A Dangerous Harbor (10 page)

Adrenaline propelled her through the quiet parking lot to where a path had been carved into the rock. She took it, scrambling up the rocky path, and in a few more minutes, she was on the top of the bluff.
 
He stood his ground, she had to give him that much, calmly smoking.

"What the hell you think you're doing, Gabriel Alexander? You could put someone's eye out with that thing."

He waited until she finished the tirade, then stubbed out the cigarette with the heel of his huaraches. "You're in trouble 'cause of me, aren't you, Whisper?"

"I told you before, don't call me Whisper!" She hated this reminder of the schoolyard taunt, the result of an overpowering shyness that earned her the hated nickname. That is, until an older boy turned the tables on her tormentors, forever winning her trust and devotion. The rest, as they say, is history.

"Okay,
Katy
. Happy now?"

"I'm here, aren't I? And I'm not in any kind of trouble. I just moved from one marina to another, that's all."

"Sure you did. I came to check on you over at Baja Naval. Your dock mates said your boat got chained up, but the next day you and your boat are pulling away from the dock bright and early."

"Then how'd you know I'd be here?"

"I live in this RV park. Spend most my afternoons sitting out here watching the sport fishermen come into the marina, so when I saw this little sailboat get washed through the estuary, I figured it had to be you. I'd ask what you're doing here, but I guess that's a redundant question.
 
So,
are
you doing this on account of me?"

That got her stubborn up. "Why do you think this is about you?"

Gabe shook his head and walked away. Katy started to follow and then thought better of it. This was Gabe she was dealing with here, and where she used to be like iron to magnet, she wasn't that person anymore.

She stood where she was and spoke his name. "Gabe."

He turned. "Did he tell you that my trailer is here? No, of course not. That would make it too easy. You're in dangerous water, sweetheart. You know that, don't you?"

His comment brought her back to the present. Now if she could only convince him that she had his best interests at heart.
 
"You're the one who should leave. Why don't you take off for Costa Rica, or Brazil?"

"I'm tired of running, Katy. I thought I could live the rest of my life hiding, but I might as well have stayed and testified against the mob for all the good it's done me. I'm miserable living without a name or a home. I want to get a lawyer, take my chances in the States."

"Gabe, I'm on a forced sabbatical from my job with the San Francisco police department and if you go back now, the truth will come out and I could still be prosecuted for helping you jump bail. Is that how you want to thank me?"

"Let's get out of the open and talk about this, okay?" He turned and walked through a row of dilapidated trailers, all of them devoid of wheels and so abysmally rusted on their stands that it was obvious that they were never moving again.

Gabe opened the door on a tiny old twenty-four footer with a riot of bougainvillea permanently welded to its sides.

Katy took the stepstool up and entered a pockmarked and rusted door. The interior was about the same space as her sailboat and just as tidy. Gabe motioned for her to take a seat at one of the two bench seats between a bolted-down dinette scrubbed clean of most of its original color.

"I rent it from a guy who's in the hospital up in the States," he said, lighting a burner on his small stove and setting a kettle on it. "Had a heart attack so he's probably not coming back any time soon."

Leaning against the sink, he said, "You look good. You've grown into all that wild-child hair you had when we were kids. "

"Hair products, flat iron—when I can find a place to plug one in. You know Mexico may be
mañana
land but that doesn't mean the inspector can't get your records, if he chooses."

"You don't have to worry about that, Katy. I can take care of myself."

"Oh, Gabe, don't be naïve. There's no statute of limitation on jumping bail and skipping out of the country so you can avoid federal prosecution."

He shook his head and gave her a lopsided grin. "Mathematical genius only works when you're savvy about how things roll and I've learned a thing or two about surviving on my own, but I'm sorry I didn't give you a lot of thought in this equation. When did you decide to become a cop instead of a lawyer?"

"Disbarred or dismissed, either way I'm out of a job, if not in jail, for what I did back then. I was over eighteen and you were a rat. If it weren't for my dad…."

"Roy still hate me?"

"He died last year, Gabe. He never said boo about you to anyone who wasn't part of his inner circle and I think it's safe to say none of them have any reason to talk about it. He promised me he could make it all go away and he did, swept up all the loose ends so it looked like I was never there. But I understand that your conscience says you need to stand up to a federal judge and tell him the truth. Good luck with that, but hey, you do what you
gotta
do."

 
"Sorry about your dad. I liked him. Wasn't mutual, but I know he cared about you and your family."

"Thanks."

"So… just one question?"

"Yeah?"

"If you're not staying because of me, then why are you in a marina with a murder suspect from hell instead of on your way home?"

"I… I…"

He looked at her with such poignant longing that she almost reached across the table to take his hand in hers, but stopped herself when she saw that his expression wasn't what she thought. It was disappointment. Gabe was disappointed in her. She almost laughed. Instead, she hid behind her cup of tea and let him talk.

"Katy, I messed up, but please believe me, I'm not a killer. I never touched that girl and I hate it that someone did kill her."

"Then the best thing you can do for the both of us is get on another freighter and head south."

He grimaced, as if swallowing a very bad pill, and said, "Let me think about that."

She sat at the table inside her boat and traced a finger along the eight names and thought about her conversation with Gabe and how her life had changed.

She was in her second year of college and Gabe was already working as a stockbroker. They were in love then, with plans to marry. Then he was arraigned on charges of money laundering for the mob. He explained it all to her; that he'd been foolish and duped into it, thinking he could make some quick money and get out. "I did it for us, Katy. So we could get married."

He could testify against the mobsters and get off with a slap on the hand.

She'd encouraged him to take the deal, but Gabe was terrified. "They'll kill me if I testify, Katy. What should I do?"

And because she loved him, and didn't want him dead, she told him to run, go to Canada.

He held her to his chest and wept. "That wouldn't be right. How could I live with myself?"

And then there was the heartache of being apart and they were so young. When would they ever see each other again?

"Katy, I couldn't think of living in Canada without you. No, I'd rather take my chances, do the time in prison, that is if you'll wait for me." They stood looking at each other, trying to imagine what the other would look like in ten or twenty years, if Gabe took a jail sentence instead of testifying against the mob.

They'd argued about it, her trying to get him to leave, him arguing that he didn't want to ruin her life either, that she shouldn't wait for him. She finally convinced him that they should both go to Canada.

"Yes," he said, hugging her again. "We'll get married there, change our names. Start over. It'll be great."

Katy withdrew all her savings, and taking her little Miata sports car, they ran for the Canadian border. They got as far as the Washington Bridge when a police car pulled up close enough to read the dirty California license plate. Then as they exited the bridge, the cruiser lit up and a siren signaled them to pull over.

Gabe silently put on his right blinker, slowly took an off-ramp to a side street, then jammed the accelerator to the floor and careened around a corner into one-way traffic. He dodged honking cars and bumped over curbs trying to dislodge the police car behind them. Hearing the sound of smashing metal, they turned and saw their tail collide with an unsuspecting motorist.

Gabe turned onto a two-way street, then slowed to see if they were being followed. Nothing. They both took a deep breath and let it out. Gabe leaned over, and taking her face in his hands, kissed her deeply. When he drew back he looked her in the eyes, his voice a sad note to their predicament.

 
"I'll always love you," he said. Then he unlatched her safety belt, opened the passenger door, and much to her amazement, pushed her out the door.

She fell onto her knees, the momentum rolling her once, and then sat up in the dirty rain-washed gutter and watched him speed away in her Miata, the one her daddy bought her for her twenty-first birthday. And because Gabe had taken not only her car, but her purse with her cell phone and all the cash from her savings, she stood up, limped into a nearby store and asked to use the phone, where she made a collect call and confessed her part in a humiliating episode to the one person she knew she
could
trust—her dad.

Katy stood up, put the page under the cushion, and dragging her garbage topside, slipped the bag into the container at the end of the dock, which just happened to be next to Spencer's mega yacht. She leaned against a light pole and noted the hailing port—Bahamas—no surprise here as a Bahamian port of call allowed any yacht owner to avoid paying American taxes. The Bahamas also had discreet banking practices.

"Don't let the name fool you," said a voice coming from topside.

Katy looked up and saw a good-looking young man in sailing whites leaning on the stern rail.

He tilted a square chin at her and asked, "You the one who washed through the estuary yesterday?"

"Yup, that would be me."

"Nice to know we didn't have to scrape you off the jetty.
 
Can I buy you a beer to celebrate your death-defying feat?"

This could be interesting. "I'll take a cold soda."

"I'll open the stern gate."

His white, even teeth flashed a genuine welcome. He was shorter than she thought he would be, probably because his shoulders were so big, maybe all of five-eight.
 
He was also fit in that way that said a workout was more than hefting a beer to his lips.

"I'm Jeff, by the way. Come inside, it's already hot enough to roast hamsters out here," he said, guiding her through the sliding glass doors into the big salon.

 
"Hope it's cool enough for you. The AC costs a son-of-a-bitch, so the boss decrees we keep the doors closed and the thermostat set to seventy-eight. If you're considering summering here, you'll become one of the mole people, only popping out at night when it's cooler." He pointed her to a long leather sofa and then went to the bar fridge and drew out a couple of cans. "Damn… out of everything '
cept
Coke.
 
But I have ice and a glass, if you like." He held up a clean tall glass.

She shook her head and commented, "The can is fine.
 
I wouldn't want you to have to wash any more dishes on my account."

He settled into the luxurious deep cushions of the couch, handed her the Coke and pushed a bowl of last night's peanuts over to her side of the huge glass-topped coffee table.