In Too Deep

by Tracey Alvarez

  But the cavernous churning in her stomach signaled a truth she didn’t want to accept.

  She couldn’t do this job anymore.

  ***

  Piper had been sequestered in Oban’s tiny police station for hours. And West was prepared to wait until she’d finished all her official crap, even if it meant sitting out here on his bike for another hour. Or two.

  He’d spoken briefly to her earlier back at the wharf when she’d returned with her grim-faced squad after delivering Gav’s body to the undertaker on the mainland. One look at Piper’s gaunt face and West wanted to hold her and kiss her until those hazel eyes lost their defeated look. Something other than finding Gav happened out there. But she denied it, squeezing his hand and telling him she needed to accompany her squad back to the station.

  She walked away, surrounded by her cop buddies. One of the men—a big Maori bastard with a crew cut and the posture that came with military training—popped him the assessing eyeball as he walked past, glued protectively to Piper’s side.

  West refused to let the big guy intimidate him. Yeah, you look after her, mate. Because he knew Piper belonged with them. A fact slammed home when the man bent and murmured something in her ear and she offered him a weak smile.

  She should be with her squad. Not here with him, stuck in the place she once described as the Greenbelt of Hell. Yet, he’d asked his parents to close for the night and brought his bike to wait for her—so she wouldn’t have to walk alone in the dark.

  West scrubbed a hand down his face, his fingers rasping against two days’ growth of stubble. He was pathetic. Fucked up in love with a woman who was leaving in a week’s time—and he’d known it from the start.

  The station door opened and Piper walked onto the small deck, warm light from inside spilling onto her, bringing out the auburn highlights in her hair. She was dressed once more in black jeans and combat boots and his heart give a little flip as she jogged down the steps and walked over to him. West jammed his helmet on. God, he’d be spouting love sonnets at her in a second.

  He held out the second helmet. “You gonna argue this time?”

  Piper shook her head and took the helmet, shadows masking her features. “Take me on a ride somewhere, West. I don’t want to go…back, not just yet.”

  His jaw tensed under the helmet’s chin guard. A little hesitation before the word “back.” Couldn’t she say the word “home,” or perhaps she didn’t feel it. His place, him—well, neither of them were home to Piper.

  West twisted the key hard and thumbed the starter button. The bike’s engine roared to life. Piper tugged on the helmet and climbed on. Her arms slid around his waist, her thighs snug against his. One of her hands stroked his abs before stilling, clenching onto the thin fabric of his shirt. He gunned the bike and pulled away, picking up speed as they hit the long strip of road to Oban’s tiny airfield.

  They rode in silence and each time they leaned into a curve Piper hugged him tighter, her breasts pressed into his back. It near killed him when her chest hitched, the jerk followed by a stealthy sniffing sound.

  Goddammit to hell.

  West drove onto the tiny airstrip, abandoned and empty after the last flight left for the mainland hours ago. He killed the bike engine and hauled off his helmet. Behind him, Piper climbed off and placed her helmet on the ground. She stalked away, swiping her fingers across her cheeks. West kicked the bike stand down and went after her.

  He came up from behind and touched her shoulder, then stroked his hands down her folded arms. “Talk to me.”

  Piper’s lips pinched shut, her chin pointed along the runway, the breeze ruffling her hair as it raced down the wide clearing.

  “I found him,” she said.

  “I’m sorry—” He tried wrapping his arms around her but she ducked out of the way and whirled, holding up her hand.

  “Gavin Reynolds was a complete prick, but still, it’s irrelevant how I felt about him. Once the water claimed him, he was my responsibility.” Her chest heaved and the hand she’d extended shook. “Mine. And I let him down, and worse, I let my team down.”

  She swiped her wrist beneath her nose and refolded her arms. “I panicked, West. I panicked when I touched his foot and if it hadn’t been for Buck and Trigger, I could’ve got into serious trouble.”

  Icy tentacles wrapped around his guts and squeezed. He could’ve lost her. The bends could’ve claimed her, or worse. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not the first time it’s happened.” She cut him a glance. “I lied when I said the shark didn’t scare me—that I didn’t panic.”

  “I kinda figured.”

  She snuffled out a watery laugh, wiped her cheeks again. “Yeah, well, an incident happened before I came south. A teenager drowned while water-skiing in Lake Tikitapu.”

  “I heard about that on the news. Were you one of the divers who found him?”

  “Yep.”

  West closed the distance between them. Tears glittered and spilled over her lashes.

  “I was the diver who found him. And I saw something in him that resembled you at the same age. I nearly lost it.”

  This time when he laid gentle hands on her, she didn’t pull away. “You’re solid, Piper. You reacted by the book when I blacked out and I think you’re selling yourself short.”

  She sighed and ran a trembling hand through her hair. “Yeah? Well, maybe I am, because what else is there for me?”

  West cupped Piper’s nape and she fell forward, burying her face in the crook of his neck. Her arms slid around his waist and clung.

  Me. He wrapped himself around her as she wept. I’m here for you. I’ve always been here.

  But the greasy chill inching down his spine told him he wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

  ***

  The tendons in Piper’s neck protested as she walked away from the graveside service at Oban’s cemetery. Behind her, Peter Reynolds and Gav’s older brother, Seth, remained at the open grave. She peeked over her shoulder once again at the two men, silhouetted against the churning pewter clouds. The smaller figure hunched in grief, while the other stood to attention, his arm awkwardly positioned around the older man’s shoulders.

  Five days had passed since her squad returned to Wellington, leaving with casual but pointed assurances they’d see her in a week. She waved them off with a smile that wouldn’t have fooled anyone. But she made it through Gav’s service—thank you, God, because she hated funerals—and hadn’t once given in to the temptation to glance at her father’s memorial.

  She held on to her mother’s arm as she and West helped Glenna navigate the damp, slippery grass.

  “Such a terrible waste.” Glenna dabbed her nose with a tissue and stuffed it into her jacket pocket as they reached Ben.

  Her brother grunted and folded his arms, leaning back against Due South’s courtesy van. Piper sent him a warning stink-eye. While Gav hadn’t been the most popular man in town, Glenna suggested it would be more sensitive to his family if Ben remained by the parked cars.

  Over the past few days gossip had sprouted wings and flapped from front porch to back, house to house. But while her brother received a few sidelong glances, no one dared accuse him of anything. People chose to gloss over the fact the deceased had been a bully who’d planned to vandalize a half-a-million-dollar boat, and instead lamented the loss of a hardworking, authentic bloke.

  Glenna patted Piper’s hand. “I’m sure Peter and Seth are very grateful to you for bringing Gavin home, darling.”

  “At least Piper gave the Reynolds a body to bury,” Ben muttered, as he opened the passenger door of Due South’s courtesy van for Glenna.

  Piper’s feet, in borrowed kitten heels—since combat boots or sneakers didn’t seem appropriate for a funeral—glued themselves to the asphalt. Her stomach lurched to her throat as if the ground had started to roll like the Strait on a rough day.

  “Benjamin Michael Harland.” Glenna whirled, her voice chipped ice, the tone all
three Harland siblings had been terrified of as kids. “Everyone in the van, right now. Since there’s no privacy at my place, family meeting at West’s.”

  “Asshat,” Shaye hissed as Ben climbed into the van ahead of Piper. “Look what you’ve done—another family meeting.”

  West flicked Piper a questioning look as he slid the van door shut, but she just shook her head. She’d accused herself of everything Ben thought or tactlessly said out loud. She just wanted this awful day over with.

  Glenna was a demon matriarch when she got her mad on. Ordered into West’s living room, the four of them sat when told and kept their mouths wired shut as instructed.

  “That was an insensitive thing to say.” Glenna stopped pacing and stood in front of Ben, who was slumped into an armchair. “I can’t believe you’d imply Piper was in some way to blame for us not getting Michael back.”

  Curled into one sofa corner, Piper massaged her forehead. “It’s okay, Mum, it doesn’t bother me.”

  “No, it’s not okay.” Her mother fixed Ben with a loaded gaze.

  “Who should we blame for Dad’s death, then?” Ben laced his fingers together. “You, for not being there that morning to stop him? Shaye, for sleeping through the whole thing? Me, for being out drinking with my mates? Yeah, I blame all of us too. But Piper’s not innocent—” He tossed his head in her direction. “She could’ve refused to go out diving with Dad that morning. He wouldn’t have gone alone.”

  Glenna sunk onto the other sofa next to Shaye, her rigid posture suddenly dissolving into that of a much older woman. “Not while he was sober, no.”

  Piper’s gaze flipped to Ben, then back to her mother. “Dad didn’t drink. He couldn’t with his cholesterol medication.”

  “Your father never took cholesterol medication. He used the idea of needing medication as a cover for not drinking alcohol,” Glenna said.

  Piper’s heartbeat went from a plod into an out-of-control sprint. “But he was always at the pub.”

  “Drinking ginger ale. Or lemonade. He never touched alcohol, even though he caught a bit of grief for it at times.”

  “Why, Mum?” Piper tried to swallow the words back—to keep her mother from speaking the harsh truth written in her tired eyes and down-turned mouth.

  “Your father once had a problem with alcohol, but he’d been sober for more than fifteen years when he died.”

  “A problem? Like an alcoholic?” Piper recoiled back into the cushions.

  West slipped out of his chair and sat on the sofa arm beside her. The warmth of his hand on her shoulder steadied her.

  “He didn’t like to label himself that, but yes, as a younger man he was an alcoholic and it shamed him terribly. He drank to cope with the demands of being a city cop. That’s why he moved to the island, for a fresh start. He told me he quit drinking the day we met.” Her lip quivered once then steadied. “By the time we got married he hadn’t had a drink—said he hadn’t needed a drink—in a year. I promised him then that so long as he kept his vow to remain sober we need never mention it again. You know your father and how much he prided himself on being a man of his word, of how much self-discipline in free-diving and in life meant to him.”

  Glenna sighed and sent Ben another look. “So if you want to blame anyone, blame him and then blame me. We kept a secret from you kids far too long when it should’ve been out in the open.”

  “Sounds like you kept a lot of secrets,” Ben said sourly. “Were you telling the truth about arguing over finances that night?”

  Glenna shook her head, her lips pinching so tightly that harsh grooves cut canyons around her mouth. “I was ashamed to admit what we really fought about—his free-diving. I accused him of being old and foolish, and then I gave him an ultimatum—‘Quit the Nationals or I’ll divorce you.’” She paused to blot her eyes with her tissue.

  “Oh, God.” Piper sank back into the sofa. “You threatened to divorce him?”

  Glenna exhaled a shuddery sigh. “At the time I truly meant it. I was just so terrified of losing him.”

  “So you went to the Komekes’ after dropping that bombshell on him.” Ben’s voice was as stiff as new cardboard.

  “He refused to discuss it any further and froze me out. I decided we’d be better to have some time apart to think.”

  “By then it was too late,” Ben said.

  Glenna nodded and pulled a fresh tissue from her pocket. “It wasn’t until Shaye and I cleaned out his office two months after his death that we discovered a half empty bottle of whiskey hidden at the back of the closet. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, when I realized Michael had likely started drinking after I left that night.” She pressed the back of her fingers to her lips.

  “I saw him.” Shaye toed off her heels and tucked her legs up onto the sofa.

  In the maelstrom of emotion whirling between her, Ben and Glenna, Piper had forgotten Shaye. Icy prickles swept down Piper’s spine. “Shaye?”

  “I got up for a drink of water and Dad was sitting at the kitchen table in the dark—he scared the crap out of me. He had a tumbler in his hand—” Shaye paused to scrub the heel of her palm across her cheeks. “He apologized for frightening me and told me to get my water and go back to bed.”

  “You couldn’t tell the difference between a glass of water and a glass of booze?” Ben said.

  “She was fifteen,” Glenna snapped. “And it was dark.”

  “So you knew?” Ben said to Shaye, lurching out of the armchair. “You knew he’d been drinking something that night and you never said anything to the police, or to Mum?”

  “The police asked me where I’d been all night and I told them the truth—in my room! I didn’t think seeing Dad in the kitchen was important.” Shaye hugged herself. “How was I to know he wasn’t just thirsty, like me? Then Mum and I found the whiskey bottle and we figured it out.”

  Glenna straightened her spine. “I decided it would do no good for the gossipmongers to find out about Michael’s problem. Nothing would bring him back or make his death any easier to bear. So I made Shaye promise we’d keep his secret.”

  Ben limp-stomped to the picture windows facing the ocean and turned his back on them. “All these years I’ve blamed myself, blamed Piper for agreeing to go out alone with him, and it turns out our father was an irresponsible drunk.”

  “He wasn’t irrespon—” Piper said.

  “Don’t dive drunk or on drugs—wasn’t that rule number two or three in that damn litany he taught us? Christ.” Ben whipped around, the cords of his neck stark either side of his bobbing Adam’s apple. “Didn’t he stop to think if something went wrong his teenage daughter would have to deal with it? Irresponsible bastard.”

  Glenna flinched and Shaye covered her face with her hands.

  “Don’t talk about him that way.” Piper scrambled to her feet, her nails cutting into her clenched fists. “You don’t know what Dad thought. He made a mistake and he paid for it with his life.”

  “Well, you’ve paid for it too.” Ben threw up his hands and stormed out of the living room, clomping down the stairs and slamming the front door.

  “He’s right,” West said behind her.

  She whirled to find his intense blue stare stripping her of all her defenses.

  “You’ve carried this burden for nine years and it’s eating you from the inside out. Time to let it go, babe.”

  The guilt was a cold weight in her chest, but unlike a diving belt she couldn’t just press a button and have it drop away.

  “West’s right, darling.” Glenna touched her arm. “And I’m sorry for being so self-absorbed I never realized how much your father’s death still affected you.”

  Piper forced a smile to her lips. “I just need some space to get my head around this.” She patted her mother’s hand, on the outside trying to look as if she’d pulled herself together, while on the inside her whole belief system crumbled.

  Alcohol still in her dad’s system impairing his judgment, emotionally di
stracted by relationship difficulties, and pushed by innate competitiveness to prove himself. If she examined the facts objectively she came to a simple conclusion. Diver error was the cause of her father’s death. She wasn’t entirely to blame. But it still felt like it.

  “Well, don’t take too much time,” Shaye said with a sniff. “You’re heading back to the city at the end of the week.” Her sister switched her red-rimmed gaze between Piper and West. “Or maybe not.”

  Piper sank back onto the sofa. Clouds scudded past outside and the same light wind blowing them across the horizon shook tree leaves in a continuous rustle against West’s house. Donny padded onto the deck and slumped down, rolling onto his back as a hint for someone inside to rub his belly.

  And West said nothing. Not. A. Thing.

  Not a, “Like hell the love of my life is leaving a second time,” or, “Piper won’t be going back to the city alone because I can’t live without her.” Not even a, “I’m hoping to convince Piper to stay longer so we can continue bonking our brains out every night.”

  “I hope you and Ben can clear the air before you go,” said Glenna. “And he’s not the only one you need to sort things with.”

  Her mother glared at West who still stood behind her. Fabric rustled and she imagined he folded his arms and gave Glenna a stare right back.

  Piper linked her fingers on her lap and squeezed. “We’ve got one more shark dive booked before I leave on the Saturday morning ferry. Back to the grind on Monday. My holiday’s over and I’ve got a job to do.”

  “Speaking of jobs,” West said. “They’re expecting me back at the pub to help at Gavin’s wake. I’d better get going.”

  Rough fingertips closed on her earlobe and tugged gently. “You’ll be okay?”