But she had been lucky; Dar had been there. Kerry felt a lump in her throat as they paused for a safety stop. Watching her from behind her mask, Dar circled her leg with an arm and squeezed it.

With the dark water around them, it was an oddly intimate moment. Kerry leaned forward and pressed her mask against Dar’s, just looking into her eyes. She forgot about their mission. She forgot where they were, and for just that moment, Kerry was simply glad to be alive.

Dar brushed her fingertips against Kerry’s jaw. Her eyes smiled. Kerry caught her hand and clasped it. She could feel the powerful emotion running between them so strongly; words would just have been window dressing. Above them, their conjoined bubbles twirled lazily for the surface.

Breaking the surface first, Dar pulled off her mask and shook the hair out of her eyes. She spotted the boat, Charlie and Bob waiting anxiously on its deck, and moved toward it.

Kerry emerged just behind her, surprised at the chop that the water had developed. Glad their dive was over, she kept her regulator in her mouth as she followed Dar through the waves. She hung onto the ladder while her partner hauled herself up on board, Dar’s catch bag heavy with the relic she’d recovered as it banged against her knee.

As Dar cleared the ladder, Kerry tossed her fins on board, then grabbed the metal rungs and, with a surge of energy, pulled herself and her gear up out of the water. She was already stepping onto the deck by the time Dar turned, and she gave her lover a tiny wave as she made her way over to the bench and sat down on it. So, Kerry, her mind gently mocked, wanted to look macha in front of the boys, hm? She hooked her tanks up on the holder and unfastened her BC, sitting back and relaxing as the weight came off her shoulders.

“Find anything?” Bob asked. “Looks like you did!”

Dar shed her catch bag, which clattered onto the deck. “Found a couple things,” she said. “How are we doing on time?”

“All right,” Charlie told her. “Wind’s come up.”


280 Melissa Good

“So I noticed.” Dar shucked her gear and stood up straight, pulling her hair back and wringing the water from it. “We found some things I can’t really explain, but I’ll tell you what we didn’t find.” She put her hands on neoprene-covered hips. “We didn’t find fishing gear.”

Charlie and Bob looked at each other. “Huh?” Bob said. “What d’you mean? It was a fishing boat.”

“Yeah.” Kerry stood and went to the cabinet, where she pulled out two towels. The night air was cool, and she was starting to chill.

“But Dar’s right. There wasn’t any fishing gear on it. No nets, no whatever-those-things-are they use to pull the nets up, nothing.”

She tossed Dar one of the towels. “I found a part of a crate I brought up.” She wrapped the other towel around her, closing her jaw to prevent her teeth from chattering. “I need to go put on something dry.”

“Go.” Dar pushed her gently towards the cabin. “Where’s that soup?” she asked Bob, giving him a direct stare.

“Oh. Um...inside.” Bob pointed. “I’ll go get it.” He opened the door and let Kerry enter ahead of him, then closed it behind them both.

Dar went to her catch bag and opened it.

“If he wasn’t fishing, what was he doing here?” Charlie asked curiously.

“Good question.” Dar lifted the salvage she’d retrieved and handed it over to him. “Found that clamped under the bridge console.”

Charlie’s eyes opened wide as he handled the big, coral-encrusted item. “Sonofabitch, Dar. That’s an M-16!”

“Mm.” Dar fished in the bag and pulled out the brass plate. “I need to clean this off.” She sighed. “So we know he wasn’t fishing, but we’re not any closer to figuring out what he was doing.”

“Chances are, it wasn’t somethin’ legit,” Charlie said. “Not with this on board. You think he was running dope?”

Dar shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.” She toweled her hair a little drier and exhaled. “Not a fun dive. Kerry severed one of her hoses in the wreck.” She walked over and examined the tank.

“Thank God my father pounded into me about carrying a quick kit all those years back.”

Charlie was at her shoulder, looking at the hose. “Sonofabitch.”

He touched the plug. “Damn straight that’s lucky.” He put a hand on Dar’s shoulder. “Tell you what, Dar. Why don’t you go on inside and get some java in you. I’ll start the crate up and head us over down south.”

Dar blew out a breath. “All right.” She gave him a grateful grin.

“Careful going up that ladder.”

Charlie snorted. “Swab.” He gave her a gentle push toward the Terrors of the High Seas 281

door, much as Dar had given Kerry earlier. “G’wan. Put those brain cells to figuring out what to tell that whack job when we get there.”

Dar picked up the brass plate and collected Kerry’s bag, then headed for the door. Something hot to drink and dry clothes sounded like a great idea. Off in the distance, she heard the faintest hint of a rumble, and reminded herself to turn on the marine radio.

With their luck, the damn storm was coming, and she had, at best, five hours to figure out what the hell she was going to use to bait DeSalliers. Dar shook her head as she entered the cabin, glad to be out of the cool breeze and inside the well-lit space. Bob was in the galley stirring something in a pot, and Kerry was presumably in their bedroom getting changed.

Dar gave Bob a brief smile and walked right past him toward the closed door beyond. She dropped the bag on the deck near the bathroom and continued on, knocking lightly on the bedroom door before she opened it.

Kerry was reclined on the bed, completely naked, her head propped up on one fist. She lifted her other hand and motioned Dar forward.

Who the hell, Dar wondered suddenly, needs any damn soup to get warm? She quickly went inside and closed the door behind her.

“Hi.”

“I need your help,” Kerry drawled softly. “But first take off your wetsuit. I don’t want you to drip all over the bed.”

Caught just a trifle off guard, Dar felt her eyes widen as she looked at her lover. “Um…okay.” She reached behind herself and caught the zipper strap, tugging it down and releasing the wetsuit.

She peeled it off her arms and then stripped out of it, leaving her in her swimsuit. “Something wrong?”

Kerry cocked her head to one side. “Not with you,” she said.

“C’mon, c’mon.”

Dar got out of her suit and toweled herself off, then sat down on the bed next to Kerry. “You know we’ve got guests outside,” she reminded her lover wryly.

“Yes, I know.” Kerry sighed and rolled over, laying her head on Dar’s thigh. “But when I fell over in the ship, I got something stuck in the back of my neck. It’s sharp, and I can’t reach it, and it’s driving me crazy.”

Dar blinked. “Oh.” She stifled a tiny laugh. “Hang on.” She gently probed the soft skin on Kerry’s back, seeing a red spot near the base of her skull.

“Mm.” Kerry exhaled. “You’re nice and warm, Dar. How did you do that so fast?”

“Sweetheart,” Dar murmured, her eyes on her task, “you’re lying here in front of me naked. If I was even slightly chilly, we’d have a problem.” Kerry’s low, rich laugh surprised both of them.


282 Melissa Good

“Ah. Got it.” Dar gently grasped the metal splinter and eased it out of Kerry’s skin. A tiny bead of blood followed, and she pressed the spot carefully, squeezing out a little more to make sure she’d gotten everything out. “Bad boat. Sticking my Kerry.” She felt Kerry exhale, a flutter of warm breath along her thigh. “Better?”

“Much. Thanks,” Kerry said as she rolled over onto her back.

She rubbed her hand along Dar’s leg and gazed up at her with deep affection. “And thank you for being there, and for knowing what to do today.”

Dar disposed of the sliver and eased down next to Kerry.

“Thank Dad. He beat dive safety into me within an inch of my life.”

She put her hand on Kerry’s knee. “Are you okay? I know that was scary.”

Kerry nodded. “I’m okay,” she said. “I was kind of nervous when it was happening, because going to the surface fast wasn’t something I really wanted to do, to risk.”

“No,” Dar murmured. “Lousy place to risk a case of the bends,”

she admitted. “I had a mild hit once, and it’s not something I ever want to repeat.” She flexed her hand in front of her face. “Lost feeling in my arm for a week.”

Kerry eased over and curled up against Dar. “I thought about my father,” she said softly. “About what that must have felt like.”

She drew a deep breath. “Yeah, I was scared.”

Dar put her arms around Kerry’s body. “I wouldn’t let anything like that happen to you,” she assured her. “Believe that, Ker. It’s my job to keep you safe down there.”

Kerry felt herself cradled in Dar’s embrace, her body now warmed through and through as the lingering fears evaporated. “I believe it,” she whispered. “I know I’m safe with you.”

They rocked together in silence for a few minutes, listening to the engines rumble to life and the anchor retract.

“Do we have anything to give DeSalliers, Dar?”

“A little.”

“Enough?”

“I don’t know,” Dar said. “I just don’t know.”


Chapter

Twenty-four

THE WEATHER WAS getting worse. Kerry held on to the edge of the door as she waited for the boat to steady, then continued toward the couch. Dar was already sitting on it, her laptop in front of her and a stack of disorderly papers scattered over the table. Bob held several, his brow creased as he looked at them. “Anything?”

Kerry asked, taking the spot right next to Dar on the couch.

“A lot of crap.” Dar sighed. She nudged the bit of wood Kerry had brought up with her knee. They had scraped off enough sea life to reveal three letters of a name, but the possible permutations of

“RTE” in the middle of a word were… “This list is endless,” she handed it to Kerry, “even parsing it down to marine related companies and terms.”

Kerry took the page. “It could even be an abbreviation for route,” she agreed mournfully. “This is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Dar sat back and let her hands fall to her thighs. “We’ve got pieces, but we’ve got no idea what the puzzle looks like,” she grumbled. “We know one thing for sure—he wasn’t here fishing.”

“Okay, and if he had an assault rifle on board, he probably wasn’t running a sightseeing charter,” Kerry added. “He had supplies on board for a long trip, which makes sense, since he was pretty far from home port.”

“Right.” Dar got up and paced, her body automatically compensating for the roll of the boat. Suddenly she stopped. “Ker, did you take any pictures inside the hold when we were down the first time?”

Kerry’s brow creased in thought. “It was pretty dim in there. I don’t think I would have,” she told her partner apologetically.

“Besides, we were too busy trying to get underneath those…those…

What were those metal things we found the eel behind anyway, Dar?”

Upside down and tilted sideways, the wreckage hadn’t been that intelligible to Dar either. Her mind drew a picture of the huge pile of twisted metal that she’d edged behind. She remembered 284 Melissa Good reaching out to try and move it, and her hands had closed around something roundish, and relatively smooth… “Cages.” The word came out of Dar’s mouth unexpectedly. “They were cages, with bars.”

Bob and Kerry both stared at her. “Cages?” Kerry repeated thoughtfully. “Wait… Yeah, they were. One of the doors was open and I was lying on top of it.” She nodded. “The hinge was poking me in the ribs.” Her voice rose in excitement. “You’re right, Dar!”

“Cages?” Bob looked extremely puzzled. “For what? People?”

Dar slowly shook her head. “No. Too small.” Her brow contracted. “Must have been for animals. They were spread out all over the hold, just in pieces everywhere.”

Now Kerry looked slightly confused. “I don’t get it. Why would he be trying to get animals into the islands? Or…” Her eyes widened. “No, he was trying to take them from here, wasn’t he!”

Dar nodded slowly, feeling a mixed sense of elation and disgust. “They’re a commodity,” she told Kerry bluntly. “In some places, the black market for them is huge.”

“Like for zoos?” Bob asked. “I thought they could pretty much breed their own.”