A DANGEROUS HARBOR

by RP Dahlke

  "Yes, please," she said, handing him the fan. "I'm looking for one of these. You had them last year when I came in, but I don't see them on the shelves now."

  He turned it over, examined it carefully, tugged at the wires hanging out of the back and then handed it back. "Yes, we used to carry these, but no more."

  "Really? You can't get them?"

  He shrugged. "No hay."

  "Yeah, yeah, I got that. You don't have any now, but when will you get them again?"

  "Lo siento. No hay."

  "I'm sorry too, but look," she said, pointing to his collection of marine parts on the wall behind the counter, "there's one up on your wall."

  He turned to admire the fan she was pointing at and said, "We used to have them, but they sell out. We buy again, but too quickly they sell. They do not stay in the store, so we no to buy them anymore."

  She started to giggle then stopped herself. The man was serious. This reminded her of the time she and her friends flew into San Carlos. With reservations in one of the top favorite beach hotels, they were shocked to see the place mostly empty. When she asked why no one else was there, they were told that business had been bad lately. Katy then waved a price sheet in front of the desk clerk. "Then why're your prices now twice what we paid?"

  The desk clerk answered in a small voice, "Business is bad?"

  Incredulous, Katy was unable to throttle back her astonishment. "So the cure is to raise your prices?"

  The desk clerk had ducked his head between his ears and quailed at this American woman. "Sí?"

  Grabbing her broken fan out of the store clerk's hand, she stomped outside and finding a passing ice cream vendor, bought herself a Mexican fruit ice and sat down on a nearby bench. Pulling the paper off the crushed and frozen treat, she bit into the solid and deliciously ripe strawberries and laughed to herself. "Well, some things are still as they should be."

  Chapter Five:

  High above the town of Ensenada, Raul Vignaroli pushes open the heavy door of his home to the hush of the air conditioner and the faint sound of children laughing. At the drop of his keys onto the entry table, a woman calls, "Cena, querido!"

  "Yes, my love, dinner. I'll be right there." But instead, he detours away from the light where children laugh and his wife's voice echoes in his head and stumbles for his bathroom and a shower.

  Eventually, with towel wrapped around his waist, he rubs the steam off the mirror and faces the dour face and shadowed eyes. His thick black hair curls wetly around his ears, indicating a much-needed haircut. He rubs a hand over the stubble on his chin, then fingers the shaving cream, considering… and he hears her voice calling again, "Dinner, my love!"

  He curses loudly and explodes, tossing the can across the room. Then he lowers his head, smothers his frustration in a cold wet face cloth, and dips down to pick up the can, replacing it back in line with the other toiletries. Turning each label to the front as if they were tin soldiers in the fight against unruly beards and sweaty armpits and a life that extends no farther than the walls of this house.

  The ongoing argument with his sister was finally beginning to wear on five years of denial. She'd told him it was madness to remain in this crazy house, and crazier still to keep a grieving, featherless parrot.

  "Cena querido!"

  But then, how else would he ever hear their voices again?

  After cobbling together a late dinner of tinned food from her dwindling food locker, Katy sat in her cockpit and gazed across the night-time marina.

  What a mess, she thought. I suppose it would be too much to expect Gabe to read my mind and show up here tonight. And didn't I tell him to stay away from me? Now I gotta take it all back. Gabe may be on the lam, but if anyone can find him, it'll be me.

  She'd ferret him out of his latest hidey-hole, see what he knew about the girl and her murder. She was sure of it now, it was a murder, and if she wasn't a suspect she certainly was of some interest to the chief inspector, if only because of her association with Gabe. Why oh why couldn't she have kept her mouth shut? She could only hope that the chief inspector didn't have the resources to dig up the history between her and Gabe.

  Surely she was being paranoid. It was simply a coincidence and the shock of seeing Gabe again that had stuck her feet to the floor and subsequently given the Mexican chief a possible suspect.

  Time changes people. Look at me. I've changed. Not the same naïve little sweet-on-Gabe Alexander I was in high school, that's for sure. And Gabe. God knows he'd changed, what with living on his wits all these years, surviving on God-knows-what to live on. Okay, so he'd had it rough, but if anyone deserved a time in purgatory, it was Gabe—after what he did to her.

  She would find him, talk him into leaving town immediately—but not back to the States. Then they would both be safe.

  Tomorrow, she would make inquiries as to where she might find him. She'd start with the sergeant's cousin, the gate guard. Granted, he'd immediately tell the sergeant and then the chief inspector, but what choice did she have? She had to start somewhere.

  And that comment by the sergeant… what was it he said? That the bar was a dangerous place where men could acquire anything they wanted. She wondered if it was the sort of place Gabe frequented. Maybe she should look there. Then again, she didn't have her badge or backup should there be trouble she couldn't handle, and what was it the sergeant said about the place? It wasn't a safe place for a woman, not if she wanted to go home—as in alive?

  She knew Ensenada was listed as part of the human smuggling corridor. Just as Thailand was a Mecca for pedophiles, there were hot spots running the length of Mexico where men could buy girls of all ages; poor Mexican, South American, and girls from as far away as the Ukraine have been lured with the promise of work as au-pairs. Beaten, drugged, raped and reduced to abject slavery, they would lose their will to resist or escape. With a shudder, she saw his point; that if she went to this place, she might disappear into that dreadful maw of human slavery. Even with her police training in hand-to-hand combat, could she fight off a kidnapping attempt? Fight until she either escaped or died trying?

  Reluctant to use the dwindling space in her holding tank, Katy took a walk to the marina bathroom where she showered, washed her hair and smoothed Lily of the Nile lotion over her legs and arms.

  Feeling rejuvenated from the shower, she swung her bag over her shoulder as she walked through the dry dock to the marina gates. Seeing the overhead phosphorescent lights had left broad pools to splash through, she smiled and leaped from one to the next. But she found her enthusiasm cooling at the sight of a man leaning on a lamppost near the gate. The guard? No, the stance was different and he was smoking. Gabe? The square, blocky shape was all wrong for Gabe's lanky swimmer's build.

  Giving the hulking figure a wide berth, she picked up her pace and opened the gate with her key.

  The man stubbed out the cigarette he'd been smoking with the heel of his shoe, pushed off the gate and called her name.

  She turned. There was no mistaking the solid frame beneath the weak light. "It's about damn time, Chief Inspector Vignaroli."

  "Buenas noches to you too, Señorita Hunter." The voice was still pitched at that low rumble, but it held none of the authoritarian behavior from earlier. "I had to work late. I just came from my mother's home. She lives not far from here." He patted the rock-hard abdomen of his white shirt with a thickly muscled forearm. "She is a wonderful cook."

  All the frustration and anger at her good deed gone wrong came out in a growl. "Why in God's name did you chain my boat to the dock? You can't possibly think I'm a suspect?"

  Raul paused, reappraising this angry young woman—the wet curls of her long honey-colored hair held back in a still damp ponytail, the baggy sweats, the swell of her breasts under a thin white tee-shirt and then down to the flip-flops on her narrow feet, noticing with an odd pang to his heart that her toenails were painted a bright pink. No, he thought, whatever Katy Hunter is, she's not dangerous, at least not
tonight.

  He took her arm and gently led her through the gate and towards her boat. "I do not think you're a suspect, but perhaps we can take this conversation somewhere more private?"

  "It's late, Inspector," she said, jerking out of his grasp. "Unless, of course, you've come with bolt cutters?"

  Her voice was pitched for war and it also was attracting an audience. He said, "We should take this somewhere more private. Perhaps you'd like to show me the inside of your boat?"

  She turned on him and poked his chest with a forefinger. "If you didn't come with bolt cutters, why're you here?"

  "I am not your enemy, Miss Hunter. I see that my presence here seems suspicious to you, but I can assure you that my reasons are honorable."

  "That remains to be seen."

  "Don't you want to know how the girl died?" he asked quietly.

  Katy was furious, and nothing in the inspector's statement was going to soothe her temper now. "Why so forthcoming now?"

  He lifted a hand to the gathering crowd of curious boaters and leaned in to softly whisper. "Are you sure you don't want to show me your sailboat?"

  Katy swung around to see a group of American boaters, their stares turning to concern. One man stepped forward. "This guy bothering you, miss, you just say the word and we'll chuck him over the side."

  "Er, no thanks, he's uh… a friend."

  "Well, if you say so, miss. G'night then." The guy nodded and herded his dock-mates away to their own boats

  "Follow me, Inspector," she said, and briskly walked to her boat slip.

  The inspector followed her onto the boat and down the ladder, filling up her small cabin with his bulk. He appeared grateful when she pointed him to a settee.

  "I am here unofficially, Miss Hunter."

  She stood where she was, arms over her chest, showing him she was not going to allow him an unnecessary minute.

  Raul's lip twitched in a half smile. In another minute she'll be tapping that cute little pink-toed foot. Get on with it, Raul. Your motives may be pure but your hormones are not, and once again, your timing sucks.

  He sighed and said, "The medical examiner has completed his examination of the body and his report says that though she had water in her lungs, which was the final cause of death, she was also shot."

  He was only slightly surprised that she seemed to already know this.

  "Caliber?"

  "Nine millimeter and though we have the bullet we don't have a weapon." Seeing her confused look, he waved a hand across his face. "A match, if we had the weapon, could take months since our government is up to its armpits with the cartels. I was thinking that you might be interested in this case, since the suspect is an American."

  Her eyes widened. "This is why you humiliated me in front of my countrymen, chaining my boat to the dock, so you could bully me into helping you with a homicide case? Not me, Inspector. Mexico is way out of my jurisdiction. Besides, I have exactly two weeks left on my sabbatical, and I don't have any interest spending that time working a murder case in a foreign country, much less helping the likes of you!"

  He continued as if she wasn't red-faced and angry. "She was a dancer at a local strip club and it was well known that your Gabe Alexander spent time there."

  "He's not mine, Inspector. I haven't seen Gabriel Alexander since I was in my second year of college and he came by to say he was leaving town." Which was true—her dad always told her that when lying, be sure to get as much truth into it as possible.

  Deciding she needed to cool her temper, she said, "You asked for a tour of my boat? Let's do that now, shall we?"

  He nodded, but seemed wary of her temper.

  She began pointing out the items at her interior helm. "I have radar and GPS, depth sounder, single side-band and VHF radios are all here and wired for the cockpit helm outside." Then she turned to the narrow galley and showed him the fridge/freezer box and her storage for food and dishes.

  "And you're standing on a bank of six deep cycle batteries under the floor boards. I also have two solar panels mounted on my stern."

  Giving the interior of her floating home a nod of approval, he said, "It takes a crew of six to work my brother's fishing boat and he doesn't have sails to deal with. How do you work the lines by yourself?"

  "On a sailboat they're called sheets and all kinds of people single-hand sailboats. There was a famous English yachtsman, Tristan Jones, and not even the loss of his second leg to diabetes stopped him from sailing alone. Karen Thorndike was fifty-six when she sailed her thirty-four-foot sloop solo around the world, and besides, I hear that she didn't have an autopilot or a nifty GPS."

  "I know radar and GPS. My brother has a big unit on his console."

  Turning the tables, she asked, "Is your brother a sport fisherman?"

  "No, he does it for a living." The answer was simple and obviously his way of keeping his personal life out of her hands.

  Raul turned away and squeezed forward as far as her miniscule shower/head combination and then halted at the line of photos secured on the bulkhead. Behind the Lexan frames were the smiling faces she loved. She tapped a finger on the first one and couldn't keep the smile out of her voice. "My dad. He taught me and my sister to sail this boat on the San Francisco Bay. Said if we could conquer those wily waters, we could sail anywhere. He was right. Unfortunately, he's gone, but my mom," she said, pointing to the next one, "lives nearby and that's me and my sister and the guy… the guy in this photo is my fiancé, David Bennett." She stumbled only once at David's name, causing Raul to lean in for another look at the fiancé.

  Raul sat down at her settee and lightly tapped the table top to indicate she should join him. He was enjoying himself, admiring the tidy small boat while he absently rubbed a thumb along the edge of her newly upholstered cushions and watched her trying to keep her composure as well as her distance. But when he noticed a rosy blush rise up from her face it sent a fissure of lust running up his spine.

  "So," she said quietly, "have you arrested a suspect?"

  "Did I say we arrested a suspect? You must have misunderstood me. Sometimes my English is not so good."

  His English was fine, it was his slippery brain and those broad, flexible fingers that were giving her trouble.

  "You kept me in your police station for most of the day because you suspect Gabe Alexander and you were afraid I might warn him before you could pick him up, is that right?"

  The dark gold eyes wordlessly appraised her. Then he smiled that private smile as he toyed with the edge of her place mat, rolling the edges up and down. "Did you come here to meet Mr. Alexander?"

  She choked out a laugh. "That, Inspector, would be stranger than you'll ever know. I'd like to say, for the record, that I haven't seen Gabriel Alexander in ten years but then I stood in the lobby of your police station and practically begged you to arrest him for the girl's murder, didn't I?"

  The Inspector slanted a glance at her through dusky lashes. Though she doubted it was meant to be flirtatious, it also took her breath away. Good God! He ought to wear that wedding ring in his nose where a girl can see it!

  Aware of her reaction to him, Raul allowed himself a private smile, then said, "I am very grateful that you had the foresight to call the Mexican Navy and not use your VHF radio. If you had, the wrong person might have heard your message and our ability to take action would have been lost."

  Thinking he was still talking about Gabe, she asked, "And that person would be Gabe Alexander?"

  He shook his head in the negative. "We have no interest in your Gabe and I have no interest in what you call yourself or what he says you are to him, either."

  Unaware that she'd been holding her breath, she let it out and went on the offensive. "You still have a chain and lock on my boat, Inspector."

  "I have enough information from your superiors in San Francisco to know that your record as a police officer is, except for shooting your sister's stalker, exemplary. In Mexico, there would have been no forced leave of ab
sence for one who goes to the aid of a woman in distress. He had a gun aimed at her head, no? End of story."

  He surprised her again when he stood up, indicating that he was finished.

  Katy worked her way out from behind the table to stand in front of him.

  Raul looked down at her face tilted up to his, the sweep of her full lips slightly open as he knew she was mentally calculating her next move. She was a scant few inches away and certainly within reach, so close the scent of her freshly washed hair tingled his nose. Without a hint of makeup, she was definitely a beautiful young woman. She would be a stand-out amongst the cosmopolitan model types his friends trotted out like sleek polo ponies. She was also unfashionably curvy, with hips, thighs and breasts that made his insides heat up in a way that he'd thought long forgotten.

  The clear tanned skin would be abhorred by the women, and the wonderful tiny laugh lines radiating from the corners of her very blue eyes would only elicit suggestions for a favorite clinic where they could be erased. His guess was that Katrina Hunter would laugh at such nonsense.

  He wondered if she'd be here long enough for him to see those eyes sparkle with laughter. He certainly didn't have to be here—alone with her. He had resisted the temptation until it was almost too late and gave himself over to it only because he could convince himself that it was business. He was not one to break his own rules, but this time….

  Katy broke the spell when she tilted her head to one side and asked, "Cat got your tongue, Inspector?"