Loe raamatut: «Seaside Secrets»

ONE

The sound exploded through the crowded street. Angela Gallagher screamed, jerking so violently she stepped wrong off the curb and sprawled onto the asphalt. Her purse flew out of her grip. On hands and knees, she struggled for breath, pulse thundering as her senses tried to right themselves.

The worker who had dropped the empty pallet went about his unloading, oblivious to the panic he’d caused in one out-of-control woman. “Get up,” she told herself furiously.

A hand grasped her elbow, a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and a wide face. He wore khakis and a plaid shirt. His eyes were flat, probing. “Are you all right?”

She swallowed a surge of panic. Not every stranger is dangerous. You’re not in a war zone anymore. A deep breath in and out. “Yes, thank you.” She forced a smile. “I wasn’t watching my step.”

His hand lingered on her arm. “You look lost. Visiting?”

Why did he want to know? It’s called polite small talk. Paranoia. She could not get rid of it, no matter how hard she poured herself into Bible study or prayer.

“Meeting someone here at the wharf,” she said.

He stooped to help as she retrieved the spilled items from her purse. “Bad time for that. During Beach Fest the whole town is nuts. Where were you supposed to meet?”

“Oh, somewhere around here. I’ll find him. Thanks for your concern.” She gave him another smile and edged away, toward the vendors.

“I could help, if you’d like.”

“No. No, thanks.”

He studied her face. A moment too long? “Enjoy your stay, Miss Gallagher,” he said softly, turning away into the crowd.

Goose bumps prickled her skin. One more look, soft and sly, and he was gone.

For a moment, she felt frozen, paralyzed. Her name. How had he known? Her brain slowly began to reboot. Her wallet. He’d picked it up for her. It had probably fallen open and he’d read her driver’s license. What is the matter with you? she asked herself. He was a regular guy, offering help, and this was not wartime, not here.

A bead of sweat trickled down Angela’s back, at odds with the chill ocean air. The press of the crowd overwhelmed her senses. She had not imagined when she’d made the eight-hour drive from Coronado to Monterey that she would land in the middle of some sort of festival. Would she have come if she had known? No, her gut said. Yes, her heart corrected.

People walked along Fisherman’s Wharf, stopping at the craft booths and trailing down to the rocky shore to watch the kayakers and the whale-watching boats chugging through the choppy waters of California’s central coast. The January cold pressed in; she gathered her jacket around her. Where was he? He was supposed to meet her under the balloon arch a half hour ago. Blowing on her fingers, she scanned the wharf again. Though she’d never clapped eyes on Tank Guzman, she knew exactly what he would look like. His identical twin, Julio, had died in her arms from sniper bullets meant for her. Again Julio’s gentle face rose up in her mind, the sweet hopes he’d shared about a life with his girlfriend upon his return from Afghanistan, the easy banter that was a salve to the tension of the war.

“Chaplain,” he’d told her with an irrepressible grin, “you’ve got the hardest job in the navy. All I gotta do is keep you alive, but you have to tend to all the wandering souls in this unit.”

Yet Julio Guzman, a chaplain’s assistant and her bodyguard, had been the one to die. He sacrificed his life for hers, a navy chaplain serving in a combat zone without so much as a handgun in her possession. She tried to bring herself back to the present.

Vendors clustered under white tents in the street, offering samples and calling to potential customers.

Noise, colors, smells and sounds assaulted her. As if by some inner compass, she found herself moving away from the crowd down toward the crashing surf, forcing herself to hold her gait to a stroll instead of an outright sprint. The beach offered some respite. There were people exploring the sand and the tide pools nestled in the clefts of rock. Children squealed, peering at the little hermit crabs and tiny fish inhabiting the crevices. She remembered doing the same with her father, but instead of the tingle of nostalgia, she felt nothing but cold. Sucking in deep breaths of sea-scented air, she moved away from the people, seeking the solace of a nearly empty stretch of beach.

One more look back. The man with the khaki pants had not appeared on the warped stairs that led down to the beach. You see? Paranoia, Angie. It’s what her three sisters would have said back before they’d lost their private investigator father to a murderer. Now they were less innocent, more cynical, having decided to keep their father’s private investigation office going. And she, struggling and desperate to reclaim her life, had signed on as a woefully underqualified part-time investigator.

So why hadn’t she told them about the case she was working on now? Finding Tank Guzman, Julio’s errant brother.

Because it’s not a case. She lifted her face in the direction of the surf. It’s personal.

For the first time, she noticed a woman with a long black braid standing near her almost at the edge of the water. Angela was about to retreat, to find another solitary section of sand, when she heard the woman say, “No way, Tank.”

Angela stiffened. Her imagination again? Had she heard right?

“Listen, I mean it,” she said into her cell phone. “It’s a bad idea. It’s too dangerous. I told you to call it off, but I know you’re going to go through with it anyway and get us both killed.”

She really had said Tank. Angela stood frozen, blinking in surprise.

“My tire,” she was saying. “No, it wasn’t an accident.” She looked around. “He might be watching us right now. Get out of here and go home. I’m going to do the same. Please, I’m begging you.” Another long pause. “I’m sorry, Tank. I can’t help. Please just let it go.” She clicked off the phone.

Angela felt as if her body were acting under the orders of someone else. “Excuse me,” she said.

The woman whirled so fast her foot slipped, and she went down on her knee.

“I’m sorry,” Angela started, reaching out a hand to her. “I heard you say Tank.”

“Back off,” the woman said.

“I need to find Tank. Where is he?”

“I said, stay away.” She pulled something from her jacket pocket.

Angela gaze went to the knife in the woman’s hand.

The weapon was small, barely bigger than the woman’s shaking palm. Angela was frozen to the spot. “I’m trying to find a man named Tank Guzman.”

The woman’s eyes widened to black pools. “Why?”

The wind whipped Angela’s chin-length bob of brown hair around her face, stinging her eyes. “I know... I knew his brother. We arranged a meeting. Here. But he didn’t show.”

“His brother.” Something shimmered in her expression as she said the words. “So you’re the person from Pacific Coast Investigations?”

Angela tried not to show her surprise. “Yes. I overheard your call. You don’t want Tank to meet with me. Why?”

In an instant, the woman was edging away. “Never mind. Listen to me. Tank was wrong to contact you. There’s nothing going on here. It was a mistake.”

Terror reflected in the woman’s eyes.

Angela hoped she could force out a calm tone. “I can see you’re scared. I’m a navy chaplain. Maybe I can help.”

The woman started. “A navy chaplain? I thought you were an investigator.”

“My family owns an investigation firm, but I’m a chaplain first and foremost.” At least, I used to be.

A bitter smile twisted the woman’s lips. “Then you’d better start praying, because Tank isn’t going to be alive for very long. And if you get involved with him—” she shook her head “—you won’t, either.”

* * *

Dan Blackwater remembered vehicles, makes and models, headlights and license plates. Mechanically, he scanned the parking lot, making mental notes. Since Afghanistan, he’d been forced to notice things, tiny things out of place, little details that could mean something was about to blow up. Something as simple as a soda can in an odd place could preclude a rain of fire and a parade of injuries. Now he couldn’t seem to unlearn the habit. He blinked hard. You’re here now, in Cobalt Cove. He sucked in a huge breath of ocean air. He was home, thank God. Mostly, anyway.

As he jogged toward the beach, carrying the bag Lila had left at the clinic, cutting through the parking area to avoid the crowds, he noted her Camry in the jammed lot. He’d gotten to know that car pretty well when he helped fix her flat hours before at the clinic. Their shifts overlapped sometimes, at the tiny building on the outskirts of town where he volunteered his surgical services stitching up wounds and arranging help for those living on the fringes of society. Lila worked there as a paid employee, a dental hygienist for those who needed one.

They’d chatted about her plans to go to the Beach Festival on her way home from work, but she hadn’t seemed very excited about the prospect. More nervous really, so nervous she’d left without the tote bag she carried everywhere with her. Odd. But people were odd, no two the same, except in some universal ways he’d noted in his time as a heart surgeon at the NATO hospital in Afghanistan. They all loved, laughed and died in pretty much the same ways.

His phone rang, pulling him from his thoughts. He answered. “Blackwater.”

“You missed another one.”

“I called and canceled.”

His physical therapist sighed heavily into the phone. Dan could picture Jeb Paulson’s fleshy face scowling in disapproval, eyebrows like two grizzled caterpillars crawling across his forehead.

“The rehabilitation window is closing , Dr. Blackwater. If you don’t take your rehab seriously, you’ll never return to the operating room.”

I don’t want to return to an operating room. “I’m happy with what I’m doing now.”

“Puttering around in boats? You can’t be serious. You’re the best heart surgeon in the country.”

“Flattery. And it’s kayaks, not boats. You should try it, Jeb. It would relax you.”

“Having you come to your appointments would relax me. I’m scheduling you for Monday noon. If you don’t show, I’m saddling up Old Lucy and coming after you.”

He grinned. Old Lucy was Jeb’s ancient motorcycle, circa 1949. “That I’d like to see.”

“Monday,” Jeb said before disconnecting.

Dan stowed his phone and flexed his hand. It still ached a bit from his bicycle crash on his last race along the coast a month before. Too fast, too tight a turn, his brain had screamed, but the rush of adrenaline proved more powerful. Until he’d flown over the handlebars and skidded along the roadbed. Too bad he hadn’t won the race before he crashed, he thought with a grin. When he flexed his fingers, they were only a little sore, slightly stiff, but little and slightly wouldn’t do for a surgeon.

The window is closing...

Jeb was right. “I’ll make it to the Monday appointment,” he murmured to himself as he took off toward the beach, hoping to spot Lila along the way. He didn’t. Slowing when he reached the top of the rickety wooden steps that led down to the sand, he edged over as he heard footsteps moving quickly up the warped slats.

Lila appeared, mouth open, hair wild. She gaped when she saw him.

“Dr. Blackwater. What are you doing here?”

“You left this at the clinic.” He handed her the bag. “What’s going on? You look scared.”

“Never mind. I’ve gotta go. Thanks for bringing me my stuff.” She darted past him just as another woman reached the top step.

A shock ran through him as he took in her tall frame, the delicate curve of her mouth and cheek. He was back in Kandahar, Afghanistan, delivering devastating news to a young woman, holding her hands as she crumpled to the floor, advising her to take deep breaths as she hovered on the brink of passing out. Her eyes, misty green, had lingered in his memory throughout his transition to civilian life. Those green eyes regarded him now, and she stopped so abruptly she had to grab on to the railing for balance. Her swirl of dark hair was damp from the fog, curling in the barest of waves around her face. Her body was slimmer, her face a touch gaunt, he thought.

“I don’t remember your last name,” he said. “But I think your first name is Angela.”

Her lips quivered. “The hospital,” she said quietly. “You were a surgeon.”

“Still am, at least on paper. Dan Blackwater. And you’re Angela...”

“Gallagher.”

“Navy chaplain.”

A shadow of a smile. “At least on paper.”

He could see the perspiration on her temple now, the shallow breathing, tense shoulders that told him their encounter was not welcome. Made sense. He represented her darkest hour; at least he hoped it was her darkest. Civilian life had to be easier than what she’d endured, if she really had been able to leave it behind. He remembered certain details now. Navy Chaplain Angela Gallagher brought in with minor wounds along with her chaplain’s assistant, who had died from the bullets that tore through his aorta when he’d shielded her. God’s handiwork ripped to irreparable shreds by the merciless progress of metal and machine.

“I need to find someone,” she said, keeping a distance between them as she passed him.

“Lila?”

Angela started. “The woman who just ran up these stairs. Is that her name?”

He nodded. “She’s a dental hygienist. She works at the same health clinic where I volunteer.”

Angela’s gaze shifted as she thought it over. “I’ve got to talk to her.”

“She didn’t look in the talking mood.”

“I got that sense, too, when she pulled a knife.”

Now it was his turn to gape. “What?”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Bad idea. She’s got a knife and you don’t...”

She stiffened. “Carry a weapon?”

It wasn’t what he’d meant, but her reaction stopped him cold, her expression brittle as glass.

“You’re right, Dr. Blackwater. I don’t.”

The landing at the top of the stairs emptied out onto a cement sidewalk that led to the boardwalk. The crowds were thicker now, the lights in restaurant windows were advertising the beginning of the dinner hour. Paper lanterns that lined the sidewalks glowed in soft hues. While Dan struggled to think of how in the world he should handle the bizarre situation, Angela simply jogged by him and into the milling group.

Lila had pulled a knife on someone? The soft-spoken, tea-drinking woman who read poetry during her lunch break? After a moment of thought, he went after Angela. At first he could not find her. Then the failing light shone on a man with a cap pulled down low over his wide forehead and a wound on the back of his hand. Dan had seen the scar before because he’d stitched it up himself. Tank Guzman.

It was probably not outside the realm of possibility that Guzman was just coincidently attending the Beach Fest on the same night as Angela Gallagher, the woman who had watched his brother die. A chance meeting? And Lila just happened along, too?

Guzman stood in the shadows near a restaurant, the air rich with the scent of garlic and calamari, a cigarette in his fingers. Guzman wasn’t interested in the food. He scanned the masses, a scowl on his face, until his gaze fastened on someone.

Angela?

Dan spotted her making a beeline for the parking lot. Several yards ahead of her was Lila, hastily edging her way through the throng.

Tank stubbed out the cigarette and tossed it to the ground, following Angela. Dan closed the gap, intending to reach Angela before Tank did.

“Wait, Lila,” he heard Angela call. “I need to talk to you about Tank. Please.”

Lila wrenched open the door and got inside before slamming and locking it.

“Lila,” Angela called again.

Time slowed down in Dan’s mind. Lila’s lips moved in some silent uttering as she turned the key. Her head turned the slightest bit, a frown on her brow as she watched Angela one moment longer. Her shoulder moved as she shifted into reverse.

“Lila,” Angela cried one more time, coming within ten feet of the car.

Then there was a deafening bang and the smell of fire.