Dark Waters (2013)

by Anderson, Toni

  In darkness, the inner harbor was lit up like a Christmas tree. They’d taken a quick detour to Brent’s agent’s Victoria offices to collect his travel documentation, and although the guy hadn’t been there, his secretary had been ecstatic to help him with all the paperwork he’d needed done on short notice. Brent drove to the wharf and saw Anna’s surprise when he pulled into a parking space and cut the engine. He hoisted the bag of goodies she’d picked up that morning out of the backseat.

  “Let’s go.”

  The place was still bustling with tourist frenzy. Too many people. Too much noise. He blocked it out. Concentrated on Anna. Her scent. Her smile. Keeping her safe.

  She followed him, somewhat hesitantly.

  He didn’t blame her. The situation was fucked up. Cop-killing bad guys had tracked them down after he’d assured her they couldn’t, and he’d just ditched the one offer of protection she’d had. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea, going back to the scene of the crime, but it was the last place anyone would expect them to turn up. And hell, he needed to figure out where Davis had mailed this evidence, needed to talk to Jack Panetti if and when he woke up. Jack must have been pushing someone’s buttons. He needed to figure out whose.

  When Holly connected the dead cop in Chicago to Davis—which she would sooner or later—there was no way she’d let him or Anna out of her sight. He’d be eating, sleeping, and dreaming Mounties. And no one was locking him up—not even for his own good.

  They strode along the wharf, past the million-dollar boats in their prime berths, toward the jetties where the floatplanes bobbed incongruously on the water. They passed a city cop patrolling the wharf, and Brent tugged Anna closer and rested his arm across her shoulders. He shortened his stride so she wasn’t forced to rush to keep up. Her muscles felt rigid as tempered steel.

  “Relax,” he breathed into her hair. A strand caught on his lips and he had to force himself to move his head away and not just stand there inhaling her scent like a fool.

  Brent led her to where a bright red seaplane was tied to the end of a short pier. The pilot stood at the end of a gangplank, his eyes licking at Anna like candy. Brent’s fingers tightened on her shoulder and then he let go. She wasn’t his. But she was his best friend’s daughter in one hell of a mess, and deserved to be treated with respect.

  He nodded to the other man. It had been a few years.

  “Never thought I’d see the day you left the island, Carver.” There was a lingering touch of Australian in his accent.

  “You sure this piece of shit flies?”

  The pilot aimed a grin at Anna, though anger shimmered in his eyes. “Charming as ever, I see.” He held out his hand to shake Anna’s. “And who might you be?”

  Brent laid a cautionary hand on Anna’s lower back as she shook the pilot’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” was all she said. He tried to figure out when he and Anna had learned this silent form of communication. The fact he couldn’t keep his hands off her even in the most innocent of situations told him he was in trouble, but thankfully she was sensible enough for both of them.

  The pilot gripped her small pale hand for an extra second. “You’re here because you want to be here, right? This guy isn’t abducting you?” His eyes were worried.

  Brent took his hands off Anna and turned his back on them both. Sonofabitch.

  “I wouldn’t say I want to be here, but Brent’s helping me,” Anna said softly.

  He whirled back to face them. “Ready now, or you want me to pass a lie detector test before you let me on board?”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to do the right thing, mate.”

  Brent rolled his eyes. He didn’t want small talk or questions or reminders of the sort of man he’d once been. Although he’d never once gone after the little guy. Nor had he ever touched a woman in anger. But you didn’t spout your weaknesses to people who might use them against you.

  “Just need to finish the preflight inspection and we’re good to go.”

  They climbed aboard, stowed what luggage they had, and sat in the bright red leather seats. Brent secured his harness, leaned back his head, and stared up at the ceiling of the small tin box they were about to take to the skies in. Every muscle in his body tensed and his hands gripped the end of the armrests so tight it hurt.

  “Is this the first time you’ve flown?” Anna asked quietly.

  He jolted at the sound of her voice, wishing the taste in his mouth wasn’t fear. “Never went anywhere as a kid and didn’t want to explore once I got out.” Or maybe he was just too chickenshit to face the world. He sat up straighter. He didn’t like that option.

  “Do you trust him?” Anna leaned past him and tried to catch sight of the pilot outside.

  Brent shrugged the stiffness out of his shoulders. “I’m paying him good money and he’d think twice before he crossed me. That’s as much as I trust anyone.”

  “Are most people scared of you?” Anna’s eyes were wide, but he couldn’t read them.

  In prison, he’d specialized in keeping out of trouble by being a hard-ass. It had kept him alive. “Sixteen-year-olds who kill their fathers are given a wide berth even in prison.” The words had their usual bitter aftertaste.

  Bright green eyes bored into him. “You loved him, didn’t you?”

  He felt like she’d shot him in the stomach. Christ. “Yeah,” he admitted grudgingly, “I loved him.”

  “So why did you kill him? What did he do to you?”

  He shrugged.

  Her expression turned hurt before it turned angry. He grabbed her hands to hold them still and blew out a big breath, giving up the battle to keep it all a secret. Who gave a shit anyway? It didn’t change anything, and if anyone deserved the truth it was Anna.

  “It wasn’t me. Not that night,” he spat it out as if it were a curse.

  “Your brother then,” Anna guessed.

  Blood chilled in his veins from the memories. The idea of striking a child was shocking to most, but it had been commonplace when he’d been growing up. Even now it hurt to think about what his brother had endured. “When I was little, things were OK, but then Dad lost his job driving logging trucks and started drinking heavily. He started hitting Mom and I couldn’t stop him.”

  “But she left you there with him…?” She sounded incredulous.

  “He didn’t hit Finn or me until after she ran away. I don’t think she’d have left us if she’d known what was gonna happen.” Maybe that’s just what he liked to think, and he hadn’t realized he was still that naive. “She did what she had to, to survive. It’s what we all did.”

  “No one ever tried to help?”

  “People weren’t so up on issues of child abuse or domestic violence back then. Plus, people liked my dad. Me and Finn were both a bit wild.” He had tried to ask for help once and got told to stop telling tales. That miserable bitch still ran the post office.

  “So the night you killed your father, he was assaulting Finn?” She searched his face. She had the kindest, greenest eyes. The softest looking mouth he’d ever seen. Christ. Don’t think about her mouth.

  Cold sweat broke out over his back. He started talking. “After Mom left, the sonofabitch transferred all the hate to Finn, and if I got in the way, he’d dish me up some fun times too. I’ll never forget the first time he punched me—felt like I’d run smack-bang into a Douglas fir.” His voice dropped. Hell, he didn’t want to drag all these memories back to the surface, but maybe it would be enough to take his mind off the thought of flying and be enough to let her trust him. They were going to have to trust each other now to get out of this situation alive.

  “Usually we got out of the cabin Friday and Saturday nights because that’s when he drank. We’d sneak home after he’d collapsed somewhere unconscious. For years we had it down to a fine art, but then I started dating Gina and wasn’t watching out for Finn the way I should have been.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Discovering sex short-circuited my brain.” Christ. If only he’d known. “
Finn must have fallen asleep watching TV and Dad caught him. I walked in just as Finn told him to go fuck himself.” Thirteen years old and the kid had already been broken and bleeding. “You wouldn’t know it from looking at Finn now but back then, he was a hundred-pound weakling. Our daddy was more your brick shithouse variety.” Brent had inherited his height. He shook his head remembering the screams, and the even more shocking silence. “I thought Dad had killed him for sure that time, so I picked up a bottle—I was big for my age, and a hell of a baseball player—and hit him over the head to make him stop. Just once, but it was enough.” The carnage from that night was forever imprinted on his senses.

  Anna sat frozen, but he didn’t look at her. “I knew I’d hurt him, but he didn’t want me to leave him. Made me hold his hand until…” He flexed his fingers and she took his hand in hers.

  Saliva pooled in his mouth. His insides were already wobbly at the thought of flying—now he felt like he was about to throw up. “Finn was too beat up to go for help, so I just held Dad until he stopped breathing, and then I carried Finn to the Coast Guard station and waited for the cops to arrive.” He let go of her hand and jammed his fingers into his hair. “I was drenched in his blood. Looked like something out of a slaughterhouse. Finn was airlifted to the hospital and I was hauled off to jail.”

  “It sounds like self-defense.” She sounded angry on his behalf. Some people had been. But not the jury or the judge.

  “Prosecution said otherwise. Dad rarely hit me.” He slanted her a look. “Usually he couldn’t catch me. I didn’t lie about any of it on the stand.”

  “How could you love a man like that?” she asked quietly.

  Brent tried to swallow but couldn’t. If there was any real shame in his life it was this. It felt like a betrayal of his mother’s and brother’s pain. “When he was sober, he treated me like his best buddy. He taught me how to fish, how to drive a car and a boat.” Maybe he hadn’t loved his father, maybe he’d just loved the memory of the man he’d once been.

  Something moved in her eyes. Some shadow of pain that jolted him.

  “Anyway, unless you start thrashing kids with rebar, you’re probably safe from my dark side.” A flash of horror swept over her features, followed by pity, which pissed him off. To counter it he let all the sexual heat he’d been feeling since he’d met her show as he slowly dropped his gaze to her mouth. “But I can’t promise anything else.” Because he was done pretending the awareness that had simmered between them didn’t exist.

  She didn’t look away like he expected. She held his gaze, searching his eyes for something he didn’t understand. And when she finally did look away, he felt hollow and a little bit lost.

  After hours of traveling on two different aircraft, Anna handed over her new fake passport to the hotel receptionist in Chicago. Hannah Sylvester. Not so very different from her real name, but Brent said it should be enough to slow them down on computer searches—whoever the hell they were—especially if they weren’t expecting her to come back to the scene of the crime. They were staying at a pretty fancy hotel. Big marble entrance with a dandy waterfall in the center.

  The clerk took a quick look at her face and typed rapidly into her computer. It was 3:00 a.m. and Anna was barely conscious. “We have a suite reserved for Mr. Smith.” The woman glanced at Brent, who sat in the foyer wearing a bulky Chicago Bears sweatshirt they’d picked up at the airport, black ball cap pulled low, lips sucked in, eyes hidden behind massive black glasses—the sort blind people wore.

  Her heart hammered as she handed over a credit card in B.C. Wilkinson’s name—he was incorporated—and signed as his new personal assistant who’d been authorized via his agent the previous day. The different identities didn’t faze the receptionist. Apparently the rich and famous often traveled under assumed names and got damn good service.

  “I hope you enjoy your stay.” The woman handed back her documents and Anna slipped them into her purse. Her palms were damp, despite the AC being set to “morgue.”

  She walked back to Brent, grabbed his steely arm, and helped him to his feet.

  “Tell me again this isn’t illegal?” she hissed.

  “A misdemeanor at worst,” he whispered back.

  Blood drained from her face. “I shouldn’t have got you involved. If we’re not careful, this whole disaster will get you locked up.”

  He cleared his throat. “Technically, I’m not the one traveling under a false identity.” He grinned suddenly and she caught his eye over the glasses as they strolled toward the elevators.

  “Oh, crap.” Her career flashed before her eyes. Although she understood the necessity of deception if she wanted to find out the truth behind her father’s death, she wasn’t good at this. She was good at teaching kids math and penmanship, and how to resolve conflict without violence. She was still holding Brent’s arm when they got inside the elevator, thankfully alone. Awareness prickled her skin and she went to withdraw her hand, but Brent caught her fingers and trapped them on his arm.

  “Cameras,” he mouthed.

  She hung her head. There were butterflies in her stomach, a swirl of fear and attraction that left her feeling sick and dizzy. The elevator stopped and they got out. Slowly. She bit her lip in frustration as they walked unhurriedly along the corridor toward their suite. She wanted to rush Brent inside, but he was exhibiting a patience beyond her.

  It took three attempts to get the keycard in the slot and by then the bellhop was there with the luggage they’d picked up in the airport. She gritted her teeth at the need to put on this calm, cool charade, but they didn’t want to draw unwanted attention to themselves. They needed to be able to walk around Chicago in relative anonymity with a safe place to hide out if necessary. The whole stupid situation was getting to her, and she just wanted to go home and get on with her life.

  Her father had said she’d know where he sent the evidence, so why didn’t she? What if he’d accidentally sent it to the wrong address? What if the post office lost it? She could be doing this evasion dance for years.

  No way.

  Brent pulled her inside the sitting room of the suite, his arm warm against her side.

  “Could be worse,” he whispered in her ear. “We could have been forced to share a twin bed at the Motel Eight.”

  An unexpected curl of desire threaded its way through her body but she ignored it. Smiled sweetly. “But then people might say I slept my way into the job and we couldn’t have that sullying your brilliant reputation, now could we?”

  He pushed the blind-man’s specs back up that perfect blade of a nose. “I could cope with a little sullying,” he muttered irritably.

  She helped him rather forcibly onto the couch. Ignored his grunt of protest as she turned and tipped the bellhop and ushered him out of the room. Then she locked the door and leaned against its cool surface as Brent ripped off the glasses, hat, and sweatshirt.

  “Motherfucker was hot.”

  She gave him a long look. Wished he wasn’t so rough, ready, and unexpectedly honorable. “You curse too much.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He ran a hand through his hair. His face was pale. He looked tired.

  She softened. Damn, she felt like the Arctic, defrosting a little more each day.

  On paper his background was vicious. Awful. Even knowing the reasons behind why he’d killed his father didn’t change the fact he’d only survived prison by being one of the toughest men in an arena that bred violence. None of these facts went together with the man who was going out of his way to protect her. He’d killed, but didn’t seem cruel. Was reclusive and hated to travel, and yet had come all the way to Chicago to help her. He was a complicated man who’d shown her nothing but consideration and deference since this whole thing started. She didn’t know what that made him, but it definitely wasn’t a monster.

  She knew monsters.

  He had hidden depths—unexpected pockets of kindness, compassion, and humor. And he worried her because he was astute enough to figu
re out her secrets. Considering she’d pushed and prodded him until he’d told her about the night his father died, she didn’t know if she was entitled to secrets anymore. But she’d spent years pretending the events of the night of her high school prom had never happened. It was almost impossible to just bring them up and blurt them out.

  Despite her fatigue, she paced the floor.

  Brent’s dim and distant past was irrelevant. She was more worried about his future in this dangerous game they’d started playing. “I should call the morgue.”

  “I should check on Jack Panetti’s condition.”

  The shooting freaked her out. These people definitely meant business. Why the hell had her father moved—or stolen—their money? Why hadn’t he just gone to the cops? But she knew why. He was an ex-con. They wouldn’t have believed him.

  “Do you think we should go to the hospital?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but let’s get some rest first.” She watched him unwind that hard-toned body. “Remind someone to shoot me before I get old, huh?”

  “That might not be a problem.” God, had she really dragged him into this mess? She stared at him with wide eyes.

  “It was a joke.” He squinted at her with concern. “Hey, I was kidding.”

  She swallowed and nodded. But suddenly that wasn’t the problem. He was the problem. His eyes sizzled. He moved like liquid sin. One hundred percent unadulterated alpha male. Tall, dirty blond, and deadly. Every time that brooding, grim face broke into a smile, her knees gave way.