Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

thing.”
    Adrenaline pulsed through Jake. He had hoped that Kyle was the kind of captain who kept decent records. That, plus the chart plotter and computer, could tell a lot about where the boat had been recently.
    Jake took the log from Honor. For a minute or two he flipped through it, frowning like a man working hard. Then he looked up at her.
    “I can’t say for sure that the boat is ready to go out until I look over this log more closely,” he said. “Why don’t I read it while you go into town and get boat shoes and a fishing license? If you hurry, we can still make the tide change.”
    She hesitated. “Okay, I guess.”
    “I’ll meet you back here in ninety minutes,” he said, sliding out from the helm seat.
    “Wait! What do I do with the boat until then?”
    He gave her an odd look. “What do you mean?”
    “It’s running,” she pointed out.
    Jake turned off the ignition key, pulled it out, and dropped it in Honor’s lap.
    “It’s just an engine,” he said with exaggerated patience. “It won’t attack you. Treat it like a car.”
    All that kept Honor from saying Bite me, big boy! was the fact that he probably would.

3
    J AKE TURNED HIS battered four-wheel-drive truck into the muddy tracks that led to his cabin. Surrounded by dark, wind-sculpted fir trees, the small house crouched on a cliff above Puget Sound. This was his getaway from company headquarters in Seattle, the place where he caught up on work, his home away from home, the one place whose address and telephone number no one had.
    That was why he swore when he saw a Ford utility vehicle sitting in what passed for his driveway. When a woman in a smart red blazer and black skirt climbed out and waved at him, he knew that the day had just gone from sugar to shoe polish.
    Ellen Lazarus was old news from a time in his life when he believed in saving the world from itself. These days his goal was less grandiose: all he wanted was not to be at ground zero when that great outhouse in the sky unloaded.
    He turned off the truck, climbed out, leaned against the door, and waited to find out how much crap was headed straight for his head.
    “What, not even a smile or a wave of welcome?” Ellen said, walking up to him.
    Jake watched her move with a cross between cynicism and male appreciation. She didn’t have to work to add an extra swing and jiggle to her ass. She had been born with that special locomotion, the same way she had been born with wide blue eyes, black hair, and a brainy pragmatism that made Machiavelli look like a choirboy. Not surprisingly, once she got over wanting to play cloak-and-dagger games in the field, she became an exceptional intelligence analyst.
    “I won’t ask how you found me,” Jake said. “The folks you hang with could find anything. Why did you find me?”
    “My, we’re in a bad mood, aren’t we? And it’s such a beautiful day, too.” She waved an elegant hand at the sun-dappled forest. “I’d heard that it always rains in the Pacific Northwest.”
    He grunted.
    “Does this mean you don’t want to talk about the good old days?” she asked.
    His scarred eyebrow lifted in a sardonic arc. “The good old days? That should take about three seconds. Bye, Ellen. Don’t call me, I’ll call you. Your three seconds are up.”
    Her cheerful smile vanished, leaving behind the restless, consuming personality that would never be satisfied with one of anything, including men.
    “Hey, c’mon, Jake,” she said softly. “It was good and you know it.”
    “Since when do you spend time looking over your shoulder at the ashes?”
    “You’re determined to do this the hard way, aren’t you?”
    “First thing a boy learns is it’s gotta be hard to be good.”
    She made an impatient gesture. “Have it your way.”
    “I plan to. Good-bye. Don’t give my regards to Uncle Sam.”
    Jake started to walk around Ellen to get to his cabin. She stepped out in front of him and looked up with eyes as blue and clear as a porcelain angel’s.
    “Would you be more cooperative if we sent someone else?” she asked.
    “No.”
    “You don’t even know what we want.”
    “I like it that way.”
    The wind gusted, rippling the black silk collar of Ellen’s blouse. Absently she patted the collar back in place and examined her remaining options. It didn’t take long. She wasn’t a slow or timid thinker.
    “I told them the old lover bit wouldn’t work,” she said calmly. “You haven’t made any attempt to get in