Of course the business he’d sought out was closed, dark, except for dim light that shone through the shutters upstairs. Nothing out of the ordinary, except maybe for the beat-up truck parked in front. Not a neighborhood for trashy vehicles.
He headed up the walkway to read the lettering on the front window just as a big man with a crew cut stepped out from the shadows.
“Help you?”
His arms were muscled, damp with sweat, as if he, too, had been out for a run. He kept his hands loose, slightly away from his body, alert. Coronado Island was home to North Island Naval Air Station and across the water from Brent’s own coast guard base. The area was thick with military types. This guy could be anyone from a navy SEAL to a petty officer. Brent figured the guy was too old to be petty officer, and, since it was just plain stupid to antagonize a navy SEAL, he tried for a friendly tone. Brent could be a smart-mouth, but he didn’t have a death wish. “Just out for a run.”
“In the rain?”
“That’s the best time to run. The tourists are all inside.” He shot a look at the darkened building. “What kind of business is this?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Brent raised an eyebrow. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“You’re trespassing.” The man eased forward a little.
Brent tensed but did not back down. If it was going to come down to something physical, he wouldn’t run from it. “Public place.”
“Private property.”
The obstinate mule inside him kicked to life. “You don’t own this sidewalk and it’s an innocent enough question. Don’t see why you’ve got your back up about it.”
The guy looked him up and down. “You’re persistent. Navy?”
“Coast guard.”
A slight derogatory smile. “Puddle jumper, huh?”
Brent answered through gritted teeth. “Rescue swimmer.”
He humphed, but there was a slight relaxing in the posture. “Knew a coastie swimmer.”
“Yeah?”
“Got my buddy out of a jam after Katrina hit. You work that mess?”
“Fifteen saves in one night.” Including a three-day-old infant whose panicked father had shoved the baby into Brent’s arms while they were in a rescue basket at 150 feet in the air and Brent was struggling to operate the hoist. His fingers tensed automatically with the memory. That fragile life in his hands. All on him whether the child lived or died.
They stayed silent a moment.
Brent jutted his chin. “You military?”
“Navy.”
“Swabbie, huh?”
No smile this time.
“I worked Katrina, too. Helped out building Camp Lucky. Know it?”
Brent nodded. It was the makeshift facility built by the military to collect the animals rescued from the hurricane. “We pulled out a golden retriever who ended up there. There were plenty we couldn’t get.” Plenty of helpless lives all around him then. They’d lost people and animals alike. It stuck in his craw.
The big man shook his head and Brent saw that he, too, understood about rescues gone bad. Losses that neither one of them would admit to.
“Wanted to take all those animals home with me.”
Something squeezed tight inside Brent. Pauline had said the same thing after the Loma Prieta quake when she’d helped with rescue efforts and come home with Radar. He straightened. “Brent Mitchell.”
“Marco.”
“You always this hostile to passersby?”
“We’ve had some trouble.”
“Do tell.”
Marco remained silent, no doubt weighing how much to confide. The sensation in Brent’s gut kicked up a notch. Trouble seemed to be going around.
Where is she? The desperate voice stuck in his mind.
“That your ride there?” Marco gestured to the truck parked at the curb.
“Nope. Came on foot.”
“Got to go check something out.” Marco turned, stopping to throw a comment over his shoulder. “We’re a private investigation business. Now get lost, Coastie.” He took off at a brisk walk toward the building.
Private investigation? Why had Pauline been interested in such a service?
Where is she?
He mulled it over for a minute. Good sense would dictate that a guy with a concussion, confronted by a burly navy type, should turn around and go home. Then again, normal men with common sense would not dive into the heart of a raging ocean in high winds to snatch up a victim moments away from death. Pauline always said he had a decided lack of good sense.
Semper Paratus was the coast guard motto.
Always Ready.
“Ready or not,” he said under his breath as he followed.
* * *
Donna whirled around so fast she upset the empty water pitcher she’d left on the table. It clattered to the floor but did not break. She ignored it, still tingling with fear over what she’d thought she’d seen out of the corner of her eye behind the bank of file cabinets. The creak of the floor had not repeated itself. Her eyes were playing tricks. Must be.
The cell phone shook in her hands as her finger hovered on the buttons to call 911. Breath in her throat, she tiptoed toward the cabinets. She crept slowly until she got within a step of the cabinet’s edge, then quickly poked her head around, ready to summon help.
No one. She heaved out a breath. There was no one there in the office, save one silly, frightened, grief-stricken twenty-seven-year-old woman.
Her sisters were right. Her mountain of sorrow and regret was causing her to imagine things. She retrieved the pitcher and walked it back to the conference room, the file folder tucked under her arm. She settled into a chair at the side. The head of the table would always be her father’s spot. Her throat thickened. Had it really been only two weeks since he was sitting there, strong and solid, thumbing through files and drinking the ultra-strong coffee he enjoyed? Only two weeks of anguish and grief so strong she’d had to take a leave from her veterinary practice? The Gallagher family had spent endless hours listening to the detailed police findings. It was an accident that took their father’s Lexus over the guardrail and down a rocky slope along Highway 1. Days had been spent wondering whether Sarah would recover and watching their mother remain at Sarah’s bedside, deep in prayer.
Suppose they were right and it had been an accident. Sarah, the driver, had been rear ended, causing the Gallagher’s car to plunge over the side. The other driver had not stopped. Maybe Sarah would regain her memory of the accident and confirm that it had been nothing more than a horrible, tragic mistake.
But something did not feel right—she had the feeling she got sometimes when a dog’s symptoms told one story but her gut supplied another. Odd that the driver had not stopped to call for help.
Before his death, her normally cheerful father had been preoccupied, working late hours, investigating some case that he had not wanted to discuss.
Or, she thought with a pang of guilt, had they all been too busy to listen? She had her own career, her sister Sarah had a busy life as a surgical nurse, and Candace was grieving over the loss of her marine husband with a child to raise. Most worrying of all was Navy Chaplain Angela, struggling to recover from a devastating tour in Afghanistan.
They’d