting warm now?”

  Mr. Hecko continued to stare at her. “I never thought I’d see you again, Bree.”

  How did he know her name? She’d never met him. Her attention caught on the gold ring on his pinky finger. A black slit ran through the center of the yellow stone and resembled the eye of a tiger. She stared at it, wondering where she’d seen it before. A sick feeling made her gulp.

  She stared into his face then glanced at Cassie. The younger woman wore a strange expression—maybe resignation? Bree looked back at Bernard Hecko’s ring. A familiarity settled over her. Her pulse thumped against the skin in her neck, and she felt almost faint as she remembered where she’d seen the ring—and Bernard.

  She remembered a man her mother called Uncle Bernard. Bree used to twist a ring just like that around on his finger. He said it belonged to a tiger named Meow. She still remembered the stories he told her about the big cat.

  Her gaze traveled back to his face. He was smiling at her. Her throat constricted. “You’re not . . . Uncle Bernard?”

  He smiled, and his eyes cleared even more. “I see you looking at Meow. You remember, don’t you? Even though it’s been so long, you still remember.” His voice quavered, and his eyes reddened.

  Bree gripped his hand. “Uncle Bernard, it is you.”

  He patted her hand. “It’s me, my girl. You haven’t forgotten your old man.”

  Her old man. What did he mean? Bree tried to pull her hand away. “I never figured out how you were related. Are you my father’s brother or my mother’s?”

  His smile faltered, but he tightened his grip on her hand. “Neither, Bree.” He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his wrinkled neck. He looked at Cassie. “I can’t tell her, Cassie. You’ll have to do it.”

  Cassie stepped forward. Her voice was resigned. “He’s your father, Bree. Our father.”

  Her father? Bree shook her head. “No. You’re wrong.”

  The last trace of fogginess in Bernard’s watery green eyes disappeared, leaving his gaze lucid and clear. He gripped her hand so tightly she winced. “Your mother never wanted you to know who I really was. She thought people would talk.” He shook his head. “Like they weren’t already.”

  With every passing moment, he seemed to become a different man, focused and alert. He raised a hand that steadied the closer it got to Bree’s cheek. “So pretty,” he crooned. “You were always so pretty. Your hair is a little darker now than it was when you were a little girl.”

  Bree felt frozen in place. She glanced around for Naomi. The sympathy in her friend’s eyes steadied her.

  “You had a little girl,” she muttered. Bree remembered a small, solemn child who followed her around. She tore her gaze from Naomi’s and studied Cassie. “Cassandra? You were Cassandra?”

  Cassie’s face was full of emotion: hope, fear, trepidation. She went to the coffee table and grabbed her purse. She pulled out a faded picture and handed it to Bree. “See if you recognize the children,” she said simply.

  Bree stared at the photo. She recognized her smiling mother and Uncle Bernard. Her own five-year-old self sat on the floor in front of them with her arm around a little girl with dark curls. The resemblance between the two children was remarkable, only Bree had red hair and Cassie had brown. Bree glanced back to Cassie. Cassie’s green eyes swam with tears, and Bree knew where she’d seen those eyes before. Looking back at her from the mirror.

  “Breathe,” Naomi whispered in her ear. She put a steadying hand on Bree’s arm.

  6

  Bree wanted to bolt from the house. She stared into Cassie’s face. “You’re my sister?” she croaked past a throat that felt wrapped in Spandex.

  “Yes.” Cassie thrust out her chin as if daring her to deny it.

  Bree forced herself to ask questions she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers to. “He moved away when I was six. How did you know where to find me?”

  “Your mother sent him pictures and updates.”

&nbs
p; The very idea of her mother doing something so mundane and normal seemed unreal. She’d never even known her mother to take any pictures. There were her school pictures, but half the time her mom didn’t buy but one sheet. “And your mother?”

  “She died when I was ten.”

  “Did she know about me and my mother?”

  “I doubt it. She didn’t notice much of anything.”

  Cassie must have sensed Bree’s panic, for she put her hand on Bree’s arm and stopped her flight. “He loved you and your mother very much, you know.”

  Bree shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. A father who loved me wouldn’t have left me to deal with an alcoholic mother. He never so much as sent me a birthday card.”

  Cassie blinked and frowned. “I don’t remember her drinking. She always smelled of lilacs, and her skin was so soft.”

  Bree looked away. Sometimes she remembered a laughing, smiling mother who baked cookies and read to her, but the memories were so buried by scenes of broken dishes, cursing, and slaps that she’d thought the others were merely fantasies. Could her father’s leaving be what changed her mother? Her memories were so jumbled. Maybe her mother had been different before Bernard left. She didn’t want to think about that. This raking up of memories was like pulling the scab off a wound.

  She turned away from Cassie and yanked her fingers through her hair. All she wanted now was to get away and think about this. Her insides felt cold, like frosted glass. One more revelation and she would shatter into shards, each one cutting until she bled from a thousand wounds.

  When she had herself under control again, she looked up to meet Cassie’s anxious gaze. Bernard regarded her with a smile that seemed to say he knew she would welcome him with open arms. Her stomach churned with acid. “I’m sorry, you’ve caught me off guard. I hardly know what to think or feel.” She wanted to scream, to ask how their dad could abandon her to slaps and screams instead of hugs and kisses. This man didn’t even know her.

  “I have the letters and photos if you’d like to see them,” Cassie offered.

  Bree shook her head. “No. Not now.” The wail of the ambulance rattled the windows. Her work here was done. She took a deep breath and focused on Naomi’s face. “Let’s go, Naomi.” She didn’t dare look at Cassie or Bernard. Only those close to her would see her cry.

  Saddle leather creaked as Kade rode Moses along Ribbon Trail. Glimpses of blue juxtaposed themselves against the thick green foliage, but he didn’t have time today to slow his horse and enjoy the lake panoramas. It would take him at least an hour to ride out to Ribbon River, where a hunter had reported dozens of fish floating dead in the water.

  He crested the hill and looked down into a meadow. Banks of wildflowers made the thought of possible contamination that much more disquieting. He urged his horse, Moses, down the final leg of the trail to the creek. The black flies swarmed, but luckily his insect repellant was still potent. The nuisance of the bugs should ease in a few days.

  As he reached the meadow and dismounted, he heard rustling in the brush. Probably fishermen. He tied Moses to a tree and swatted a black fly on his arm, then trod through the underbrush in the direction of the sound. Stepping from the shadows of a stand of white birch, he found a woman kneeling beside the river. She wore a pantsuit and what Kade assumed were once fashionable shoes.

  She definitely wasn’t a fisherman.

  As he approached the river, he could see dozens of dead fish floating among the lily pads. In the open water, dozens more rode the current, their white bellies turned up to the black flies that feasted on them. Bile rose in Kade’s throat at the odor. What could have caused this? There was nothing upriver that could have wreaked this devastation. The only operating lumbermill was downstream.

  The woman saw him coming and stood. She wiped her hands on her slacks and left smears of moisture. Her smile seemed genuine.

  Kade nodded. “Ranger Kade Matthews. What’s going on here?”

  The woman cleared her throat then spoke in a husky voice. “That’s what I’d like to know. I’m with NAWG.”

  North America Wilderness Group. Kade had heard of them. They had their fingers in nearly every radical environmentalist activity that went on in the northern states. The group had been linked to everything from factory bombings to the destruction of bioengineered crops.

  “Someone call you?”

  The woman’s smile widened. “You and I are on the same side, Ranger. We’re both wearing white hats. There are creek chubsuckers dead here, and they are on the endangered species list. This can’t be allowed to continue.”

  “I agree. That’s my job,” he said. He knelt and looked through the dead fish. The woman was right. He saw at least two of the endangered fish floating in the carnage. “This is bad,” he muttered.

  The woman nodded. “Would you be willing to talk to the media about this? I plan to call the networks as soon as we get back to town. We need all the attention we can get to find out what happened and stop it.”

  Kade stood and wiped his hands on his pants. “I don’t think so. I’d rather face a charging bear than a camera any day.” Her lips twitched, and he saw the amusement in her eyes.

  “I can handle the media,” she said.

  She reminded him of someone, but Kade couldn’t place the woman’s face. Her dark hair was coiled atop her head, and her chiseled features added to the regal look. Someone else Kade knew carried herself like a princess, but the memory just wouldn’t surface.

  “You handle the media then, and I’ll track down what’s causing this,” he said.

  “Only if you can do a better job than your predecessors. They let the Michigan grayling go extinct.” She smiled. “But you look quite competent.”

  “The department did what it could to conserve the fish,” he said. “Sometimes nothing we do helps.”

  She nodded. “I didn’t mean to cast blame. I’ve heard about you and your conservation efforts, Mr. Matthews.” She stepped away from the river. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “You look familiar. What’s your name?”

  She blinked and looked away. “Marika Fleming. But we’ve never met. I’d remember someone like you.”

  Fleming. The name didn’t ring a bell. He tipped his hat and watched her walk out of the meadow and up the slope covered with wildflowers.

  He turned again to look at the fish. He had to figure this out and prevent it from happening again. He didn’t want any fish to go extinct on his watch either.

  He swung into the saddle and proceeded down the path along the river. Several times he saw what appeared to be dumping spots. Empty five-gallon buckets and trash littered the sites. But what could have been dumped with such catastrophic effect? He took water samples from each spot, labeled the bottles, then grabbed the buckets and lashed them to the saddle. He’d have them tested to see if they were tainted.

  Ribbon Trail petered out at an outcropping that rose thirty feet to a high, rocky shelf overlooking the river. Kade dismounted and looped Moses’s reins around a shrub. He climbed to the top of the cliff. From the view here, he could see nearly the whole watershed basin. The wilderness looked pristine. If he hadn’t seen the fish with his own eyes, he would have thought the water running through here was as pure as it looked.

  The old copper mine that MJ Pharmaceuticals had converted to a lab lay upstream, just beyond a stand of aspen. He dragged his binoculars out of the pouch at his waist for a better look. He brought the lenses to his eyes, and the figures jumped into focus. Two people in white lab coats were entering the mine. Yancy Coppler and Nora Corbit. He put his binoculars away and climbed down to his horse. He’d need to head over to the mine and take a good look at their waste disposal systems. But that would have to wait. First he’d have the buckets tested. Then he’d have a better idea of what to look for.

  What’s the matter, boy?” Jonelle Ketola crouched at the fence and peered in at Zane’s prize pit bull. Bruck was pacing the containment area on stiff legs. Jon
elle didn’t dare put her hand in the pen when the dog was in this state. She hoped he would calm down soon.

  Zane yanked her back from the fence. “Careful. He’s pretty agitated. Maybe the dose of steroids and cocaine needs to be adjusted. He ain’t focusing like he should. I’ll cut tomorrow’s dose in half.” Zane stood, watching the dog prance around his pen. “He’s a fine specimen, the best dog I’ve ever had. Look at those muscles.”

  Jonelle nodded. Thick muscles rippled under the sleek, black coat. The dog would rather die than lose a fight. His reputation had spread far through the country’s underground dogfighting networks.

  It was getting hard to find someone willing to pit his dog against Bruck, but she knew what her husband planned. If he could get his hands on Samson, the event would attract hundreds of spectators. Everyone wanted to see Bruck lose. The dog’s defeat would satisfy the personal vendetta of some owners who had lost their dogs to Bruck’s drug-induced bloodlust. Their desire for Bruck’s defeat would blind them to Zane’s schemes.

  Jonelle held up the bowl. “I’ve got their food.”

  “You’re all dressed up. You heading to Houghton?”

  “Yeah, I want to start getting some baby stuff.” She tried to hand him the food, but he pushed it away.

  “Take it back. I’m not feeding them today. They have a practice match tonight. Simik brought me some bait dogs.”

  Jonelle grimaced. “I hate it when you use those dogs. They don’t hardly know what’s going on. Can’t you use rabbits or something?”

  “It’s not the same. Just remember, this is all for the baby. If we didn’t have the dogs, you wouldn’t be going shopping. You’re too softhearted.”

  She slipped her arms around his waist. He embraced her with one arm, but his attention was on the dogs. “I need your help today, so don’t go gallivanting off to town just yet.”