The Dangerous Protector

by Janet Chapman

  “It’s great to see you, too, Frank,” Willow said, patting his whiskered cheek with a laugh. “How’s Linda?”

  The weathered old fisherman frowned, still not releasing her. “She’s got some fool notion we should retire to Florida. What in hell am I gonna do in a place that ain’t got no seasons? A man could work himself to death fishing year-round.”

  “I think retirement means that you don’t fish at all, Frank. You lie on the beach and watch all the crazy people.”

  “I’m too young to retire,” he grumbled, finally releasing her and turning to Duncan. He held out his hand. “Frank Porter. You’re the Scot who owns The Rosach, ain’t you?” He darted a glance at Willow, then looked back at Duncan. “I put twenty bucks on my girl here,” he said, nodding toward her. “Ain’t never seen no one able to pin her down long enough to reason with her.”

  “Duncan Ross,” Duncan said, shaking his hand. “And I’ve found that ya don’t try to reason with an ocean current, but simply travel with it.”

  Frank cocked his head and studied Duncan in silence through narrowed eyes, then suddenly nodded and turned away, muttering something about changing his bet when he got home.

  “We’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid,” Ray said, coming over to Willow. “Gramps is missing, and we haven’t been able to raise him on the radio. Mildred said the last she heard from him, he was eight miles past Thunder Island, following some boat he thought looked suspicious. We’ve been out helping search for him, and saw the schooner and thought we should stop and tell you.”

  Duncan stepped behind Willow and took hold of her shoulders, obviously realizing how Ray’s news affected her. “How long has he been out?” Duncan asked, drawing Ray’s attention.

  “He’s been gone since early yesterday morning. He left port just as soon as the storm had blown itself out.”

  At around the same time they had, Willow realized. But Gramps would have left from Trunk Harbor—and they had left from Puffin Harbor—a good twelve miles apart.

  “Did he say what sort of boat he was following?” Jason asked. “And why he thought it was suspicious?”

  Ray nodded. “He said it was a fishing trawler, but that he hadn’t seen it around here before. He also said it wasn’t rigged for any fish found in these waters.” Ray looked at Willow. “Gramps knows just about every fishing boat that runs this coast from Blue Hill to Winter Harbor. And if he’s suspicious, and he caught it coming away from this island, that’s enough to make me suspicious, too.”

  “And me,” Willow agreed. She turned to Duncan. “We have to help search for him.”

  “Aye,” he said, turning and rolling up the camouflage tarp to stash it away again. Jane and Jason started helping him.

  “What’s that?” Frank asked.

  “We found it in the quarry,” Willow told him. “Along with evidence that crates of pesticides had been stored there.” She looked at Ray. “Remember that ledge we used to dive off?” she asked, pointing at the west end of the pond. “We think the crates were stored on it and covered with that tarp so they wouldn’t be seen from a plane. But when cracks opened in the granite and the sea invaded, the ledge flooded, and that’s why the lobster got sick. They were being systematically poisoned with each tide.”

  Both Ray and Frank looked shocked. And quite angry. “What kind of bastard would store pesticide out here?” Frank asked.

  Willow shrugged. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. It seems whoever put the crates here came and got them sometime during the storm.”

  “That would be suicide,” Ray said.

  “But it would also be the best time to move them without being seen by anyone,” Willow pointed out. “No one else would be on the water during the storm. Gramps must have caught them leaving yesterday morning and decided to follow them. Duncan and I would have just missed them. We were out here a couple of hours after sunrise.”

  “Gramps called Mildred around six yesterday morning,” Ray told her. “But when he didn’t come home last night, and she couldn’t raise him on the radio, she started calling us. Every boat in five harbors and the Coast Guard have been searching all of last night and this morning. Gramps did tell Mildred that the boat he was following was headed east.”

  “East?” Willow repeated, frowning. “There’s a waste site forty miles east, about fifty miles inland. If that’s where they’re headed, they’ll have to transfer the crates to a truck.” She took hold of Duncan’s arm. “Does the schooner have a radio? Or did you bring your cell phone? My phone got ruined in the crash.”

  “We have a marine radio. And my cell phone is on board.”

  “Then how come we didn’t hear about Gramps on the radio?” she asked, just now realizing how quiet and isolated they’d been.

  Duncan’s face reddened. “I shut everything off, lass,” he said softly. “So you could rest undisturbed.”

  “And I shut off my own cell phone,” Jane admitted, shooting Willow a sheepish smile. “Jason asked me to turn it off when we came out in the launch yesterday. And I agreed that you could use some peace and quiet.” She held up her hand when Willow started to speak. “There’s nothing wrong with being unreachable once in a while, Willy. The world will survive without you for a few days.”

  Willow snapped her mouth shut, undecided whether she was mad at the three of them or deeply touched by their obvious concern. Had she really appeared that fragile to them?

  Maybe the better question was, was she that fragile?

  She wasn’t used to anyone looking out for her welfare. Well, except for Rachel. But sisters took care of each other; that was a given. “Was Rachel in on this?” she asked, looking from Jane to Jason to Duncan.

  All three of them silently nodded.

  Damn. She hadn’t been paying attention. She’d blindly gone along for the ride, suspecting nothing. Maybe she had been more shaken by the accident than she’d been willing to admit.

  “That boat would have made landfall and off-loaded by last night, if it was only going forty miles down the coast,” Ray said. “And the boat likely headed to Canadian waters after that.” He shifted uneasily. “We’ve got to call the Coast Guard and tell them to extend the search for Gramps farther east, all the way to the border if need be. We’ve been concentrating on the waters around Winter Harbor.”

  “I’ll call the Coast Guard,” Willow said, turning to head to the launch. “And I’m calling my boss.” She stopped and looked back at Duncan. “He’ll make up an excuse to search the waste site. I’ll have him say they’re looking for a load of heavy metal, not pesticides.”

  Duncan studied her for several seconds, obviously remembering their conversation yesterday on the schooner. Finally, he nodded, and Willow turned and walked through the trees. By the time she had the launch untied, Jane and Mickey had boarded and Jason and Duncan pushed it off the tiny beach. Ray and Frank quickly climbed into their own tiny raft and headed out to The Corncobb Lady, anchored safely away from the rocks.

  “Ray, I want you to call me at Duncan’s house,” Willow shouted just before Jason started the launch engine. “The minute you hear anything about Gramps.”

  Ray waved his hand in agreement, pulled the starter rope on his engine, and backed up and turned and headed out to his boat. Jason turned their launch and headed toward the Seven-to-Two Odds.

  Willow sat in silence, staring back at Thunder Island, and hoped with all her heart that Gramps was okay. What could be wrong that he hadn’t called home again after six A.M. yesterday morning? Were the men who had moved the crates so desperate that they’d actually harm an old man? Willow quietly made a sound of disgust. They’d been desperate enough to risk their own lives in the storm.

  Duncan reached over and covered her hands, and Willow realized she had nervously undone the Velcro laces that held her splint in place. He carefully removed it, resettled it over her wrist and around her thumb, and smoothed it snugly closed again. “They’ll find him,” he told her, wrapping his arm around her sho
ulders and leaning down to smile into her eyes. “That old salt hasn’t made his living on the water this long to be taken out by a few crooks.”

  “You don’t even know Gramps.”

  “Aye, but I do. I was there on the pier that night you went out with Cobb, when Gramps caught ya. Remember? Ya waved good-bye to me.”

  She leaned into Duncan’s warm strength. “I remember. You looked mad enough to spit nails.”

  “Not mad, Willow. Scared. You were heading out to only God knew where, into only God knew what kind of trouble, and I was helpless to protect ya.”

  She tilted her head up and smiled at him. “You appeared remarkably calm when I returned.”

  “Aye,” he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “Ya might want to keep that in mind in the future, counselor. The more furious I am, the calmer I get.”

  Willow blinked up at him. He’d been angry? She had only seen Duncan mad once, and that had been when he’d barged into the house where she was being held, to rescue her two years ago, when she’d been kidnapped. And even then his anger had been tempered with an ominously lethal control that, perversely, had made Willow feel sorry for the guy who’d been holding her hostage.

  Willow realized she had never been afraid of Duncan, not once in the two years she’d known him. Which was probably why she’d gotten in his car that morning on the Trunk Harbor pier, and easily fallen asleep, secure in the knowledge that she couldn’t be in better hands.

  Talk about blind trust. She had never not trusted Duncan with her body, her well-being, and—damn it all to hell—with her heart as well.

  But the scariest part was that Duncan was trusting his heart to her. He was either the bravest man she knew or the most reckless.

  “They’ll find Gramps safe and sound, lass,” Duncan reassured her as Jason edged the launch against the Seven-to-Two Odds. “He obviously has the heart of a warrior, to go after that boat the way he did. He’ll be okay. Please don’t look so worried.”

  Willow couldn’t bring herself to tell Duncan that it was his warrior’s heart she was worried about. So she simply let him hand her up to Jason, who was now leaning over the rail of the schooner to pull her up, since she couldn’t climb the rope ladder because of her wrist. Jane quickly scrambled up the ladder behind her, and Duncan lifted Mickey over the rail.

  Willow immediately headed toward the aft ladder. “Where’s the radio?” she asked. “And your cell phone, Duncan. I need to call John Pike.”

  “My phone is in my duffle bag,” he called to her as he walked toward the anchor line. “And as soon as we set sail, I’ll get on the radio with you to the Coast Guard.”

  “Jane, I’m going to use your laptop to find that article on my jump drive, okay? There was something in it…a name or something…that’s bugging me,” Willow said over her shoulder just as she started down the ladder. “Jason, set a course for Puffin Harbor.”

  “We’re not going to look for Gramps?” he asked. Jane and Duncan also stopped to wait for her answer.

  Willow stood on the top step and shook her head. “Every available boat on this coast is out searching. We won’t be missed if we don’t join them. I need to get home to your office, Duncan. I want to go on the Internet.”

  After two seconds of stunned silence, her three shipmates scrambled to pull anchor and get the Seven-to-Two Odds under way. Willow headed below, turned on Jane’s computer as she walked by the table, then went in search of Duncan’s cell phone while the laptop booted up.

  That article was the key to this crazy mess. It mentioned a name that had sounded familiar to her, but she hadn’t thought much of it at the time. She’d read that name again just recently…maybe in the stolen files that Karen had downloaded for her.

  Willow rifled through Duncan’s duffle bag, only to suddenly stop in mid-search and hold up a box of condoms. Good lord, between Rachel’s supply and Duncan’s stash, they could have sailed to Europe and back without having to stop for birth control. Willow wondered if everyone was trying to send her a message that she was simply too dense to get.

  “What was the file name of that article?” Jane called from the galley. “I’ll find it for you.”

  Willow tossed the condoms back in the bag. “I think Karen named it Interesting or something silly like that,” she called back, once again rummaging through Duncan’s bag for his cell phone. She finally found it and headed back to the galley, where she found Jane already reading the computer screen.

  “It’s an article about a guy named Brent Graham. It says that the attorney general of New York convicted Graham of bribery when he bought off two state officials.” Jane snorted and shook her head. “Of all the…The guy was trying to get a trash incinerator plant built in the Adirondacks.”

  “Graham. Graham,” Willow repeated, sliding into the booth beside Jane. She pointed at the screen. “Open the file named Lost Lamb One and see what it is.”

  Jane clicked a few buttons, and an application for a waste disposal site dated four years ago popped up on the screen. “There he is,” Willow said, tapping the bottom of the screen. “Brent Graham is the one who applied for the license.”

  Jane scrolled down the document. “It says he was denied.”

  Willow nodded. “Something about an underwater aquifer. Open the file named Lost Lamb Two and see what it is.”

  Jane did, and together they read the new document as Jane scrolled down. It was an approval for the Kingston Corporation to open a waste disposal site in eastern Maine. The same site, Willow realized, that was just forty miles down the coast and fifty miles inland.

  “Keep scrolling,” she told Jane. “There. Stop.” She pointed at the screen. “Brent Graham is listed as one of the corporate officers. That’s it. His name was muddied from the New York conviction, so they buried him deep in the paperwork.”

  “So?” Jane asked, looking at Willow. “It’s not a crime to be tenacious. The guy is obviously in the trash business, and he simply stepped aside so the new application could go through. You told me that the Kingston waste site is reported to be in complete compliance.”

  “Yeah, but Kingston’s silent partner, Brent Graham, has already proven himself to be a crook. Tenacious is probably the right word,” Willow agreed with a nod. “Graham changed states, and changed from incineration to landfill, but that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly found religion. He’s already tried taking the easy way by bribing officials; what’s to stop him from shuffling a few crates of pesticides around until he can get his site approved?”

  “But wouldn’t it have been easier to just dump them out at sea? Why go through all that trouble of storing them and then moving them later?”

  Willow pointed at the screen again. “Three of those names listed as Kingston officers are upstanding citizens of Maine. Hell, one of them—this guy,” she said, tapping the screen, “ran for governor under the Green Party ticket two elections ago.”

  Jane leaned forward and squinted at the screen. “My God, you’re right. I remember him. Hell, I voted for him. Now he’s on the board of a trash dump?”

  “He might be the best thing that happened to the Kingston Corporation,” Willow pointed out. “He’s going to see that they police themselves better than our field inspectors could. I know Edward Simmons personally, and he’s a good man.”

  “Who just happens to be in bed with a crook,” Jane reminded her. She nodded at the cell phone Willow had set on the table. “What are you going to tell your boss?”

  “Everything I know or suspect to this point.”

  “So now you’ll officially call in the Lobster Institute and let us monitor the water around Thunder Island? We need to study them for any lasting effects.”

  “Consider yourself officially called in.”

  “So my exile is over? I can return to work?”

  Willow immediately shook her head. “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings, Jane. Until everyone is rounded up, none of us is safe.”

  “Including Gramps,” Jane whi
spered, her eyes darkening with concern. “I used to haunt the docks as a kid, and Gramps would bring me odd specimens he caught in his traps so I could study them. He gave me a four-legged starfish one day, and told me to watch it grow back its lost limb. That damn starfish lived in my saltwater aquarium for six months, but Gramps talked me into returning it to the sea when it was whole again.”

  Willow reached out and hugged Jane. “They’ll find him,” she whispered. “Safe and sound. Duncan said old salts don’t get taken down by crooks. Gramps is a wily one. He’ll come floating home on his own once he’s had his adventure.”

  “God, I hope so,” Jane returned with a sob, hugging her back. “I can’t imagine this coast without him. He’s been a fixture in the community forever.”

  “And that’s why everyone is out looking for him,” Willow said, pulling away and patting Jane’s shoulder. She picked up the cell phone. “I’ve got to call my boss. He’s got to get someone out to that site before they bury those crates.”

  Jane got up and started rummaging around in the cupboards for something to eat. The Seven-to-Two Odds gave a creaking moan and listed to port as the sails snapped, catching the full force of the wind. Willow punched in John Pike’s number just as the schooner turned and started plowing northwest through the sea.

  Twenty-two miles as the seagull flew, from Thunder Island to Puffin Harbor, and Willow sighed as she listened to her boss’s phone ring, realizing that it would probably take the entire trip to persuade John to let her remain in charge of this case.

  It wouldn’t be an easy sell, considering their last conversation, when John had pointed out that Willow was now known across the state as a drunk driver. She had been publicly disgraced and her credibility as an assistant AG was shot.