The Dangerous Protector

by Janet Chapman

  “And you, counselor, are a brat.”

  He kissed her again, this time on the mouth, but so quickly Willow didn’t have time to react before she was suddenly let loose and he was gone. She turned and watched him jog up the path and disappear through the trees.

  “You are not diving!” she shouted after him.

  “Quit pacing, Willy. You’re wearing a rut in the rocks.”

  Willow stopped and glared at Jane, then turned her glare on the tiny bubbles breaking the surface of the muddy pond. Dammit, when had she lost control of this operation?

  When she had asked Duncan to come along, that’s when. She should have known he’d take over, what with his maddening need to protect her. Oh yes, she understood he was diving despite her objections because he wanted this mystery solved now.

  And since the crash, Willow had to admit that she truly might be in danger. Apparently, whatever this crime was, it had far-reaching ramifications if those involved were willing to go after someone in the AG’s office.

  Willow sat down on a large rock near the rim of the quarry, propped her elbows on her knees, and cupped her chin in her palms to stare down at the rising bubbles. What stupid little piece of the puzzle was she missing? This wasn’t merely an illegal dumping of toxic chemicals; this had to be more than a random, single occurrence. “That’s it,” she said, jumping back to her feet.

  Jane looked up from her camera screen. “That’s what?”

  “This isn’t an isolated incident.”

  Jane’s face paled as she looked around. “You think there’s more waste dumped around here?”

  “Not necessarily here,” Willow said. “It could be on some of the other islands, too. Why else are they trying so hard to stop my investigation? There have to be other dumps.”

  “But this coast is covered from Canada to New Hampshire by lobstermen this time of year. And nobody has come forward with any more sick lobster.”

  Willow turned and frowned down at the bubbles again. Jane was right. “Unless the other dumps aren’t leaking.” She looked back at Jane. “We have to check the other islands.”

  “That’s going to take a whole lot of manpower,” Jane said. “There are over two thousand islands off the Maine coast. And most of them are uninhabited.”

  A dark shadow rose to the surface of the pond and a masked face appeared in a flurry of bubbles. Willow scooted to the edge, lay down on her stomach, and peered over the rim of the quarry.

  Jason slid his face mask up on his hooded forehead and spit out his mouthpiece. “It’s a veritable dump down there,” he said. “We found several bicycles, two lawn chairs, a mattress, and enough beer cans to build a boat. Who the hell lugs that kind of stuff out to an island?”

  “Teenagers,” Jane said succinctly, also lying on her belly to peer over the edge. “Did you find anything else, Jason? Any barrels? Wooden crates? Large bags or sheets of plastic?”

  Jason looked surprised. “We did see some large plastic sheets. Why? Is it important? I thought we were looking for barrels or crates.”

  “Wooden crates would have been lined with plastic if the chemicals were in powder form.”

  Treading water, Jason slipped his mask back over his face and reached for his mouthpiece.

  “Wait!” Jane shouted, motioning for Jason to lift his mask again. “Don’t put that back in your mouth. It could be contaminated. Here,” she said, scooting over to grab a water bottle. She tossed it down to him. “Rinse it off first.”

  “Why, Einstein, you really do care,” he said, pouring the water over his mouthpiece. He popped it in his mouth, capped the bottle, and floated over to the wall of the quarry and set the bottle on a tiny ledge.

  “Where’s Duncan?” Willow called down to him.

  Jason took out his mouthpiece, holding it above the water, and grinned up at her. “He found a wide ledge on the west wall that had several scrape marks on it. He’s checking it out.”

  “You guys have been down there over twenty minutes,” Willow informed him. “It’s time you came out.”

  “Soon,” he said, replacing his mouthpiece and sliding his mask back down, smartly dismissing her by simply sinking below the surface again.

  “They’re fine, Willy,” Jane said softly, looking along the rim toward her. “I’ve explored a lot of quarries. It’s almost like diving in a swimming pool.”

  Willow scanned her gaze across the pond. “This place is going to be overrun with teenagers in another few weeks. We’re going to have to find a way to keep them out.”

  Jane snorted and returned to her equipment. “That’ll be like trying to hold back the tide.” She took control of the underwater robot and started guiding the camera again. Despite the murky water, she’d been able to skim the bottom with the powerful lights on the camera. So far, they’d only seen one of the bicycles Jason had told them about and several beer cans.

  “We used to have some great times here, didn’t we?” Jane said as she watched the screen.

  Willow went back to watching the bubbles, noticing that Jason’s bubbles were heading toward the west end of the quarry, to where Duncan’s bubbles were rising. “Yeah, we did,” Willow agreed, looking over to her friend. “How come you aren’t married?”

  There was a moment’s silence, then Jane chuckled. “I came close once. But just in the nick of time, I realized he might like me, but he didn’t have a clue what to do with my brain. It was his loss,” Jane continued with a shrug. “I just can’t seem to find a guy who…who fits. You know what I mean?” She glanced toward the bubbles, then looked back at Willow with a crooked smile. “Maybe I’ll give that gray-eyed devil a whirl, and see if he knows what to do with my brain.” She lifted a brow. “What about you, Willy? Duncan seems like a really good fit. He’s gorgeous as all get-out, intelligent, and he obviously loves you.”

  “He’s bossy, overprotective, and he’s got it in his head that I’m supposed to love him back.”

  Jane just stared at her, open-mouthed. “Oh, Willy,” she said softly, her eyes darkening with concern. “Brad died over ten years ago. You can’t keep letting your parents’ and his deaths affect the rest of your life. Not falling in love isn’t going to keep you immune to tragedies.”

  “It can avoid a good many of them.”

  “No,” Jane said, shaking her head. “It only makes for a lonely life.”

  “I’m not lonely. I have Rachel and Mikaela and Nick. And they’re enough for me to worry about without adding Duncan Ross.” Willow sat up and faced Jane. “I just know that if I go to sleep in Duncan’s arms every night, sit across the table from him every morning and evening, and have his babies, I’ll be so consumed by him that I will lose myself.”

  “Or you’ll find yourself,” Jane softly suggested. “Being part of a couple isn’t a weakness, Willy—it’s empowering.”

  Willow snorted. “Said one spinster to the other.”

  “I’ve never deeply loved a man, but I damn well know that I intend to one day. And when I find him, he’s not going to know what hit him.” She pointed at Willow. “And if you would just use that intelligence God gave you, you’d pounce on Duncan before he realizes what a brat you really are.”

  “Too late,” Willow said with a heavy sigh. “He already knows.”

  Jane smiled back. “And he still wants you?”

  “What he wants is for me to propose to him. Down on my knees, I imagine, with candlelight and roses and wine.”

  Jane lifted her hand to cover her laughter. “Oh, Willy. How can you not—”

  Mickey let out a sharp “Woof” from across the quarry. Willow looked over to see him standing on the opposite side, staring down at the water. Both Jane and Willow scrambled to their feet.

  “Where do you suppose he’s been all this time?” Jane asked, quickly reeling in the line attached to her remote camera.

  “Exploring, most likely,” Willow said, moving down the rim to where Duncan and Jason were surfacing. “Hey, I think they found something.”r />
  “Grab a rope, Willow,” Duncan shouted.

  Willow ran back, grabbed a coil of rope, and rushed back along the rim until she was standing over the two men.

  “Toss me down one end,” he told her, treading his way to the wall. He grinned up at her. “See, counselor, I survived.”

  “I’m still writing you up for insubordination, and putting it in your file.”

  “I have a file?”

  She held her thumb and index finger two inches apart and nodded. “It’s really thick, Dunky. And it’s getting thicker all the time.”

  “Then maybe you’ll want to start a new file. One for my more outstanding accomplishments.”

  She made a production of rolling her eyes. “Just get out of the water,” she said, tossing down one end of the rope.

  “Tie your end to one of the pines,” Jason instructed, holding his mouthpiece safely above the water. He popped it back in and sank below the surface again.

  Jane came up beside Willow. “Don’t put that back in your mouth,” Jane said to Duncan as he reached for his own mouthpiece. “It’s contaminated. Let Jason tie off what you found.”

  Apparently, Duncan was willing to take orders from Jane. He dropped the mouthpiece and started swimming toward the old access road that ran down into the quarry at the opposite end. Willow tied off her end of the rope on a pine tree and ran to meet him.

  “I’ll wait until Jason surfaces,” Jane hollered to her. “Have Duncan take off his flippers, but make him keep his suit on. Take him to the ocean and have him get in and wash off his equipment.”

  Without stopping, Willow waved her hand that she’d heard, and rounded the edge of the quarry in time to meet up with Mickey. They both walked down the access road just as Duncan came walking out of the water.

  Willow didn’t know how he could even stand upright with all that heavy equipment on, much less walk. He looked like an alien from another world, ten feet tall and bulletproof. He also looked damn good to her—every stubborn, exasperating inch.

  “Jane said you have to go jump in the ocean to rinse off,” she told him, trying to take his flippers.

  “Don’t touch them, then,” he said, moving them out of her reach. “I found a ledge that looked like it had crates stored on it at one time,” he told her as they started walking up the road. “It’s high tide now, so that means the ledge would have been above the normal waterline before the sea invaded the quarry.”

  Willow stopped walking. “You’re saying the crates weren’t just dumped, but stored on a ledge above the water?”

  He nodded and continued walking. “Aye. It’s possible whoever put them there thought they’d be safe and dry, and pose no danger.” He shrugged his shoulders to straighten his tanks over his back. “Maybe the dump was just temporary, but the quarry flooded before they could move them.”

  Willow ran ahead and held back the branches of a scrub pine so Duncan could step through. “What is Jason hauling up?”

  They stopped on the narrow strip of beach and Duncan dropped his flippers into the softly ebbing high tide. “I found some slats of wood on the bottom of the quarry, just below the ledge. One of the crates must have fallen. Jason found a large sheet of camouflage material and some plastic, and I found this,” he said, pulling something from his belt. “It was with the wood on the bottom.”

  She reached for it, but he turned and stepped into the water, bent down and swirled it around to rinse it off, then held it out to her. “It looks like a bill of lading from one of the crates. The paper inside is wet, but the plastic sleeve has kept it intact.”

  Willow took the packet and tried to make out what it said through the plastic sleeve. Duncan turned again and walked into the ocean until he was thigh deep, then simply sat down and started splashing himself with seawater.

  Willow set the packet beside a rock and turned to watch him unbuckle his heavy tanks and let them slip off his broad shoulders. He swirled the tanks through the water while running his hand over them, then sat them on a seaweed-covered rock. His weight belt quickly followed, then his mask, gloves, and the knife holster he had strapped to his thigh, until he was down to only his suit. He turned and dove under the water with a powerful kick, then stood up with just his head and shoulders above the surface, and smiled at her. “Ya want to come in for a swim?” he asked, wiggling his fingers at her. “It’ll wash away yar black mood.”

  “My mood is just fine,” she said, setting her hands on her hips. “And I intend to stay mad at you for a long time.”

  He walked back to shore in silence, continuing out of the water until he was standing right in front of her, and ran one cold, wet finger down her cheek, his fierce green eyes locked on hers. “Aye, Willow. Anger is yar only defense,” he said softly. “So hold on to it for as long as ya need to, lass, while I do what I need to do to keep ya safe. If it means diving in a quarry, then you’re just going to have to deal with it. But I promise, I will never take foolish risks. Not when I know you’re waiting for me to come back.”

  Dammit, he was a master at disarming her. She was so mad at him she could spit, and so damn grateful he was okay she wanted to kiss him senseless. “You’re making me nuts,” she snapped, stepping back and turning to pick up the packet. She pointed it at him. “And the only engagement token you’re ever getting from me, Duncan Ross, is a ticket back to Scotland.”

  He broke into a sudden grin and scratched his chest through his dry suit. “That’s a great engagement gift, lass. Scotland would be a perfect place for our honeymoon,” he said. “I can’t wait to show ya around.”

  Willow just gaped at him. Either the guy was denser than dirt or he was determined to push her anger over the edge. “Ooohhh!” she hissed, spinning on her heel and stomping through the dense pine, his soft laughter propelling her into a run.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Willow sat quietly at the small table in the belly of the Seven-to-Two Odds and watched as Jane tried to separate the wet bill of lading from its plastic sleeve.

  “So where’d the name Seven-to-Two-Odds come from?” Jane asked as she used the tweezers to slowly peel back the sleeve without damaging the fragile paper inside.

  Willow leaned closer, watching Jane’s meticulous progress. “Rachel and Kee, Duncan, Jason, Matt, Peter, and Luke are the seven,” she explained. “And Mikaela and Nick are the two. The schooner used to be called the Six-to-One Odds before Rae and Nick came along and Kee had to rename her.”

  “So who’s winning?” Jane asked, darting Willow a quick grin before returning to her task.

  “The kids,” Willow said with a laugh just as the paper finally came free.

  “It’s not a shipping label,” Jane said, using the tweezers to carefully unfold the soaked paper. “It’s a warning insert.”

  They suddenly both had to grab the edge of the table to steady themselves when the schooner rose on a wave and dropped into a deep trough. Willow caught Jane’s PDA as it slid by her elbow, and Mickey slid across the floor and into her foot with a disgruntled growl, sighed, and went back to sleep.

  “Are you sure they know what they’re doing?” Jane asked. “Maybe I should go up and help them before we sail right past the Pilot Islands.”

  “They know what they’re doing,” Willow assured her. “They used to live on the Seven-to-Two Odds. What do you mean, it’s a warning insert?”

  Jane turned her attention back to the paper. “Just that. You know, like the insert that comes with medication, listing its chemical makeup, affects, and what to do if ingested.” She then began to silently study the paper.

  “Well, does it say what we’re dealing with?”

  “A pesticide,” Jane said, still scanning the fine print. She finally looked at Willow, tapping the paper. “It’s in a concentrated form, and I’m pretty sure this particular pesticide was banned about five or six years ago. I think it was found to be detrimental to livestock who ate the feed it had been used on. I’ll have to go online to be sure.”

&nbs
p; “It’s agricultural, then?” Willow asked.

  “Most pesticides are. But yes, this one was used mainly by U.S. corn growers until it was banned, if I remember correctly. They probably hired Kingston Corp to dispose of all their remaining stock.”

  “Does the insert have a manufacturer and lot number that would pinpoint its origin?”

  Jane went back to examining the insert, turning it over with the tweezers again and scanning the other side. “It did,” she said, shaking her head. “But only two of the numbers and one letter are still visible. The rest were ruined by the water.” She pointed at the frayed top right corner. “It’s eroded away.”

  Willow heaved a weary sigh. “Damn. Of all the bad luck.”

  “No, this is good luck, Willy. At least now we know what we’re dealing with. And because the guys went diving, we also know there’s none of it left in the quarry. The half-life of these pesticides is rather short, and now that we know the source is gone, the tides and mother nature will clean up after herself. The lobster will recover.”

  “But we still don’t know how it got here in the first place,” Willow pointed out. “If I could just find where it came from I could follow the paper trail. If it was banned, then its disposal must have been contracted to a licensed site. But I need to know who manufactured it.”

  “You can follow a paper trail even if it comes from overseas?”

  “What?” Willow asked, alarmed. “Is that likely?”

  “Sure. A lot of fertilizer and pesticides used in the U.S. are manufactured overseas, because environmental restrictions are lighter for the companies. And labor’s cheap.”

  “Damn.” Willow set her elbows on the table, cupped her hands over her face, and scrubbed her forehead in frustration. The schooner took another dive into a deep trough, and Willow ended up in Jane’s lap, the paper, PDA, and tweezers ended up on the floor, and Mickey slid into the cupboards with a surprised yelp.

  “That does it,” Jane snapped, scrambling out from behind the table. “I’m throwing them overboard and taking the wheel.”