Gale Force

81

The Gale Force set out from Inanudak Bay that evening, the Pacific Lion on a short leash behind it. It had taken Captain Geoffries and his crew most of the day to survey the Lion and verify she was ready to move. Taken the crew of the Gale Force a few hours more to move their hundred-pound salvage pumps up from the bowels of the ship. But now the pumps had been transferred back to the tug, the Coast Guard had signed off, and the Gale Force was moving.

McKenna settled into the skipper’s chair as the towline went taut behind the stern of her tug, and the big freighter followed behind, docile as a sleepy cow. It was about a hundred-mile run from Umnak to Dutch Harbor, all in the lee of the Aleutian Islands, and McKenna figured it would take a day or two, give or take, to get the Lion delivered.

She’d phoned Japan already, raised the Japanese Overseas Shipping Company, and told them when and where to expect their ship. According to Geoffries on the Munro, weather in Dutch was too foul for commercial flights, so the Japanese had chartered their own jet. They were due sometime within the next couple days.

The islands protected the Gale Force from the heavy winds on the North Pacific side, and the Bering Sea swell was behaving itself as well. Spike was curled up on the bench beside the captain’s chair, had even let McKenna pet him a couple of times. He hadn’t purred, mind, or even looked particularly pleased, but he didn’t claw at McKenna, or run away, and that was a start.

She watched the wheel for an hour or two, followed the Munro out of Inanudak Bay and up alongside the northwest side of Umnak Island. The crew—aside from Nelson Ridley and Matt Jonas, who were camping out on the Lion—was downstairs, doing the dishes, watching another movie, grabbing some well-deserved rest in their bunks, and McKenna knew she should feel exhausted herself, but she didn’t, not now that the job was almost done.

She checked the autopilot, plotted a course on the GPS. Turned on the satellite radio, some old Springsteen, her dad’s stuff. Crossed to the depth sounder and the pewter picture frame beside it, picked up the frame and brought her dad’s face into the low light from the GPS screen.

Her dad smiled back at her, that old flannel shirt and the stained baseball cap, kind eyes and beard going to gray, and even though McKenna knew it was stupid, she found herself waiting for him to come alive in that picture, say something, smile wider. Share in her success and everything she’d accomplished.

You did this, Daddy, she thought. Your crew and your boat, and everything that you taught me. You raised that ship from the dead.

It wasn’t enough, though. It was never enough. No crew, and no tug, would ever bring Riptide Rhodes back.

She stared at her dad’s picture until the tears blurred her vision, and she was crying for her dad, and for the Lion, and for everything else, and she kept staring at the photograph, waiting for a sign, for some indication that her dad was there with her, that he’d been there all along.

But there was nothing. A dark, empty wheelhouse, and a sleeping cat, and an old pewter frame, the picture inside going yellow with age.

And then there were footsteps on the wheelhouse stairs, heavy and uneven. McKenna turned quickly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Found Court Harrington climbing into the house, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands.

“Stacey said you were going to be up all night. Figured you’d need coffee, so—” Then he must have seen the tears, because his eyes widened and he stepped back. “Whoa, sorry. Everything okay?”

McKenna wiped her face again. Felt herself go red. Turned away, furious with herself, put the picture away.

“Everything’s fine,” she told him. “Perfectly fine. You can just leave the coffee on the table, thanks.”

But Harrington didn’t move. “Are you crying, though?”

Bastard.

McKenna steadied her breathing. Still didn’t trust herself to look at Harrington, so she stared out into the night instead. “It’s nothing,” she said.

Harrington came closer. Picked up the picture and held it close to his eyes, squinted at it. “Your dad?”

She nodded.

“It’s like he’s here, isn’t it?” Harrington said. “Don’t you feel like he’s right here along with us?”

McKenna couldn’t answer that without risking more tears, so she shook her head.

“I do,” Harrington said. “I sure as heck do. I see him in every stroke of good luck we’ve had on this job, everything that’s gone right. And you’d better believe he was looking out for me when I had that fall. I could have been a goner.”

“He would still be here,” McKenna said, “if I’d made that turn quicker.”

Harrington didn’t say anything for a while. “You saved my life. You know that, right? If you didn’t have your shit together, I would have died on that shipwreck.”

McKenna said nothing.

“But you know what? Even if I had died, it wouldn’t be your fault,” Harrington continued. “This is a dangerous job. People have accidents; people get hurt. Your dad knew that as well as anyone. You do what you can to mitigate the risk, but in the end your luck’s going to hold or it’s going to give out, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

McKenna studied the instrument panel, the engine gauges, the radar, and the dim GPS screen. Anything to keep from looking at Harrington. “I just miss him,” she said finally. “I miss him so much. This is all I ever wanted, but it’s so damn hard without him.”

“But he is here,” Harrington said. “Don’t you see? Everything you’ve done has his stamp on it. Every time I look at you, I see the daughter Riptide raised. And I see a damn fine salvage captain, to boot.”

McKenna laughed. Couldn’t help it. Turned to see Harrington looking at her with such an earnest expression that it only made her laugh harder.

“What?” Harrington held the straight face for another beat. Then he gave it up. “I guess that was pretty cheesy, huh?”

“I just feel like I should be paying you extra, making you play therapist to some raging bitch with daddy issues.”

Harrington’s smile grew. “You’re not such a bitch.”

“You weren’t saying that a couple days ago.”

“You got better,” he said, unfazed, and they smiled at each other until the moment stretched just a little too long, and then he straightened and nodded at the coffee in her hand.

“Anyway, there’s lots more where that came from,” he said. “Coffee, I mean. Plenty of Red Bull, too, if you need it.”

“I should be all right,” she said. “Thanks.”

He turned to go. “Well then, good night, Captain Rhodes.”

McKenna, she thought, but she didn’t want to confuse the guy, and maybe she was getting a little confused herself.

“Good night, Harrington,” she said, and then he was gone, and she stood up by the wheel, replaying the conversation, seeing those green eyes in her mind, and wishing like hell she knew some way to chase them.