Dark Moon Walking (32 page)

By nine o'clock in Annie's cove, the rain had eased and the wind had decreased and veered toward the east, flattening the seas it had built up the night before. The branches on the trees had gradually stilled and the birds had returned, their calls loud in the newly quiet air.

“You got a radio?” Annie was peering down at Dan as he struggled to untie the dinghy line.

“Yeah.”

“
VHF
?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll leave mine on.”

Dan looked up at her. “Thanks, Annie. We'll call you when we get back.”

“Hmm.”

Dan watched her as she stomped away across the deck and disappeared from sight. “She's not half as tough as she pretends to be,” he said, turning to check that Claire was settled.

“No, she's not—but don't ever tell her that,” Claire replied with a smile. “She'd never forgive you.”

They were both wearing dry clothes, bulked up by the addition of the fleece shirts that Annie had insisted on giving them. The weather might have improved, but it was still cold, and they knew they would be drenched by the time they reached their destination even though they planned on taking the circuitous route through the narrow, protected channels Walker had led them on. Was that only a day ago? It seemed more like a week.

Dan finally succeeded in untying the line that held the dinghy to the plank walkway. He passed it to Claire and made his way back to the stern. “Ready?” he asked.

She nodded and released the little boat, and the whine of the outboard shattered the peace of the morning.

They wound through the familiar channels, watching for the rocks and shallows Walker had pointed out. Claire sat in the bow, her gaze on the water ahead as she scanned for dangers. Dan watched Claire, content to follow her directions as she indicated a change of course or speed with quick movements of her hands. Even wearing thick layers of clothing, the slim lines of her body were visible as she leaned and twisted in her efforts to discern the shadowy rocks below the surface, and he found himself enjoying watching her. She had an energy, a vibrancy, and openness that he found irresistible, and a surge of attraction woke from dormancy to warm his interest and heat his blood. He smiled. Maybe there really were second chances in life. A couple of hours and they would be back at
Dreamspeaker
. One phone call to Mike and then his job would be finished. Nothing else he could do. He had learned Walker's lesson well, and although he would have to wait around for the man himself if he wasn't already there, once he had seen him and said goodbye, he would feel free to head back south without his conscience nagging at him. Two, maybe three days, just Claire and him. Could get interesting.

He was so busy enjoying the possibilities that when Claire suddenly jerked back, arms spread wide and fingers white where she gripped the edges of her seat, he pulled the control lever back too far and stalled the motor. The tiny boat lost way and settled down into the water just as the curve of a black hull appeared beyond the point of land ahead of them. The current caught the bow as they slowed and pushed it into the bank, hiding them from the black ship before it came completely into view.

“What the hell are they doing here?” Dan had been flung forward as the bow hit the gravel bottom, and he was pressed against Claire's back, his mouth beside her ear as he whispered the question he knew they were both thinking.

They slid out of the dinghy, leaving it perched on the shore as they crept up to the point and peered through stalks of weedy grass. The black ship was very close, perhaps only a couple hundred yards off the shore, bow out as she hung off a short anchor chain. Light reflecting off the water lit the pale tracery of script etched on her stern:

Snow Queen

Vancouver

Three men were clustered at the stern, peering down at two others who were in a small inflatable, moving slowly along the waterline under the curve of the hull. Dan immediately recognized one of the three up on deck. This close, Harry Coombs's round frame and curly hair were unmistakable, but Dan had never seen either of the other two. He thought one of them might be the captain. The man was wearing white slacks and a white polo shirt with some kind of insignia on the pocket and he appeared to be giving directions to the two below. The third man was standing a little apart, his body tilted slightly away from Harry as if to distance himself. In perfect contrast to the captain, he was dressed head to toe in black, and his dark hair was pulled into a neat ponytail at the back of his neck. His eyes were covered with wraparound sunglasses and the rigid lines of his body suggested a barely controlled rage.

Voices drifted across the water, distorted by the distance but carrying the unmistakable cadence of worry. The beam of a work light, diminished by the light of day, flashed across the hull and then shone down on the surface of the water below the stern. They had to be checking the propeller. There was more talk, perhaps questions or directions and short answers given in low tones. Dan thought he heard the word “seaweed,” although he could have imagined it, and then the man he took to be the captain left briefly and returned with a long pole with a hook on the end, which he passed down to the men below. Dan guessed that something—probably the seaweed they had been talking about—had fouled the prop and they were going to use the boat hook to try to free it.

It was not going to be an easy job. The inflatable kept moving out as the men pushed against the hull and they had to use the motor to try to hold it in place. Even allowing for the difficult conditions, they looked awkward, as if they were not used to being on the water and were uncomfortable with it. As Dan watched them struggle, he thought of Walker and how at ease he would have looked in the same situation. Hell, the man had to be part fish. If he had a prop fouled with seaweed, he would probably just dive in and . . . wait a minute. Could this be his handiwork? It was the kind of thing that he might come up with, although Dan had no idea how it could be accomplished. How the hell could you get seaweed onto a prop so it stayed on? And the water had to be cold enough to freeze his balls off! He discarded the notion. Walker might have been here and tried something, but this couldn't be it.

The first piece of seaweed came up on the hook and was passed to the men waiting above. It was shiny and brown, and from his distance Dan thought it looked smooth. He glanced at Claire. “Kelp?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

She looked as mystified as he was. Kelp didn't wrap around props. It was too smooth and tough.

“Maybe we should move.”

Claire's low voice broke into Dan's thoughts. They had been watching the scene on the black ship—
Snow Queen
, Dan corrected himself, which was an odd name for a ship with a black hull—for over half an hour, and it looked like it was going to take a good deal longer for them to finish up. The tall dark man had gone inside and had not reappeared, but Harry and the captain were still out there, peering down at the men in the inflatable, and their body language suggested they were not happy.

“Nowhere we can go,” Dan said in a low voice. “If we go back and head round the other way, we have to go right past Shoal Bay.”

“What if they come over here?”

Dan shook his head. “No reason to—and we'd see them coming, anyway. We could be out of sight before they got here.” He looked back down to the dinghy, sitting on the shore. “We should move the dinghy, though. Take it back around the bend where we can get to it easily. I'll just pull it. Can't start the motor. They'd hear that for sure.”

She looked down at the little boat and nodded. “I'll do it. You stay here.”

He really didn't think it likely that anyone would come over, but it was a good precaution and he knew Claire would feel more comfortable with the dinghy out of sight. He watched as she wriggled backward down the slope, gently lifted the bow from its resting place on the shore, and nudged it out into the water till it floated free. Wading into the water after it, she turned and started walking away from the point, pulling the tiny boat along behind her like a dog on a leash. She was halfway there when the shriek of a siren cut through the air, and Dan snapped his attention back to
Snow Queen
. A moment later he felt Claire throw herself down beside him again.

“What on earth is happening?”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Fernandez reached the wheelhouse within seconds, the shrill blast of the alarm vibrating through his skull. He pushed his way past Harry, who was standing uselessly near the door with his hands over his ears, and over to where the captain was leaning over the controls, his fingers frantically working the keyboard as he peered intently at one of the screens.

“What is happening?”

His voice, always cold, dripped menace. He saw Harry look at him, worry obvious in the nervous flicker of his eyes.

“It's probably nothing much.” Harry gave a strained laugh. “Might be a sensor on the shaft or something. The boys might have set it off when they were pulling off the weeds.”

Fernandez ignored him and leaned closer to the captain.