Red Below Deck: A Mystery Thriller Page 2

  I tried to clear my head as I knelt down next to her and checked for a pulse. My hands were shaking, and at first, I couldn’t feel anything. Then . . .

  Lub . . . Lub . . . Lub . . .

  My own heart skipped a beat. There was a pulse, which meant she wasn’t dead. My relief was premature, however. Her heartbeat was incredibly slow, and if I didn’t get her to a hospital soon, it might stop all together. I looked around at the empty street.

  Somebody must have heard the crash, right?

  “Hello?” I called. “Can anybody hear me? Please, I need help!”

  Boop-whoop!

  The chirp of a police siren behind me made me jump. I whipped around and saw a worn-out-looking police cruiser slowly pulling around our car. It drove slowly around me and the old woman, circling like a vulture. My whole body tensed up. I used to have a good relationship with cops, being a CPS investigator it was kind of required, but my last interaction with small-town law enforcement hadn’t been a pleasant one.

  The cruiser stopped on the street so that it blocked any possible traffic from getting past and boxed me in between it and my car. After a second, the engine shut off and the driver-side door opened. A stereotypical small-town cop stepped slowly and carefully out from behind the wheel. He looked to be in his early thirties; Caucasian, but heavily tanned as if he spent most of his time outdoors. He wore tan slacks, a ridiculous pearl-white Stetson hat, and a ridiculously bright orange windbreaker with reflector stripes. Instead of aviator sunglasses, he wore simple square prescription glasses with thick black rims. His demeanor was neutral and unthreatening, but my eyes were immediately drawn to the large revolver resting on his right hip. When he spoke, his voice had a slight southern twang that seemed out of place this far north.

  “What seems to be the problem here, miss?”

  “There’s been an accident,” I said quickly. “This woman is hurt, she needs medical attention. Can you call an ambulance?”

  He nodded. But instead of reaching for the radio, he just stood there.

  “What about you, ma’am, are you alright? Any double vision, muscle spasms, anything like that?”

  “I’m fine!” I said desperately. “But I just hit this woman with my car!”

  “I understand, miss,” the cop said, calmly holding his hands up. “Now please, just calm down.”

  I gaped at him.

  “Calm down? This woman is dying and you’re just standing there.”

  The cop sighed wearily.

  “You’ll forgive me, miss, but I very much doubt that particular woman is in any real danger. Now, was there anyone else involved in this accident?”

  I continued to stare at him. Then a muffled, elderly voice said, “You really are just no fun, Martin.”

  My heart nearly jumped out of my throat as the old woman suddenly leapt to her feet with a nimbleness I wouldn’t have thought possible for someone her age, let alone someone who’d just been hit by a car. She brushed herself off and took a pair of half-moon glasses out of her pocket and set them on the bridge of her pointed nose. Her ocean gray eyes were large and sparkling with a mischief that looked more at home on a spoiled toddler than a woman her age.

  “I’m terribly sorry, miss,” the cop said, walking to stand next to me. “I’m afraid Miss Pharos here has a unique way of welcoming people to our little town.”

  “Unique?” I echoed, gawking at the old woman.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Is it wrong that I like to know what kind of people are coming into my town?” she asked nonchalantly and adjusted her hair bun. Then she looked me dead in the eye and asked, “Also, shouldn’t you be checking on that other young woman in the car?”

  It was only then that I realized Lina was nowhere to be seen. I felt a surge of new panic and ran back to the car, throwing open the passenger-side door. Lina was still strapped into her seat, massaging her head as if she hit it on the dashboard. Her sunglasses had been thrown off her face, revealing her beautiful ruby-ringed eyes. When she looked up at me, I saw her sluggishly wince as the late afternoon sunlight hit her face, and she awkwardly covered her eyes with her hands and turned away.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, moving to block the sunlight.

  “Peachy,” she said through gritted teeth. “What happened?”

  “I’m, er, still trying to figure that out,” I said, shooting a worried look at the old woman and the cop, who were quietly talking several feet away. “We hit someone, but I think it’s okay because this happens a lot.”

  “Wait, we what?” Lina turned toward me, her eyes clamped shut, but her expression baffled. “What do you mean this happens a lot? Do you have a hobby of committing vehicular homicide when I’m not around?”

  “No, I . . .” I took a deep breath and tried again. “An old woman jumped in front of the car. But she does that a lot, so we’re not the ones in trouble. At least, according to the cop over there.”

  “Where’s a retirement home when you need one,” she mumbled. Then louder she added, “Oh, and that’s not a cop, Kay. That’s the sheriff.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s the town sheriff,” she repeated, waving blindly toward him. “At least, that’s what the star he’s wearing says. I saw it through the window right before you opened the door and blinded me.”

  I looked back at the ‘cop’ and after squinting a little, I saw the tin star she was referring to pinned over one of the reflector stripes on his jacket.

  “Huh,” I said, ever the eloquent one.

  Lina sighed and I was sure she was rolling her eyes at me even with them closed.

  “Just help me find my sunglasses, will ya?”

  I reached over and picked her sunglasses up out of the cupholder.

  “How is it that you can see everything but what’s right in front of you?” I asked teasingly and gently put them back on her.

  “I guess that’s what I keep you around for,” she said, half-smiling. “Well, that and the awesome sex.”

  I felt my face heat up slightly, but I knew her well enough to know when she was trying to distract me. Lina had been in the car for over five minutes while I had been dealing with Miss Pharos and the sheriff. There was no way she hadn’t found her sunglasses in all that time, and she wasn’t the kind of person to hang back when there was trouble. Something was wrong, and she was trying to hide it from me.

  Before I could confront her about it, I heard footsteps and looked up to see the sheriff walking over to us.

  “Is everyone okay?” he asked, peering around the door at Lina.

  “All good here,” Lina said quickly. “Though a little confused about what’s going on.”

  “Well, that’s mostly my fault,” the sheriff said. “I had hoped to intercept you two on your way in before Miss Pharos could . . . test you.”

  “Test us?” I repeated. “She jumped in front of our car.”

  “Sounds like a good way to test someone’s reflexes,” Lina said. “Or hail a cab if you’re the Great Gonzo.”

  The sheriff grinned at the reference.

  “Let’s start over. I’m Sheriff Martin Harbor. I’m hoping that you two are Miss Kay Star and Miss Lina Smith?”

  “Well, your hopes are coming true. Hallelujah,” Lina said dryly. “And speaking of miracles, who’s the old bat and how is she still walking around?”

  She gestured at Miss Pharos who waved cheerily at us from the middle of the street. I forced a smile and waved back.

  “What my partner means to say,” I said, shooting Lina a quick glare, “Is that we’re very glad she’s alright.”

  The sheriff chuckled.

  “I heard you the first time. And for what it’s worth, I wonder the same thing. The widely accepted answer around town is that she was a stunt woman in her youth.”

  “You mean back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth?”

  “Lina,” I hissed under my breath. “Behave.”

  Sheriff Harbor laughed again.

  “Maybe n
ot quite as far back as that, but pretty close. Now, I imagine you two will want to get yourselves to the inn so you can unpack and rest a bit after the drive and your . . . unconventional welcome to our little town. I promise you’ll find more conventional hospitality at the Beacon Cove Inn. In fact, old Mr. Ernest will probably give you a free drink if you tell him some details. Or would you prefer to get yourselves checked out at our hospital first?”

  “I think hospital first,” I said, giving Lina a worried glance.

  “I told you, I’m fine,” she said quickly.

  I frowned at her.

  Why is she fighting me on this? I wondered. She acted the same way when I tried to get her to sign up for therapy until I . . . oh.

  “In case you forgot,” I told her, “injuries on the job are covered by the state. We don’t pay anything out of pocket.”

  Lina’s whole body perked up at that.

  “Seriously? Well damn, what are we waiting for?”

  I sighed.

  “How did I know you didn’t read our insurance form?”

  Sheriff Harbor cleared his throat, looking suddenly worried.

  “In that case, I have to ask if you’re planning on seeing the boy while you’re there.”

  “Er, I hadn’t thought about it,” I said, “but we may as well, right?”

  “Why shouldn’t we?” Lina asked bluntly.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not trying to stop you, but before you do I think I better give you the full story of how we found him. The report I was forced to submit was . . . lacking, to say the least.”

  I shared a concerned look with Lina.

  “Um, would you care to elaborate as to who forced you? And why?”

  The sheriff glanced nervously toward his car.

  “How about you two get yourselves checked out first? I’ll meet you at the hospital after I fill out this incident report. Won’t be long. We have a pre-made template for Miss Pharos’s introductions.”

  “Seriously,” Lina asked, “how is she still breathing?”

  “Sounds like a plan, Sheriff,” I said, ignoring my partner. “We’ll see you there.”

  He nodded and went back to his car. I closed Lina’s door and went around to the driver’s side. I paused to check how much damage Miss Pharos had done to our rental car, but to my surprise, it was spotless; not a single ding or dent despite how violently she’d bounced off of it.

  Weird . . .

  Then I noticed something even weirder. While it wasn’t exactly legal in the state of Oregon, Lina and I had sprung extra for heavily tinted windows on our rental after she pointed out that tinted windows made it harder to shoot someone inside. You can call it paranoia or PTSD, but we called it anxiety management. The odd thing was that not only could I clearly remember Miss Pharos looking me right in my eyes when we had hit her, but she knew there was another person in the car, and it was a woman.

  I turned around to ask her about it, but when I did the road was empty again, save for the sheriff’s cruiser puttering down the street.

  “Hey,” Lina called, sticking her head out the window. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah . . .” I said distractedly and got into the car.

  I put on my seatbelt and put my hand on the ignition, but I paused.

  “Seriously,” Lina asked, “what’s up?”

  “Did you see where the old woman went?”

  “Uh . . . no,” Lina said, slightly embarrassed. “I was distracted by you leaning over the front of the car. Your top button is undone by the way.”

  I hurriedly redid my button, fighting a blush. The feeling of being watched didn’t come back as we headed for the hospital. But I couldn’t help shake the feeling that something was still very wrong.

  Chapter 3

  The lobby of Warf Wood Hospital was clean and empty, just the way I liked it. The rows of neat upholstered red chairs with faux wood siding looked brand new. Sparkling new checkerboard tile floor sparkled with fresh wax, and the fluorescent lights overhead didn’t so much as flicker.

  The only thing that didn’t look new was the receptionist, an older woman with steel-gray hair and an even steelier expression. She took one look at us, sighed, picked up the phone on the desk, and said, “She got two more of ’em.”

  She handed us a clipboard each with “Pharos Introduction” written across the top. “Just fill out the basics. The nurse will be here in just a moment.”

  “They should probably put a warning sign at the city limits,” Lina said as we sat down. “Beware of kamikaze grandmas.”

  I told her to hush and we filled out the forms. A nurse wearing tailored scrubs appeared next to us just as we finished, and she led us to the examination rooms with a smile. She took our height and weight using a fancy new automated machine (which I’m positive added five pounds) before leading us around the corner.

  “Fancy place you got here,” Lina told the nurse as we walked. “Kinda at odds with the rest of the town, isn’t it?”

  “Our mayor would agree with you,” the nurse lamented. “Most of this town was built around the nineteenth century, and it hasn’t changed much from that time. History and culture are great for small businesses, but not so much for saving lives. It took a long time to convince the mayor we needed a new hospital, and she only gave in on the condition that it be built far away from the rest of the town to preserve its historical value. Of course, getting the money for it was another matter.”

  “So what did you do to afford this new tech?” Lina asked. “Sign a deal with the devil?”

  “Close. The US military.”

  “Yikes.” Lina winced.

  “It’s not a bad deal actually,” the nurse continued. “We act as a designated search and rescue hospital for the Coast Guard, and they cut us a hefty check.”

  “Well, it’s good to see military money go toward saving lives,” I said, looking around.

  “I just hope the beds at the inn have been brought up to the turn of the century,” Lina mumbled.

  “I wouldn’t bet on it,” the nurse said. “The Beacon Cove Inn is the most historical place in town. Most of the furnishings in that place are holdovers from the original pirates that first settled here.”

  Lina suddenly stopped in the middle of the hall and stared open-mouthed at the nurse.

  “Pirates?” Lina asked, her voice going up an octave in excitement. “Like, real swashbuckling, black spot, shiver-me-timbers pirates?”

  The nurse giggled.

  “If you’re interested in that sort of thing, you should ask Mr. Ernest about it. Just be careful, he’s liable to talk your ear off for a couple of hours about his family tree. His great-great-grandfather was Captain Blight, one of the last pirates of the North Pacific.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Well, it was something like that,” the nurse said, thinking.

  “Ernest . . .” I said, thinking. “He’s the person who runs the inn?”

  She nodded.

  “And the Beacon Cove Pub, the dockworkers union, and the town historical society. He’s in charge of just about everything in town.”

  I would have asked her more, but I was too distracted watching Lina almost vibrating with excitement. As the nurse resumed leading the way, I whispered to her, “Since when have you been such a fan of pirates?”

  “Since forever,” she hissed back, sounding almost offended. “Treasure Island was like the only book I ever owned as a kid. About the only thing I ever had as a kid actually. I used to sleep with it under my arm like a teddy bear.”

  “Well, this explains that pansexual pride colors Jolly Roger you keep hung over your bed.”

  “. . . Huh, I never thought about it that way,” Lina admitted.

  After we were seen by our separate doctors, I was given a clean bill of health and went back out to the lobby to wait for Lina. True to his word, Sheriff Harbor was waiting for us. In one hand he had that ridiculous Stetson, in the other was a manilla envelope which he had
a death grip on.

  “Hello, Miss Star,” he said, smiling politely when he saw me. “Everything okay with you and Miss Smith?”

  “Hello Sheriff,” I said, returning the smile as best I could. “I’m fine. They gave me some painkillers in case I have any problems later, but nothing’s broken or sprained.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said, looking a little relieved. “And Miss Smith?”

  I felt my smile become a bit more forced.

  “I . . . don’t know. They haven’t finished with her yet.”

  “Ah,” he said awkwardly. “Well, I’m sure they’re just being careful.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, though I didn’t sound like I believed him. Then I shook my head and changed the subject. “You said you had some additional details for us. Is that them?”

  I pointed at the envelope in his hand and the sheriff’s face darkened.

  “Sort of. They’re the photos we took when we first boarded the ship. Strictly speaking, the FBI said I’m not to show them to anyone. But you two deserve to know what you’re getting into before you’re up to your neck in it.”

  I decided right then that I liked Sheriff Harbor. I wasn’t sure if I trusted him, but I liked him. Lina and I spent most of our last investigation trying to figure out what we’d been thrown into and what we were supposed to do about it. Nobody would give us a straight answer to anything.

  “I really appreciate that, Sheriff,” I told him. “Anything you can tell us would be of tremendous help. I promise I won’t betray your confidence.”

  I reached for the photos. He glanced at my hand, but instead of handing me the envelope he asked, “How much do you know about what happened?”

  I let my hand drop awkwardly to my side.

  “Only what was in your report. You found a boat where the only person alive on it was a kid, and he won’t tell you his name or why everyone else onboard was dead.”