Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

one-inch hook and dunking the mess over the side.”
    “I just kept talking because I didn’t want you to be nervous.”
    “Nervous? I’m comatose. Why would I be nervous?”
    “No reason.”
    Jake hid his smile by bending over to fire up the small trolling motor. If Honor hadn’t noticed that they were adrift and the wind was starting to chop up the surface of the water, he wasn’t going to point it out. Not that there was any danger—the SeaSport could ride out a gale, much less the refreshing breeze that had come up—but Honor wasn’t at home on the water yet.
    As soon as he was satisfied with the trolling speed, he checked the two rods in their separate holders and went back into the cabin. He picked up the remote throttle control for the kicker, climbed into the helm seat, switched the computer display from the chart to the depth sounder/fish finder, and took his place in the long, elliptical line of boats trolling for salmon.
    The two Bayliners that had followed the Tomorrow swung into place much farther back. Jake had brought the SeaSport into line just behind the only Olympic he could see. He doubted it was the elusive fourth boat; the fish landing net was a faded blue and the driver was old enough to be Honor’s grandfather. Not the sort of person who would be playing tag in the dark with a speeding boat and then racing off to start fishing at Secret Harbor while the Coast Guard practiced climbing on and off the Tomorrow .
    “Take the helm and keep us in line with the boat ahead,” Jake said.
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Use the binoculars.”
    “I can do that.”
    “I know what the shoreline should look like. You don’t.”
    Warily Honor took over the controls. She soon discovered that the boat responded very slowly when it was on the trolling engine. In fact, it was a pig to hold in line.
    While she learned the rhythm of steer, correct, overcorrect, oversteer, repeat as necessary, Jake picked up the binoculars and scanned the shoreline. He didn’t see anything unexpected. There was a small settlement tucked way back at the mouth of the harbor, plus some salmon pens farther out along the edge of the bay. None of the small craft he saw matched the specifications in Kyle’s registration papers for the Zodiac. No dive equipment was lying carelessly about on the shore. No anchor was stranded on the rocks. No unusual debris decorated the beach.
    When Honor managed to bring the SeaSport about and begin the return leg of the troll, Jake switched to watching the other boats as they passed by thirty or forty yards away. They couldn’t escape from his scrutiny, because the SeaSport was between them and the open sea.
    Jake smiled. It was the nervous-making kind of smile.
    “Well?” Honor asked.
    “Well what?”
    “What do they look like?” she asked impatiently.
    “Idiots. They don’t have any fishing gear in the water.”
    “I’d say that speaks highly of their intelligence,” she retorted.
    He didn’t answer. He had just spotted a double-dealing Lithuanian trying to look like a salmon fisherman. As though realizing too late that he was on center stage with a spotlight in his face, Dimitri Pavlov turned away from the passing boat.
    “Snake Eyes,” Jake said distinctly.
    “What? Let me see.”
    “Keep steering. He’s not going anywhere. I want a look at the other boat that was following.”
    Honor stared over the distance separating the two boats. She couldn’t make out the features of the man who was driving the boat. To her eye, he seemed to be bouncing around a lot.
    “Why is his boat wallowing around on the water more than we are?” she asked.
    “Bad hull design, bad trim, bad driver, or any combination thereof.”
    “What difference does . . . never mind. I passed my limit on useless facts for the day somewhere between dogfish and buzz bombing.”
    “You sure?” he asked.
    She looked at the smile spreading on Jake’s mouth beneath the binoculars. Her pulse kicked. That slow grin of his was deadly.
    “Positive,” she said. Her voice sounded husky. She cleared her throat. “Recognize anyone in the second boat?”
    “Two men. One woman. Two fishing rods.”
    “Why just two?”
    “Only two fishing licenses on board would be my guess.”
    “His and hers?”
    “His and his. Most fishermen are—”
    “Men?” Honor interrupted dryly.
    “Yeah.”
    He didn’t say that the woman in question was Ellen Lazarus, who had a mind like a bear trap and thighs to