Dangerous Waters

by Laurey Bright

  She asked for a fizzy lemon, and a few minutes later he came back on deck with a can for himself and a glass for her.

  He sat opposite her in the wheel well, looking gloomy. "How was your day?" he asked her.

  "I've got plenty of material to write up."

  "Good."

  He moved restlessly, frowning, and she said, "I'm sorry you didn't find the log."

  Rogan hunched a shoulder and drank some more beer.

  Camille indicated the murky green water around them. "It can't be the most pleasant place to dive."

  "It's not too bad compared with some of the places I've worked, but I've done more interesting dives, like the Poor Knights just up the coast. And around the Mediterranean, New Mexico, the Solomons—have you done any scuba?"

  "Only a bit of holiday snorkeling now and then. I've thought about learning to scuba dive. I saw a TV documentary recently about the Poor Knights reserve and it looked wonderful underwater."

  "One of the best dive sites on earth," Rogan said. "It's a different world down there."

  His world.

  He said, "I've got an instructor's certificate. I could teach you."

  Her heart gave an extra beat. "It would take too much time," she objected.

  "You don't need that much to learn the basics. Get them right, and it's a matter of practice and sticking to the safety rules—staying within your ability, and diving with someone more experienced until you're proficient yourself. Since you know how to use a snorkel you're partway there."

  If anyone else had offered she'd have jumped at it. Staving off temptation, she said, "I don't know if I can afford it."

  "It's free, no strings. Take it or leave it."

  Camille hadn't meant money so much as time. She hadn't expected to be in Mokohina more than a couple of days, but she was still finding new gems in Mr. Trubshaw's collections.

  And she had no immediate commitments to get back to. Within a few days her mother was due to fly to Australia to spend Christmas and New Year with Camille's aunt, who was celebrating twenty-five years of marriage in January and had sent her sister a ticket. Camille had been invited but, while appreciating the courtesy gesture, had declined on the grounds of having research to complete. She barely knew her Australian cousins and, to her secret guilt, was glad to have some time away on her own.

  She loved her mother and there were advantages to living with her. She understood Mona's fear of abandonment, but sometimes she wished her mother was less dependent. Despite Mona's brave avowals that Camille must do anything she wanted without regard to her feelings, any suggestion that the daughter she'd devoted her life to might want to move out from under her wing obviously upset her.

  But she was safe and well and for the next several weeks would be enjoying her own holiday. There was no reason Camille couldn't stay on in Mokohina to pursue her research…and learn to scuba dive. Maybe this was too good a chance to pass up.

  "You'd have to let me repay you somehow," she said.

  "When I think of something I'll let you know."

  "Maybe I could start by cooking dinner tonight."

  "I could go for that."

  She made a meat loaf and salad, and Rogan had two helpings. Afterward he said, "I can give you a lesson now."

  Camille glanced at the dimming light outside. "Now?"

  "Things you need to know before you get in the water."

  He gave her a handbook and said, "Learn that, especially the hand signals." Then he dragged out his own wet suit and equipment, and explained the basic principles of scuba as well as the physiology of diving. He made her handle the jacket-like buoyancy compensator with its harness for the air tank, and encouraged her to practice dealing with the fastenings and the weight belt. "You don't want to be fiddling about underwater when you need to get rid of weight and reach the surface in a hurry."

  "Isn't it dangerous to surface too quickly?"

  "Damn right, if you're below ten meters. You can burst your lungs, cripple yourself and worse. But we'll go through all the drills before I let you anywhere near that depth."

  After she'd detailed the uses of the valves and gauges attached to the gear, he handed her a large, business-like serrated knife. "Get familiar with this."

  Camille's eyes widened, and he said, "If you're trapped in weed or a fishing net you'll need it."

  She handled it gingerly, then slipped it back into its rubber sheath attached to a leg strap.

  They ran through some hand signals before he said, "That's enough for a first lesson."

  "Thanks. I'd better sort some of my notes."

  "Wait," he said, taking a key ring from a nearby hook. "I should have given you this last night." He twisted a key from the ring. "For your cabin."

  Camille took it, reflecting that last night it hadn't even crossed her mind to lock her door. She'd crawled between her crisp new sheets and been lulled to sleep by the soft whispering and gurgling of the wavelets against the boat's sides, and the faint movement as it shifted on the tide. Something had half wakened her later and she'd heard Rogan's voice give vent to a violent, muffled exclamation, followed by silence until his cabin door quietly opened and shut. Moments afterward, feeling pleasantly safe and snug, she'd fallen back into sleep.

  * * *

  Later Rogan eased his own new key onto his father's ring that Granger had handed over to him, and removed the old one belonging to the damaged door.

  There were keys on the ring to the deck hatches and lockers, and a smaller one with the brand name of a well-known safe-maker on it. He stared at it for a while, then looked around, searching for something it might fit.

  The main cabin yielded nothing and he had no better luck in the small side cabins or the cargo space, even when he lifted the hatch giving access to the bilge and shone a light around the dank spaces below between the bulkheads.

  That left Camille's cabin—his father's. Maybe he should have bagged it for himself after all. Frustrated and edgy, he went toward the door, and was contemplating knocking on it when she emerged, carrying a toilet bag and towel, starting when she saw him.

  "Am I that scary?" he asked.

  "I just didn't expect to see you there," she said.

  "There's a mystery key here," he said, holding up the ring and stepping back as she made to open the door to the head.

  "What?"

  "A mystery key that doesn't seem to fit anything. Do you mind if I look in your cabin?"

  "Help yourself," Camille invited. "But I'm sure there's nothing there."

  He went in while she closeted herself in the head where Barney had rigged a primitive shower. Rogan heard the pump start, then the brief rush of water, and tried not to imagine Camille standing naked with water cascading over her lovely body, instead concentrating his mind on cupboards, drawers—anything that might be lockable.

  One of the desk drawers had a tiny lock with the old-fashioned key still in it, but there was nothing else. And he knew they'd emptied every storage place in here.

  Set into the floor in the knee-hole of the desk was a small locker where Barney had stored navigation manuals and charts. The vandals had emptied it, and Rogan had collected up the scattered contents and taken them away to study them.

  He opened the now empty compartment, felt around it, and finally got up to find a flashlight that allowed him to see much better.

  The space looked shallower than his memory of it. Peering carefully he could see the bottom boards were cut to fit to the sides. He got a screwdriver and levered at a narrow slit until the false bottom lifted out.

  When Camille came out of the shower and paused in the doorway he was still kneeling, staring down at a square of metal set into the space.

  "What's that?" Camille said.

  Rogan saw first her feet, slim and pink-toed, and then a satisfying length of leg, before the tantalizing view was frustrated by the hem of a dark red satin robe that she'd tied firmly about her waist. Quickly he raised his gaze to her face. "It's a safe," he sai
d. With a keyhole the size of the key in his hand.

  "Don't they have combination locks these days?"

  "Salt corrodes them. This kind's common on boats."

  "Aren't you going to open it?"

  He'd been wondering if she had anything on under the robe, and then been distracted by the fact that when she leaned forward to inspect the safe the lapels gaped, showing fairly conclusively that she wasn't wearing a bra, anyway.

  "Yeah," he said hastily, inserting the key into the lock. It fitted perfectly and turned with hardly a sound.

  A flattened ring was set into a groove, and he lifted the lid, the weight of it surprising him.

  It wasn't a large safe, not much bigger than a bread box, and it didn't need a second glance to deduce that it was empty.

  Chapter 7

  Next day Rogan phoned his brother. "Did you know Dad had a safe on board?"

  "Where?" Granger asked.

  Rogan explained. "And it looks new. Why would he have suddenly put in a safe?"

  "Times have changed since he began sailing. Maybe the boat had been burgled before, or he might have just decided he should be more security conscious. He used to get quite large cash payments for carrying cargo."

  "There was no cash in it. Nothing."

  "The burglars could have cleaned it out."

  "No," Rogan said. "It was pretty well hidden and it hadn't been forced. And Dad had the key with him. It was on the ring you gave me, that the police took from his body."

  "It would be just like him to buy a safe on impulse and never get round to using it. Money ran through his hands like water anyway. Or he might have bought it in simple hope that one day he'd find something worth putting into it."

  Rogan didn't bother arguing with either theory. Sometimes Granger was annoyingly logical. "Another thing," he said. "The log's missing. When I found the safe I thought that must be where he'd hidden it."

  "Why would he hide the log?" Granger asked.

  "Exactly. Or why would someone want to steal it?"

  Granger said, "Rogue, give it up before you become as obsessed as the old man. Even if it was stolen, all it means is someone might have taken his wild stories seriously."

  His brother was right, of course. As usual.

  Rogan changed the subject. "Remember James Drummond?"

  "His father ran the antique shop. I don't really know him. Why?"

  "He runs it now. He came visiting the first night."

  "Why was he visiting you?"

  "Not me…Camille."

  "She's still around?"

  "Sleeping in Dad's cabin."

  There was a moment's silence, then, "Aah-huh."

  "She's doing research here, and the hotel's booked out. She wants to know if we can buy her share of the Sea-Rogue."

  Another silence. "I figured we'd be selling the boat."

  "Dad's boat?!" He hadn't meant to sound outraged.

  Granger said patiently, "I don't have a use for it. And you're the man who doesn't want to be tied down by possessions…or if not, what have you done with my brother?"

  "Yeah, yeah." Rogan hesitated. "Could you afford it?"

  "No. The new practice is in debt to the bank for at least the next few years, and I can't take on another mortgage."

  * * *

  Later Rogan talked to the constable, who listened politely and promised to pass on the information about the missing log.

  "There was a guy called Gary somebody at the pub that night," Rogan added. "Off a hire boat."

  "Gary Collier. He's on our list."

  "Is he a suspect?"

  "No more than anyone else. He's a deckhand, but his boat isn't in port right now. When it comes back we'll interview him. Don't worry, Mr. Broderick, we're onto it." Giving him a rather hard look, the constable added, "I believe you've been talking to a lot of people."

  "I've been talking with my father's friends. It's pretty normal after someone dies, isn't it?"

  "Of course. And I'm sure you know we'll see that justice is done. You wouldn't want to do anything to prejudice our inquiries."

  * * *

  Mooching back along the wharf, Rogan wondered where Camille had gone—she'd left after her minimal breakfast and told him she would be out for the day. Researching, he supposed. Unless she was with James Drummond.

  He recalled Drummond's pale eyes, pale hands, his supercilious way of looking at Rogan. And surely he was a bit old for Camille?

  The ketch rocked gently when he boarded, water slapping against the hull.

  Sun and sea were hard on the old girl but she was still sound, a sturdy workhorse of a boat that had served his father well. He walked all around, noting every bit of peeling paint, every frayed cable or rusted hinge, and when Camille returned he was applying undercoat to the deckhouse.

  She had a small backpack on, and by the time he'd wiped his hands and crossed to help her down she had already negotiated the ladder and made the leap to the deck. "Painting?" she said. "What color is it going to be?"

  He'd bought white for the sides and red for the top, the same as before, but he said, "What color would you like?"

  "It doesn't matter what I like. I'm selling my half anyway." She began walking across the deck, sliding the backpack from her shoulders.

  "Watch out for wet paint," he said.

  * * *

  In her cabin Camille removed several books from the backpack. She opened a drawer of the desk, then hesitated. Going back on deck, she asked Rogan, "Do you suppose I could use that safe? Mr. Trubshaw loaned me some books and old documents so I don't have to go back and forth every day, and I'd hate anything to happen to them." She'd been surprised and touched that he'd trusted her with them. "I mean, if we were burgled again or something…"

  "Sure." He fished in a pocket of his jeans and pulled out the key ring to remove the key. "All yours."

  She made a pasta casserole, and then worked on her notes while it cooked.

  After dinner Rogan was explaining the importance in deep diving of decompression tables and dive computers when James's voice called from above, "Camille?" Then came a muffled swearword.

  Camille raced up the companionway, almost colliding with James at the top. "What's wrong?"

  "Paint," he said disgustedly, regarding a whitened palm, and a smear on his dark striped shirt. "Why the hell isn't there a sign or something?"

  "I don't suppose Rogan was expecting visitors. I'm sorry about your shirt."

  Regaining his usual calm he said, "Not your fault. Is there somewhere I can wash this off my hand?"

  She took him down to the cabin and Rogan didn't apologize but produced turpentine and pointed out the head.

  When James came out Camille made coffee and after having some he asked Rogan, "Mind if I look around?"

  "Why?"

  James smiled. "It's an interesting old craft."

  "I'll show you," Camille volunteered. "If it's all right with Rogan." She directed a questioning look at him.

  He gave her a piercing look back, and shrugged.

  She left the door of Rogan's cabin closed and showed him the rest of the boat. On their return Rogan was still nursing his empty cup at the table.

  Camille accompanied James up to the deck. "Why did you want to see me?" she asked.

  "Do I need a reason?" He smiled at her. "I'm expecting some interesting people at the weekend—business friends. They're sailing up from Auckland and I hope to do a deal or two. Would you join us for dinner on Saturday?"

  "Yes," she said. "Thank you."

  When she returned to the cabin Rogan said, "Do you want to go on with this lesson? By the way, you'll need a medical check with a dive doctor before we go in the water."

  "I'm fine," she assured him. "Very healthy."

  He cast a veiled, dispassionate glance over her that nevertheless sent a shower of warm sparks across her skin. "Yeah, but you need a doctor's say-so."

  She got a doctor's report the following day. Rogan glanced over the few lines a
nd said, "Right. Let's hire you a suit."

  The proprietor of the dive shop he took her to greeted Rogan with a camaraderie that indicated they were old friends. "This is Brodie," Rogan told Camille. "A damn good diver when he's not being a shopkeeper."

  Brodie—tall, tanned and with thick, streaked blond hair that suggested a beach lifestyle—flashed a white grin at Camille, very blue eyes showing male appreciation but not too blatantly. "What's a nice girl like you doing hanging out with a guy like Rogue?"

  Rogan looked pained. "Thanks for the testimonial."

  "Anytime." The grin turned to him. "Is this a social visit, or did you want something?"

  "I'm teaching Camille to dive." Ignoring Brodie's lifted brows and the wickedly knowing spark that appeared in the sky-blue eyes, Rogan added, "She needs to hire some gear. And then can we use your practice pool?"

  "No problem." To Camille he said, "In the water you can trust this guy a hundred and one percent. He saved my life."

  Rogan said impatiently, "Oh, shut up, you loon! Find this girl a suit, will you?"

  The pool was a saltwater one adjacent to the shop. Half an hour later Camille was entering the water, adjusting her buoyancy and breathing, moving about easily under the surface with the help of the equipment that had seemed so cumbersome on land, and practicing to cope with possible problems like water in her mask or losing her regulator.

  The pool was warm and they both wore light, sleeveless suits without hoods, although their legs were encased in close-fitting neoprene. Camille had tied her hair in a ponytail that streamed behind her in the water, and now and then her bare arm brushed against Rogan's slick and muscular one, sending a tiny frisson of awareness all the way to her rubber-finned toes.

  When he called a halt after two hours she was surprised the time had passed so quickly.

  Over lunch in the Koffee 'n' Kai she asked how long he'd known Brodie.

  "Since high school," he told her. "We took our first diving lessons together. After we graduated from dive school we did a stint at a resort hotel in Australia, teaching diving, and worked on a couple of salvage operations. We bump into each other now and then on jobs in different parts of the world."

  "So he still dives professionally?"