Dancing Tides

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Yeah? I do that a lot. See you in about an hour.”

  “It’s a date.”

  She clicked off the call and sighed at getting to hear his voice. Wow! Hayden had been right. When was the exact moment she’d gone moony over Cord Bennett?

  Weeks ago, she decided.

  She went back to finishing up the correspondence. Once that was done, she closed out of one window and opened another. This time, she went to the center’s website to update current photos of the pelicans. While there she decided to upload new videos Pete had taken of the rest of her brood, especially Minnie and Bumper. The pictures showed the progress of both mother and son. Never underestimate the appeal of cute sea otters playing together in the water when you were begging for money, Keegan resolved, as her downloads completed.

  She was about to tackle a stack of bills when her two-way radio crackled to life. “Abby to Keegan. Over.”

  Keegan picked up the handheld device. “Go ahead, Abby. Over.”

  “Where are you? Over.”

  Keegan sighed. Abby was a go-getter but sometimes she could be irritating. “I’m locked away at home trying to get some work done. Over.”

  “Because when you’re in the office there are too many distractions? Over.”

  “Exactly. What’s up, Abby? Talk to me. Over.”

  “Got a call about an angry harbor seal making a fuss near the Wilder Ranch State Park watershed. Over.”

  “Copy that. The weather’s getting nasty. I’ll have to push it to beat the storm though. Heading out now. If I get to the boat in the next fifteen minutes ETA will be half an hour after that. Over.”

  “Roger that. Be careful taking the Moonlight Mile out in this storm. Over.”

  Keegan chuckled. Okay, maybe Abby was more like a mother hen than an irritation. “Can’t be helped. You get any more details, radio me. Over.”

  “Copy that. Will try and get more info to you. Over.”

  “Roger.”

  Keegan grabbed her cell phone, dialed Cord’s number. When she reached his voicemail, she clicked over to the message icon instead and typed in the text: Pancakes will have to wait. Off to rescue harbor seal at Wilder Ranch. BBL. ♥ K

  She dropped the phone down into the pocket of her mackinaw, threw on her rubber boots, and stuck her Raiders cap on her head. When Guinness stood up all ready to beat her out the door, she shook her head and commanded, “No way. You’re staying home this time, out of the weather.”

  She dashed downstairs, opened the front door and stepped out into a California gale, whipping in off the water.

  The Moonlight Mile stayed moored in Smuggler’s Bay steps from the center for just this reason. Getting underway usually took no more than fifteen minutes. But today with the wind building into gusts, it took her longer to work the lines from bow to stern. By the time she finally headed out of the bay into open water, the blackening clouds on the horizon looked downright ominous. She couldn’t help it—a chill crawled up her spine.

  She made the turn south, all the while keeping one eye on the menacing sky.

  By the time she reached Wilder Ranch State Park, the swells from the approaching storm battered the boat. The wind punched like a boxer fighting for his life in the fifteenth round. Because she hadn’t been able to locate the seal from the Moonlight Mile, she lowered the dinghy. She’d use it to motor over to the shallower inlet where she could disembark easier in the high tide.

  Once she got closer to the rocks, she cut the motor and dropped the knobby anchor, gathered up her gear and waded onto shore,

  Choppy waves as high as ten feet slammed into the surrounding cliffs. Keegan glanced around for firmer footing. As she made her way up the rocks, one slippery step at a time, it occurred to her, she didn’t hear the barking of an angry seal.

  In fact, all she heard was the roar of the sea.

  Fat drops of rain began to tap on the brim of the Raiders cap. Keegan hugged the craggy rocks like a lover, trying to hold on against the chilly wind, all the while scanning the jutting boulders for any sign of wildlife.

  Maybe it was too sick or injured to bark now, she thought. After all, it had taken her over an hour to get to this spot.

  But still, a feeling of unease pricked along her common sense. She’d been at this for years, and she’d never had a seal stay this quiet for this long unless...

  She searched along the crags and crevices of the watershed. So far all she saw was the slick, mossy surface that threatened her footing.

  Maneuvering farther into the small cove, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye about the same time her walkie-talkie crackled to life.

  Just as she hit the button to speak into the radio to tell Abby she couldn’t find the seal, a man’s voice startled her.

  “Drop the radio. Throw it into the water. You won’t be needing it.”

  Even from five feet away, the guy stank from the smell of sweat and liquor. His clothes were filthy. Not only did he look disheveled, but his eyes were cold and glazed over, like he might not be all there. But Keegan knew immediately she was in trouble. “Robby Stevens, right?” she surmised looking past the bleached hair and hazel-green eyes that didn’t look real. The image of his mug shot filtered through the disguise.

  “That’s right. And we’re going to stay in this spot until fuck-buddy Bennett gets here.”

  “There was never any seal?”

  “Of course not. After Bennett joins us he’s going to watch you and me, while we get to know each other in the biblical sense.”

  At FMRC, Abby eavesdropped on the entire exchange. Somehow Keegan had managed to keep the receiver open long enough for her to determine the boss was in trouble.

  With her hands shaking, Abby picked up the wall phone in the exam room and dialed Ethan Cody direct.

  “You’re delusional.”

  “Just drop the radio and I’ll show you how delusional I am.”

  Keegan let the handheld device slowly slip through her fingers. It landed at her feet. She could only hope the receiver still worked to transmit her location. She knew she’d kept her finger pressed to the switch long enough for Abby to discern that she needed help.

  But that idea crashed and burned when Robby kicked the device onto the rocks below.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to call Bennett, tell him you need help with the animal you’ve been looking for.”

  “No.”

  When he started to backhand her, she saw the arm start to come down and dodged the blow, which infuriated the man all the more.

  But then he simply pointed the gun at her head and cocked the hammer. “The last woman who defied me, I put in the ground. Would you like to make it two for two? I don’t have to keep you alive. I can get Bennett here without you. But I’ve seen you two together. Since he cares for you, you’re the bait.”

  “I can’t call. I left my cell phone back on the boat.” Which was a lie, but he didn’t need to know that. She slipped her hand inside the mackinaw and groped for several buttons, hoping like hell she remembered the location of each icon on her display. She recalled how spotty cell service was here even under the best of circumstances. But maybe she might get lucky and someone would pick up a weak signal.

  But she would not lure Cord to his death. That much she had already decided. She stalled for time but Robby immediately caught on.

  “Look, don’t mess with me. I’ve had a rough couple of days. I’ve been living right across the street from that fucking zoo you call a home.”

  “Across the street? Well for…for how long?”

  “Three miserable days.”

  Pelican Pointe didn’t have the greatest cell phone service. Because of that, Cord didn’t get Keegan’s text message until he reached the city limits sign north of town. Since he’d come this far, he decided he might as well help her with the seal.

  He pulled over to the shoulder of the road so he could text back. Need help? On my way now.

  He punched in
the coordinates for Wilder Ranch State Park into his GPS and veered back onto the highway. He had just driven past the Hilltop Diner on Main when he spotted Ethan’s police cruiser, making a right hand turn off Beach Street, lights flashing.

  Ethan spotted Cord about the same time and motioned for him to pull over.

  The minute Cord got out and walked up to Ethan’s patrol car, the look on the deputy’s face told him something bad had happened.

  Ethan blurted out, “Looks like Robby Mack has Keegan.”

  “Shit. Son of a bitch used her with a bogus call.”

  “Abby overheard the entire exchange. Stevens wants you.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Cord snapped as he crawled into the passenger seat.

  “I don’t have time to argue. But this is an official police matter, Cord. Remember that when we get there. Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

  “Who me? Sure, Ethan, whatever you say.” Cord would have agreed to anything at that point because all he wanted to do was make sure Keegan was okay. “Either way, I’d just follow you.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.”

  The rain poured down as Robby shoved Keegan into the watershed. They sloshed through the pounding surf as it continued to crash up against the rocks.

  “Where are we going?” Keegan shouted. “This is crazy. We stay here, we’ll drown. The tide’s coming in and the rain’s picking up. Don’t you see that?”

  “Shut up. You’re a mouthy bitch.” He shook his head. “Why is it you women can’t keep your mouths shut for five damn minutes to let a man think?”

  About that time he heard the unmistakable sound of a cell phone ding coming from her jacket pocket.

  “Hand over the cell phone. Now!”

  Even though he had a madness in his eyes that gave her the willies, she reached in, dug out the phone. Without winding up, she threw it as far into the water as she could.

  “You bitch!” he screamed.

  This time she took his fist straight on. It knocked her back a step and for a minute she saw stars. She tried to shake it off because she needed to keep her wits and hold it together. She had to remember this man had already taken the lives of six people, seven if he was telling her the truth about the last woman.

  Robby Mack scrubbed a hand down his unshaven face. “That’s the way you want it fine. We’ll use the dinghy to cross the swell and get over to the boat, use the radio there to tell Bennett what I want him to do. Let’s go!”

  She started moving with the gun in her back. Keegan calculated the situation, timed her statements so that she could get him talking. “Why do you hate Cord so much?”

  “That’s easy. He took Cassie away from me. We were doing fine until that bastard entered the picture. Stupid idiot never realized I’d woo her back again and again every single time.”

  Keegan narrowed her eyes at that as she climbed into the motorboat, started to pull up the anchor. “She cheated on Cord?”

  She already knew of course, but since she deemed she needed to keep Robby talking and distracted, it might as well be about Cassie.

  “Every time he left for Iraq,” Robby bragged. “Stupid bitch didn’t have a faithful bone in her body. She cheated right under his nose. And Bennett was too desperate to ever catch on or let her go.”

  All at once, Keegan brought up the anchor to the level of the skiff. She swung the heavy weight with everything she had into the side of Robby’s head. She heard bone crack and the thud of him hitting something solid on his way down.

  The gun went flying out of his fist and landed somewhere on the rocks. Keegan didn’t bother to check where. She rolled the unconscious man to the side of the raft and pushed him with her foot into the angry sea.

  She pivoted around to pull the starter cord on the motor. When it kicked in, she throttled back, sped full out toward the Moonlight Mile as it bobbed in the deep surf.

  Because of the high tide, it took her ten long minutes to reach the trawler. She climbed aboard, scrambled to the radio. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is the Moonlight Mile. I need help at Wilder Ranch State Park. Over!” she screamed breathless into the mic before going into further detail about what had happened with Robby Mack.

  She kept it short, talked in clipped tones, trying to remain calm. Just then, she caught sight of Robby struggling with the current to get out of the tide and climb up to the rocky shore. She noted the gaping wound to his head, still bleeding as red liquid dripped down onto his neck. But the sight didn’t faze her.

  She relayed this latest fact to the Coast Guard dispatcher. “He’s up. He’s wounded but he’s up. Keep Cord Bennett away from this place. Stevens wants him dead.”

  But Cord at the moment, watched as the deputy sheriff barreled down the narrow road leading into the park.

  Cord did his best to keep his anger from simmering over and losing control of his emotions. “Do you have any idea what he’ll do to her, Ethan? Robby is one mean son of a bitch. I told them that after I got out of the hospital. He may want me dead. But he’ll kill Keegan just to get back at me.”

  About that time Cord spotted a lone, blue Mustang sitting in visitor parking, and pointed out, “I’ve seen that car around town and a couple of times out on the Coast Highway.”

  Ethan pulled up behind the car blocking it in so there was no chance of Stevens using the vehicle for escape. Automatically, he ran the plates.

  While Ethan was busy with police procedure, Cord jumped out. With his heart thudding in his chest, he started running for the shoreline along the cliffs.

  He knew if Keegan had been sent to look for an endangered seal, there was no better place than the bluffs and the rocks to search.

  “Cord, get back here,” Ethan yelled as he waited for dispatch to come back with the registration information.

  But Cord had already disappeared around the bend.

  With her field glasses, Keegan scanned the coastline from the deck of the Moonlight Mile as Stevens stopped to catch his breath on the rocks. He slumped down at one point to one knee.

  And then there was Cord in her line of vision racing along the edge heading straight for Robby Mack.

  She cried out in warning, but she was too far away for anyone to hear her shouts.

  On the bluff, the two men eyed each other before Cord went over and dragged Robby Mack up by his shirt. “You fucking bastard.”

  Cord threw a fist into his face, and then pummeled him again and again. Robby finally went down with a bloody nose and two bashed eyes.

  But when the man rolled over near the edge of the boulder, he came up pointing the little Saturday night special at Cord’s chest with a shaky hand. “I wanted another chance at you, and lo and behold, here you are. You think that fucking bitch was so saintly, don’t you? That baby was mine.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You made her miscarry with my kid, didn’t you?”

  “Unlike you, Stevens, I don’t hit women.”

  A cunning glint moved into Robby’s eyes. “Every time you deployed to Iraq, Cassie came back to my bed, cozied up to me just like always. I tried to talk her out of marrying you, but the bitch just would not listen.”

  “I figured that out, too, after the fact. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

  Robby threw back his head and hooted with a homicidal laugh. “I decided she needed to pay for defying me—in a big way—the bonus round was I’d make you pay, too. But you lived.”

  A certain part of Cord’s past died right then and there. He’d known it, but hearing Robby corroborate details, the humiliation of it all drained away, finally putting a cap on that chapter of his life once and for all.

  “Where’s Keegan?”

  “That fucking bitch, I took care of her the same way I took care of Cassie.”

  Blistering hate filled Cord’s eyes. “You’ve always been a mean son of a bitch, Stevens. You think you’re so tough as long as you stick to beating up women. I checked on you, Robby boy. As
far back as seventeen you’ve been hitting little girls. You even have a rape conviction in your past. Why don’t you throw down that peashooter and fight me like a man? Oh, that’s right, you don’t you have the guts. Come on, Robby. Come on, take me on. You know you want to.”

  Stevens cocked the hammer back…

  From behind Cord, Ethan took aim and fired. The bullet from his .45 hit Robby Mack square in the forehead knocking him back, one step, then two.

  Stevens lost his footing and fell onto the rocks below with a thud all the while the choppy surf pounded up against the cliffs in an angry rhythm.

  Cord stood over the edge looking out in the direction of the Moonlight Mile. The moment he spotted Keegan in the little dinghy alive and well, he dropped to one knee. Her arms waved wildly in his direction as she bobbed up and down in the high tide trying to make her way back over to shore—and to him.

  He finally took the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

  When Ethan came up behind him and peered down at Robby’s body spread out on the jagged boulders below, he laid one hand on Cord’s shoulder. “He could have killed you.”

  “I thought he’d killed Keegan.” Cord did his best to squeeze the tears out of his eyes.

  “The Chumash have a legend about men like you. I think you must be a warrior who refuses to die. How many lives do you have, anyway?” Ethan asked jovially.

  “Just the one. And I’m getting pretty damned sick and tired of having a gun shoved in my face.”

  Later, after they’d dealt with crime scene investigators and spent hours giving their separate statements in an official capacity, Keegan and Cord sat on the sofa at her place in front of a roaring fire.

  She had her legs stretched out and her feet in his lap. Cord used his long, lean fingers to massage her instep, her toes.

  Guinness snored softly on the floor next to the couch.

  “I can only imagine what it must’ve been like for you to confront that asshole. After what he put you through, it isn’t fair. The man was deranged.”