Cold Evidence (Evidence Series Book 6)

by Rachel Grant

  “Raptor? Is that the mercenary company owned by that senator from Maryland?”

  Crap, she had another confession to make to Luke. Bad timing considering he was actually being nice to her. “Yeah. That’s Raptor. Trina, a coworker at NHHC and one of my closest friends, is engaged to the CEO.” She cleared her throat. “So, I have something else I need to tell you.”

  Not surprisingly, he stiffened.

  “Trina is worried about me and something of a mother hen. I’ve been an emotional wreck since the accident, and she thinks the fact that you saved me has only made it—me—worse. She believes I’ve been hung up on you forever.” She gazed out at the trees that lined the road. Anything was better than facing Luke. “Trina nagged Keith—her fiancé—to check you out.”

  “He ran a background check on me?” His voice was guarded.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t know anything about it until it was too late. It was before—before we had sex. And just a preliminary screen, the kind they run when they’re considering hiring someone.”

  “Meaning he looked at my military record—the parts that aren’t classified—and anything in public databases. Did he find any ugly secrets I should know about?”

  “No.” She cleared her throat. “If it makes you feel better, Keith said he wants to offer you a job.”

  “What’s the pay like?”

  She gave him a startled look. “Do you want to work for Raptor?”

  His laugh held a hard edge. “No. Not even a little bit. I’ve got a commitment to the NOAA Corps. I’m working in my field again. I’m exactly where I want to be. Or at least I was, until your boss jerked me around.”

  She winced, but felt rather maxed out on apologies where he was concerned. She could only say she was sorry for other people’s actions so much.

  “What did Keith find out about Yuri?”

  Relief settled over her that he was letting this latest affront slide. “Nothing yet. I’ll email him and cc you, so he’ll loop you in if he finds anything. That way you can ream him out for running a check on you. Or talk SEAL stuff. Whatever it is you former Navy guys do.”

  “Keith was a SEAL?”

  She nodded. “He was a sniper.”

  “I guess I should be careful how much shit I flip him, then.”

  She laughed. Keith and Luke would probably get along just fine.

  “Anything else about Yuri you remember?”

  She shrugged. “He was an old-school Eastern European sexist bastard. He sometimes almost seemed to be a caricature—the crotchety Ukrainian. Scotty liked to bait him by calling him Russian—I gathered that was an ongoing joke that never got old for Scotty. But when Yuri wasn’t being those things, he could be nice. Almost a grandfatherly type. Between losing his family in Chernobyl and some other things he hinted at, I gathered he’d suffered some horrors at the hands of the Soviets. I felt sorry for him when he wasn’t being a pain in the ass. He was thirty when the Soviet Union fell apart. Old enough to have seen some nasty stuff.”

  “Those former KGB guys are still going strong under Putin, and they don’t mess around. Do you know why Yuri came to the US?”

  “He never said. But then, I barely knew him.” She thought carefully about their conversations. “He ranted about Russia frequently but never spoke of how he felt about the US. He mentioned Canada a few times and, I gathered, took the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria fairly frequently. I asked him about it, because it’s a trip I’d like to make before I leave. I’ve never been to Victoria.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  “He complained that they didn’t serve vodka in the ferry lounge, and he always felt like he was being profiled at customs on both ends. He said he went there because he had Ukrainian friends who’d settled in Sidney, BC.”

  “That might be something to look into.”

  “I’ll mention it to Keith in my email.”

  “You said he was a fisherman and worked for Jared off and on.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did Yuri have his own fishing boat?”

  She nodded. “He lived on his boat and moved around the coast.”

  “What happened to it?”

  She shrugged. “I would imagine it went to his next of kin—his sister?—but she probably lives in Ukraine. But again, I only knew him a handful of days.”

  “Another question for Keith, then. Does he have access to that kind of data?”

  “If he doesn’t, then Erica’s husband, Lee, could get it for us. He’s good at making computers give up their secrets.”

  “You know, this can all be done legally. No need for hacking.”

  “Oh, Lee’ll do it legal.” She silently added, this time. They all knew Lee strayed into questionable territory now and then, but Luke was right, there was no reason for that here. “I could always ask Mara to brief Curt Dominick on everything. Curt can get the FBI involved. Given the military vessel, the explosion, and Yuri’s Ukrainian background, there are at least a dozen different Federal laws this could fall under, and excavating Wrasse without a permit is an SMCA—Sunken Military Craft Act—violation, so we have a starting point, but it would help to get Curt’s attention if we found conclusive evidence that the explosion was no accident, or that Yuri is alive.”

  Luke shook his head. “You could get the US attorney general involved in this with just a phone call? You do move in impressive circles, Ms. Gray.”

  “Well, his wife is my ultimate boss, even above Greg—she’s the one who could get him involved. But yeah, Curt and I are friends. Although he works a hellish number of hours, so of all my friends’ significant others, I probably know Curt the least well.”

  “Is he as cold as everyone says?”

  “He’s not cold so much as driven. He’s a good man. Totally in love with Mara. It’s really sweet how his eyes follow her around the room.”

  Undine was envious of their relationship. Actually, she was envious of the relationships all of her friends had. Not that she needed a man to be happy, but that the men she’d been with never elicited the kind of emotion she witnessed between Lee and Erica, or Curt and Mara.

  She barely knew Cressida, but even she could see that her boyfriend, Ian, was crazy about her. Just once she’d like to be the recipient of that intensity of emotion. Even if it didn’t last.

  “Have you ever been in love, Luke?” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. What was she thinking, asking Luke Sevick, of all people, about love and relationships? They’d had meaningless sex just sixty-three hours ago. Not that she was tracking that or anything.

  He glanced at her askance. After a long pause, he said, “Yeah. Once.”

  “What happened?” Instead of jealousy, she realized she felt sad on his behalf, that he’d loved someone and it hadn’t worked out.

  “The usual. I was deployed. She got fed up with me being gone all the time and cheated.”

  “That sucks.”

  He shrugged. “I’m neither the first nor the last guy that’s happened to. I’m just glad it happened before I did something dumb like ask her to marry me—which I’d been ready to do.” He paused. “What about you, Undine? Has there been anyone special in your life?”

  “No. There’ve been plenty of relationships—Trina refers to my dating pattern as serial monogamy with a sixty-day expiration—but I’ve never been in love.”

  “Love is overrated. Sex is just as good”—he gave her a sidelong glance—“or even better without it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The couple returned in the early evening. From the deck of his boat, Yuri looked through binoculars and watched them unload a bag of groceries from the store in Forks, answering his question on where they’d gone.

  Next Gray pulled a wetsuit from the back of Sevick’s SUV. Shit. She was getting better equipped to dive. At least they wouldn’t have mixed gases. They’d be limited—as he and his team were—to short bounce dives. No more than fifteen minutes at the bottom. The time r
estrictions and the need to search only at night had hampered Yuri from the start. But he had the location now. He would find the weapon in the next day or two.

  Sevick closed and locked his vehicle. A sign he intended to stay the night?

  A few minutes later, the occupant of the cabin adjacent to Gray’s stepped off his porch and dumped a bag of coals in the portable grill in the parking area. He probably had a stringer of fish to cook.

  The wind whipped up as the man poured lighter fluid on the coals, and he gestured as if he’d been splashed with the flammable liquid. His movements were sloppy, like a man who’d had too much to drink.

  Yuri kept his binoculars fixed on the drunken fisherman.

  Perhaps there was a way to stage an accident that would be believable.

  After they returned to Undine’s cabin, they spent hours going over the chart, planning the following day’s dive. As they talked, Undine tied knots every five meters on a long rope they’d purchased in Forks. They would use the line as a leash and to measure any excavated areas they found.

  “With this wind, the water will be choppy,” Luke said. “It’ll be harder for us to work our way down. We’ll have less time at the bottom.”

  She nodded and tied a carabiner to one end of the line and held it up for Luke’s inspection. “We’ll hook this to the anchor line and leapfrog each other at the five-meter intervals. If we swim in a circle around the anchor, we should be able to cover a thirty- or forty-meter radius.”

  Her email chimed, and she turned to her laptop next to her on the bed. She and Luke had settled into an accord over the course of the day. Not friends, not enemies, hell, not even frenemies. Just coworkers. As Luke had said earlier, sex the other night had been simple biology.

  She’d taken several classes in biology, and Luke held a BS in the subject. They both understood the science of attraction and sex.

  She opened her Mail program. “Email from Keith,” she said. “Looks like he was able to track down Yuri’s boat.”

  “What did he find out?”

  She scanned the contents. “His boat was moored at the marina here at the time of the accident. It was released to his next of kin—twin nephews—who, surprisingly, lived in Seattle. It was all handled with shocking speed, but he owned the boat without any liens, and his will stated clearly who the beneficiaries were, so probate wasn’t necessary.”

  “Does he say where the boat is now?”

  “No. If we find anything on our dive that indicates Yuri might have survived, I’m sure the Navy or the FBI will call on his next of kin. But until then, there’s not much that can be done.”

  Luke nodded. “Anything on the victims of the ferry sinking? Is there a connection to Yuri?”

  “Nothing so far, but the ferry manifest is incomplete. Much like it could take months to figure out who was on a Washington State Ferry if there were an incident.” She stood up and stretched, then glanced at her watch, surprised to see they were deep into the evening hours. She grabbed the TV remote and hit the power button. “We should check the forecast.” A local channel had satellite pictures with a ticker across the bottom providing predictions.

  “Looks like we’ll be good for tomorrow,” Luke said. The image changed, showing an extended area, and the ticker offered a longer-range forecast. “But we could be facing a Pineapple Express. We may want to try to get two dives in tomorrow.”

  “We won’t have enough daylight for that unless we go out at eight a.m.”

  “I’ll talk to Ray and Parker. We could dive in the dark.”

  “You probably have much more experience with that than I do.”

  He nodded. “Diving as a SEAL is a helluva lot different. A lot less focus on the pretty fish. More of a commute, really.”

  “Do you miss it? The SEALs?” She couldn’t help but stare at the muscles that proved he kept up with whatever exercise regime he’d maintained when he was in the service. She could stare at his muscles all day. And touching him, getting up close and personal with his perfect body? Sheer pleasure.

  “Sometimes. The adrenaline. The team. They’re my brothers.”

  “One of the guys who works for Keith at Raptor was on his SEAL team. And you can see it—all the guys are friends, but Keith and Josh…it’s different.”

  Luke nodded. “If you don’t have a lot of experience with night diving, tomorrow is not the day to start. We’ll keep an eye on the weather and hope the storm will hold off for a few days.” He stood. “I should head. I need to move out of the NOAA’s research housing tonight. They’ve assigned another researcher to complete my project, and I need to vacate for him.”

  “Are you moving into one of these cabins?”

  “No. I’ve got a reservation out at Hobuck, the cabins on the Pacific coast. Full-size fridge and a cooktop.”

  She’d wanted to book one of those cabins, but when she first made her reservation, it was on her own dime, and the ones on the bay were cheaper. “Jealous. I’m mighty sick of microwave meals, and the restaurant is getting old.”

  She could swear he was about to make her an offer, or even kiss her good night, when he rubbed the back of his neck. “Meet me at the dock at eleven tomorrow.”

  Luke had to leave. He shouldn’t have allowed her to get comfortable with him. It was much easier when the anger crackled between them.

  Except, of course, he’d screwed her brains out when amped up on anger. So maybe not. Maybe this…cooperation…or whatever it was would mean he could keep his hands off her?

  Forget that he was angry, and, more importantly, she was vulnerable. He was an asshole, sure, but was he a complete asshole?

  So far, yeah.

  It was probably only a matter of time before her friend the sniper called for open season, and hell, the Raptor CEO had a mercenary army at his back. Then there was Stefan Gray, who already wanted to have Luke neutered.

  Not that he was scared of either man or army. It was more about being able to face himself in the mirror, and he’d been having a problem with that since he’d slipped out of her bed the other night.

  But damn, even now, he wanted her. He wanted angry and fierce. He wanted to ride that line of anger and lust all the way to home base again. And again.

  He descended the wide porch steps and crossed to his SUV, his brain absorbed with thoughts of stripping Undine of the T-shirt and formfitting jeans, and screwing her for hours.

  He pressed the unlock button on the remote key, when the scent of smoke penetrated his lust-infused mind. He glanced back at the row of cabins even as he pulled open the car door. A portable grill on the porch next to Undine’s had an orange glow. The wind gusted, and the glow turned into a flame that licked at the wooden porch post. Sitting on the porch railing right next to the flaming grill was a line of small green propane canisters and a can of lighter fluid.

  Shit.

  He slammed his door closed and stomped up to the cabin. What sort of fool lit a barbecue on a wooden porch on a windy night?

  A glance inside the bowl showed nothing but flame. The guy wasn’t even cooking anything. Luke grabbed the round lid by the handle—hot because the grill was over-fired—and dropped it on top. The vent was open and too hot to close with bare hands, but at least that would slow down the flame while he roused the fisherman.

  He pounded on the door, and two minutes passed before a bleary-eyed man opened the door. “Wah…?” the man asked.

  Luke reached inside and grabbed the fire extinguisher mounted next to the door, then entered the cabin and snatched a towel from the bathroom. Without a word, he returned to the porch, removed the lid with the towel, pulled the pin on the extinguisher, and doused the flames.

  Once he was certain the fire was out, he turned to the gaping fisherman. “Hose it down and get it off the porch. Don’t ever park a lit grill on a wooden porch on a windy night again.” He shoved the extinguisher into the man’s hands and stomped back down the steps, then crossed the small parking lot to his truck.

  C
hapter Thirteen

  The sky was a crisp, clear blue. Undine wouldn’t believe it was November, except for the chill. “The Washington coast is insanely beautiful in the fall—when it’s not raining. Why did I not know this?” she asked Luke.

  “It’s one of those secrets within a secret,” he said as they walked down the dock. “The rain in Seattle isn’t nearly as awful as Washingtonians would have you believe, and the corner of the Olympic Peninsula is remote and wild and one of the most beautiful places in the world.”

  “I haven’t been out to Cape Flattery yet. I hear it’s like standing on the edge of the Earth.”

  “It’s even better than that. Whales and sea lions play in the distance while waves crash against the rocky shoreline.” He cast her a sly grin. “All mermaids should feel at home.”

  “Sounds like a place I should go.”

  “You should.”

  She didn’t point out that she didn’t have a car because he’d insisted on driving her to Neah Bay and there were no rental agencies in the area. He obviously hadn’t decided yet if they were going to attempt anything resembling friendship during this time that they were stuck together.

  He was so damn frustrating. She would take the bus to Port Angeles on the next rainy day and rent a car.

  They climbed aboard Ray’s boat. She greeted Lt. Parker Reeves with a hug. He’d been so understanding during her panic attack two weeks ago. She was thankful his pride hadn’t been hurt when she’d been able to complete the dive with a different partner.

  Luke greeted Parker with a handshake, and it was clear they knew each other already. Not surprising given the size of Neah Bay, and it sounded like Luke spent a lot of time in the community even though he lived in Port Angeles.