Deception Cove

by Owen Laukkanen

  The boat motored forward. Mason hunched over at the very forepeak, gripping the anchor chain and hoping he didn’t fall in. The waves carried the boat as it neared the rocks; he could see vast patches of kelp on either side too, and he imagined the thick growth would wreak hell on the propeller if Jess wandered into the middle of it.

  He guided her with his hands, like she was backing a truck or maybe parking an airplane. Lined her up at the entrance and gave her the thumbs-up, all good, and then he joined Lucy in staring down at the ocean. The water was shallower now, clearer, the rocks looming like ghosts from the murky depths.

  Jess kept the boat on a steady path. They crossed the threshold, the twin rocky shoals on either side, and the low cliffs closed in around them, the trees high above. But Mason hardly noticed the trees. He saw how this passage would work only at high tide; anything lower, and the narrow gap would be littered with rocks, like rapids. He wondered how low the boat sat in the water, how high a rock would have to be before it put a hole in the hull.

  He guided her around a big one, stout and mean, off to port—Jess edging the boat clear until the starboard rail nearly touched the cliff over there. Got her back into the middle of the pass quickly; there were more obstacles up ahead. And after they’d gone about fifty feet, the pass doglegged to the right, and there was more plotting to be done.

  The tide had slackened, which was a good thing. Soon it would kick up again, on the ebb this time, pushing against the troller and draining the water from under her keel.

  Mason could see the lagoon up ahead now, another hundred feet or so—tantalizingly close—but he knew they had a minefield to run before they got there, and they really had only one chance to run it. He had to plan his moves in advance, look beyond the first rock to a path through the next. Reversing in this tight passage would be near impossible. Mason didn’t want to have to tell Jess she was going to have to try it.

  Slowly Jess moved the boat forward. She followed Mason’s instructions quickly and without question; he could feel the engine rumble when he motioned her forward, and he could sense the rudder turn almost before he’d made the gesture. She was good with the boat, and he didn’t want to let her down.

  The tide had fully turned when they were thirty feet from safe water. The water was flowing past the bow of the boat, slow at first but picking up speed, inexorable. Driftwood and detritus slipped past, the water whirlpooling around more submerged rocks. Mason watched and felt powerless. Wished he could do something to urge the boat faster, but he knew Jess was working as fast as she could, and better than he ever would.

  Three minutes later it was over. Mason stood straight and gestured forward, felt the engine throttle up, and the Better Days motored into the lagoon Jess called Dixie.

  It was a beautiful little spot, peaceful and idyllic, a couple hundred feet in diameter and ringed by dense forest. To the west, through a thin patch of trees, Mason could see blue sky and water; he could hear the waves crashing. Inside the lagoon the water was calm. There was no wind, no sound but the surf and the purr of the diesel engine. Somewhere in the trees, a raven called.

  Jess stuck her head out the starboard window again. “You want to drop the hook for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “What does that mean?”

  She rolled her eyes. “The anchor, Burke. Drop the anchor, so I can shut her down for a while.”

  He let the anchor go, watched it splash, the chain unspooling from the winch behind him. Lucy jumped back at the noise, suspicious, then crept forward to sniff at the winch, eyeing the moving chain warily.

  “That should be good,” Jess called, and Mason tightened the brake, slowed the chain and locked the winch, waited as Jess tested the anchor’s hold with the throttle. Finally she nodded, and he slapped Lucy on her big butt and pushed her down the passageway to the stern.

  “Come on, girl. Looks like we’re here.”

  Jess was down in the engine room when Mason and Lucy came back into the wheelhouse. The sun was shining outside still, and the wheelhouse seemed almost too warm now, though Mason would have laughed at that notion yesterday. He dug out some jerky from the lockers for Lucy, had her sit for it, tried High Five and settled for Shake a Paw, gave the dog some jerky and a bowl full of kibble as Jess shut the engine down and the whole boat shuddered into silence.

  When Jess came back up to the wheelhouse, she’d stripped off her jacket. She stopped on the third step and looked at him. “Listen, I’m pretty beat,” she said. “I’m going to need to sack out for a few before we go find this package.”

  Mason was glad she’d suggested it. He was tired too, but you try admitting that to a decorated marine. “You sure we have time?”

  “That package will wait,” she said. “I have a pretty good idea where Ty would have hid it, and the island isn’t that big if I’m wrong. We sleep a couple hours, we’ll still have plenty of time to get our search in before high slack tomorrow. Can’t move this boat until then anyhow.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Mason said. “I could stand a rest too. You want to switch off?”

  She shrugged. “I sleep pretty light, Burke. You want to catch some z’s, go ahead.” She gestured down the stairs. “I’m going to sleep down here, in my bunk. If you fiddle with that galley table, take the legs off, you can fit it down against the settee, make a bed.”

  “I don’t need much,” he said.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” she replied. “Because we don’t have much. Get a couple hours in you, and then we’ll rig up the dinghy and go looking for trouble.”

  She disappeared belowdecks again, and Mason watched her go, listened to her move around the fo’c’sle of the boat. Then he turned his attention to the galley table, managed to get the legs off, turn it into a bed. He spread the cushions over the hard surface, saved a cushion for his head, climbed aboard and lay there and stared up at the ceiling. It was a funny feeling, lying there, the boat rocking gently on the water, the sun outside and nothing but nature all around him. He couldn’t hear Jess anymore, figured she’d fallen asleep.

  He stared out the window, at the thin patch of trees to the west, the blue sky and open sea beyond, the treetops swaying with a wind that didn’t make it down into the lagoon. He thought about Kirby Harwood and the other men with him, thought about Shelby Walker and the gunshots he’d heard from inside that house. He and Jess had probably bought themselves some time, heading out in the boat, but now that it was daylight, Kirby and his buddies were going to find the Suburban at the pier and notice the boat missing, and they weren’t so stupid as to miss what that meant.

  Mason thought about this, and he thought about the strange man with Harwood. He thought about what came next, and what remained to be done before this whole miserable saga was over.

  He lay there and stared up at the ceiling and thought about it, and after a while he stood and went out to the afterdeck and came back inside with Jess’s shotgun. He laid the shotgun down on the bed beside him and closed his eyes, and slept for a while.

  Forty-Four

  Jess couldn’t sleep.

  Not down here, in the tiny fo’c’sle of the boat, two bunks angled along the curve of the hull to the point of the bow. Not with the waves lapping in her ears, the anchor chain groaning. Not here, where everything smelled like Ty.

  It was dark and the air was still; there was nothing to do but lie alone and think, nobody to chase and nobody to run from, no one to shoot and no car to drive. No plan to refine, even; they would take the dinghy ashore, and they would search for the package. And if Kirby and his buddies showed up, she and Burke would deal with that. There was no sense worrying about it now. They would handle Kirby when Kirby needed handling.

  Right now nothing needed handling, nothing but self-care and sleep. And Jess was a lot better at planning and shooting than she was at taking care of her messed-up mental health.

  She could close her eyes, sure, snuggle into Ty’s old sleeping bag, and feel the boat gently rock on its
anchor. She could try to pace her breathing, try to think about nothing. She could practice mindfulness the way her old shrink had recommended. It didn’t matter, not really. All it took was one little hint, one reminder, and then her mind was gone again, chasing its own tail into a whirlpool of dark thoughts and violent memories. No matter how hard she tried to fight it, that whirlpool dragged her down, pulled her under, choked off her air.

  And when it spat her out again, she was back in the valley. Back there with Afia on that final, bloody day.

  It was three days after the ambush before Afia reappeared outside the barbed wire, staggering up the road to the OP, blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other, covered in so much blood it was impossible to tell where it all was coming from. Her face was bruised almost black; she cradled her left arm. She was crying, or trying to; no sound came from her lips. Jess had heard shouts from the guys at the gate, yelling at Afia, telling her to stop, stop, or they’d have to shoot. Jess had come forward to see what the commotion was about, ready to back up her guys, then saw Afia and blacked out and started running, fought her way past the guards at the gate and out through the barbed wire, everyone yelling behind her, ducking for cover, thinking those Haji bastards had strapped a bomb on Afia, sent her back to the OP for one big fuck-you.

  At that point Jess didn’t care; Haji could blow them both up, for all it mattered. This was her friend, and yet it wasn’t. They’d robbed her of something before giving her back.

  As Jess ran closer, she could see the stump where Afia’s left hand used to be, cradled in the crook of her right arm like that baby. She could see Afia’s knees give out, watched her fall to the road, and then she heard the shot ring out from across the valley, and Afia pitched forward.

  There was no bomb. The fuck-you was personal; they’d sent her back to the OP to show off what they’d done to her, cut her down before she could get to the wire, some Haji sniper lodged somewhere in the forest on the east side of the valley. He’d probably been watching the whole time, just waiting for Afia to get close to the OP to make the kill really hurt. She’d never stood a chance.

  Afia was dead by the time Jess got to her, facedown in the dirt and the rocks, and Jess barely had a chance to roll her over, faceup, see the damage they’d done close and firsthand, and then her guys were on top of her, dragging her back to the wire, four of them risking their lives to save hers, and Jess fighting like hell every step of the way.

  That was Afia, how Jess’s cruel mind remembered her. Facedown in the dirt, bleeding into the dust, abandoned by the Americans she’d worked for and befriended. The Americans for whom she’d given her life.

  Fuck this. Jess kicked the sleeping bag away, swung her legs out of the bunk and dropped to the floor of the fo’c’sle. She felt her way to the stairs, not sure yet what she was doing but imagining it was probably a bad idea, and knowing all the same that she couldn’t stay down here in the dark by herself any longer.

  Forty-Five

  Lucy stood and stretched as Jess climbed the stairs to the wheelhouse, and then shook herself off, the tags on her collar jangling. Burke sat up and looked at the dog and saw the dog looking at Jess.

  “I can’t sleep,” she told him. “I’m going to try and sleep up here, if that’s okay with you.”

  She could see how Burke was trying not to stare at her bare legs—she was wearing a long T-shirt over her underwear—and she wondered if he was nervous or just being polite, if he was interested in her or he wasn’t.

  And she wondered if she was really interested in him, or if she was simply desperate for human contact, someone to touch and comfort and be afraid with, and she wondered if there was a difference and if it really mattered.

  Burke made to stand. “Yeah, okay,” he said, still not really looking at her. “I can sleep down there.”

  She shook her head. “What good is that going to do me, Burke?”

  Now he had to look at her, and she held his gaze and studied his face, and she realized that she was nervous, too, that this brave and decent man who’d found his way into her life wasn’t desperate for contact the way she was desperate, wasn’t feeling that same intimacy she’d felt on the dock, wouldn’t believe she was someone worth letting down his guard for.

  And she was afraid, too, that if he did feel that intimacy, and if they gave in to it, Burke would wind up just like Afia and Ty. But she was more afraid of loneliness now, even though she knew it was the wiser course, and she looked at Burke and waited for him to say something and hoped he would let her into his bed.

  “I don’t want to be alone right now,” she said. “I can’t. So can you just lie back down with me and not make a big deal out of this?”

  Burke blinked, like he knew that she knew it really was a big deal. “Sure,” he said. “No problem. No big deal at all.”

  He lay back down on the little makeshift bed, edged over to the window, and lifted the thin blanket for Jess to join him. She lay down beside him, turned her back, and rested on her side, facing the stove and the sink, her knees hugged up close to her chest.

  Lucy watched them both for a moment or two. Then she grumbled and circled a couple of times and collapsed into a pretzel on the carpeted floor.

  Behind Jess, Burke lay still as plywood, and she could tell he was trying not to touch her, trying to give her space. Trying to be polite and decent and accommodating when that’s not what she wanted at all.

  “Will you hold me?” she asked without moving.

  Burke hesitated again, but then he inched closer to her, slipped his arm under her pillow, and the other around her waist, and Jess snuggled back into him. She tried to think of the last time she’d done this, just been held by someone, and she knew it must have been Ty, but she couldn’t remember. Ty hadn’t been much for cuddling, not toward the end—or maybe that was her fault. After what she’d seen in the valley, after what she’d lost, Jess hadn’t wanted to be close to anyone for a long while.

  She suspected Burke hadn’t been this close to a woman for a long, long time either, and she could tell how her proximity was having its effect. She pushed back against him, slipped her legs against his, and she could feel him getting hard against her, and she knew that she should leave now, go back into the fo’c’sle and pretend this had never happened, keep some distance between the two of them so nobody would get hurt. But she didn’t.

  She reached back and pulled him closer again, reached around with her arm and found him with her hand, and he groaned a little bit and took her hand, lifted it away. “You don’t want to do that,” he said.

  She pressed her butt back against him. “Sure I do,” she said, and she did, and she wanted it to be now, and she wanted it to be Burke.

  “No, you don’t,” he said. “I don’t want to take advantage. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Burke.” She rolled over to face him, frustrated. “I’m a grown-ass woman. The last thing I need is some man telling me what I shouldn’t want to do.” She slid her hand down between them, found his cock. “Anyway, it seems like I’m the one taking advantage here. Though it doesn’t exactly feel like you mind all that much.”

  Burke closed his eyes at her touch, and she could see that he did want this, as much as she did or maybe more.

  But she needed to hear him say it.

  She drew her hand back, waited until he’d opened his eyes. Until he’d reached for her, almost shyly, and she’d held his hand still.

  “Are you okay with this?” she asked.

  “It’s been a long while,” he told her. “Hell, I can’t even remember the last time…”

  He trailed off. She waited. His hand brushed her bare hip and she could see how his breathing quickened, and when he reached for her again, she let him pull her closer.

  “I want this,” he said, breathing rough. “I just don’t want to disappoint you—”

  She shut him up with her lips, pressed them hard to his. Slid her hand down beneath his shorts and took him in her hand fully and felt hi
s body respond to her touch.

  “Shut up,” she said, and she kissed him again. “It’s like riding a bicycle, Burke. Just relax.”

  * * *

  It didn’t last long.

  Jess shucked her shirt and pulled Mason’s over his shoulders, and then her mouth was on his again, and her tongue, and Mason closed his eyes and kissed her back, hungrily, felt her body move on top of his and his body respond, and Jess was right, mostly—he hadn’t forgotten how, though it had been nearly half of his life since he’d done this.

  He’d spent fifteen years waiting, and it was over too soon. Mason held out as long as he could, and then he couldn’t anymore, and when it was over and she was climbing down from on top of him, he reached for her, not wanting to deny her the same as she’d given him, but she took his hands instead, stilled them, and nudged them gently away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and Jess groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “Never apologize to a woman after sex,” she told him. “Nobody wants to hear ‘sorry’ after they just hooked up.”

  “But you didn’t—”

  “I didn’t want to, Burke,” she said. “That’s not what this is about.”

  She lay back beside him and stared up at the ceiling, and he edged over to make room and looked out at the lagoon and the island beyond.

  “Why?” he asked after a while.

  Jess let it sit there a moment. “Use it in a sentence?”

  “Why us?” he asked. “Why right now?”

  She rolled onto her side, propped herself up on her elbow, the blanket falling away from her body. “Are you complaining?”

  “No,” he said, still watching the water.

  “But you still want to know why.” She sighed and lay back again, studied the ceiling some more. “Okay, Burke, I’ll tell you. But you might not like the answer.”