Tangled in the Sails

by Mark Stone

  I took a deep breath, thinking about what my grandfather had just said, and looking down at my legs, still hoisted on this hospital bed.

  “You can’t keep me here, you know,” I said, nodding firmly.

  “I figured you would say that,” Grandpa said. “That’s why I brought in reinforcements.”

  ‘Reinforcements?” I asked.

  “Come on in,” Grandpa said, looking back at the door.

  As he did, a familiar face graced my line of sight. Jack Lacey stepped through the door, a smile on his face and stubble on his cheeks.

  “Hey there, Storm,” the man said, shooting me a wink. “I hear you lost something.”

  13

  “Something tells me you’re new wife isn’t going to be very happy with the idea of you busting out of the hospital against doctor’s orders,” Jack said, jabbing a toothpick between his lips and looking over at me, his face illuminated by the afternoon sun. “She’s a surgeon or something, right?”

  “She used to be,” I answered, nodding at the man. “She quit a while back, though. Now, she’s a medical examiner.”

  “What’s the matter? Did she hate the idea of having money?” Jack scoffed, chuckling at me. “That must have been a hell of a switcheroo. You thought you were marrying a healer who could support you, and it turns out all you get is another chalk chaser, just like yourself.”

  I wasn’t offended by Jack’s use of that phrase. Lord knows I had heard worse said about police officers in my day. Still, I did take issue with his assumption that I was somehow disappointed in my wife’s choice to change her profession. Even more than that, I didn’t like the idea that he thought I had married Rebecca in order to set myself up financially or something. I couldn’t allow that to stand.

  “Money’s never meant much to me, Jack,” I said without missing a beat. “I’ve seen what cash does to people. I watched what it did to my biological father and what it continues to do to my brother. It’s never been high on my list of priorities.”

  “Just about everybody who has never had to worry about where their next meal will come from has said something like that,” he answered. “I didn’t grow up that way, though. So, I know that, regardless of what money does to people, they definitely need it.”

  “Be that as it may, it wasn’t a factor to me marrying Rebecca,” I answered. “I did that because I loved her, because I still love her.”

  “And the redhead?” Jack asked, looking over at me with raised eyebrows. “How do you feel about her? Because, given what I’ve heard around town, you could have said the same thing about her.”

  I bristled at what the man said. Still, it didn’t make it any less true.

  “At one time, you would have been right,” I admitted, shaking my head as I walked down the street next to the man. “And I do love her, just not in the way you’re probably alluding to. Not that I think it’s any of your business.”

  “I’m not alluding to anything,” Jack said. “Hell, you can love ten women at a time for all I care. Start a damn polygamist cult. I won’t judge you. I just need to know where your head is if I’m going to help you look for her.”

  “My head is in my job,” I said quickly. ‘Exactly where it should be.”

  “If that was true, you wouldn’t have almost got your ass blown to kingdom come and your boss wouldn’t chomping at the bit to chew you out,” Jack said.

  “That’s not true,” I answered. “I’m sure Boomer is fine.”

  “That’s because you didn’t see him standing over your bed while you were unconscious,” Jack said. “He was worried, sure, but he was just as pissed off as he was concerned. It was kinda funny, actually.”

  “I doubt that,” I muttered. “Why were you watching Boomer stand over my bedside?”

  “Because your grandfather called me, and I’ve found that things tend to run smoother in my investigations if I have the cooperation of the local police department.” He shrugged. “Plus, I can usually charge the state a lot more for my services than I’d be comfortable charging an old friend.”

  “Is that what we are?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the man. “Are we old friends?”

  “Close enough to split the difference,” he said. “Even if I didn’t exactly get an invitation to your wedding.”

  “Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t,” I shot back. “Who can be sure where your mail even goes, what with you moving that damn boat of yours around so much? Last I heard, you had set up shop all the way up in Savannah. Did the low country not treat you so well?”

  “Savannah’s fine,” he answered. “It’s a tourist trap, a lot like this place, and that means business is booming. I came back down here because your grandfather asked me to, and I owe that old man a favor.”

  My jaw tightened. What on earth could my grandfather have done for Jack Lacey to indebt the Finder to him? As a former Search and Rescue specialist for the United States Coast Guard, Jack was pretty self-reliant. Anything he needed done, I had always known him to do himself. Still, that was a question for another time, and I needed to move quickly if I was going to find Charlotte.

  “So, I’m assuming that you did, in fact, get the okay from Boomer to start working on this case,” I said.

  Jack Lacey beamed at me as he answered. “You’re looking at the current temporary consultant to the Collier County Police Department,” he said. “Benefits and all.”

  “Well, aren’t you lucky?” I asked, grinning sarcastically at the man.

  “I’d say you’re the lucky one, Dillon Storm,” he answered. “Because, with me in tow, you actually have a fighting chance of finding Charlotte Cooper.” He nodded at me. “Now, tell me what you know.”

  14

  “Stay still,” Rebecca said, sneering at me as she shined that damn light in my eyes. “If you’re not going to stay in the hospital long enough for the doctor to make sure you don’t have a concussion, the least you can do is let me check you myself.” She dropped the light and smirked at me. “Unless, of course, you want me to get really upset.”

  I could tell from the look on her face that she was only half kidding. My wife came from a medical background. There was nothing she adhered to more than doctor’s orders and the importance of them. Hell, she’d built her entire career around it. Until recently, she’d built her entire life around it.

  “Of course, I don’t,” I said, smiling myself. “And I appreciate your concern and your effort. I just wish you wouldn’t give me a physical in public.”

  I looked around at the crowded restaurant. We had gained more than a few eyeballs since Rebecca pulled out her light pen, though not nearly as much as she had when she used her stethoscope on me a few minutes before. It felt wrong going out to eat with Charlotte gone, like I should be working, always working. Still, the truth was I had been working all day. Well, the part of the day when I wasn’t unconscious in a hospital bed anyway. Rebecca and Boomer both made a point to tell me that there were other detectives in town who could work on this, and they were good detectives. Though I wanted Charlotte to be returned to us safely more than anything in the world, the truth was, I had to step back every once in a while, if just for long enough to grab a bite.

  “I wouldn’t have to if you’d have come home like I asked,” she said gently, putting her stuff back into her purse.

  “I was working with Jack Lacey most of the day,” I said. “Following loose threads and all that.” I took a deep breath and looked at my wife. “So, what’s the diagnosis? Something in my head all broken?”

  “Nothing that wasn’t broken before,” she joked, shaking her head. “You don’t look like you have a concussion. Though, I will admit I’ve seen sexier things than what’s going on with your nose right now.” She reached for the dressing around my broken nose. “That’s going to have to be changed soon.”

  “Good thing I know a doctor who makes house calls,” I answered.

  “Assuming, like I said, you actually manage to come home one of these days,” sh
e said. “So, what about Mr. Lacey? Is he adding anything of value to the search?”

  “The idea that you would call him Mr. Lacey is laughable,” I said, grabbing a breadstick from the table and taking a bite. “But I think he will, yeah. He just started, but he has a way of looking at things that’s unique.”

  “You do too, you know,” Rebecca said, reaching across the table and taking my hand.

  “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment or anything,” I said, biting my lower lip.

  “Oh, I know,” she answered. “I’ve seen you fish before. You wouldn’t have been nearly as successful if that was what you were doing.”

  “Ouch,” I said, my smile growing wider than it should have been, given the situation. Again, I felt a pang of guilt run through me. Charlotte could have been dead. She could have been hurt or held captive or any mix of horrible fates. And here I was laughing. Here I was enjoying a night with the woman I loved.

  It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

  I shook my head and pulled my hand away, looking down at the table.

  “You’re doing everything you can,” Rebecca said, as if she was reading my mind. “Torturing yourself over breadsticks and conversation isn’t going to help her right now.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I just wish I knew what would help her. I wish I knew if I was too late. I wish-”

  I took a deep breath and then exhaled. It probably looked like I was trying to steady myself, but the truth was, I was trying to keep tears from falling down my cheeks.

  “Hard work,” she said. “Smart work, not giving up when the rest of the world would and a little bit of grace.” She ran a hand through her hair and then placed it palm up on the table like an invitation. I took it gently. “You can do this. You will do this. You just have to stay calm. You have to come at this with a clear mind and an open heart; two things I know you have in spades. And you have to be prepared to expect the unexpected.”

  “Dillon,” a voice said from beside the table.

  I looked over, and couldn’t believe my eyes. With a start, I stood up, my chest tightening and my throat closing up. It was a good thing I had already inhaled that breadstick, because otherwise, I probably would have choked on it.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, looking over at the person who’d just called for me, none other than my half-brother, Peter Storm.

  “Nothing out of the bounds of reason,” he said, holding his hands out in front of him like a sign of surrender. “I know it’s been a difficult day. I just-I have a proposition for you.”

  “A proposition?” I asked, narrowing my eyes and glancing over at my wife. “What was it you said about expecting the unexpected?”

  15

  “What the hell are you doing here, Peter?” I asked, glaring at my brother as we stood outside the restaurant where my wife now sat. All I wanted was a little bit of peace, a bit of calm in the storm that was Charlotte’s disappearance. As it turned out, even that was too much to ask.

  “I told you,” my bastard of a half-brother said, his mouth a thin line across his angular face. “I have a proposition for you.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” I said as a wave of disgust rose up in me. “I seriously don’t. Do you have any idea what’s going on right now, Peter? Do you know the kind of hell that I, and everyone I care about, am going through?” I shook my head. “I don’t have time for your nonsense. So, whatever your proposition is, you can stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

  I started back toward the door of the restaurant. I had pulled Peter out of there almost the second he came to me. The last thing I needed was to make a scene in front of the good people of Naples. I was a public servant, after all, and much of my job depended on the citizens of this town being able to trust and count on me. Watching me scream at the walking haircut standing in front of me right now wouldn’t do much to ensure trust or confidence in them. What was more, I didn’t want my wife seeing that part of me. Rebecca and I knew each other well. We didn’t hold secrets with each other. Still, there were parts of myself that I didn’t care to throw front and center. The part of me that came out whenever I was around Peter Storm was chief among them.

  Peter took a step in the same direction, blocking my access to the door.

  I growled in response. “Am I going to have to move you, you sonofabitch?” I asked, my hands balling into fists at my side and my temperature rising at least a couple of degrees.

  “Not if you just listen,” he said. His voice didn’t break at all and held no fear. There wasn’t any anger in it either, nothing that would lead me to believe he wanted the confrontation I was offering him. If not, why would he come here, though? What would he possibly have to gain?

  “Of course, I know what’s going on,” Peter said, swallowing hard and looking down at the pavement for a split second before turning his attention back to me. “It’s why I’m here. Charlotte,” he said. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to her?”

  I narrowed my eyes, rage practically radiating out of my pores. It was so much and burned so hot that I was almost certain I wouldn’t be able to control myself.

  “Don’t say her name,” I said quickly, my jaw tightening so much that I was afraid my teeth might crack from the pressure. “Are you actually going to come here and pretend that you care about her? Did you actually come all the way out here just to fake a little bit of concern?” I shook my head. “Now is not the time to test me, Peter.”

  He took another deep breath, steadying himself where he was. It wasn’t so much a threat as it was a promise. He was going to stand his ground, and he didn’t care what I had to say about it. Of course, it had been years since he’d met my right hook.

  “It doesn’t matter whether I care about her or not,” he answered me, his voice strong and deliberate. “I’m not a monster, Dillon. I don’t want to see another human being suffer, even if that human being and I have something of a checkered past.”

  “Is that what you call your son?” I asked, taking a step toward him. “Is he just a checkered past to you?”

  “My son is why I’m here, Dillon,” he answered, not flinching from my advance. “I want Isaac.”

  “You what?” I gasped, my entire body shuddering. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “I assure you that I am not,” he said. “Isaac is my son, and I-”

  “Really?” I asked, scoffing at the spineless man. “Because, up to this point, I don’t think I’ve ever even heard you say his name. Honest to God, I’m surprised you even know it.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Peter said. “Of course, I know his name.”

  “Is that ridiculous?” I asked. “You don’t know anything else about him. You don’t know his favorite movie or what he likes on his hamburgers. You don’t know how he got the scar under his chin, and you don’t know his shoe size. Hell, you don’t even know if he’s allergic to anything. How would you even feed him?”

  “He’s not a baby,” Peter responded. “I assume the boy would tell me.”

  “That’s how I know you’re not family,” I said. “Because he wouldn’t have to tell you if you were.”

  “I honestly don’t even know what that means, Dillon,” Peter said, sighing.

  “It means you’ve never spent even an iota of time trying to get to know the boy,” I responded. “It means you’re not his family, DNA aside.”

  “That’s not what the courts would say,” Peter said, a sentence that sent a shockwave of terror through my body. There wasn’t anything my sniveling half-brother could have done to make me afraid, nothing except for that.

  “You don’t want him, Peter,” I said, my voice shaking with emotion. “You’ve never wanted him, and you’re not going to start now. Your wife would leave you. You remember telling me that, don’t you?”

  “Of course, I do,” Peter said. “I remember most things, especially the things I regret. And, in truth, I’d like to be able to say that I’m the sort of
man who could have come to this conclusion well before I finally did, but I’m not. I’ve made mistakes. I’m still making mistakes, but I saw the news earlier and it shook me to my core. I saw Charlotte’s face and the first thing I thought about was my son. That meant something to me. I think it means I need to be a different kind of man. So, I called my wife. I told her I was going to take my son in, even if that means our marriage is over.” He shook his head. “And it very well might.”

  My entire world seemed to turn on its head as I thought about what he’d just said, as I wondered what sort of credibility he might have if he did go to a court. It scared me. In fact, it positively terrified me. The idea of Isaac being taken in by a man like Peter, of being raised by a stranger and being shaped by the same sort of life that shaped my father and my half-brother was enough to make me sick to my stomach.

  “There isn’t a judge in the world that would give you custody of that boy,” I said, trying to sound more sure than I actually was. “You abandoned him. You don’t know him, and I swear, I’ll fight you tooth and nail every step of the way.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” Peter asked honestly confused.

  “Are you serious, right now?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “Because I don’t want you with him.”

  “I thought that was exactly what you wanted,” Peter balked. “Ever since you came back to town, all you’ve done is tell me how awful I am. You keep telling me how much I need to step up, and now that I’m trying to do that, you’re telling me to back off? My son’s mother is gone, and no one knows if she’s ever coming back. He needs a family, and I’m all he has left.”

  “He has me!” I said, shouting despite myself. “He has me and my grandfather!”

  “Your grandfather isn’t his family, regardless of how much he might want to be,” Peter said. “You are, and I’m sure Isaac loves you very much, but you’re not his father, and to be quite frank, you can’t give him what I can.”