SeaChange (4 page)

He shrugged. “I guess. You should have seen it before the
high-rises went up. It was even prettier then.”

She smiled. “Since some of those high-rises are more than
twenty years old, I guess that means you grew up here.”

Shit. Stuck his foot in it that time. He brazened out the lie.
“Mostly.”

“I’m from Minnesota,” she replied with a wry grin. “And even
though I spent summers on the Lake Superior shoreline, I still can’t get over
the sheer vastness of the ocean.”

“Minnesota?” He didn’t know why that amused him. She’d look
cute in a furry parka that covered everything but her nose. “So what brought
you out here?”

“Dolphins,” she replied. “I got my bachelor’s degree in
zoology at Northwestern. That’s where I met Brad. I was a scholarship student
from the Great White North, and he was a trust-fund baby from Glenview,
Illinois.” She must have seen the query in his eyes. “Chicago’s version of La
Jolla,” she explained. “Lots of old, old money.”

“Anyway, we both came out here for grad school, hot to be
the next Jacques Cousteau. Of course, once we got out here, we discovered that
roughly half the students at the university were Midwestern kids with the same
idea. There was no way we could have all studied marine mammals. I studied
lizard behavior for my dissertation. Brad did his on bird migrations.”

“Why not? It’s a big ocean.”

She smiled wryly. “Because in order to do graduate work on
something, you have to have a professor willing to sponsor you, and funding to
do the research. Both of those are severely limiting factors.”

Jake hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense. “So
then what?”

“Well, shortly after we both got our degrees, Brad’s
grandfather died and Brad came into a chunk of the family money. He swung a
deal with the university for us to do our post-doctoral research at the Weston
Institute, with him funding the project. So for the last year we’ve been
camping up and down the Pacific coastline, documenting the movements and
behaviors of the white-sided dolphins.”

“Sounds like interesting work.”

“It is. They’re such incredible animals, smart and social,
and funny.” She practically glowed with enthusiasm, her grief momentarily
forgotten as she talked about her work. “I’ve always believed that they
understand much, much more than people give them credit for.”

She was right about that, he mused. White-sided dolphins
were the species linked with his people and he’d spent lots of time swimming
with them when he was younger.

They stared at the shoreline for several minutes in awkward
silence, sipping coffee and eating the cookies until they’d finished the pack. “So,”
she finally said, her voice a little hesitant. “Now you know my entire life
history. Okay if I ask you a little bit about yours?”

“Go ahead.” His cover story would withstand any questions
she threw at him, and he supposed she was within her rights to ask about the
man she’d just kissed.

“What is it you do for a living, Jake Delos?”

“Ever heard of Travis McGee?”

She shook her head, her silky hair tumbling around her
shoulders and making him want to bury his face in it again. “No. Is he your
boss?”

Jake laughed. Goddess, she was so damn young. “He’s a
fictional character, written by an author named John MacDonald from the sixties
through the eighties. McGee is an interesting guy, sort of a detective, but
mostly he’s retired. He believes in taking his retirement in chunks, whenever
he can afford it. Whenever he has enough money, he retires until he runs out,
then he just takes a job ‘til he can afford to retire again.”

“And what does this fictional character have to do with the
real-life Jake?”

“Well, he’s pretty much my role model. I made a healthy bit
before the tech stocks crashed, so I can afford to be a beach bum.”

“Okay, I think I get it.”

“I have enough to stay retired, but once in a while I do odd
jobs, like finding things, mostly to break up the boredom.”

“Finding things? Like what?”

“Missing ex-spouses. Stolen cars. Whatever people want
found.”

“So you’re a detective.”

“Not exactly. In most places that requires a license, and I’ve
never stayed in one place long enough to acquire one of those. I just find
things.” And do the occasional odd job for a handful of government agencies, he
thought. But he didn’t tell her that.

“Got it.” She laughed, raised her coffee cup. “Here’s to
avoiding license fees.”

He clinked cups with her, then drank a bit of the dark,
strong coffee.

* * * * *

Heidi sat in the overly air-conditioned Coast Guard station
on what had to be the world’s most uncomfortable molded plastic chair and
resisted the urge to bang her head on the table. She’d been over her story a
thousand times, her head hurt, she was freezing, and she still hadn’t had
anything to eat since the cookies on the boat. She supposed she could have
legally gotten up and left, but she didn’t have enough emotional or physical
energy left for that fight.

Jake insisted on going with her to the Coast Guard. She
tried to tell him she could handle it on her own, but she didn’t try too hard.
This was going to be scary enough. It was nice to know that Jake had her back.
He hadn’t seen everything, but he’d witnessed the chase, the shooting, and seen
the cigarette boat. That should lend some credence to her story. And more than
anything else, just knowing he was standing behind her helped her feel a little
less alone.

Of course they were separated the minute they’d made their
initial report. Heidi should have seen that coming, but then, having never been
interrogated before, she supposed she could forgive herself for not knowing
what to expect.

It wasn’t fun, and it didn’t resemble
CSI
or
Law
and Order
. Not one stinking bit. For one thing, the drab little room was
nowhere near as comfortable or clean as the ones shown on TV. For another
thing, the criminals on the shows never had to beg just to be allowed to go to
the bathroom. Over the next four hours, Heidi was grilled by everyone from an
impossibly young Coast Guard lieutenant to a tired-looking woman detective from
the SDPD to a heavyset man from the freaking FBI. She wouldn’t have been
surprised if the parade had included the mayor of San Diego, the Chargers’
defensive line, or the building janitor. She told them all the same thing. They’d
seen the plane drop crates, saw the cigarette boat pick them up, then they’d
been shot at and chased. She described the wreck ‘til she couldn’t talk over
the tears. No, she hadn’t gotten a clear view of any of the shooters; she’d put
her head down as soon as they’d started firing. No, there had been no name or
numbers that she’d seen on the cigarette boat, which was white, she thought,
though it could have been cream or even pale blue. It had been dark.

She explained that she’d been knocked out, hadn’t seen what
happened to Brad. She even showed them the bruise on her temple to prove it,
which earned her a rough examination from a Coast Guard medic and, thankfully,
a couple of ibuprofen. Heidi also told her questioners about being rescued by
Jake, and that he said he’d searched for Brad for a long time. She cried a lot,
and by midafternoon her head was pounding so hard it felt like the building was
falling in on her. They’d given her endless cups of coffee and bottles of
water, but no food. The Oreos had been hours ago, and her stomach was cramping
with hunger. Finally there was a knock on the door of the interrogation room.

“About done, Detective?” Her current interrogator was from
the SDPD, Heidi thought. She’d long ago quit trying too hard to keep them
straight. The current cop was forty-something, female, and determined to get
Heidi to confess to something.

Bleary-eyed, she looked up at the door. Jake stood there,
arms crossed and a foul look on his face. Next to him was the fresh-faced Coast
Guard officer whom they’d spoken to first and a handsome, blond, thirty-something
man in a charcoal gray suit. Heidi didn’t think she’d seen him before, though
she couldn’t be entirely sure.

“There are still details I’d like to go over one more time,”
the detective replied, clearly pissed at the interruption.

“I don’t think so, Detective,” the new guy replied with an
easy—and wicked-looking—grin. His bright-green eyes narrowed as he stared her
down. Heidi wouldn’t want to tangle with this guy. “Jurisdictional issues have
been settled. This one’s mine.”

The detective raised one neatly arched eyebrow and shot him
a dirty look. “Says who?” she sneered.

The other man waved a sheaf of paper. “Federal judge.
Bye-bye now, Lydia.”

“We’ll see.” She stacked up her folders, turned off her
recorder and added it to the pile. “Ms. Eriksen, I’m sure we’ll be meeting
again. Meanwhile, please don’t attempt to leave town or anything else so
foolish.” Then she stalked out, her silent flunky beside her and her sensible
heels clattering on the linoleum.

“
Doctor
Eriksen,” Jake interjected in a low growl.
Heidi just shook her head. Frankly she didn’t care if they called her Lassie,
as long as they let her stretch her aching legs and found her some food.

“Thanks.” Heidi drained the last water bottle, thumped it
back on the table. “I don’t suppose any of you have an aspirin handy, do you?”
The ibuprofen had been about six hours earlier and had worn off a while ago.
Her stomach growled loudly. “Or a sandwich.”

The guy in the suit turned toward the Coast Guard lieutenant.
“You haven’t fed her?”

The younger man shrugged. “I tried, but the FBI and SDPD
guys wouldn’t let me.”

Jake scowled even more as he stepped over and took Heidi’s
arm to help her to her feet. She staggered a little as the blood flooded south,
but he caught her, wouldn’t let her stumble in the few seconds it took her to
regroup. “I’m taking her home now.” He glared at the suit. “You can talk to her
tomorrow.”

The blond man eyed her dispassionately, then gave a single,
crisp nod. “Fine. Your boat, nine a.m. sharp.”

“She’s not available until two o’clock.”

The other man smiled. “Noon, and I’ll bring the doughnuts.”

“Deal.”

Heidi didn’t argue with Jake’s speaking for her, not if it
was getting her out of here. Doughnuts sounded good too. She signed a bunch of
forms, listened to a handful of variations on the don’t-leave-town theme, then
found herself on the front steps, still holding onto Jake’s arm.

“Jesus,” he muttered, lifting her chin as if to examine her
face. “And they call dolphins animals.” He hugged her to his side with one arm,
hailed a passing cab with the other. “What’s your address?”

She told him. She was just too wiped to argue about it. She
didn’t argue when he paid for lunch at a Mexican drive-through, or the cab fare
either. After all, her wallet was in a tent in Ensenada.

They had to stop at the building manager’s apartment for the
key. That required another round of explanations. Finally, she held the sack of
tacos while Jake fiddled with the borrowed key, finally opening the door to her
small, second-floor apartment. She couldn’t wait to collapse onto her ugly but
comfy couch and stuff her face. Then later she had to go face her boss at the
university and tell him about Brad. The cops, at least, had taken care of
notifying his parents.

“Fuck me!” Jake swore. She almost answered “later” until she
realized it wasn’t an invitation. He’d gone stock-still in the doorway, so she
had to lean around him to see in.

She dropped the food and clapped her hand over her mouth to
keep from throwing up what wasn’t in her stomach.
Holy shit!
Trashed
would have been a polite word for what someone had done to her place. The
furniture was slashed, shelves were dumped and even the dishes were smashed all
over the shredded carpet. Worse yet, for Heidi, all her books were torn apart and
strewn around the room.

* * * * *

Jake saw her go white, which galvanized him back into
action. He spun her away from the door, sat her down on the steps leading to
the second-floor walkway of the courtyard apartment, then he pushed her head
down between her knees. “Breathe,” he ordered. When he found the person who did
this, he was going to kill him. Painfully. Slowly. With his hands.

“Ow!” She squirmed and he let go of her head, relieved to
see she was breathing normally again. She didn’t try to move, though, just
slumped there on the stair.

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed a number off a card in
his pocket.

“Steve? Jake Delos here. We’re at Heidi’s apartment. I think
you need to see this.”

The agent promised to be there in five, so Jake hung up and
plopped down next to Heidi on the steps.

“He’s on his way,” Jake told her.

“Who?”

“Shit. I didn’t even introduce you, did I? That was Steve
Marinucci, from the DEA. The guy in the gray suit.”

“Cool.” She said it totally without inflection.

He sat down next to her, smoothed her back with his hand. “I
don’t think this could be related, though. Not unless the drug runners have
some major contacts within the SDPD.”

Then she sighed deeply. “Or they traced the registration on
the Zodiac, or found the waterproof laptop with owner information on it.”

“Shit.”

“No kidding.” She swallowed hard and went on. “Brad insisted
on the boat and most of the gear being in my name, just to piss off his
parents. So if the drug runners have someone in the States, maybe they searched
my apartment to find out what I was doing in Mexico.”

“Fuck.” He was on a real verbal roll here.

“Yeah to that too,” she agreed. “Hey, Jake?”

“What?” He knew his answer would be yes, no matter what.
Right now, he’d probably give her any damn thing she asked.

“You said you find things.”