Mesmerizing Stranger

Chapter 6

Immediately after breakfast, Harm joined Ivan in the pilothouse, where he could use the radio to check with Juneau. The response didn’t take long. Harm made a sound of irritation as he clicked off.

Ivan said, “What?”

“In the immortal words of the authorities, the pathologist is fishing.”

“Ah. This is Alaska,” Ivan said, as if that was an answer in itself.

“He’ll get to the autopsy. But maybe not today. Or tomorrow. Soon, I believe, was the word used by the office.”

Ivan said, “It’s just different thinking up here. The man’s dead, so what’s the hurry?”

“That we’ve all been put in limbo until we have results from the tests? That the man has a daughter who very likely wants to plan a funeral?” Harm shook his head again. “I’m going below. The coroner asked me to go through Fiske’s things. The coast guard took the list of his medical conditions and medicines, but they want me to check to see if there were any other medicines or things he might have been taking that weren’t on the list.”

“You want me to ask Hans to do it?” Ivan asked.

“No. I’m fine.” Harm clipped below deck, hoping to catch Cate en route, but she wasn’t in the galley or the dining area. Something had shaken her at breakfast. Since nothing seemed to shake Cate-certainly not whales or finding dead guys-Harm figured it must have been something substantial.

Not that she was any of his business…but sweet damn, she’d become his business. The dimensions of the why and how, right then, he refused to examine.

First off, anyway, he needed to explore Fiske’s belongings. No one was below deck. The men were all topside for the sail toward Baranof and Hot Springs-their next land destination. Fiske’s cabin was big enough for a squirrel. Fiske’s duffel was sitting navy-tight on his bunk.

Harm rifled through it, found four brown plastic prescription containers. One was a statin, a cholesterol drug Harm recognized. Two were heart medicines, and the last-he just didn’t know. Never heard of the name, and the labeling didn’t indicate what the one-a-day dosage was for. All the medicines had already been reported to the coast guard.

Harm hefted the heart pills, feeling a sharp gulp. Yesterday, the coast guard had come to the most obvious conclusion-that Fiske was an overweight guy under a lot of stress, a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen. Harm hadn’t created that stress, but he still felt responsible for failing to find answers that could have alleviated it. Fiske was a good soul. His uncle’s closest friend in the company.

Harm bent over, hoping to find something else in Fiske’s belongings. He saw the corner of an old, battered red-leather case-just a calendar-and was about to pull it out when he heard Cate. “Harm?”

He didn’t have to spin around and see her face to know something was wrong. It was like at breakfast. Her usual sass and sparkle had disappeared. There was none of the full-of-herself sexy love of the night before, the daredevil, the troublemaker. Just a quiet voice and nerves. “I need to tell you something,” she said. “And you’re not going to believe me.”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“Because no one will. No one’s going to take this seriously. And you won’t, either. Trust me.”

“I do trust you.” Quickly, he steered her out of Fiske’s cabin, out of the empty corridor and into his cabin. Last night, after she’d damned near seduced him-and thoroughly rattled his timbers-he’d vowed not to be in private quarters with her alone unless…well, unless.

This definitely wasn’t an “unless.” But he could tell from her face that he wouldn’t want anyone else hearing this-or even knowing that she was talking privately with him.

“It’s about Fiske,” she said. She obviously couldn’t stand still. She started pacing-and promptly bumped into his chest the first time she did a spin around. “I think someone killed him, Harm. With peppermint.”

“Say what?”

“I know. Death by peppermint. It sounds silly. Crazy. Impossible. And part of the problem is that I don’t think anyone would know. How could authorities think of this? Why would a pathologist test for it? He wouldn’t. It’s not a drug.”

“Whoa. Start at the beginning. I’m having trouble following.” He didn’t push her on the bed, just framed his hands around her shoulders and gently sat her down. Two of them couldn’t pace at the same time. And once she’d suggested murder, Harm figured he had the biggest reason to pace.

He heard her spill out the details. The empty peppermint bottle. The missing lid. The way she’d found Fiske, his position indicating he’d been clawing at his neck, as if he were choking. But there’d been no sign of vomit. And the bottle had been put away, except for the lid.

“Do you understand, Harm? I don’t see anyone will find evidence of it in an autopsy because it’s not a drug or anything anyone would ever test for you. But I would think it would create a burning in the esophagus or throat. You could ask them that, couldn’t you? To look for it?”

“Yes. I’ll radio immediately on this.”

“That’s why I had to tell you. Because if you don’t ask, I don’t see how they’d find it.”

“But I’m still not totally grasping this, Cate. I mean, peppermint’s a candy. And you made cookies from it. And I think I remember a grandmother advising that you could rub it on a sore tooth. Couldn’t it have been like that? He got a toothache, got up in the middle of the night, thought he’d try that old wives’ tale, and that’s how he got into your peppermint?”

“No. I mean, yes, it’s possible he had a toothache, might have known of that old wives’ tale. But if that were the case, he’d have used a drop or two, not the whole bottle. No one would take a whole bottle of peppermint by choice. It couldn’t happen. Your throat would burn like fire. You might try it by accident, not realizing that…but then you’d rush to a sink, to the nearest water, start spitting it out, do anything to make it stop burning.”

Harm spun around, only to find that Cate had bounced up from the bed and was trying to pace again, too. It couldn’t happen. Not in a space the size of an animal cage.

“Maybe he dropped the bottle. Spilled it. And that’s why it was empty. It seems logical to me that he’d have thought peppermint would soothe his stomach, something like that. You know he ate like a horse that night, easy to believe he had a stomachache-”

“That could have been. And I’m not trying to say that I know how he died. For that matter, maybe he did die of a heart attack. If someone forced him to intake a whole bottle of peppermint, I can well believe it caused an impossible shock to his heart. I’m not a doctor. Just a chef. And I’m telling you…someone handled my peppermint in a way that couldn’t have been an accident. Someone used the entire bottle. Someone, not me, didn’t put the lid back on. And if Fiske had been the one to think he wanted it, who touched it, then swallowed that amount, there’s no way in the universe he’d have been physically capable of putting it back in the cupboard and closing the door and leaving the galley all tidy. He’d have been frantic to stop the burning in his mouth and throat.”

“Okay. I hear you. I got it. But who knows that stuff about peppermint?”

She thought about that, answered slowly, “I have no idea. I mean, I’d think it would be common knowledge from someone like me, a chef, a cook, someone who knows foods. But otherwise…well, I can’t imagine why you’d know it. Or any other normal person. I guess I’d assume a scientist-type might, just because they’d get the chemistry part of it.”

Unfortunately, all his men had that background-that is, everyone but him. His mind kept replaying the men, the dignified Arthur, the Ivy-League boys with their arrogance and outward devotion to their jobs and the cancer cause.

“I just can’t figure out the why. If there was a murder, it was logically to cover up the theft. Only there’s no sane reason for the theft.” He socked a fist into the other hand. “If greed were the motivation, I’d get it. Power, I’d get it. But neither of those make sense. The man was already going to get money-big money-when the medicine hit the market. He was already going to be part of the massive credit, the satisfaction, for finding a cure for this uniquely destructive cancer. So why steal it? Why try selling it elsewhere, where the instant the sale came to light, the thief would be identified? None of it makes any sense.”

“Harm?”

“What?”

“Sit down. Calm down.”

Nobody told him to sit down and calm down. Ever.

He sat down. Calmed down.

“You’re taking me seriously,” she said quietly, as if she were still having trouble believing it.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s not going to sound credible to anyone. Death by peppermint? You know it sounds silly.”

“Yeah, it does. In fact, it sounds so downright ridiculous that I can’t imagine why the two of us aren’t laughing our heads off.”

He watched her take in a massive breath. The way she looked at him. He couldn’t read it, but there was something there. Something both warm and wary, as if he’d done something that mattered to her.

“You know,” she said quietly, “I didn’t expect to like you. It’s awkward.”

“Your liking another human being is awkward?”

“You joke. But you feel it, too. We’re going to have to watch it,” she said gently. “Watch what?”

“Harm. Don’t be obtuse. There’s something really, really weird happening here.”

“You’re telling me? Murder, theft-”

“Those are just…problems. The weird thing I mean is between you and me.” She leaned over, close enough to kiss him. He thought she was going to. Her lips parted. Her eyes seemed to darken. She was so close he could smell her sweet skin, feel her warm breath, see her impossibly soft lips. “Don’t you tempt me, Connolly. I can’t possibly belong in your life. You can’t possibly imagine me in yours. So you just quit it.”

My God, the woman was batty. She told him she was going up to talk to the captain and left. Harm was willing to admit he was feeling on the batty side himself. His key financial guy murdered? He needed to head upstairs, radio Juneau, somehow ask for the pathologist to make sure they examined Fiske’s throat and esophagus without sounding like a nutcase. This whole mess just kept getting worse.

And Cate was somehow… He didn’t know what she was doing. Implying they were a pair in some way. Implying they were in this together somehow. Implying they had some kind of kindred spirit, man-woman, serious connection going on.

Implying he knew it.

The real helluva a thing was…he did know it. Not that he’d admit it to her. Hell, he wasn’t remotely ready to admit it to himself.

Cate jumped when she heard a footstep behind her…but it was just Ivan, popping in the galley for a raid on the first-aid kit. “Connolly’s up in the pilothouse, calling in authorities again. I don’t know whether this is turning into the trip from hell or a hell of an interesting cruise. But I’m taking an ibuprofen while I’m deciding.”

He shook a couple pills from the container. Cate handed him a cup of water. “I was hoping to catch you alone for a minute or two.”

“Honey, I’ve been trying to catch you alone since I hired you on.”

For once, Cate wasn’t annoyed by his flirting. At least it was normal, and right now, anything normal had an incredible appeal. “I just think I should tell you something, Ivan.”

“Oh, good. Anything of an intimate or personal nature would be preferable.” Ivan set the cup back on the counter after he’d downed the pills, shot her a lascivious grin.

She ignored it. “I think Fiske died from peppermint.”

“Huh?”

She expected the comical expression on his face. Still, she showed him the vial of peppermint, how it had been left, all the things she’d told Harm. Only Ivan responded by cocking his hands on his hips and letting out a good belly laugh.

“Cate, you doofus, we all had tons of your peppermint cookies the first night out-”

“You don’t understand. This isn’t peppermint, as in the dose that goes into candy or cookies or baking. It’s the whole-” But abruptly she stopped talking when she saw Yale leaning in the doorway.

“I apologize. I didn’t want to interrupt a serious conversation. But I was up on deck. Hans came out of the pilothouse, asked if I’d mind seeing if you were in the galley, said to tell you there was salmon.” Yale gave a boyish shrug, as if to say he knew the message didn’t make sense.

Apparently, it did to Ivan, though. Cate heard the boat engine suddenly slow, then the boat changed direction and circled, then stopped. Ivan turned to her with an exuberant grin. “So there’ll be a delay before reaching Baranof Springs, my gorgeous, adorable chef, for a spot of fishing. Is there a prayer you could alter the dinner menu to do a little something with fresh salmon?”

Murders and mayhem and poison by peppermint aside, Cate gave him the rhetorical answer. “Is the Pope Catholic? Is a rabbi Jewish? You get me fresh salmon, I’ll give you nectar.”

“Attagirl.”

Because she was too distracted to duck, the captain managed to squeeze her behind before she could elbow him away. Yale scratched his whiskery chin, looking as innocent as a child. “Did I accidentally sabotage a private conversation?”

“No, not at all,” she said, but she was rattled times ten. She hadn’t expected Ivan to take her seriously, to believe her. But she still wished no one had overheard. There was enough worry and suspicion floating around the boat without someone being in a position to add fuel to it…not even counting that Yale was one of the three who could have been the thief-and murderer.

A shiver chased up her spine. Cate, her sisters always said, was the fearless one. Nothing shook her. Nothing made her back down. She always raced ahead as if she had nothing to lose.

But that was the thing. All her life, she’d really never felt she did have anything to lose.

But Harm did. And out of the blue, she seemed hopelessly connected to a man who should have been, and by any definition still was, a relative stranger. And risk suddenly had a different flavor. The flavor of fear.

Four hours later she heard the men laughing in the dining room. “Don’t get near Cate. You should see that knife she’s got.”

“I don’t need knives to make you men behave,” Cate called out and then showed up in the doorway with the first platter. She was still wearing her old Kmart jacket with the tear, the same frayed sweatshirt underneath, while the guys had just pushed off their fancy-dancy rain outfits. Rain hadn’t stopped any of them from fishing, though, not once the first salmon was reeled in.

“Under the salmon is an Agrodolce sauce, boys. Nothing to scare you, trust me.” True fresh salmon-Alaskan salmon-didn’t need any fancying up, but she couldn’t resist the bed of Agrodolce sauce to pretty it up. The salmon itself just had the slightest sprinkling of butcher’s salt and fresh pepper. She carted the individual platters to each man. For the extras, she added a plate of Georgian cheese bread, a bowl of zucchini ribbons-just barely sprinkled with tarragon-and then plain old baked potatoes.

For over twenty minutes, there wasn’t a word. She glanced at Harm now and then. He glanced right back. She hadn’t regained any sense of safety since that morning, but damnation. Watching the guys fish-it had all been so normal. Yelling at each other, screaming when they got a fighter on the line, Ivan netting their loot, her laying claim to the booty for dinner. And now. The way they gobbled up the food like children raised in caves, hooking their arms around their plates as if fearful of interlopers, shoveling it down, making orgasmic sounds right at the table.

After a while, she just cupped her chin in a hand and watched. Killers? How can any of them possibly be killers?

“This isn’t really salmon,” Arthur said at one point. “I don’t care for fish, to tell you the truth.”

“Alaskan fish aren’t like anything you get in the Lower 48,” Ivan explained.

“It’s the cold waters. Cold and clean.”

“Nah. It’s Cate. Everything she touches is just…to die for.”

Her fork clattered to the table. Everyone looked at her, clearly expecting her to make a perky comment. In a blink, she realized that’s how this was going to have to be. Her making smart remarks, taking care not to look at Harm, keeping up a sassy conversation with them all. Acting like normal, because if she did otherwise, the thief/killer could be alerted. It’s just…she wasn’t used to lying.

She’d never been able to tolerate liars or lying, in fact.

“You want to know the truth,” she responded to Arthur’s compliment, “I didn’t think this particular meal was up to par. If you guys’ll bring me more fresh salmon, I promise I’ll give you a dinner you’ll never forget.”

“Aw, Cate. You mean we’ll have to fish again?” Purdue gave a mock groan, and the rest laughed. They’d had a good time fishing. Or acted as if they had.

She served vanilla honey-bee ice cream, heaped with sharp sprinkles of dark chocolate and butterscotch, but by then, she couldn’t eat a thing herself. When she put the dish down for Harm, she almost put a hand on his shoulder-just wanting the connection, needing a connection. But she pulled back in time, disappeared into the galley where she could be by herself. Safe from doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing.

Safe from being herself.

Harm stuck tight with his men after dinner, so once Cate shined up the galley, she disappeared downstairs to her cabin, e-mailed her sisters, rinsed out some things, took a shower. She’d turn in early, she decided.

That worked like trying to make meringue with old eggs.

She got up at midnight, grumpily scooped up blankets and a tarp, and tiptoed down the aisle, then up deck. Nothing stirred. The water slop-slurped against the boat, and outside was colder than a well digger’s ankle-but the sky was putting on a breathtaking color show, shooting silvers and purples and jeweled colors in flashes of smoke. She was diverted momentarily, watching, until she heard a sound in the pilothouse.

She whirled around-but the pilothouse was dark, locked up for the night, a pale glow of instruments reflecting on the walls but nothing else visible. She was just spooked, which was the whole reason she couldn’t sleep to begin with. Toting her gear, shivering hard now, she climbed the last set of steps to the top deck.

There was no Harm here tonight-or anyone else. She told herself she was crazy to feel safer out in the open than locked in her cabin, but it wasn’t that simple. There were too many men between her and an exit. And when it came down to it, the only one who’d have any reason to think she’d be way up here was Harm.

She settled down, and maybe it was the stress, but she curled up tight and felt herself dropping off to sleep almost right away.

She never heard a footstep on the stair, never heard a breath of sound. Never felt anything or sensed anything until she suddenly felt a big, heavy push. Next thing she knew, her eyes flew open and she was hurtling over the side.

Blankets were too tangled around her to get her arms free, to grab for something, anything. Something hard cracked the back of her skull…then her hip thunked, ringing hard…and then everything went black.

Harm didn’t know what he’d heard, but he hadn’t been sleeping…and whatever that thunk-thud was, the sound was discordant in the still night. His eyes popped open. He waited, but there was no other sound.

Still. It was wrong-particularly right now, when any discordant sound made him worry about another catastrophe-so he climbed from the bunk and yanked on sweats and deck shoes. Silently, he opened the cabin door and waited for several beats, trying to smell or see or sense anything that was out of the ordinary.

There was nothing. Telling himself he was being an idiot for being so hyper, he trudged upstairs, grumbled through the main salon, then the dining room, then poked in Cate’s galley. Nothing wrong anywhere-except in his head.

He circled outside, stepped up to the pilothouse, checked the door-it was locked, naturally, the instrument panel lit up as it should be. Nothing unusual, nothing out of place. Since he’d come this far, he circled the foredeck, thinking maybe Cate had chosen to sleep topside again…but near the ladder, he suddenly saw the rumpled shadow on the deck.

He caught a single glimpse of blond hair tilted over the side, under the rail, and hurtled into a sprint. He skidded, almost fell-damn deck was slick-crashed on a knee as he got to her.

“Cate. Cate.” She’d been sleeping top deck, just as he’d guessed, which was easy to assess from the mound of blankets and covers-and which, thank God, cushioned her fall. Still, her white face and closed eyes scared the starch out of him. He wasn’t sure if or where she might be broken, but he had to shift her to a less precarious position. As swiftly as he could secure her in a safer spot on the deck, he felt the pulse at her throat.

Her heartbeat barely registered, but then suddenly beat like a drum against his fingers…at the same time her eyes opened. “Hey,” she murmured, a lover’s word the way she said it…only then she winced. “Ouch. What the-?”

“Shhh. Shhh. Don’t move at all until we figure out what’s going on. Just tell me where you hurt.”

Her eyes closed for a second, scaring him halfway to death and back again, but then she came through with a list of specific damages. “Head. Hip. Pride.”

He wanted to smile at the “pride,” but he couldn’t. Carefully, tenderly, he ran his fingers through the scarecrow-blond curls, found a spot that felt warm and damp, with a good-size lump underneath it. “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to move you.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re not moving me. I’m moving myself. For darn sure, I’m not staying here. Damn.” She tried to push to a sitting position, and immediately fell back dizzily.

“You think you were born stubborn as a goat, or was it an acquired character trait? I’m serious about your not moving yet. You could have a concussion, Cate.”

“Then I’ll have a concussion inside, where it’s nice and warm. Besides, my head’s too hard to have a concussion. Trust me. Harm-”

“What?”

“Did you see who pushed me?”

He frowned. “You fell.”

“I didn’t fall. I was pushed-yikes!”

She was so tangled in blankets that she almost fell again…but this time fell against him. He was still reeling from the idea of someone deliberately pushing her when she crashed against him with an oomph and another cry of pain.

And that was it. No question she was gonna hate it-but he took charge.