Death Echo

4

DAY ONE

BELLTOWN MARINA

AFTERNOON

Mac stepped out of the cabin and walked to the stainless-steel fuel plate that was flush with the deck. He went down on one knee to open up for fueling. Two prongs of the metal tool he held fit into indentions in the flat, circular fuel plate. A hard twist loosened the big, stainless-steel screw. While he turned the plate on its threads, he glanced at the fuel dock.

The lithe woman strolling down the ramp was older than the bouncy little line catcher who’d been hired by the fuel dock as eye candy for the yachting set. The woman with the small backpack over one shoulder moved with easy confidence. He liked that in a person, male or female.

But he wondered if he’d like the reason why she was interested in Blackbird.

Stop being paranoid. Yachties love to look at what’s on the water. Just because her hair is the same color as the woman on the Zodiac, there’s no reason to be wary. Lots of women have dark hair long enough to be pulled back in a ponytail or left free to fall to her shoulders.

And nice breasts. Real nice, not a bra line in sight.

His neck hairs ignored sweet reason and kept on voting for paranoia.

“That’s one beautiful yacht,” the woman called out to him.

Mac looked at her. There was only appreciation in her voice and in her expression. No reason to get upset. Blackbird was indeed a fine boat.

And the female wasn’t bad, either. Not fat, not skinny, with a spring to her stride that came from some kind of athletic activity. She was probably a few years past thirty. Her eyes were clear, light, and direct. Everything he liked in a woman.

Too bad she’s the one from the Zodiac.

It was in the line of her jaw, the curve of her ear, the narrow nose and full mouth. Dark hair now ruffled by the wind. The lacy gap in her top should have been illegal.

He didn’t know the game, but she was one intriguing player. “Thanks,” Mac said, standing up. He braced his arms on the railing, looked down, and drawled, “She’s very responsive.”

Her head tilted up toward him. She could have been friendly. She could have been measuring him for a coffin. Her eyes were a green that reminded him of the color of big ocean waves in the midst of breaking over the bow. Clear. Light green. Powerful. A warning a smart man listened to.

Oh, I’m listening.

Looking, too.

Damn, she just might be worth the trouble.

And Mac knew she was trouble.

“You handle her well,” she said. “Have you had her long?”

Hell. She’s the wrong kind of trouble. She knows just how long I’ve been aboard this boat.

He glanced at the dock girl. She was waiting with a fat fuel hose. The nozzle was green.

“Diesel,” he said. Double-checking.

She nodded.

He took the nozzle and lifted the heavy fuel line aboard. The area around the deck’s fuel tank feed was protected by a white square of absorbent padding. He had cut a hole in the center to allow fueling. When the nozzle was in place, he looked at the dock girl.

“One hundred in each tank,” he said.

“One hundred diesel each,” she said, walking back to the pumps. “Fast or slow?”

“Fast.”

Emma watched the fueling process and chewed over the fact that she’d made a mistake. Obviously he’d seen her aboard the Zodiac, and taken a good enough look through binoculars to know her even without her ponytail and Mustang gear. His dark eyes had gone blank the instant she asked how long he’d owned Blackbird.

He enjoyed her crop top, but it didn’t affect his IQ. A hard man in every way that counted.

Time for Plan B: Honesty.

Yeah. Right.

“So much for light conversation,” she said clearly. “I’m Emma Cross and I’ve got a qualified buyer for Blackbird.”

“She’s not mine,” he said without looking up from the diesel nozzle. “I’m just delivering her.”

“So the owner is in Seattle.”

Mac didn’t answer.

“News flash,” Emma said crisply. “Being rude will just make me more pushy. I have a job to do and I’m going to do it, with or without your charming help.”

Mac almost smiled. “Charming, huh?”

“Yeah. Bet no one has ever accused you of that.”

This time Mac did smile. “No bet.”

Emma almost stepped back. The difference between this man with and without a smile was enough to make a woman think about doing whatever it took to keep the smile in place.

“Wow. You should try smiling more often, Mr. Whoever.”

He shook his head and decided he was going to find out just what kind of trouble this woman was. Give her enough rope and she might just tie herself up.

Now that was an intriguing thought. “MacKenzie Durand,” he said. “If you want me to answer, call me Mac.”

“One hundred!” called out the dockhand.

Mac loosened his grip on the nozzle, replaced the tank cover, and walked around the stern to the tank on the other side. The dockhand leaped forward to feed more hose aboard.

Emma looked at the thick hose, stepped behind the dockhand, lifted a few coils to help, and almost staggered.

Heavy. Who knew yachting was hard work?

Silently she revised her estimate of the captain’s physical strength. He was handling the stuff like it was garden hose. That rangy frame of his was deceptive.

“Hey, no need to get that cool top dirty,” the dockhand said. “I can handle it.”

“That’s what washing machines are for,” Emma said. “Do you do this all day?”

“Every day. The other dockhand quit. But I’m making a lot of money toward my degree.”

“In what?”

“Engineering.”

“That’s a lot of hose hauling,” Emma said.

“Beats waiting tables. I love being outside with boats.”

“Ready,” Mac called from the other side of the yacht.

“Coming on,” the dockhand said as she flipped a lever on one of the pumps. The dial began to spin, fast.

Another smaller yacht nosed in behind Blackbird. The dockhand went quickly to catch the lines.

Emma watched the dial on the fuel pump for a time. She was just reaching for the shutoff lever when the dockhand appeared, turned off the pump, and went back to feeding hose to the second boat.

“One hundred,” Emma called to Mac.

Moments later he appeared with the nozzle and heavy hose trailing. “New job?” he asked Emma.

The dockhand teleported into place, took the nozzle, then began dragging hose back and coiling it out of the way.

“Just a helping hand,” Emma said. “Poor kid has her work cut out for her.” She rubbed her hands on her jeans. “Permission to come aboard?”

“I’m on a short clock, but I can spare a few minutes.” He called out to the dockhand. “Go ahead and take care of the other boat. I can wait for the fuel ticket.”

She waved and looked grateful. The other customers were fishermen, eager to get out on the water.

Short clock.

Emma noted the military phrase as she headed for the stern of the boat. She grabbed the yacht’s stainless-steel rail, felt the grainy residue of salt spray, and lowered herself to the swim step. Her weight was nothing compared to that of Blackbird; the boat didn’t bounce or jerk as it accepted her.

Yet she sensed immediately the difference between dock and deck. Blackbird was alive with subtle motion.

Years peeled away and she was ten again, fishing with her father on the Great Lakes. She shook it off and concentrated on the mission.

“You aren’t staying in the marina?” she asked Mac.

He’d already decided to tell her the truth, because she could easily find it out anyway. Nothing like appearing helpful to catch someone off guard.

“I’m a transit captain,” he said, waving her toward the steps leading up to the deck. “I’m being paid to deliver this boat to the commissioning yard in Rosario.”

She walked onto the deck and looked around. “What’s a commissioning yard?”

“The hull and most of the interior of the boat is built in Shanghai. The navigation electronics, water maker, satellite linked chart plotter, TVs, radar, computer uplink, speakers, dishwasher, washer-dryer, stove, microwave, refrigerator, freezer, CD, DVD, and all the other expensive toys are added in the commissioning yard.”

She glanced at him. “So what kind of navigation system are you using to get to Rosario?”

“Paper charts and experience.”

He gestured her into the main salon.

“How long will the final work take?” she asked, looking around at the covered furniture-and the open panel on the breakers.

He shrugged. “Depends on how jammed up the commissioning yard is. Why?”

Emma stuck to the role she had developed over the last year on her St. Kilda assignment. “Have you ever worked for someone really, really, really rich?”

“No.”

“That kind of money makes people impatient,” she said. “My client wants a yacht like Blackbird and he doesn’t want to wait a year or more for it. That’s how long the list is. A year, minimum, no matter what kind of money you have.”

“So he’s going to make the owner an offer he can’t refuse?”

She rolled her eyes. “Nothing that physical. Just a lot of green. Bales of it.”

Mac decided it was barely possible that her story was true. “Nice finder’s fee for you?”

“You bet.” She wandered toward the open panel. “The boats I’ve handled have been from one to eight million.”

“Relatively modest, for the kind of wealth you say your employer has.”

“He has five other boats,” Emma said, running her hand over the beautiful teak wheel. The cover story came easily to her lips. All those years of lying for a living, people dying, everybody lying, and no one gave a damn. “His wife saw a picture of a boat like Blackbird in a yachting magazine and decided that she had to have it. Yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Blackbird is small enough for the two of them to handle alone. Roomy enough for a captain if she changes her mind. And luxurious to the last full stop. You can get bigger boats for the money, but you can’t get better.”

Emma crouched down, rubbed her hand over the glorious teak, and glanced casually at the electronics panel.

The scratch was right where it should be, which meant Blackbird’s twin was still missing.

Good news or bad?

Both, probably. Luck seems to go that way.

Mac said nothing while Emma straightened and moved on to the galley. He decided he could get used to watching her.

“I doubt that Blackbird would go for much more than two, maybe three million after she’s commissioned,” he said. “Depends on the electronic toys and the demand in the marketplace.”

“And on how stubborn the present owner is about selling.” She shrugged, then faced Mac. Nice wasn’t getting the job done. Time for something else. “Price isn’t my problem. Getting the boat is. So just who owns Blackbird and how do I get hold of him? Make my life easy and I’ll see that you get paid for your time. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Sell your time?”

Her eyes were clear, green, patient, cool.

Stubborn.

Mac’s smile was thin. He knew all about stubborn. He saw it in his mirror every morning. The razor edge of her tongue didn’t bother him. He’d been insulted a lot worse for a lot less reason.

But it meant that he didn’t have to play the amiable and easy game any longer.

“Yeah, that’s what I do,” he said, smiling. “Sell my time.”

This smile was different. It had Emma wishing the gun in her backpack was in her hand.

“How much time do you have on your clock?” she asked.

Blackbird moved restlessly, responding to a gust of wind. Mac didn’t have to look away from Emma to know that the afternoon westerlies had strengthened. The overcast was now a faint diamond haze.

Time to get going.

“I’m delivering the boat to Blue Water Marine Group,” Mac said. “Today.”

“In Seattle?”

“Rosario. San Juan Islands.”

That could be checked. And would be.

“Is Blue Water Marine Group a broker?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

Emma throttled a flash of impatience. “Do they own this boat?” He shrugged.

“Do you have their telephone number?” she pressed.

“I use the VHF. That’s a radio.”

She told herself that she didn’t see a gleam of amusement in his nearly black eyes, but she didn’t believe it. She hoped he couldn’t see the gleam of temper in hers. She felt like a dumb trout rising for pieces of indigestible metal.

“I’d like to go with you to see how Blackbird rides,” she said evenly.

“I don’t want to sell my boss a pig.”

“I’d like to have you along.” He shrugged again. “No can do. Insurance only covers the transit captain.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“Blue Water Marine Group won’t.”

Emma knew a wall when she ran flat into it. She pulled her sunglasses out of her crop top and put them on. “Is there some way I can contact you?”

“I’m right here.”

She flashed her teeth. “So am I. I won’t be for long. How do people who aren’t standing on your feet get hold of you?”

“I move around a lot,” he said. “That’s the life of the transport skipper.”

“But you have a cell phone, right, one that rings almost anywhere?”

Mac decided that baiting wasn’t going to get him anywhere with this woman. She had a temper, and she kept it to herself. So he pulled out one of the stained business cards he always carried in his jeans.

She took it and slid it into her backpack as she walked to the swim step. “See you around, Captain.”

Mac didn’t doubt it.

Nor did he doubt that someone would be running his fingerprints soon. She had handled that card almost as carefully as a crime-scene tech.