by Sue Pethick
He heard a familiar voice hailing the ship and hurried back topside. Kallik was on deck, duffel bag in hand, staring at the tangle of lines that coiled around his ankles like vipers.
“This is the sorriest, most lubberly looking place I have ever seen.”
Kallik had spent ten years in the navy before returning to Ketchikan. The habits of neatness and order were deeply ingrained.
“Where’s the rest of the crew?” he asked.
“Engineer’s in the galley, Hollander’s out looking for another hand to replace a guy who broke his leg on the return trip.”
“That must have been where he was going when I got here. He came out of the harbormaster’s hut looking like a wet cat.”
Sam grabbed a line and started separating it from the rest of the tangle on deck.
“Go stow your gear and give me a hand with this, will you?”
While Kallik headed down to the crew’s quarters, Sam did a quick inspection of the winch, looking for any obvious signs of weakness in the power block. Whatever Warren Taylor had noted in his report, it wasn’t anything that a casual observer could see. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought.
Kallik emerged from the wheelhouse and looked around. “Where’d you stow your gear?”
“At home,” Sam said. “I just came by to check things out, see what time we’re taking off in the morning.”
The two of them set to work, separating the lines and coiling them in neat stacks.
“Heard any more about that tender?”
Sam shrugged, not wanting to jinx the deal before the details were finalized.
“The paperwork’s with the broker. I should hear back from the seller before we ship out.”
“I hope it comes through. I wouldn’t mind making this cruise a one-off.”
“That makes two of us.”
They worked another half hour in silence. As the sun started its slow passage across the horizon, Sam kept a wary eye on Kallik. He hadn’t complained, but the man was sweating a lot and Sam could tell he was pushing himself pretty hard. When the lines had all been coiled on deck and the corks stacked neatly on the net, Sam suggested they take a break.
“I’m starved. Let’s go get some grub.”
The sky was darkening as they walked into the fish and chips shop around the corner. As he reached for the door, Sam felt the first drops of rain hit his face. They placed their order and took a seat at one of the tables.
“Is Emily watching Bear while you’re out?”
Sam felt a twist in his gut. He’d been trying so hard to put their breakup out of his mind that he’d forgotten to tell anyone else about it. He glanced at his watch: seven forty. It had been three hours since Emily had told him she was leaving Ketchikan to get married. Three hours that felt like a lifetime. He shook his head.
“We broke up,” he said. “Turns out she’s got someone waiting for her back home.”
“Oh, man. That sucks.”
“It’s fine. I knew it was only temporary.”
Kallik nodded.
“Yeah, sure. Summer lovers, right?”
Bile rose up, burning Sam’s throat. Was that all it had meant to her, just a last fling before settling down with Mr. Right? He swallowed hard.
“Tiff’s watching Bear till we get back.”
“What about that dude she lives with? He okay with it?”
“She said he was cool.” Sam paused. “Why?”
“No reason, just—” He shook his head. “Marilyn saw her a couple of weeks ago. Looked like she’d been knocked around some. Tiff told her it was an accident, she’d walked into a door or something, but you know.”
Sam shook his head in disgust. He wasn’t surprised; Seth looked like he had a hair trigger. Maybe that was why Tiffany had been so eager to watch his dog. She knew how protective Bear was. Perhaps she thought that having the big guy there would give her a way to keep her boyfriend in line. He just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
Kallik shifted in his seat, wincing as he rubbed his back, and Sam felt a prick of anxiety. If the guy was hurting already, what would happen once they were pulling fish? He wished he’d been able to talk the guy out of signing up with Hollander. Failing that, though, he was glad he’d be going along. He’d never have forgiven himself if something happened.
Their number was called and the two men attacked their food with single-minded purpose. By the time they were finished, they could hear the rain coming down hard outside.
“You think Hollander’s found another hand by now?”
Sam wiped his mouth and dropped the paper napkin in his bag.
“Most likely. You can always find someone on the docks if your standards are low enough. Chances are, he grabbed the first guy who’d work for peanuts and frog-marched him back to the ship before he changed his mind.”
They finished their beer and got up from the table. The rain had intensified—the heavy drops looked like bullets shooting down from the sky. As Sam put his hand on the door, he felt a brief premonition of disaster. Like all mariners, he could be deeply superstitious.
“Something wrong?” Kallik said.
He shook his head.
“No. Nothing. Just need to get my hood up,” he said.
Only ten days.
Sam pulled up his hood, and the two men ran back to the dock.
Ray Hollander was on the deck of the Skippy Lou, oblivious of the rain, talking to a man in a gray slicker and baggy pants. When Sam saw their new crew member, his step faltered. The feeling of impending doom had returned with a vengeance.
“Looks like you called it,” Kallik said. “Guy looks like a bum.”
Hollander motioned for the two of them to join him on deck.
“Come say hello to your new mate.”
As they approached the ship, the man turned and peered at Sam through a curtain of rain, his sneer creasing the distinctive birthmark on his cheek.
Sam nodded. “Hello, Logan.”
Hollander glanced from one man to the other and smiled.
“You two know each other, huh?”
“Oh-ho, yes.” Logan Marsh chuckled. “Captain Reed and I are old friends.”
CHAPTER 23
Tim Garrett took Emily to the airport on Friday morning. As the two of them rode the ferry to Gravina Island, she resisted the urge to look back at the lush green hills and towering white mountains of Revillagigedo. Emily had promised herself she’d go hiking in the interior before she left, and it was just one more disappointment she couldn’t face. Maybe she and Carter would come up there on vacation someday, she told herself. Perhaps, with time and distance, the memory of all that had happened in Ketchikan would have faded.
At least her early departure wouldn’t count against her with the internship program. When she told Tim about the call she’d gotten from her mother, he told her not to worry, that judging from the work she’d done already he would be happy to write her a letter of recommendation. He’d lost a brother to cancer the year before, he told her, and knew how devastating it was when all hope was gone.
Emily clenched her teeth, trying not to cry as she pictured her uncle lying in his hospital bed while the surgeon told him that the cancer they’d hoped was confined to the lung had instead spread throughout his body. There’d been no need to excise any tissue, the doctor said. The important thing now was for him to get his affairs in order and prepare for the end.
Heavy chop buffeted the ferry as they reached the halfway point, and a few stray drops of rain spattered the windshield—harbingers of the storm that would arrive in a few hours. With luck, Emily would be in Seattle by then, waiting for her connection to San Diego. She was grateful that her mother had found a nonstop from Sea-Tac to Lindbergh Field—even more so because it would be in first class. Sitting cheek by jowl in an airplane full of happy summer travelers was more than she could bear. At least staring out her window in the first row would give her a chance to be left alone.
“Well, here we are
again,” Tim said as he started the Jeep’s engine. “Seems like only yesterday I was picking you up.”
Emily nodded. “I know, and I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be. At a time like this, you need to be with your family. Who knows? Maybe you’ll come back and visit us one day.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “I’d like that.”
The ramp was lowered and secured, and the cars began to inch forward. As Emily glanced across the tarmac at the plane that would soon be spiriting her away, she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to know the answer to the mystery that she and the other interns had been speculating about for weeks. Was someone making problems for Tim at the cannery? And if so, why? He might laugh and tell her it was nothing, he might even think it was rude of her to pry, but somehow, Emily couldn’t leave without knowing.
“Can I ask you something?”
He glanced at her and smiled.
“Sure. What is it?”
“It seems like there have been a lot of . . . issues at the cannery.”
Tim wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean by ‘issues?’ ”
She swallowed. Was he going to stonewall? If Tim was the cause of the problems, he’d certainly have reason to.
“Some of us have noticed that you were called away a lot, and it seemed as if you were pretty upset afterward. We wondered. . . I mean, is that normal?”
Tim gripped the wheel in silence as the Jeep shimmied off the ramp and started toward the parking lot. He pulled into a space by the terminal and shut off the engine. Then he turned and looked at her.
“No,” he said. “It’s not normal. It’s been going on for over a year now, and I have no idea who’s behind it.”
“What is?” Emily said. “I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“Drugs are being smuggled through the cannery. They come in from offshore and get into our plant and somehow make it through the process without being detected.”
He held up a hand.
“I take that back. We have detected some of it, but we know there’s more that’s getting through, and we have no idea who’s doing it or how. Just last week, a package of look-alike pain pills found its way into one of our shipments and broke open before it reached its destination. A dozen people ended up in the hospital with Fentanyl overdoses.”
Emily’s heart was beating wildly. They’d all been thinking this had to do with the interns. It never occurred to anyone that drugs might be involved.
“But surely, no one blames you.”
“Not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. I’m supposed to be the government’s eyes and ears inside the cannery, and so far I haven’t got a clue how it’s happening.”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry. I hope you catch whoever’s doing it.”
“Well, thanks,” he said. “Let’s hope we do before anyone else gets hurt.”
He put his hand on the door.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you inside before it starts to rain.”
* * *
Emily had brought a book along, hoping to discourage conversation while she waited for her plane to board, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t concentrate enough to read. Tim’s revelation about drugs being smuggled through the cannery had put the problems there in a completely different light. She kept going over her conversation with the woman in the freezer, how she’d told Emily that “he” was the source of the problem, and wishing she’d been able to get a name or even just a description of the man. Was it the guy who’d been working in there with them, or maybe someone else nearby? Whoever it was, she thought, if drugs were involved, the woman might well have been too fearful to say anything more.
Unless, she thought, the woman herself was in on it. In which case, her “information” might just have been an attempt to throw Emily off the scent.
She felt her phone buzz and found a text from her mother: Uncle Danny was sitting up and looking forward to her visit. If her plane got in on time, it said, the two of them would go and see him that evening. If not, they’d have to wait until visiting hours started the next day.
There was a text from Sam, too, wishing her good luck and a safe flight. As she deleted it, Emily grudgingly admitted that he’d been pretty decent about the whole thing. When the shock of learning she was engaged had passed, he told her he’d always suspected there was someone waiting for her back home, as she was “too amazing” to be unattached. The compliment, nice as it was, had left her curiously unaffected. From the second he’d told her he was sailing on the Skippy Lou, nothing Sam could say or do made any difference to the way she felt. As far as she was concerned, things between the two of them were over.
She was disappointed that there was nothing from Carter—not that she’d been expecting anything. In the weeks since she’d been away, he’d only called her once, and that was the night he’d asked her to marry him. After she heard about Uncle Danny’s prognosis, she’d tried calling him a couple of times but hadn’t left a message, knowing how upset he’d be if he heard her crying on the phone. Once she got home, there’d be plenty of time for the two of them to touch base.
The terminal was busy that day with people in vacation mode: expectant faces in the departure areas and happy, sunburned grins on the arriving flights. Emily wondered if she’d ever be that excited to be traveling again. When a blind man with his guide dog walked up and sat down across from her, tears sprang to her eyes. The Labrador retriever looked small compared to Bear, but its protective stance and tender patience were a mirror of the Newfoundland she’d come to know and love. Even if Sam had betrayed her, his dog never had, and the thought that she’d never see him again made her heartsore. The thing she regretted most about leaving so suddenly was having to tell Sam she could no longer watch Bear for him. Emily hoped Tiffany would be good to him while Sam was on the Skippy Lou.
The desk attendant announced her flight, and Emily got in line to board. As she handed the gate agent her ticket, she felt drained, so physically and emotionally battered she thought she might never recover. All she wanted to do was go home.
* * *
“Over here, darling!”
Emily’s eyes filled with tears as she rushed into her mother’s arms. The two of them embraced, crying as the river of arriving passengers parted and flowed on around them.
“How was the flight?”
“Fine,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Thanks for the tickets.”
“It’s no problem.” Her mother took her arm and looped her own through it. “Nothing but the best for my little girl.”
They grabbed her bags at the carousel and walked out to the taxi stand. As the two of them slid into the back seat, the driver put Emily’s things in the trunk.
“We’re going home,” her mother said, giving the cabbie the address.
As the taxi pulled out into traffic, Emily stared out the window. The city, she thought, had changed since she left; the hills were browner than she remembered, and the sky didn’t seem so blue. And where had all the traffic come from? Even on the surface streets, drivers zipped by them at breakneck speed, weaving through the lanes like fugitives on the lam. The place felt hostile and unwelcoming.
“You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?”
She shook her head.
“Good. Maria’s making your favorite tamales. Once we’ve eaten, we can head over to see Uncle Danny.”
“How’s he feeling?”
Her mother shrugged.
“Who knows? The man always acts as if everything’s fine. For now, at least, he says he’s comfortable.”
Emily sighed. It was hard not to feel sorry for Uncle Danny. When her father was alive, Danny was the kid brother, a nice guy whose star was never quite as bright as his adored older sibling. Nevertheless, when her father died, everyone assumed that his friendly, outgoing brother would take over the helm of the company they’d started together. Instead, Uncle Danny withdrew, selling his interest in t
he company rather than assuming the CEO’s position. There’d been times when she wondered if, had her mother not accused him of causing his brother’s death, her uncle might have stepped into his brother’s shoes and made them his own, but now, of course, that speculation was moot. Her uncle’s time had run out. Whatever he might have been, he would never be more than he was right then. She just wished her mother would be more sympathetic.
“Did you tell Carter I was coming home?”
“No, dear. I thought I’d let you do that.”
“I tried calling him last night, but he didn’t answer.”
“I’m not surprised. Sheila says he practically lives at the hospital these days. Still,” she said, patting Emily’s leg. “I know he’ll be thrilled to see you just as soon as he can find the time.”
The taxi pulled into their driveway and the two of them got out. Ever mindful of her mother’s bad back, Emily lugged the bags inside and took them up to the guest room. The aroma of Maria’s homemade tamales perfumed the air, making her mouth water. As she headed into the kitchen, she realized she’d eaten nothing since the night before.
Her mother was sitting at the table, a G&T in one hand and a single tamale on her plate.
“There you are. I turned around and you’d disappeared.”
Emily smiled at Maria and took her seat.
“Those look wonderful, thank you,” she said as the older woman placed two plump tamales on her plate.
Maria always said that a full stomach made life’s burdens easier to bear.
“Sorry,” Emily said as she shook out her napkin. “I was putting my luggage in the guest room.”
“You should have left it in the foyer. Maria would have taken it up for you.”
Emily took a bite of tamale and almost purred in contentment. She’d promised herself she would not argue with her mother when she got home. Therefore, she would not point out that not only was she less than half Maria’s age, she was also fully capable of taking her own things upstairs.
“I see you’ve started redecorating my room already.”
“Do you like it? It’s still in the early stages, of course, but Ava has a truly artistic eye. I’ve been thinking we should hire her to help with the decorations at your wedding.”