DeSalliers told her. “I’ll let you know where to bring my property.”
The line went dead. Dar licked her lips and put the phone down on the console, gazing at it in honest consternation. Kerry slowly let out a breath, her head still resting against Dar’s shoulder.
The sound of the boat’s engine filled the air for several very long moments as neither spoke.
“Oh boy.” Kerry finally exhaled. “We are so—”
“Fucked.” Dar completed the thought succinctly. “Oh yeah. Big time.” She slowly released a breath and concentrated on driving the boat for a moment. Her stomach was clenched in knots, and she struggled to catch hold of the thoughts whirling in her mind.
“You…” Kerry cleared her throat. “You think he was serious?”
Dar replayed the conversation in her head. DeSalliers’ voice had been very different than she remembered from their previous encounter. It had held an edge that was making Dar very nervous.
“He might be, yeah,” she answered softly. “I think we may have pushed too hard by stirring up Wharton.”
Kerry exhaled. “Dar.”
“Yeah, I know. I feel like shit,” Dar said in a small voice. “I didn’t think this through at all.”
Kerry rested her head against Dar’s shoulder as the island’s marina grew ahead of them. “My God, what are we going to do?”
she asked. “Dar, we don’t have anything to give him!” Dar didn’t answer. “He won’t believe us if we tell him that,” Kerry went on, her tone rising. “Jesus!”
“Okay,” Dar said. “Freaking out is not going to help.”
“I’m not freaking out,” Kerry objected. “I’m just…” She paused. “Okay, maybe I am freaking out. But I think it’s justified.”
The buoy approached and Dar steered past it, aiming for their slip. Her hands trembled on the throttles, but she focused on what she was doing. The last thing she needed to do was take out the dock and have that to worry about on top of everything.
Kerry seemed to realize that, and she kept quiet while Dar maneuvered the boat into its place. “I’ll go tie us up,” she muttered softly, using that as an excuse to burn off the churning of nervous energy in her belly. She climbed down the ladder, a thousand screaming thoughts fighting to gain the upper hand in her mind.
Horrified pity for Bud was uppermost. Despite the fact that she’d started out not liking him, seeing him talking to Charlie at the hospital had softened her attitude. The thought that they’d put him 254 Melissa Good in mortal danger mortified her. How could they have been so damned irresponsible? Couldn’t they see how strung out DeSalliers was getting? How desperate? What made them think he’d just go running away if they challenged him? Damn.
With a sigh, she climbed onto the dock and secured their lines, glancing up to the flying bridge as she did so. Dar was still seated at the console, her head buried in her hands. Her heart lurching, Kerry finished her task and jumped back on board, scaling the ladder and approaching the still figure. “Dar?” She put her hands on her partner’s shoulders. Dar had been right. Freaking out wouldn’t help. “Hey.” Slamming themselves or each other wouldn’t either.
Dar lifted her head and rested her chin against her clasped hands. “Yeah?”
“We’ll figure out what to do.” Kerry leaned against her back.
“C’mon. Let’s go meet Charlie, and then we’ll all come back here and just talk this out.”
Dar straightened and let her head rest against Kerry’s chest.
“How could I have been that stupid, that wrong?” she asked in a soft, plaintive voice. “What’s wrong with me?”
Kerry put her arms around Dar’s neck, and kissed the top of her head. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” she said. “We’re just way out of our league, Dar.”
Dar blinked a few times. “Are we?”
“Well, I can’t speak for you, but they never taught megalomaniacal fruitcake avoidance in my IT classes at Michigan,”
Kerry said, taking a deep breath. “Sorry I freaked out.”
The dark head tipped back and pale blue eyes searched her face. “Don’t be. You were right; it’s justified,” Dar said. “I put someone’s life in danger with my own arrogant stupidity.”
“Hey.” Kerry slid around the console and sat down next to Dar.
“Someone I know once told me when you make mistake, know it, then move on and get it fixed.” She took Dar’s hand. “We made a mistake. Let’s just go figure out how to fix it.”
Dar stared at the console morosely. “What if we can’t?”
“Dar, if anyone can, it’s you,” Kerry murmured. “We’ll find a way, somehow.” She rubbed Dar’s shoulder, worried at the pained, lost expression on her lover’s face. “C’mon.”
Dar visibly pulled herself together, rubbing her face with one hand and straightening. “Okay,” she sighed. “We’ll see what we can come up with to fix this cluster.” She shook her head. “God knows it could have been worse.” She moved to stand up.
Kerry moved with her. “How’s that?”
One hand on the console, Dar paused, and then she looked at Kerry. “He could have taken you.” She eased past her lover and pulled her head close as she did, kissing it. “Let’s go.”
Terrors of the High Seas 255
Jesus. As she turned to follow Dar mechanically, Kerry sucked in a shocked breath. She’s right. She stopped me from coming down here alone to check the boat.
She tried to imagine what that would have been like, a flash of her time in the mental hospital appearing stark and vivid in her mind’s eye. How angry she’d been. How ashamed at being taken like that, by her own father. What would Dar have done if it had been her? Kerry watched Dar carefully lock the cabin door. “Hey, Dar?”
Dar turned, apparently having recovered her composure for the time being. “Yes?”
Kerry took her arm as they crossed onto the dock and started the long uphill walk to the hospital. “I was just thinking about what you said.” She folded her fingers around Dar’s. “I was thinking about what I would have done, if it’d been you DeSalliers took instead of poor Bud.”
Dar looked at her. “And?”
“And I think I would have gone after his ugly ass with that shotgun,” Kerry admitted with a wry, brief smile. “I can see me doing a Rambo and getting my fool head blown off.”
Dar squeezed her hand. “Nah.”
“Yeah,” Kerry said seriously. “So, I know this really sucks, and it’s going to be tough on both of us, but I’m selfish enough to be glad I don’t have to be thinking about you locked up someplace in that guy’s clutches.”
“Well,” Dar kicked a pebble out of the way, watching it skitter down the docks past two men working near one of the boats, “I think you know that goes double for me.” She squared her shoulders. “I guess we need to figure out what our assets are, what advantages we have, and decide what to do.”
Kerry felt a tiny sense of relief. “Right.”
They walked along in silence, passing the other boats and collecting a few curious glances from the men working on them.
They left the dock and headed up the road. “Kerry?” Dar finally said when they’d passed the marina and mounted the first of the steps up the hill.
“Mm?”
Dar paused and put a hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have gone after him with that shotgun.”
“Oh?” Green eyes searched her face.
“I would have just used my bare hands.” Dar spoke the words with eerie calm. “And ripped his heart out of his chest.”
“Ah.”
They resumed walking.
“We’ll find a way to fix this,” Kerry stated firmly. “I know we will.”