Sail Away

Kent whirled on Adam, his voice low. “Whatever it is you want, Drake, it can wait until later.”

By now, more than a few guests had drifted into the room. Kent was beginning to squirm. Whispers began to float around them, like tiny wisps of fog that lingered for a second, then drifted by.

“Mr. Drake?” Judith Marx obviously smelled a story. She wasn’t about to give up. “I thought you vowed vengeance against this company.”

“What I said was that I’d prove my innocence.”

From the corner of his eye, Adam saw Kent motioning with a finger to a beefy security guard in the doorway.

“Wasn’t that all taken care of?” Judith asked Adam, and he turned his attention back to the reporter. “You weren’t even indicted.” She reached into her bag for her pocket recorder. Kent glanced across the room, nodding to the two guards making their way inside.

Adam was ready for the two sets of hands that collared him and firmly guided him through a back door connecting the banquet room to the kitchen. He didn’t struggle. There was no point. Obviously Victor hadn’t seen him, or had decided to leave his dirty work to Kent. Either way, Adam wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot. But his next move would be more subtle. Hauling him through the service entrance, the security guards deposited him roughly on the wet asphalt near a delivery truck.

One of the two guards, a big bear of a man with sandy hair and a flat face, muttered under his breath. “Still gettin’ yourself into trouble, ain’t’cha?” Sam Dillinger had worked with Adam for years before the scandal.

“Looks that way, Sam.” Adam brushed himself off as he stood. He managed a grim smile.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Drake. You know, I never believed you were involved in any of that thievin’.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

The other guard, a thickset man with short salt-and-pepper hair, snorted. He fingered the pistol strapped to his belt. “Don’t show up here again,” he warned. “Just haul your butt out of here and don’t come back!”

“Be sure to tell Mr. Simms he hasn’t seen the last of me,” Adam said to Jim before sketching a wave to Sam. “See ya around, Sam.”

“You bet, Mr. Drake. Good luck to you.”

But Adam wasn’t counting on luck as he left the two guards arguing about his guilt. He ducked his head against the rain that slanted from the pitch-black sky.

The dock was slick, the wind raw and cold as he strode purposefully back to his boat. Now that he’d come face-to-face with Kent Simms again, he realized that nothing had changed. And since he didn’t have any proof other than Gerald Henderson’s side of the story, he couldn’t very well make accusations that could end up as slander. But from his reaction tonight, Adam was sure Simms knew more than he was telling. Adam had suspected Kent might be involved in the embezzling, of course, but he’d suspected a lot of people within the company.

Now, he decided, he’d start with Simms. He didn’t like the way the guy was manhandling Marnie, and the thought of giving Kent a little of his own back caused Adam to smile.

So, his next step would be to have a little chat with Kent before he tackled Victor. The more information he could lay at Montgomery’s feet, the better. And somehow, he sensed, Kent could tell him a lot.

Fortunately meeting Kent Simms face-to-face would be a simple matter. The Marnie Lee, a gleaming white cabin cruiser, and Simms’s personal vessel, was moored on the second dock.

Adam wasted no time. He looked over his shoulder to make sure the two guards were still watching as he stepped into his small boat. Unleashing the moorings, he settled behind the wheel and gunned the engine. The boat took off, churning a white wake as the engine roared loudly and he headed toward Seattle.

Twenty minutes later, when he was sure the guards were satisfied that he’d left the shores of Port Stanton and had returned to their posts in the hotel lobby, Adam circled back toward the Puget West and the docks where gleaming vessels rolled with the tide.

He wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot. Adam intended to board the Marnie Lee and wait in the cabin to have it out with Simms once and for all. As he spotted the showy white vessel he thought of her namesake, the lady herself, Marnie Lee Montgomery. How could a woman as bright as Marnie obviously was link up with a loser like Simms?

It was a mystery, he thought, then he remembered the tail end of their fight and decided that all was not bliss in the relationship between Victor Montgomery’s strong-willed daughter and the man she’d chosen for a husband.

Adam felt a twinge of conscience as he lashed his boat to the dock, then climbed stealthily aboard Simms’s expensive cabin cruiser. He didn’t want to hurt Marnie; she’d always played fair with him. Though she’d been raised in the lap of luxury and been given anything she’d ever wanted, she seemed sincere.

Don’t forget she’s engaged to Simms. Even if they did have a lovers’ quarrel, they were, as far as he knew, still planning to marry. That thought left a sour taste in the back of his throat, but he ignored it. Marnie’s fate was just too damned bad. Any woman who gave her heart to a jerk like Simms deserved what she got.

Marnie couldn’t believe her ears! The minute Adam was escorted out of the hotel, Kent turned the interview with the reporter around and now, with his arm wrapped securely around Marnie’s waist, he was confiding in the woman that Marnie and he were making plans to marry in mid-September.

“Congratulations!” Judith said, snapping her small tape recorder on. “What day is that, the sixteenth—seventeenth?”

“No!” Marnie cried, aghast. What had gotten into Kent? In all the years she’d known him he’d never been so bull-headed or downright stupid.

Kent’s fingers tightened around her. “What she means is that we’re not completely certain on the date. We’ve still got to accommodate everyone in the family—”

“What I mean is that there isn’t going to be a wedding!” Marnie declared firmly, plucking Kent’s fingers off her and stepping away from him. “Kent and I aren’t getting married, not in September. Not ever.”

“But—” Judith looked from one to the other.

Kent lifted his hands and shrugged, as if Marnie’s announcement came as a complete surprise to him. He acted as if she were just some fickle female who couldn’t decide what she wanted, for God’s sake!

“You explain this!” Marnie commanded, her voice as cold as a winter day. Shaking with rage, she turned on the reporter. “I’d better not read about any wedding in your paper. Not one word!” Spine stiff, she marched straight through the banquet-room doors and to the elevator in the lobby.

Pounding on the button for the fourth floor, she bit her tongue so that the invectives forming in her throat would be kept inside. The elevator doors shut softly, cutting off the sounds of the party, and the car ascended. Furious, her insides shaking with anger, Marnie leaned her forehead against the cool glass. “Calm down,” she ordered to herself. “Don’t let that bastard get to you!”

The elevator stopped and she stepped through the opening doors, storming into her father’s suite. What was Kent trying to do? He’d been acting strangely all night! How had she ever been foolish enough to think she wanted to marry him?

She stalked into the smaller bedroom. Her suitcase, packed and waiting, was where she’d left it near the foot of the bed. Good. She peeled off her gown, threw her jewelry into a case and stuffed the velvet box back into her father’s safe.

By the time Victor knocked softly on the door to her room, she had changed into faded jeans, a sweatshirt and a down-lined jacket. “Marnie? You in here?”

“For the moment.”

He opened the door and shook his head at the sight of her. “And where do you think you’re going?”

She sent him a chilling glance. “I’m leaving. Remember?”

“Of course I remember,” he said, holding out his palms as if to forestall an argument, “but I thought you might change your mind and wait a bit. Kent just told me he had Adam Drake thrown out of the party while I was wrapped up with Senator Mann. God only knows what’s going to be in the papers tomorrow! I need you to talk to the press—”

“I just did.” Marnie wasn’t about to be sidetracked by her father’s ploy. “That was a dirty trick, Dad,” she said, yanking her suitcase onto the bed and snapping it open to double-check the contents.

“What?”

Satisfied that she’d packed everything she needed, she clicked the case shut. “You told Kent to give the press a wedding date, didn’t you?”

“Of course not—”

“He never would have done it without getting the okay from you,” she insisted. “He wouldn’t do anything that might threaten his precious career with Montgomery Inns.”

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me, Dad! It’s belittling to both of us.”

Her father seemed about to protest, then let out a long, weary sigh. “Okay, I suggested that Kent—”

“Oh, Dad, how could you!”