Jack Beale 00 - Dangerous Shoals

he shouted up the stairs, “Max. You home?” He knew the answer before he shouted, but he called out anyway. Only silence greeted him. Upstairs he found a note. She was out with Patti and would be back later. He breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t alone, and he needed some time to think. He slapped a ham and cheese sandwich together and considered how he would spend his afternoon. He thought about going for a run, but he had run hard yesterday so the need wasn’t urgent. He decided that an afternoon on the boat would be a better solution.
    As he opened the companionway hatch and removed the hatch boards he could feel the warmth of the day come rushing out. Below, he opened all the other hatches and the change was immediate as the cool ocean breeze flowed in. Despite the calming effect that Irrepressible had on him, he was still antsy. He sat down at the nav station, lifted the cover, and began to reorganize its contents. That only took a few minutes and did nothing to ease his worries. Still restless, he began inspecting the contents of each locker, drawer, and cabinet. It didn’t help.
    Jack lay down on one of the berths, closed his eyes, and waited for his boat to talk to him. She tried, but he was too distracted to lie still and listen. Music was next. He shuffled through his CD collection and stopped when he came to one by Barefoot Skinny, a singer from Belize. He removed it from its sleeve and pressed the disc into the slot. He didn’t consciously realize how hard he had to push to get it in. After it finally went in he hit the play button and there was only silence.
    “Shit,” he swore under his breath. He tried ejecting the disc. No such luck. He tried everything that he could of think of, but the result remained the same. The CD remained stuck inside the player.
    Another twenty minutes passed, and his attempts to retrieve the disc remained futile. He didn’t have all of the tools on board that he needed to open it up, so he decided to disconnect the player, remove it, and take it to his shop. Then, with a bit of luck, he would be able to reinstall the player before Max realized what he had done. Stupid, avoidable mistakes were one of his biggest pet peeves―especially when they were his.

CHAPTER 64
    THE AFTERNOON WAS passing quickly, and by the time he walked back to his shop, the annoyance he felt with himself had somewhat abated. He placed the CD player on his workbench and went about gathering the tools he thought would be needed for the operation. Then, sitting down at the bench, he picked up the player. Methodically, one side at a time, he studied it before reaching for a small screwdriver.
    It wasn’t as difficult as he had expected, but it wasn’t easy either, and after ten minutes or so he had sitting on the bench in front of himself the disassembled player, the CD he had intended to play, and the source of the problem―another CD.
    He didn’t recognize it. There was no label or other identifying mark on it. He turned it over and over in his hands as he tried to remember the last time he had played a CD on the boat. Where did it come from? How did it get there? Nothing. His memory was blank.
    He thought back to earlier in the day and his conversation with Tom about Daniel. He was the center of it all, kind of like the sun, with all those other seemingly unrelated events and people circling around him like planets, not touching but still influencing each other.
    Now as Jack sat there in his shop, holding the mystery CD, he wondered if this was what it was all about. A chill went down his spine as he considered the ramifications. He was almost afraid to find out, but he had to know, and there was only one way to do that. He took the disc, left the shop, and as he opened the door to his place, Cat rushed in ahead of him and bounded up the stairs.
    As he followed her, he could feel his anxiety increasing. Cat was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, and she wouldn’t shut up. “Cat, what’s up?” he said.
    “Mrowh, Mrowh.” She jumped onto the table by the couch, stared at him, then rubbed against the lamp, which caused it to shake as she continued to talk. There was no doubt she had something to say to him, he just didn’t know what it was. “Cat, get down from there. How many times do I have to tell you?”
    She mrowed at him again and again and continued to rub against the lamp. It wouldn’t be dinnertime for quite a while, so he ruled that out. He went over to shoo her