Gale Force

93

Four days into the tow.

McKenna made fresh coffee in the galley, and then climbed the stairs back to the wheelhouse. Nelson Ridley had the controls this morning. The engineer heard her coming, glanced back to greet her, and let his eyes fall meaningfully on the chart table by the stairs, the stainless-steel briefcase that sat upon it.

“You ever going to look inside that thing, skipper?” he asked McKenna. “It’s kind of giving me the heebie-jeebies here.”

McKenna handed Ridley a cup of coffee, took a sip of her own. Surveyed the wheelhouse, looked out through the windows. It was a nice enough day on the water: not much sun to speak of, but no wind, either, and nothing more than a low, westerly swell, as far as the seas were concerned. The Pacific Lion followed the Gale Force as she had for days now, and McKenna found it almost hard to believe that the well-behaved freighter dawdling behind the tug was the same beast of a ship that had nearly killed Court Harrington.

Of course, there was a reason that saving the Lion was worth thirty million dollars, and towing her to port only paid a fraction.

Ridley took the coffee, but he wasn’t about to let the subject drop. “I mean, be honest. Aren’t you at all curious?”

McKenna looked back at the briefcase, felt her body tense involuntary, constricting around her lungs just enough to be uncomfortable. She’d found the briefcase just where Harrington had described it, stashed under his bunk with a whole family of dust bunnies, had brought it up to the wheelhouse and looked at it for a while, long enough to make her feel uneasy. Then she’d set the thing down on the table, tried to forget about it. Tried to focus on the tow.

“Of course I’m curious,” she told Ridley. “But it’s locked, Nelson.”

Ridley raised an eyebrow. “We’re the roughest, toughest salvage tug on the North Pacific,” he said. “We raise ships from the dead. You don’t think we can open a briefcase?”

“I’m quite sure we can,” McKenna said. “It’s just—”

She trailed off, unsure how to tell Ridley how that damn case gave her the creeps, too, how she could close her eyes and hear the gunshots that had almost killed her and Harrington, see the look in the gunman’s eyes as he’d prepared to pull the trigger.

“I know,” Ridley said. “It’s weird, all right. But the kid’s got a valid argument. It’s lawfully our property.” He gave her a devilish grin. “What if there’s a million bucks in there, skipper? Wouldn’t you want to know?”

“I’ve already made my millions for this trip.” She forced a smile, gestured to the controls. “Let me take over here, would you? Grab a sandwich or something.”

Ridley paused, like he was debating pressing the issue. Finally, he shrugged. “You worried I’m going to crash your big boat?”

“I’m just saying, I’ve seen you drive that motorcycle of yours. Go on back to the engine room where you can’t wreck anything.”

“You’d be surprised.” Ridley retreated, casting one more meaningful glance at the briefcase before disappearing down the stairs and out of sight.

McKenna listened to her engineer fumbling around in the galley. Checked the autopilot, the GPS, replotted her course, anything to keep from thinking about that case.

The tug was making good time anyway, made it halfway across the Gulf of Alaska already. Another couple days, they’d home in on Cape St. James, the southern tip of the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the British Columbia coast. They’d skirt down the western side of Vancouver Island to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, cut in and down to Puget Sound in Seattle, and home, easy as pie. If the weather held, they might make it in early.

But the briefcase still gnawed at her. Throw it overboard, she thought. Forget about it. Hand it off to the authorities when you get to Seattle. Wash your hands of the whole ordeal.

Yeah, she thought. Maybe.

But even that wouldn’t guarantee safety. What if whoever owned the case came looking for it?

What would your dad do, girl?

Riptide Rhodes? McKenna couldn’t be sure, but she had a damn solid suspicion her dad wouldn’t be turning the case in to any authorities, not until he’d figured out what was inside.

It’s lawfully ours. Rules of the sea.

Her dad would have been curious. Hell, McKenna was curious. Just not enough to do anything about it, not yet.

She replotted the Gale Force’s route on the GPS screen—again—the vast expanse of ocean, not another soul around for hundreds of miles. Sooner or later, though, the tug would reach landfall, and McKenna wondered what—or who—would be waiting for them when they arrived.

It was a worrying question, and McKenna had days and days to mull it over. She settled into an uneasy discontent, and it hung over her head and didn’t go away.