Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

friendly kind. She stepped up onto the port gunwale and edged carefully to the bow. The landing line was hardly necessary. The Tomorrow came up alongside the fuel dock like a well-trained dog.
    The attendant was a curvy girl with big hair who didn’t look old enough to drive. She tied off the bow quickly, then leaned out and grabbed the stern cleat so the boat couldn’t drift out from the dock.
    Hastily Honor retreated from the bow, handed over the stern line, and watched enviously as the attendant secured the Tomorrow with a few fast turns around the dock cleat. As the girl started dragging the heavy gas hose toward the boat, Jake opened the cabin door.
    “Hey, Kyle,” the girl said brightly, “long time no— Oops, you aren’t Kyle.” She checked the name of the boat again. Definitely the Tomorrow .
    “No problem,” Jake said, smiling at her. “Sounds like Kyle is a regular.”
    “Between gas and compressed air, he’s in here twice a week. Or was,” she added wistfully. “I haven’t seen him in a while. Guess he’s on vacation.”
    “Guess so,” Jake said easily.
    The look he gave Honor told her not to say otherwise. If the gas jockey didn’t read newspapers, who were they to trouble her with reality?
    “Cool boat,” the girl said, looking at the Tomorrow .
    “Yeah.” Jake put the key in the gas cap and began unscrewing the bright chrome disk. “I’m keeping it in shape for Kyle. I figured I’d better fill up the tanks before I went anywhere. He didn’t give me any fuel-consumption figures.”
    The attendant laughed, tossed her breast-length mane of kinky ringlets, and gave Jake a smile that said she would be happy to go over any figure with him, especially hers.
    Sourly Honor thought that not reading the newspaper had its points—the girl obviously didn’t know her hair was years out of date. Not that it mattered. A figure like hers would always be in fashion with men.
    The girl handed Jake the gas nozzle and watched while he deftly slid it into the mouth of the tank. Vapor curled up as he began pumping fuel.
    “This baby uses a lot of gas if you run it at top speed,” she said. “Kyle sure must have. He’d go through a hundred gallons or more every few days. He must be rich.”
    “He gets by,” Jake said. “When was he in last?”
    “Oh, about two weeks ago.”
    Honor barely smothered a startled sound. Jake didn’t even look up from the gas tank.
    “He didn’t top off, though,” the girl continued. “Just stayed long enough to fill his dive tanks and the tank for his Zodiac.”
    “A tank for his Zodiac?” Honor said, confused.
    “Gas for the outboard engine that drives his tender,” Jake explained.
    She still wasn’t sure she knew what was going on, but at least Jake seemed to.
    “What was he diving for?” Honor asked the girl curiously. “There aren’t any sunny coral reefs out there.”
    “Some of the guys go after the local version of king crab. Some of them go after cod with a speargun. Some get sea urchins for the Japanese roe trade.” The attendant tossed her head again. “Some just dive to get away from the old lady. Is he married?”
    “Who? Kyle?” Honor asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “No.”
    The attendant brightened and hurried off to help another boat dock.
    “Do you really think she saw Kyle two weeks ago?” Honor asked in a low voice.
    “She doesn’t have any reason to lie.”
    “But . . .”
    Jake waited. He wanted Honor to sort through all the unhappy implications herself. Then she wouldn’t shoot the messenger who brought the bad news, namely J. Jacob Mallory.
    “Why wouldn’t he call us?” she asked.
    “You know him better than I do. Why wouldn’t he call you?”
    Her only answer was silence.
    Jake glanced at the dial on the gas pump, listened to the sound of fuel going into the tank, and began easing up on the feed.
    “Something is wrong,” she said.
    He gave Honor a look that said she had the brains of a pet rock. “You’re just figuring that out?”
    “No, I mean really wrong ,” she said tightly. “It’s one thing for me to have a strong hunch that Kyle is in the San Juans. It’s another for him to actually have been here and not called any of us. Why would he cause us so much worry? He knows we love him, no matter what.”
    The hurt and confusion in her voice made Jake wince, yet she still hadn’t arrived at the obvious and most painful conclusion: Kyle had avoided his family because he had something to hide.
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