LITMIR.BIZ

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his coast guard duties. Be the hero to everyone but your own sister, Brent.

      “Okay,” Huffington said. “Give me Pauline’s address and I’ll send someone over to look at her place after our search for this guy is concluded.”

      Brent provided the address.

      She looked at Donna. “And I’ll need a copy of what’s in your father’s file.”

      Donna went to the copier in the corner. He noticed she was careful to screen his view. She was protecting some sort of information because she didn’t trust him. Gratitude for his catapult through her window went only so far. He suspected the Gallaghers and company were a tight-knit clan.

      Fine. He’d get the information he needed one way or another, and he wasn’t about to wait until the cops made time to search Pauline’s home. The Mitchells could be tight-knit, too, just the two of them. “All right. I’ll be going, then, if you don’t need anything further.”

      “Got your info,” Huffington said, looking up from her discussion with another officer.

      Donna followed him to the front door, looking as though she was puzzling through something.

      “Thank you,” she blurted. “I appreciate what you did for me.”

      He stepped onto the porch, a patter of raindrops falling around him. “No problem. Is there a reason you don’t want me to know what’s in that folder?”

      The lighting didn’t allow him to see it, but he had the sense her face flushed a rosy red.

      “There’s not much, I told you.”

      “But there’s something, and I think I have the right to know. She’s my sister.”

      “And I think I have the right not to tell you. You’re a stranger and he’s...” She swallowed, a little gulp. “He was my father.”

      The vulnerability in that little gulp was the only thing that kept him from pressing. It spoke of irretrievable loss, a phenomenon with which he was familiar. He thought again of his fiancée, Carrie, gentle, trusting and the woman he had been unable to save. Focus, Brent. He would check out his sister’s place again first. Then if he needed to push Donna Gallagher, he’d do it. He extended his hand, grasping her uninjured fingers, still cold to the touch, between his palms. She squeezed back for a moment before pulling away.

      “Good night, Donna,” he said.

      He felt her eyes follow him as he walked out into the rain.

      * * *

      Donna’s sisters arrived in short order. Younger sister Angela wrapped her in a smothering embrace. She was a good four inches taller than Donna’s five-six. Donna was so grateful that Angela had been given leave from her job as navy chaplain to minister to her own family after her father’s death.

      Angela sat Donna down at the table and listened in that quiet way of hers. Her silence had only intensified since her return from Afghanistan. Their oldest sister, Candace, arrived halfway through the story, her mass of dark curly hair mussed and windblown. Candace’s mothering instinct kicked in.

      “You should go to the hospital,” she said to Marco, with a frown of concern. She touched his cheek with her hand. Donna saw a flicker of tenderness flash in Marco’s eyes. She wondered why Candace never seemed to see it.

      He ducked his head. “Aww, I’m all right.”

      “Try letting someone help you for a change. Let me see how well they bandaged the wound.” Candace inspected, grudgingly agreeing that the paramedic’s work was passable.

      “I thought you were catching a flight today, Marco,” Angela said.

      “I am. Red-eye.”

      It was a difficult time. Marco was flying to Georgia for the funeral of a woman he’d loved since he was a teen and probably always would, even though she’d died of a drug overdose. And this following on the heels of the memorial service for Bruce, the man who’d been his best friend.

      Candace sighed and gave him a hug. He reached one big hand around her as if to gather her closer but didn’t.

      “I’m sorry,” Candace said. “Please go if you need to. We all understand.”

      “Not until this situation is under control.”

      Angela helped herself to a cup of coffee. “I heard everything you said, Donna, but I see in your face that there’s something more, so tell us.”

      “This attack wasn’t random. The guy wanted something in Dad’s files.”

      She caught the look Candace leveled at Angela. The “she’s going off the deep end” look.

      Angela spoke carefully. “What do the police think?”

      “Their position hasn’t changed. They think Dad’s death was an accident.”

      Candace laid a hand on Donna’s shoulder and squeezed. “Honey, is it easier to think that Dad’s death was intentional because then you can do something about it? Get justice for him somehow? Or maybe...”

      It would help you forget the hurt you caused Dad? The way you flouted his advice and took up with the wrong guy? Donna stood abruptly. “No, that’s not it. The circumstances confirm what I’m thinking. Pauline disappears. Dad dies. Someone breaks into the office. That’s not coincidence.”

      Angela sipped from her mug. “Why did Pauline come to Dad in the first place?”

      “I don’t know. I wonder if she was afraid someone was after her and the names in the file are Dad’s suspect list.”

      Marco cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell the coastie what was in the file?”

      She wanted to brush aside the question because she was afraid her answer would make her sound even crazier to her sisters, but Marco would not let her look away.

      “Because Brent Mitchell’s name is number one on the list.”

      * * *

      Brent jogged back to the Glorietta Bay Marina and boarded the boat he was taking care of for a buddy. His friend’s 1988 Bayliner motoryacht had seen better days. It was small, but then, so was his studio apartment near the San Diego Naval Base. He didn’t particularly care where he slept so long as it was near the beach and plenty of places to run and train. Coronado would not be his first choice, since he’d learned that Dan Ridley, Carrie’s ex-boyfriend, had been hired as the island’s newest cop. Ridley blamed Brent for Carrie’s death six years before. The guy was right. If it hadn’t been for Brent, they would never have been up in that small plane in the first place.

      “I don’t like flying,” Carrie had said. “And it’s stormy today.”

      He’d embraced her. He was a brash twenty-two-year-old new coast guard seaman who wasn’t afraid of anything in the world. “I’ll be right there in case something happens, but it won’t. Planes are safer than cars,” he’d teased.

      Only this Cessna 152 hadn’t been, and a perfect day of whale watching had turned into the worst day of his life when the engine failed and the plane slammed into the Pacific Ocean. The sound of Carrie’s screams and the pilot’s frantic Mayday still echoed in his ears after six long years. Both had died on impact. Brent, for some reason that he could not fathom, had not. Brent pressed down the throbbing in his gut, threw on some dry clothes and hopped on his motorcycle, grateful that the rain had slowed to a mist.

      As he drove to his sister’s home not far from Coronado Beach, his thoughts thrummed through him with growing urgency.

      Where is she? And what had Donna’s father known about it?

      He tried to keep his thoughts positive without success. Being the sole survivor of a plane crash tended to strip the optimism out of a person. He struggled with the tragedy, and the God who allowed it, every moment of his life.

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