Dangerous Waters

Rogan swallowed, then blundered back to the saloon.

Granger said evenly, “I guess that’s it.” He rehung the lamp, and turned the flame down until it disappeared.

In the blackness Rogan groped for the companionway. Back on deck he breathed in the pungency of salt water and fish, and a whiff of diesel. “He didn’t deserve to die like that,” he said hoarsely. Like some bit of discarded flotsam, callously abandoned to the cold and dark.

“Nobody does,” Granger agreed.

Rogan closed his fists, overwhelmed by a hot-eyed, skull-thumping rage. Whoever was responsible for causing his father’s secretly damaged heart to finally stop beating—when he found them he’d bloody well tear them apart, limb from limb.

Chapter 2

Camille wasn’t sure what to wear to the funeral of a man she’d never known.

The one dress she’d packed—lightweight, creaseless, and simple enough for any time of day—had been fine for dinner with James Drummond. But even with a beige silk cardigan to cover her shoulders it looked a bit frivolous for a somber church service.

Entering the historic seamen’s chapel later, she was glad she’d settled for forest-green jean-style pants with a cream shirt and low-heeled braided-leather shoes.

Two men seated near the coffin wore impeccable dark suits, but other suits in evidence were of the ill-fitting, limp and unfashionable kind resurrected from some forgotten corner of a wardrobe, and the air was pervaded with a faint odor of naphthalene and mildew.

The service was simple and brief. When the minister paused, one of the men in the front pew went to the lectern, and only then Camille recognized her piratical stranger’s dinner companion of the previous evening.

Shocked, she turned her gaze to the second man.

He’d had a haircut, but the broad shoulders straining at the jacket of the suit, and the confident tilt of his head, were already familiar. She half expected him to turn and grin at her with the same bold insouciance he’d shown last night.

But of course he wouldn’t. This, she realized as his brother began to speak, was his father’s funeral.

Camille hardly heard the eulogy, dimly registering words like “adventurous” and “indomitable” and “determined.” She wondered if his sons had really known Barney Broderick. If they too had longed for a father who went to the office every day and came home for dinner every night and read the newspaper and watched TV before going off to bed. She swallowed, assailed by a familiar sensation—half sadness, half anger.

The man in the front pew dipped his head, momentarily out of her sight, but when he raised it again his big square shoulders were straighter than ever.

He didn’t take up the minister’s invitation for anyone to share their memories of the deceased, but a few gristly, weather-creased men spoke of a staunch friend, a fine sailor, a great bloke, and “one of nature’s gentlemen.” The last elderly raconteur told a couple of down-to-earth anecdotes about “old Barney” that had his cronies rocking with laughter and then wiping away tears.

His two sons as they helped lift and carry the coffin were tearless, seemingly emotionless. Outside, the coffin was slid into a hearse and the brothers stood shoulder to shoulder, fielding handshakes and condolences.

Camille waited for a gap and had almost decided to give up and return to the hotel when the pirate brother looked over the shoulder of a man who was shaking his hand, and she saw the quick flare of recognition in his eyes as they met hers.

He said something to the man and then he was pushing through the crowd, throwing a word here and there, moving inexorably toward Camille until he fetched up directly in front of her, so close she took a startled step backward.

Scowling down at her, he said, “Who are you?”

“Camille Hartley,” she told him. “I’m sorry about your father, Mr. Broderick.”

“Rogan,” he said. “Or Rogue, if you like. Did you know him?”

“Not really. I was supposed to meet him here yesterday, but when I arrived I was told he’d…died. I’m sorry,” she repeated.

“Why were you meeting him?”

“He asked me to. It concerned…my father.”

“Your father?”

“Thomas McIndoe.”

For a second he looked confused. Then he said, “Taff? Taff was your father?”

“Yes,” she admitted stiffly.

“So old Taff does have descendants.”

“One,” she confirmed reluctantly.

There was a stir in the crowd behind him, and his brother came to his side. “Ready to go to the crematorium?” he quietly asked Rogan. The notice in the newspaper had said the cremation would be private. “I told everyone we’ll see them later at the Imperial.”

He nodded curtly to Camille and made to turn away and take his brother with him.

But Rogan stood his ground. “Granger,” he said, “this is Taff’s daughter.”

Granger stared at his brother, then at Camille. He looked back at Rogan. “You’re kidding.”

“She’s his daughter. So she says.”

Slightly miffed at the addendum, Camille held out her hand to Granger. “Camille Hartley,” she said. “I’m sorry about your father.”

Granger took her hand and briefly clasped it in a firm, cool grip. “Hartley?” he queried. “You’re married?”

Camille shook her head. “It’s my mother’s name.”

The two brothers exchanged a fleeting glance that obscurely annoyed her with its hint of some secret joke.

Then Granger cast her a keen look. “You do know about Taff? I mean—”

“That he died, yes.”

“Then may we return your condolences?”

“Thank you, but I scarcely remember him.”

A woman touched Granger’s arm. Middle-aged, with brass-colored curls and red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry to interrupt, love. I just want to say, your dad might have been a bit of a rough diamond, but he had a good heart. I won’t go along to the pub, only I’d like to talk to you two boys sometime. You’ll be in town for a while?”

Rogan said, “A couple more days anyway.”

She moved off and Granger turned back to Camille. “Will we see you at the wake?”

“I wasn’t intending to be there.”

Rogan asked, “Are you staying at the Imperial?”