In the Waning Light (19 page)

“Where did you go last night?”

Henry looked up from his mug of scalding coffee that he was sipping carefully at the table in the breakfast nook. His brain felt like cotton. LB’s voice was hurting his head. But something inside him stilled when he saw the expression on her face. Her pupils were dilated. She looked crazed. Her hair wasn’t right, either. Slowly he lowered his mug. “A client,” he said. “For drinks. I told you.”

“Where? Which bar? Whose house?”

He hesitated. Geoff had phoned him from a dive bar at the Blind Channel Motel just south of Whakami, a place that was dark and anonymous and old, home to sad, blue-collar drunks. He’d joined Geoff there against his better judgment, against his own damn will. He’d told himself it was just to discuss a solution to their Meg problem. And they had. And more.

“The Shelter Head Pub,” he lied.

“You came home very late.”

He said nothing. The fact that he was late, and drunk, had been obvious, and he’d rather not talk about it. It was a one-off. An old friend. And it was more than a hangover making him sick. It was what had begun to stir in him again. The way he felt false unto himself. Fragile. As if everything was a hair’s breadth away from crumbling under him—his whole fucking, fake life.

“I’m talking to you, Henry.”

He shoved up from the table, dumped his coffee in the sink. “I’m going to work early.”

“Henry!” She wheeled her chair after him. He kept going, into his office to get his briefcase. She wheeled right in after him, her face reddening.

He turned, fury spearing hot into his chest. “For chrissakes, LB, give me some—” He stopped. Her face was wrong. Her silence, the tension around her was suddenly thick, dangerous.

“I saw.”

“Saw what?”

“I saw what you have on your computer. I saw what you look at when you’re in here late at night.”

The blood drained from his head. He reached for the back of the chair.

“How . . . how
could
you, Henry? What
are
you!? I don’t even know you. Is this who you are? I have no idea who in the hell I bloody married!”

Blake braced his hands on the bathroom basin and stared at his face in the mirror. The shower was boiling up steam, fogging his reflection. Meg’s words, her very reason for having returned home, roiled through his mind.

I’m doing it for him. To win him back . . .

The irony—the sad, sick, twisted irony was not lost on him. In keeping Meg safe, in helping her to achieve her goal now, he was helping her win her fiancé back.

So why was he doing it? Was it self-interest? Hell yes. Because he saw a window to fight for a second chance. He’d felt it in her kiss—she
wanted
him. There
was
still something between them. And she was fighting it herself. She was flailing against the very walls she’d spent years erecting around herself to avoid hurt, and like a mythical maiden she was now locked up high in an impenetrable turret of her own making. And he was like the idiot knight at the base of the sheer stone walls, full of blustering bravado, thinking he could rescue her, and carry her off into the sunset. Offer her a life and ring that would suit her far better than the one she thought she wanted. Right here in Shelter Bay.

Conflict churned through him as steam obliterated his image in the mirror. It could never work. They had too much baggage. There was Noah. There was the information he’d kept from her and the cops all those years ago—it could cost him this fragile, newfound connection with Meg.

Shit. He could argue this every which way from Sunday, but no matter how he sliced it, there were big secrets in this town. Someone had attacked her house. Meg could be in danger. They all needed answers. He couldn’t
not
help. And yeah, at the same time he was gunning to win her back now. His goal was to see her remove that ring from her finger of her own accord. That was also a game he couldn’t
not
play. Meg was in his blood like the winds and the tide. And fate had brought both him and her, even Geoff, back full circle, to this marina, to this point in time. Surely for a reason? Surely for a second chance. And the trick would be to do it right this time. Yes, he could lose.

But, he
could
win.

He stepped into the steaming shower and let it scald his skin as he foamed up his hair and scrubbed his body.

As he was drying himself, he heard a knock on the door.

“Dad?”

He snagged a towel from the rack, hooked it around his waist, opened the door. Noah stood there in his PJs. His son’s face was tight, hands balled at his sides. Lucy stood behind him, wagging her tail. Blake’s heart dropped at the sight of the dog. He’d closed Lucy into the living room with Meg. If Lucy was out, it meant Noah had been in.

“Hey, champ. Good sleep?”

“Where’s Uncle Geoff?” Noah demanded, unshed tears shining in his eyes. “
He
was supposed to be sleeping by the fire, not
her.
What’s
she
doing downstairs? You promised!”

Noah’s words walloped through Blake. His son was supposed to be his top priority right now, and he had promised him they wouldn’t see Meg. Could he walk this tightrope? Balance both Meg and Noah? Did he honestly have any choice right now?

“Come here.” Blake led Noah into his room. He sat on the edge of his bed in his towel, took his son’s shoulders.

“I need to share something with you, Noah. But first I need to ask you a question.”

His son eyed him, leery.

“If someone was in bad trouble, like, serious danger, would you help keep them safe, even if it meant making some sacrifices?”

Silence hung for a beat. He nodded.

“Even if it meant you didn’t like that person very much?”

Noah hesitated, his gaze flickering to the door.

“Because that’s what’s happening here. Some really bad guys drove past Meg’s house late last night and shot out all the windows with a hunting rifle. Now, you’re the first to hear about this. It will probably be on the radio, and in the
Shelter Bay Chronicle
, and you could hear about it at school.” Blake wavered, but opted to hold nothing back. The more honest and open he was with Noah, the more he gave his son some ownership of this thing, and the more Noah might buy in. Hide anything from him, and his kid was going to find out, especially in a small town like this. Look at what had already happened with Peggy Millar’s comment to her husband over their dinner table one night—what was supposed to have been private had found its way into the school yard and hurt his boy.

“The bad guys also painted nasty words on her walls in an attempt to scare her out of town. And they painted those words in some kind of blood. Animal probably, but Chief Deputy Dave Kovacs and his guys are figuring that out, and they
will
find out who those bad guys are, and punish them.”

Noah’s pupils darkened with interest. “Blood!?”

Blake nodded.

“Why?”

“Because she wants to write that story about her sister’s murder all those years ago. And it looks like some people in town really, really don’t want that to happen.”

“Is she in
danger
?”

“She could be, Noah. That’s why your uncle Geoff told me about the gunfire—he heard about it when he was out late last night. And that’s why we brought Meg here, to the marina, where it’s safe.”

“
Is
it safe? Can’t the bad guys come here?”

“We can make it safe. The fact that she’s not alone will help. I don’t think these bad guys have a whole lotta balls anyway, trying to scare a woman alone like that, and then running off into the dark.”

“Wow,” he said. “That’s . . . cool.”

Relief punched through Blake and he smiled.

“But what about the police?” Noah said, frowning. “Why don’t they guard her in her
own
house?”

Blake cleared his throat. “It’s a crime scene for a bit, until they’ve checked it all out. And the windows are all shot out, so it’s cold, and it can’t be locked. And the broken glass has to be cleaned out, and the blood washed off the walls. It needs more paint again. It could be a few days before that house is habitable again.”

He looked uncertain.

“So—” Blake slapped his knees. “You okay if she stays in the spare room for a bit?”

Noah looked down at his bare feet. “I suppose.” He glanced up slowly, met his dad’s eyes. Blake ruffled his boy’s hair.

“Thank you, bud. I love you, you know that?”

Noah lunged forward and threw his skinny little arms tight around Blake’s neck. Emotion burned into Blake’s eyes. He kissed Noah’s hair and was again reminded how it smelled like sunshine. “Now, how about some breakfast? You go get changed, and I’ll rustle up something downstairs. Eggs? Bacon?”

“Waffles!”

“You got it, bud. See you in five, downstairs.”

Noah scuttled off, Lucy in tow.

Blake exhaled, dragged his hands over his damp hair. He was one hundred percent in with both feet now. Hell alone knew how this was going to play out. He dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, opened the small safe in the back of his bedroom closet, and removed his Glock 19 and a fifteen-round magazine. Inserting the magazine, he pulled the slide back, chambering a round. He hesitated, then took a spare magazine from the safe for good measure. From his drawer he removed a holster, which he threaded onto his leather belt, positioning the holster at the small of his back. He socked his pistol into the holster, and the spare ammunition into the adjacent pouch, before snagging a button-down shirt from his shelves, and punching his arms into the sleeves. He covered the holster with his shirt, and headed down to make waffles, his mind going back to the day he’d saved her life the first time. He’d do it again in a heartbeat, although he hoped it would not come down to needing a gun.

THE STRANGER AMONG US

By Meg Brogan

BLAKE

Black and oily is the sea, pocked with driving rain and veined with white foam. The closer Blake gets to the point, the more it heaves and seethes. Surf crashes against the man-made reef in a thunderous roar. He slows his little craft, waiting for a swell to crest, then he angles his prow and gooses the engine, riding the wave fast to a small wedge of sand between rocks. The wave breaks and boils around him. Water and foam fill his boat. But he keeps the engine gunning as long as he can before it floods and chokes, riding the angry froth. The lighthouse beam pans round, illuminating his path for a moment with stark white light. Rocks glisten black and surreal on either side of the sand. He hits the beach hard, and is tossed forward and flat onto his stomach, into the sloshing water at the bottom of his boat. He scrabbles quickly to his feet, boots squelching in water as he jumps out and strains to drag his boat up the beach, but the wave sucks back, and sucks hard, and his craft is weighted with water. It’s too heavy. He lets it go, and the sea grabs it away with gleeful greed. He scrambles up the sand beyond its reach in his heavy gear, breath rasping in his chest, rain plastering hair to his head. He staggers up into a wild run, his small headlight poking a faint beam into the storm as he aims for the spot where he believes Meg might go to hide if she’s in trouble. Given the news about Sherry, something awful must have happened.

“Meg!” he screams into the wind. It snatches his words, tosses them away. The tide is still pushing in, coming higher. Rain lashes at his face. “Meg!”

The lighthouse beam sweeps across the spit, high, refracting in cloud. He sees something. Down in the waves in a tiny cove. Something white that catches the light—shining fish-belly white. He freezes. A wave surges and the thing lolls like a dead seal. Except he knows—he knows with every fiber of his being. As much as he wants to find her, his mind recoils at this. No. Not like this. No, no, no.

The wind whines through rock formations as he nears. The foghorn answers. Blake breaks into a staggering run, down into the cove. He trips, smashes down, scrabbles back onto his feet. He drops down the twisty little path, and stumbles onto sand. He reaches the water and falls to his knees. “Meg?”

He rolls her body over. And his heart clean stops. Her clothes are torn, a breast exposed. White as a lily. Her face is alabaster, lips blue. A black, bloodless gash mars her brow. Her long hair is tangled with seaweed. A tiny crab scuttles over her face. Oh my God . . . Meg . . . Shit . . . Meg.

Focus
.

He hooks his hands under her armpits, drags her limp body up the beach, sets her down gently on her back. He drops to his knees, angles her head back like he’s been taught in first aid class. He opens her mouth and scoops around with his fingers, removing debris. His mind is telling him it’s hopeless; his heart will not allow him to stop. A terrible kind of raw fear clutches and claws up in his chest, but he performs CPR. He keeps at it, counting the compressions, then touching his lips to her cold and lifeless ones. More compressions. More breath. More compressions. More breath. And suddenly her body stiffens. Her back arcs violently and she gags.

A hatchet of hope strikes through his heart. Quickly he moves her head sideways, and she vomits a foaming slime. And again, and again, coughing, choking, convulsing. He gathers her upper body into his arms, tears streaming down his face. “Help! Oh, God. Somebody help! I found her!
Help!
”

But his words are snatched away. Blake’s mind races. He shrugs out of his jacket, and wraps it around her. He shucks off his shirt, and balls it for a pillow. She’s unresponsive to his actions. But she’s breathing. She’s alive.

Blake fumbles to open his kit belt. He frees the air horn, holds it high. He releases three short blasts,
three
long, three short. Waits a beat. Three short, three long, three short. Dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot. SOS. The sailor’s universal distress call. Then he unsheathes his radio, finds the channel he knows his dad and the searchers are using, keys the button. “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.
Anybody copy? It’s Blake Sutton. Mayday. Mayday.” Heart thumping, he releases the key, waits.
Nothing. He keys again. “Mayday! Help! Anybody copy?”

He waits.

A crackle, then a voice. “This is Search Team Four. Copy.”

Tears of relief flood him. With a shaking voice he replies, “Search Team Four, this is Blake Sutton. I found Meg Brogan. I found Meg.” His voice chokes. “She’s alive. Need help. Need medevac, stat. Do you copy?”

“Copy, Blake, what’s your location?”

He gives it, then drops to his knees, cradling Meg’s head, making sure she’s breathing. “Hang in there, Meggie. Please. Please hang in. Help is coming.”

And that’s when he sees it. The sack. Up on the rocks.