A Dangerous Harbor (7 page)

It was late afternoon by the time she stepped through the airy, open lobby of the resort hotel. Intent on finding the showers, Katy slowed to admire the modern architecture and local art. The place was all high beamed ceilings, glass and chrome blended with sculptures of Aztec warriors that looked to have been quarried out of local stone. The club-wielding Aztecs, she noted, were strategically placed next to exits.
Nice touch,
she thought
. Too bad they can't follow me back to the boat and become my bodyguards.

She passed a rock wall hugging a seascape the size of a picture window. The artist had perfectly captured that moment when a rapidly changing sky releases its light on an unsettled sea. Thunderous clouds chased the hopeful blue of better weather off the canvas while water appeared to be in danger of sloshing off the canvas and onto the stone hearth.

Turning left, she found a lineup of land-line phones next to the hotel bar and took out her calling card. Cell phones were great but digital meant nothing if the police used Mexican Telecom to eavesdrop. Plugging one ear against the roar of American football on the TV in the bar next door, she started to call her friend Bruce at the department and see if anyone in a Mexican police department had been asking about her, but at the last minute, changed her mind and punched in the number for her mother's apartment, hoping to leave a message.

"Hello?" The smoky voice answering the phone didn't match what she knew was her much younger looking mother.

"Mom. I'm glad I caught you at home."

"Katrina, darling! Of course I'm home.
 
I saw David a few days ago, and he seems terribly glum—even for David. Darling, I made a joke. Aren't you listening?"

"I heard. Didn't he tell you?"

"Tell me what? Did you start another fight you can't win? If you wanted to argue with him, you should've gotten a law degree. Katy? That was another joke."

"Mom, David called off our vacation for the Delta and announced we should see other people." She didn't add that all this happened after she was put on leave of absence from the shooting.

"Good God!" The other end of the line hummed with the sound of her mother's mental arithmetic for what it would cost to cancel the big wedding. "Does his family know? God, I'm getting slow—of course they do. Everyone knows but me. Katrina, you know I love you, darling, but honestly, this is incredibly inconsiderate. The invitations are out, the hotel! The caterer!"

 
"Sorry, Mom. Really, I am. I thought surely David would've said something to you by now. I mailed him back his ring before I sailed for Mexico."

"Mexico! Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I got my passport all stamped and everything." She didn't add that it was still being held by the Mexican police, but that wasn't going to be a conversation she intended to have with her mother.

"Katrina Hunter, don't be obtuse! I can't believe you broke up with David, when the wedding is less than a month away!" There was a moment of silence and then her mother's voice softened. "Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction to all the stress you two have been under; his job, that horrible incident with your sister's stalker. I know you took it hard when the department put you on sabbatical but I'm sure it hit him hard, too. You should never run away from problems with a spouse, Katrina. It only exacerbates the problem."

Katy snorted "Mom, David isn't my spouse and it doesn't look like he's ever going to be."

"Alright, alright, but you're coming home soon, aren't you? The department hearing is in two weeks and I'm sure you can resolve your problems with David with a little TLC."

Her mother's comment, that it should be her job to soothe David's hurt feelings, rankled to the bone. "It was his decision and I'm good with it and now I'm here where I should be," she said, leaving out the body she found in the water, Gabe, and that she was now obligated to help with a murder investigation in Mexico.

"And where
are
you in Mexico?" her mother asked. "At least tell me you're on dry land again."

"I made it to Ensenada day before yesterday," she said. "You'd love this marina. Very modern, lots of art and a high-end hotel and spa."

"Ensenada. Isn't that close to the border? You know those towns are rife with all those nasty cartels. It seems every night the newscasters have some grim new story about beheadings."

"Oh, Mom, don't worry. All those nasty cartel guys are out lounging by the pool."

"Katrina Taylor Hunter! Don't you make jokes about something like that!"

"Mom, I'm perfectly safe. This is a very well-run operation; they have guards and locked gates and everything." Katy was eyeing the bar, wishing she'd thought to fortify that boast with a big glass of wine or two before calling her mother.

"Well, I must admit the place sounds nice, not that I wouldn't go within a mile of anything north of Punta
Mita
. We were in Puerto Vallarta all last week and stayed in that wonderful Westin out on the point."

Here was the reason why her mother missed the gossip about her daughter's breakup with San Francisco's next district attorney. She had a new boyfriend.

"Anyone I know?" In the five years since Katy's dad died, her mom had stepped out with any number of gentleman friends, all of whom were only too willing to accompany the wealthy Judge Roy Hunter's widow anywhere she chose, as long as she paid their way.

But then her mother surprised her and said, "Believe it or not, your sister put her very busy life on hold so that we could have some mother-daughter pampering."

Katy grinned into the phone. "Our Leila? How'd you drag her away from LA? Didn't she get her contract renewed for that soap opera… what's it called?"

"
All My Tomorrows
. Now, if you will remember, I invited both of you since it might be the last time we had some girl time before the nuptials. Unlike you, your sister sees the merit keeping in touch with her mother."

Her beautiful sister had been throwing herself at Hollywood for ten long bitter years. Even with the security of a full-time job on the soaps, she still auditioned for secondary characters in whatever indie or TV pilot appeared likely to give her faltering career a jolt. Katy cautioned her sister against random networking, vigorously arguing for some reasonable vetting of invitations, warning Leila that that's how beautiful women sometimes ended up dead. That stalker found it incredibly easy to find Leila's home address, and if Katy hadn't answered the door, well, she didn't want to think of it now.

"Katrina, I asked you a question. Are you, or are you not, going to talk to David? Oh, wait—I just got back today and there were no messages on my answering machine, maybe he hasn't yet told his family. Oh, that's it, don't you see? He
must
be having second thoughts. Katrina, there's still hope."

"Uh-huh. Look, I'm making arrangements to have the boat trucked home and I'll be back in San Francisco in a week or so, and then, well, we'll see."

"Another week? Good God. I don't suppose you've thought to call Roberto either, have you? One simply does not blow off wedding planners like Roberto Marquez, not if you expect him to ever do another one, you don't. And I'm not doing it for you either, young lady! Your father would be spinning in his grave if he knew you'd broken David's heart and sailed off for Mexico."

Her father would be cheering her on if he knew the details of why she'd sailed for Mexico.

Katy ground her teeth, took a deep breath and let it out. "Daddy left me that money to use as I wished, Mom. If I choose to blow it sailing around the world instead of marrying David Bennett, that's my choice."

She wished she hadn't brought up her father in this way, not now in a phone call when she was too far away to find the words that could placate her mother's steely silence.

Finally her mother said, "I think you're making a terrible mistake, Katrina, but since it's your money to do with it as you wish, blow it all on that stupid sailboat of your father's if you must, but make the appropriate calls to cancel the wedding plans or forfeit the deposits. And don't ask me to do it. I'm too disgusted with you."

Katy murmured something that might have been an acknowledgment of her sins but it was all said to dead air.

Her mother had every right to be angry at her. Katy had run away from home, leaving behind the responsibility of tangling with David's family, wedding planners, caterers, hotel accommodations, and it was reprehensible and irresponsible. She looked at her watch. She'd deal with the wedding planner tomorrow, but a call to Leila was overdue.

In a cheesy Spanish accent, Katy gushed, "Is
theese
the
famosa
Señorita
Leila
Standiford
?"

"Katy!" the laughing voice of her sister responded. "You rascal! Where are you?"

"Ensenada, Mexico,
darling
girl."

"You talked to our
darling
mother before you called
me
? And why are you in Mexico? You and
wha's
his name were going to use some of that paid leave of absence for a trip up the Delta, weren't you?"

Katy said, "Remember when I said that David would be a welcome change from the bad boys I've been dating?"

"Right. So what's Mr. Stuffy-Butt done to ruin his chance at marrying Judge Roy Hunter's daughter?"

"He said a whole week cooped up in a small sailboat trolling the Delta wasn't interesting. Never mind that he'd gone along with the idea until we were packed and ready to leave. That started a fight that led to him saying he thought we should give each other some space because he was no longer sure we were right for each other."

Leila hooted. "Oh God. That's priceless! Who on earth is she?"

"My question, exactly. Remember Karen
Wilke
?"

"
Eeuww
. That old thing? She's ten years older than David, thinks of herself as prime Cougar, which she isn't. So, what's she want
him
for, anyway?"

"Probably because she can."

"She'll eat him for lunch. Two months with that bitch and he'll come running back… that is, if you still want him?"

"Mom thinks he may be having second thoughts 'cause she hasn't heard anything from his side of the family. I'm good with it but I'm seriously considering including a no-man clause to this trip south."

There was a pause on the line. Leila's voice came back tense with worry. "Oh, honey. Don't say that. You aren't really sorry about David, are you? You know I never liked him. He's an ambitious suck-up and I suppose you know he just dumped you 'cause your job's now on the line… the bastard! You just need your juices primed. Want me to come down there? I've got friends with a beautiful home in Acapulco. It has this amazing infinity pool. I can do a few days… oh, what the hell, let's make it a whole week. We can swim, get drunk, chase boys, what do you say?"

What a wonderful thought, but not with the chief inspector and the investigation she'd been roped into doing for him. "I would, but I've got a date with a truck driver."

She laughed. "Well then, why didn't you say so? Does he have a friend?"

"
Pilgrim
's going to get all his attention and I still have things to do to get her ready."

"Okay, fine, but promise me you'll fly into LA on your way back. I owe you, little sister," she said, her voice going soft with tears. "You know I do, so why fight it? Let me fix you up with some of those bad boys you used to love so much. We'll tear up the town… or better yet, take the show to Vegas."

Katy chuckled. "Bring it on then. But I'll pass on the bad boys."

"Why? Don't tell me you're going all squishy 'cause that dweeb dumped you? Come on, where's your grit? You got your cherry popped and your heart broke at high school graduation with Gabe Alexander and that never slowed you down, so don't tell me you're losing sleep over David Bennett."