"I was just thinking about what a crock this vacation turned out to be." "Well," the blonde reached over and gave her partner a scratch on the back, "at least we're together."

Dar made a low, grumbling noise.

"Honey, we're trouble magnets."

"Mm." Dar made a face.

Kerry's eyes twinkled a little. "We attracted each other, didn't we?"

"You saying we're both trouble?"

"Consider the last couple of days. What do you think?" Kerry asked wryly.

She had a point. Dar leaned back a bit, relaxing her tense grip 252*

on the throttles.

"PB and J?" Kerry nudged her and indicated the plate. "Get 'em before they blow away."

Dar agreeably selected half a sandwich and bit into it. "Wonder what the h.e.l.l's going on?" she mumbled. "Bud just being a jerk, or...""With our luck on this trip?" Kerry laughed wryly. "Or.

Definitely or. Maybe he tangled with that nasty shark we paid off this morning. They sure didn't seem friendly, and that thug seemed like the type to hold a grudge for no real reason."

Possible. Dar nodded as she chewed. "Might be. Or maybe he's checking on Rufus and the d.a.m.n battery on his cell died."

They looked at each other and Kerry sighed. "You don't really believe that, do you?"

Dar shrugged and took a cookie. It was a nicely browned, chocolate chip cookie, Dar's favorite, despite Kerry's experimentation with many other exotic types. "Guess we'll just have to find out the hard way."

Her phone buzzed, making them both start. Dar frowned, put the cookie down, and picked up the phone. The caller ID showed a private number, making Dar's eyebrows hike up. She opened the phone. "h.e.l.lo?"

"h.e.l.lo, Roberts." DeSalliers' voice sounded cold and smug, not a good combination at any time.

"What the h.e.l.l do yo-"

"Shut up!" the man bellowed. "You just shut up and listen to me, you b.i.t.c.h, if you want to see your little f.a.g friend again."

Dar felt Kerry move closer, as she heard the words even over the rumble of the engines. A sick feeling washed over her and her nostrils twitched, but she carefully bit her tongue and withheld a retort. Her heart rate sped up, making a faint thunder in her ears as she waited.

Kerry slid an arm around Dar's waist and pressed her ear against the other edge of the phone.

"Roberts?"

"You said to shut up and listen." Dar heard the icy clip in her own tone, though her voice had dropped to almost its lowest register.

"All right," DeSalliers replied with a verbal smirk. "This is very simple. I kept it very simple so you'd understand it."

Dar's eyes narrowed but she remained silent. Beside her, Kerry made a noise halfway between a spit and a growl.

"You will give me what you found. When you do that, I will give you your friend," the man said. "If you call the police, I will kill this piece of trash. If you mess with me, I will kill this piece of trash. If you do anything that makes me think you're crossing me, I*253 will not only kill him, I will drag him over the reef to kill him. Do you understand me?"

"No," Dar said. "That would require a graduate degree in animal psychology, which I don't possess. Where do you want to make the trade?"

"Just for that, b.i.t.c.h, he gets two smacks with a pipe,"

DeSalliers told her. "I'll let you know where to bring my property."

The line went dead. Dar licked her lips and put the phone down on the console, gazing at it in honest consternation. Kerry slowly let out a breath, her head still resting against Dar's shoulder.

The sound of the boat's engine filled the air for several very long moments as neither spoke.

"Oh boy." Kerry finally exhaled. "We are so-"

"f.u.c.ked." Dar completed the thought succinctly. "Oh yeah. Big time." She slowly released a breath and concentrated on driving the boat for a moment. Her stomach was clenched in knots, and she struggled to catch hold of the thoughts whirling in her mind.

"You..." Kerry cleared her throat. "You think he was serious?"

Dar replayed the conversation in her head. DeSalliers' voice had been very different than she remembered from their previous encounter. It had held an edge that was making Dar very nervous.

"He might be, yeah," she answered softly. "I think we may have pushed too hard by stirring up Wharton."

Kerry exhaled. "Dar."

"Yeah, I know. I feel like s.h.i.t," Dar said in a small voice. "I didn't think this through at all."

Kerry rested her head against Dar's shoulder as the island's marina grew ahead of them. "My G.o.d, what are we going to do?"

she asked. "Dar, we don't have anything to give him!" Dar didn't answer. "He won't believe us if we tell him that," Kerry went on, her tone rising. "Jesus!"

"Okay," Dar said. "Freaking out is not going to help."

"I'm not freaking out," Kerry objected. "I'm just..." She paused. "Okay, maybe I am freaking out. But I think it's justified."

The buoy approached and Dar steered past it, aiming for their slip. Her hands trembled on the throttles, but she focused on what she was doing. The last thing she needed to do was take out the dock and have that to worry about on top of everything.

Kerry seemed to realize that, and she kept quiet while Dar maneuvered the boat into its place. "I'll go tie us up," she muttered softly, using that as an excuse to burn off the churning of nervous energy in her belly. She climbed down the ladder, a thousand screaming thoughts fighting to gain the upper hand in her mind.

Horrified pity for Bud was uppermost. Despite the fact that she'd started out not liking him, seeing him talking to Charlie at the hospital had softened her att.i.tude. The thought that they'd put him 254*

in mortal danger mortified her. How could they have been so d.a.m.ned irresponsible? Couldn't they see how strung out DeSalliers was getting? How desperate? What made them think he'd just go running away if they challenged him? d.a.m.n.

With a sigh, she climbed onto the dock and secured their lines, glancing up to the flying bridge as she did so. Dar was still seated at the console, her head buried in her hands. Her heart lurching, Kerry finished her task and jumped back on board, scaling the ladder and approaching the still figure. "Dar?" She put her hands on her partner's shoulders. Dar had been right. Freaking out wouldn't help. "Hey." Slamming themselves or each other wouldn't either.

Dar lifted her head and rested her chin against her clasped hands. "Yeah?"

"We'll figure out what to do." Kerry leaned against her back.

"C'mon. Let's go meet Charlie, and then we'll all come back here and just talk this out."

Dar straightened and let her head rest against Kerry's chest.

"How could I have been that stupid, that wrong?" she asked in a soft, plaintive voice. "What's wrong with me?"

Kerry put her arms around Dar's neck, and kissed the top of her head. "There's nothing wrong with you," she said. "We're just way out of our league, Dar."

Dar blinked a few times. "Are we?"

"Well, I can't speak for you, but they never taught megalomaniacal fruitcake avoidance in my IT cla.s.ses at Michigan,"

Kerry said, taking a deep breath. "Sorry I freaked out."

The dark head tipped back and pale blue eyes searched her face. "Don't be. You were right; it's justified," Dar said. "I put someone's life in danger with my own arrogant stupidity."

"Hey." Kerry slid around the console and sat down next to Dar.

"Someone I know once told me when you make mistake, know it, then move on and get it fixed." She took Dar's hand. "We made a mistake. Let's just go figure out how to fix it."

Dar stared at the console morosely. "What if we can't?"

"Dar, if anyone can, it's you," Kerry murmured. "We'll find a way, somehow." She rubbed Dar's shoulder, worried at the pained, lost expression on her lover's face. "C'mon."

Dar visibly pulled herself together, rubbing her face with one hand and straightening. "Okay," she sighed. "We'll see what we can come up with to fix this cl.u.s.ter." She shook her head. "G.o.d knows it could have been worse." She moved to stand up.

Kerry moved with her. "How's that?"

One hand on the console, Dar paused, and then she looked at Kerry. "He could have taken you." She eased past her lover and pulled her head close as she did, kissing it. "Let's go."*255 Jesus. As she turned to follow Dar mechanically, Kerry sucked in a shocked breath. She's right. She stopped me from coming down here alone to check the boat.

She tried to imagine what that would have been like, a flash of her time in the mental hospital appearing stark and vivid in her mind's eye. How angry she'd been. How ashamed at being taken like that, by her own father. What would Dar have done if it had been her? Kerry watched Dar carefully lock the cabin door. "Hey, Dar?"

Dar turned, apparently having recovered her composure for the time being. "Yes?"

Kerry took her arm as they crossed onto the dock and started the long uphill walk to the hospital. "I was just thinking about what you said." She folded her fingers around Dar's. "I was thinking about what I would have done, if it'd been you DeSalliers took instead of poor Bud."

Dar looked at her. "And?"

"And I think I would have gone after his ugly a.s.s with that shotgun," Kerry admitted with a wry, brief smile. "I can see me doing a Rambo and getting my fool head blown off."

Dar squeezed her hand. "Nah."

"Yeah," Kerry said seriously. "So, I know this really sucks, and it's going to be tough on both of us, but I'm selfish enough to be glad I don't have to be thinking about you locked up someplace in that guy's clutches."

"Well," Dar kicked a pebble out of the way, watching it skitter down the docks past two men working near one of the boats, "I think you know that goes double for me." She squared her shoulders. "I guess we need to figure out what our a.s.sets are, what advantages we have, and decide what to do."

Kerry felt a tiny sense of relief. "Right."

They walked along in silence, pa.s.sing the other boats and collecting a few curious glances from the men working on them.

They left the dock and headed up the road. "Kerry?" Dar finally said when they'd pa.s.sed the marina and mounted the first of the steps up the hill.

"Mm?"

Dar paused and put a hand on Kerry's shoulder. "I wouldn't have gone after him with that shotgun."

"Oh?" Green eyes searched her face.

"I would have just used my bare hands." Dar spoke the words with eerie calm. "And ripped his heart out of his chest."

"Ah."

They resumed walking.

"We'll find a way to fix this," Kerry stated firmly. "I know we will."

256*

Dar grunted softly in response, her eyes fastened on the hospital on the slope above.

CHARLIE REMAINED SILENT for a while after Kerry finished speaking, a look of shock on his face. His eyes slowly went from her to Dar, who was sitting in the chair on one side of the hospital room.

The dark-haired woman had her elbows resting on her knees, her clasped hands resting against her chin. She lowered her gaze to the floor, tacitly accepting responsibility for the situation in which they found themselves. "So, our plan was to get you out of here, then figure out what the h.e.l.l we're going to do."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h." Charlie sighed deeply.

Dar's shoulders hunched just slightly. This was a failure of self that was eating a hole inside her, and she knew it. There had been very few times in her life when she'd known down deep that she'd committed an unfixable error, but this surely seemed to be one of them. Even Kerry's gentle rea.s.surance wasn't helping.

She heard Kerry's footsteps approach and then felt a hand come to rest on her back. Between her shoulder blades, Kerry's thumb moved slightly, giving her a comforting rub. She would never blame Dar, but she also knew the truth about what had caused Bud's abduction, and knowing that Kerry knew, that made Dar feel hollow inside. Hollow and empty and sick to her stomach.

Dar could hear Kerry continuing to speak, but the words just seemed to slip past her and without really realizing it, she rested her head against Kerry's hip and let her eyes close, shutting out the sight of all that disappointment.

"I know this is pretty tough to hear," Kerry said. "Believe me, I wish I wasn't here saying it."

Charlie glanced at the silent figure next to Kerry. His lips twitched slightly. "Y'know, I told that d.a.m.n fool he shoulda listened to you in the first place, Dar," he said, with a sigh. "Too d.a.m.n stubborn, that's what his problem is; always was."

Kerry could feel Dar's breath warm against the skin of her leg.

"About the loan, you mean?"

Charlie nodded. "Don't blame yourself, Dar. We got ourselves into this mess. We went after that kid's offer instead of doing the smart thing and accepting the hand of a friend," he said. "We never'da been here otherwise."

Kerry scratched Dar's back, running her fingertips over the tense surface. She could almost feel how upset Dar was. It was like a gray baseball sitting in the pit of her stomach, and she really wanted her lover to shake off the darkness so obviously clouding her mind. "Honey?"*257 The truth was too much to shrug off. Dar looked up reluctantly and inhaled. "I know," she muttered. "What ifs, what ifs. What if Kerry and I had just gone to another island, or picked a different d.a.m.n wreck to dive..."

"Look." Charlie collected himself and eased off the edge of the bed onto his newly restored prosthesis. "Bud's a big boy. I ain't sure they don't have themselves a bigger problem than they started out with, grabbing him."

"Mm." Dar straightened up a little. "They ready to cut you loose?" she asked. "We figured we'd head on back to the boat and regroup."

"Good idea." Charlie nodded. "After what you told me about what happened at that inn, I don't trust them people further than I can pitch 'em off the cliff."

Dar stood up, feeling very tired. "All right. I'll go downstairs and get us a cab." She gave Kerry a simple, brief hug, then left them to collect Charlie's things.