“Shit!” Sully growled. He took the lead, ripping off the leather wrist cuffs as he ran. He raced down the ladder ahead of Mac. The woman had the engine room light on and was already buried headfirst in the far alcove behind the port engine where some of the electrical junctions were located.
Mac reached for the protective earmuffs he kept hanging inside the hatch and found them missing.
What the fuck?
Then he heard the screeching noise, what he didn’t hear before.
Okay, so he’d been distracted, but still.
Sully started to go after the woman. Mac caught his arm and shook his head. Sully wouldn’t have heard him over the engine noise anyway.
After a moment, the screech stopped. The woman emerged. Yes, she wore the earmuffs and held a flashlight. The flashlight that also hung by the hatchway.
Who the hell is she?
Clarisse had found the connector and, with no time to waste, yanked as hard as she could on the wire. When it broke loose at the junction box connector, the auxiliary pump shut off. Flipping the switch in the wheelhouse wouldn’t have done any good, because when the float switch stuck it overrode the on-off switch. It would have taken twice as long to find the damn fuse and yank it, but that would have killed both pumps. Uncle Tad had always sworn he never should have let his brother-in-law install the damn thing. He’d meant to rewire it properly to eliminate the problem, hence why he rarely used it when the other pump usually sufficed.
Old habits died hard. Even though she wasn’t thin and hadn’t set foot on the boat in years, Clarisse had no problem carefully wiggling her way out of the alcove. She maneuvered around the back of the port engine and avoided the exhaust manifold. Even with the earmuffs on, it was still friggin’ loud.
The two men looked stunned. She glanced at them only long enough to shove past them, her face turned away. She replaced the flashlight and earmuffs before scrambling up the ladder to the deck.
Fear set in. She raced for the V-berth cabin, hoping to get there first. Maybe she could talk to them through the door and they wouldn’t press charges against her for being a stowaway or breaking and entering or whatever since she’d saved their asses.
His initial shock waning, Mac raced after her. He managed to grab her jacket and yank her back. “Stop! Wait, who the hell are you?”
She fought, hard and viciously. In the narrow passageway, he had to wrap both arms around her and drag her back to the main cabin area. She still managed to land a few good strikes to his shins with her heels. Fortunately for him her sneakers didn’t cause him much damage.
“Stop fighting! We’re not going to hurt you!” He muscled her into the galley and forced her to sit in the booth table. Sully pushed in, blocking her escape. She cringed away from them, her long hair obscuring her face.
“I’m sorry! Please don’t call the police!” She curled into a tight ball against the bulkhead wall.
“Are you on the run from the cops?” Sully asked.
She shook her head.
The men exchanged a glance. They still couldn’t see her face.
With Sully keeping her penned in, Mac slowly slid into the other side of the booth. She cringed. Jesus, she seemed so familiar—
Then it hit him. Betsy. She acted a lot like his little sister had the last time he saw her alive.
Before her husband killed her.
Sully started to say something else but Mac held up a hand. His Joe Friday cop routine wouldn’t fly right then. “What did you do? In the engine room?”
She still wouldn’t look at them, her hair concealing her face. “The auxiliary bait tank pump. You can’t use it. It gets stuck because the wiring’s messed up. I yanked the wire, that’s all. I heard it going. If it’d burned up, it could have short-circuited the panel and caused a fire.”
Mac felt Sully’s eyes burning into him, but he refused to look at his partner. Only someone with intimate knowledge of the boat could know that. He’d stupidly forgotten it, even though Tad had warned him about it and suggested calling an electrician to fix it.
“Look at me,” Mac softly commanded.
She cringed again, but she tipped her head just enough he spotted one eye through her hair. Still not enough to see her face.
“Thank you,” he said.
The girl froze. “You’re welcome,” she finally said.
Mac grabbed her wrist, firmly but not painfully. He reached for her chin and hesitated when she flinched.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I promise, neither one of us will hurt you.” When she relaxed, he tilted her chin so she had to look at them. Mac heard Sully’s sharp intake of breath when they got their first good look at her face—and her injuries. Someone had beaten the crap out of her. No wonder she was hiding and scared.
“Who did this to you?” Sully growled.
Mac felt her tremble. He released her chin, but laced his fingers through hers.
“Bryan. My boyfriend. Ex.”
Her soft, scared voice ripped at Mac’s heart. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, protect her, never let her go.
And he didn’t even know her name. Dammit, she looked familiar though, like he’d seen her somewhere before.
“You’re not going back to him,” Sully growled. With Sully, Mac knew that was a command, not a request or even a question.
At least they were on the same page.
She vigorously shook her head. “No, but I have to return to Columbus at some point in the next few weeks to handle the legal stuff and get my things.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mac immediately volunteered. What the fuck?
His reaction surprised even him.
Sully arched an eyebrow at him over that outburst. Okay, that would cost him some stripes back on dry land, but it’d be worth it.
The girl shook her head and slowly pulled her hands back. “No.
That’s okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you guys owned the Dilly now.”
She dipped a hand into her jacket pocket and withdrew a ring of three familiar-looking keys, laid them on the table, and cautiously slid them toward Mac. “You’ll want these.”
He looked at the keys but didn’t reach for them. “Let’s back up.
Who are you? How did you get keys to my boat?”
“Clarisse Moore. My Uncle Tad used to own her.” She finally glanced around, her gaze quickly skipping over Sully, briefly landing on Mac, before she looked at the table again. “I spent a lot of time here growing up. I didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t have anywhere else to go where Bryan couldn’t find me. I knew it was a long shot. I’m sorry.”
He realized why she looked familiar. Tad had shown him pictures of her. “I’m Brant MacCaffrey. You can call me Mac, everyone does.
This is Sullivan Nicoletto, my partner.”
“Sully,” he said from where he stood.
“I’ll leave as soon as we return to the marina. I’ll work while I’m here, earn my keep. I can do everything—fish, shrimp, sort, take watches.” She sighed. “I don’t suppose you know how I can get in touch with Uncle Tad, do you?” The men exchanged a knowing glance. “What?”
“We wrote you a couple of times,” Sully said. “Tad gave us your address. He’s in a nursing home. He had a stroke.”
No way could she have faked the shock on her face.
“When?”
“Last March,” Sully told her. “You never got our letters?”
Clarisse shook her head. “No.” She closed her eyes and swore.
“Bryan probably got them and threw them away. Is Uncle Tad okay?”
Sully must have felt it safe enough to sit. He slid into the booth next to Mac. “He’s partially paralyzed on his right side. He can get around, but he’s very weak. He had to sell the boat, and we offered to buy it from him. We go see him all the time. We were friends with him before he had the stroke.”