He sat up, bringing her with him and smiling as he brushed the hair off her scowling face. “We’re going to have to work on your waking up in a better mood.”
“We, ah, could practice right now,” she said, lazily running her fingers down the length of his ribs.
Duncan stopped her before she reached her potential target. He scooted off the bunk, again pulling her with him, and stood her on her feet. “The shower’s just big enough for a squirrel to bathe in,” he told her, turning Willow toward the head. “I’ll have yar suitcase sitting open on the bunk when ya get done. Leave it there so I can stow it later. I still don’t want ya lifting anything heavier than a coffee mug,” he finished, giving her a pat on the backside to get her moving.
She wrapped the blanket around herself and sashayed down the length of the rocking ship with the poise of a drunken sailor. “I’m going to like being waited on hand and foot for the rest of the week.” She stopped at the door to the shower, her chin lifted so she was looking down her nose at him. “I didn’t get any breakfast this morning.”
Duncan slipped into his pants, found his shirt, and shrugged it on. “Can Jane cook?” he asked.
Willow shook her head with a crooked smile. “She can’t even butter toast. I guess it’s up to you men to feed us.”
He stopped from tucking his shirt in his pants. “Remind me again why we brought you women along?”
“You mean, why we brought you guys along,” she shot back, her smile widening even more. “We women are the brains of this little operation. And Jason and you,” she said, pointing an imperial finger at him, “are the brawn.”
That said, she hiked her blanket up with a flourish and disappeared into the shower. Duncan was left scowling at her when something bumped into the side of the ship.
“Ahoy the boat!” Jason shouted. “We could use some help out here.”
Duncan scooped up his shoes and used the forward ladder to climb on deck just in time to see Jane Huntley come shooting over the rail with a startled shriek. She immediately spun around, rubbing her backside, and scowled down at Jason.
“I am perfectly capable of boarding without your help,” she told him, only to turn her scowl on Duncan when she heard him chuckle. “I was born on a boat.”
Jason crawled over the rail next, and Duncan noticed that his friend’s clothes were wet, his hair was windblown as if it had dried on the ride out, his eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were blue.
“Born on a boat?” Jason growled, shrugging his shivering body. “More likely you were spewed from the sea.”
Duncan sat down and put on his shoes. Jane turned with a harrumph and headed aft to go below, stopping only long enough to give Mickey a pat and urge him to follow her.
“Decide to bathe in the ocean this morning?” Duncan asked, lifting an inquiring brow.
Jason unzipped his wet jacket, peeled it off, and pointed at the stern of the ship. “That witch bumped me off the pier on purpose.”
“The nerve of her, blindsiding you without provocation,” Duncan said, shaking his head in utter disgust.
Jason’s frozen-pale face darkened. “All I did was make a perfectly innocent comment, and the next thing I know I’m swimming in forty-degree water.” He peeled off his shirt and threw it onto the deck. “I just wondered out loud if a Mae West life vest might be redundant for her.”
Duncan just stared at his shivering friend.
Jason unlaced his boots, emptied out the water, then undid his pants and struggled to peel them off. He had to sit down beside Duncan so as not to fall down, and bent and pulled the wet jeans off over his feet. He straightened and glared at Duncan, his teeth chattering and his eyes narrowed. “The woman is built like an Amazon,” Jason said. “She’s got to know that. And she’s got to be used to men giving her compliments.”
“So telling her she’s got a chest like a Mae West life vest is a compliment?” Duncan asked. He shook his head. “You’ve been at sea too long, my friend.”
Jason stood up—wearing nothing but wet boxers, socks, and goose bumps—and looked over the rail. “I need my duffle bag.” He turned back to Duncan. “And I’m so numb now, I’ll likely take another swim while trying to get it.”
Duncan heaved himself up with a sigh and climbed over the rail and down to the inflatable launch. One by one, he threw up Jason’s bag and the many bags and metal cases that apparently Jane Huntley couldn’t live without.
It looked as if they were in for an interesting few days.
Chapter Thirteen
“It’s nice to see that some things never change.” Willow mimicked Jane’s stance, her feet spread and her hands on her hips, as they both stared down at the old quarry pond. “Other than that tidal line showing, this place is exactly the same,” Willow agreed. “The water is awful muddy, though. Do you suppose the storm riled it up?” can’t
Jane lifted her hands in question. “I can’t imagine why, since it’s protected in here, unless more than just a crack in the granite is letting the ocean in. Maybe there’s actually a cave. That would be enough to churn up the bottom and make it this murky.”
“But we covered every inch of this island in high school and never came across any caves. They don’t just suddenly appear,” Willow said, squinting through the sunlight at her friend. “They’re either dug by man or formed by eons-old eruptions, aren’t they?”
Jane slowly moved along the edge of the twenty-foot cliff while looking down the sheer wall of the quarry. “After you told me about the pond suddenly having a tidal line, I checked geological records for seismic activity along the coast in the last ten years.” She spoke over her shoulder to Willow. “There were several tremors last winter, some of them big enough to open some good-size cracks.”
“Maine doesn’t have earthquakes,” Willow said, surprised.
Jane stopped walking and turned to smile at her. “Sure we do. One theory is that a glacier from the last ice age, over a mile thick in places, depressed the land with its massive weight to the point that the ground is still rebounding. They’re not quakes in the sense that plates are sliding past each other, but simply the earth shrugging out the kinks.”
Willow angled her head. “And there were several of these tremors near here last winter?”
“That’s what my research said. In both December and January.”
“And if they were strong enough to open up cracks in this quarry, and there really is something down there,” Willow surmised, pointing at the murky water, “it makes sense that it’s being washed into the sea with every tide. And the timing is right. The sick lobster just started showing up this spring.”
“They would have shown up this winter,” Jane clarified, “but fishermen don’t set traps around here then, because lobster head out to deeper water in the winter.”
Willow also started walking along the cliff, but in the opposite direction of Jane. She scanned the craggy sides of the quarry while trying to see into the usually clear but now murky water.
“If ya fall, I’m not jumping in to save ya,” Duncan said as he stepped through the thick pines and set down the two metal cases he’d carried up from the launch.
“You’d let me drown?” Willow asked, turning to grin at him.
“I might throw ya a rope.”
“Which I’d use to pull you in with me,” she countered.
“My entire diving suit, tanks included, doesn’t weigh as much as this stuff,” Jason said, also breaking through the pines and dumping his load on the moss-covered ground.
“Be careful with that,” Jane hissed, rushing over to pick up one of the metal cases. “These are very delicate instruments.”
“In well-padded cases,” Jason reminded her. He hunched down and watched as Jane started to set up her equipment. “Your precious camera survived Willow’s crash—I think it can survive my handling. Not that it’s going to be helpful. The water’s too muddy to see anything.”
The rest of their conversation was lost on Willow as s
he limped farther along the quarry edge, ducking under branches and being careful she didn’t slip. The quarry was as long as two football fields and half again as wide. It sat at the west end of Thunder Island, on the highest section of ground, and was just a stone’s throw away from the shoreline. The center of the island was littered with rotting buildings, broken blocks of granite and tailings, and a rusty old rail line that ran from the quarry down to a granite pier that jutted a good fifty yards into the sea.
The east end of Thunder Island sharply tapered off to a series of ledges, where the tide frothed in powerfully breaking waves that kept the rocks washed clean of even the most tenacious sea life. Rugosa roses, scrub pine, low-growing blueberry bushes, and a lush carpet of thick moss and saw grass provided a parklike feel to the island. There were also plenty of rather noisy seagulls flittering about, apparently as happy as Willow to see the storm gone.
“Didn’t ya say Ray Cobb and his friend already searched this island?” Duncan asked, moving up behind her.
Willow kept walking along the perimeter of the quarry. “Ray said they searched it three times.” She suddenly stopped. “But I doubt if they saw this,” she said, pointing at the ground. “What does that look like to you?”
Duncan stepped up beside her and studied the ground she was pointing at. “Those are drag marks,” he said, moving closer and hunching down to touch the disturbed moss. “Something heavy was dragged across here. In that direction,” he added, pointing toward the shoreline. He stood, looked at the marks that came from the edge of the quarry, then visually followed their path into the trees. Finally, he walked to the pond rim, hunched down again, and touched the scraped edge of the cliff.
“This is recent,” he said, looking back and pointing at the marks moving past Willow. “They were made during the storm, is my guess. See how the granite is all muddy from the chewed up moss? Something was hauled out of the quarry and dragged away.”
He stood and came back to Willow, taking hold of her hand as he walked past, and led her through the trees, following the now obvious path. They walked for several yards and came out on the rocky shoreline. “Whatever it was, they loaded it onto a waiting boat.”
“During the storm? But that would be all but impossible. The surf would have been too rough.”
“The winds were out of the northeast,” he said, looking around. “This side of the island was in the lee.” He pointed at a tiny cove the size of his house, where the incoming tide was breaking in spewing waves. “There. See how the moss is disturbed all the way down to the high-water mark? They landed right there and loaded their cargo.”
“But during the storm?”
He looked at her. “What better time, counselor, if ya’re not wanting anyone to see you? No one in their right mind goes to sea during a nor’easter.”
“Except criminals with enough to lose that it’s worth risking their lives,” she growled, turning to start back through the trees.
But Duncan stopped her by pulling her into his arms. “And desperate enough to run you off the road,” he added. “It looks like yar hunch was right, Willow. And it also looks like they’re trying to get rid of the evidence.”
She leaned back in his embrace and smiled. “I’m going to get them. I’m going to build a case against them that a spider won’t be able to slip through.”
“Can we call in yar investigators now?”
Her smile disappeared. “Not yet. Not until I can give them a direction to look in. Drag marks are not a smoking gun. We have to know what they took out of that quarry, so we know who we’re after.”
Duncan sighed and tucked her head in the crook of his neck. “Three days, counselor, and then I’m visiting your boss and telling him what you’re doing.”
“Too late,” she mumbled. “I told John everything on the phone yesterday.” She leaned back and smiled up at him. “He gave me the rest of the week to look into things down here.”
Duncan tapped the end of her nose. “But I’m only giving ya three days,” he repeated. “And I’m sticking to your side like a Siamese twin.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that,” she whispered, pulling his face down as she stretched up to kiss him.
He was very obliging, and bent to meet her mouth, tightening his arms around her and tilting her head so he could deepen their kiss. Every riotous sensation she’d felt this morning welled up inside her, and Willow responded with the same passionate urgency that consumed her every time Duncan touched her. Hell, who was she kidding? She got hot and mushy if he even stepped into her field of vision.
“I’ve decided to be a marine biologist when I grow up,” Jason said. “They get to play with really neat toys.”
Duncan broke the kiss with a sigh and tucked Willow’s head back under his chin, not letting her turn to Jason. “Ya already have a master’s in computer science,” Duncan said. “And ya would have had your doctorate if ya hadn’t run off with the dean’s wife.”
Willow popped her head up and twisted in Duncan’s arms. “You have your master’s degree, Jason?” She suddenly frowned. “And you had an affair with a married woman?”
“I didn’t sleep with her,” Jason said, glaring at Duncan before looking at Willow and shrugging. “She was unhappy, and I only helped her out of a bad situation.” Apparently wishing to drop the subject, Jason pointed through the trees. “I’ve figured out why the pond is muddy. Divers riled it up.”
“How do you know that?” Willow asked.
Jason held up his hand, and she noticed for the first time that he was holding something the size of a football. “This rock has lead scrapings on it. I found it about eight feet from the quarry, right beside the path.”
“They pulled lead out of the water?” Willow asked.
“I doubt it,” Jason said, shaking his head. “This rock also has yellow paint on it, which probably came from diving weights. And I found a footprint in the mud that was definitely made by a diving boot. My guess is they used dry gear and bell helmets. If the water is contaminated, that’s the safest way to go in.”
“Has Jane set up the underwater camera?” Willow asked.
“Yes. But it’s murky straight to the bottom. She’s taking water samples now.” He looked at Duncan. “We can go down. We have the equipment.”
“No,” Willow said, turning back to Duncan. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Dangerous how, lass? It’s only a quarry pond.”
“If your suit springs a leak, you could get sick just like the lobsters and crabs.”
“If our suit gets a leak, we’ll be the first to know it and we’ll surface.”
“No,” she said, stepping back and crossing her arms under her breasts. “Until I know what is—or was—down there, you’re not going in.”
“If we don’t dive, we may never know,” Jason pointed out.
Willow spun to face him. “I’ll call in the state’s dive team, then. They can search the quarry.”
“Why is it okay for them to dive and not us?” Duncan asked, causing Willow to spin back to him. “We’re just as capable as they are.”
Yes. Why was she willing to risk men she didn’t know? “Because it’s their job,” she snapped.
Duncan suddenly smiled—not at all nicely—and crossed his own arms over his chest. “Careful, counselor,” he said softly. “I might think ya’re starting to care for me, and it just might go to my head.”
“Dammit, Duncan!” She stomped her foot in frustration, knowing damn well he wasn’t going to listen to her. “This is my operation, and you are not diving.”
He stared at her in silence for several heartbeats, his eyes dark and unreadable, then suddenly looked past her to Jason. “Go tell Jane we’re diving, then I’ll help ya get our equipment off the Seven-to-Two Odds.”
“No!”
Duncan took hold of her shoulders when she shouted at Jason, and turned her back to face him. “We’ll be perfectly safe,” he told her. “We won’t be down more than half an hour.”
<
br /> Willow gathered the front of his heavy sweater in her good fist. “Don’t do this, Duncan. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
He kissed her forehead. “Maybe I have to prove something to myself, lass.” He wrapped his arms around her again and gently held her against him as he spoke into her hair. “Haven’t ya noticed that I’ve never asked ya to marry me, Willow?”
She frowned into his shoulder. She knew he was changing the subject with the intent to distract her, but he had certainly gone about it quite effectively. “I—I’ve noticed,” she said just as softly, leaning back to look up at him.
“And have ya not wondered why?”
Her frown deepened. “Because you’d rather get the whole town to ask for you.”
He shook his head, his face reddening slightly. “I swear I don’t know how that rumor got started. I can only promise you that it wasn’t from me. I’m never going to ask ya to marry me, Willow.”
“You’re not? Never?” She cocked her head, eying him suspiciously. “Never say never, Dunky.”
He suddenly smiled. “You’re learning, counselor.”
“So you don’t want to marry me? Then what was all that talk about children and grandchildren?”
“Just talk. Giving ya something to think about.”
“But shouldn’t these children be born in wedlock?”
“Aye,” he said, nodding. “But there can’t be a wedding unless one of us proposes.”
Willow leaned as far back in his embrace as he would let her. “Me?” she gasped, realization dawning. “You expect me to propose to you?”
He nodded, the devil himself smiling from his eyes. “With romance, and an engagement token befitting a true gentleman.”
She was utterly and completely shocked. He expected her to propose to him? “Are you crazy?”
His smile never wavering and his eyes all but dancing, Duncan slowly shook his head. “A man needs to be needed, Willow. And I,” he said, squeezing her shoulders, “need ya to ask for my hand in marriage.”
She didn’t know whether to kick him or burst out laughing, so she reached up and patted his cheek. “Oh, Duncan. You really are a troglodyte.”
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