Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

one or two others in the world could make.
    You don’t want to be looking over your shoulder waiting for him to come up on you. He’s got patience. He’ll bide his time. Make it right with him.”
    Lev breathed an internal sigh of relief. Harrington had accepted him enough to give him a chance.
    “He’s on his honeymoon and he’ll be gone for a while. He plans to take Elle on a long trip to give her more time to recover before she returns home to be part of Sea Haven again. That should give the rest of the family a little time to get used to the idea of you being around.”
    It was both acceptance and a warning. “I’m not going anywhere. Rikki needs Blythe and her other sisters. She needs her diving and this coast. It all works for her here.” He made it a statement. Calm. Matter-of-fact. Without defiance. He wasn’t asking for forgiveness or acceptance, only to be left alone. He had Rikki and her world, and he fit there.
    Jonas cut the lights and siren about a half mile before he came up on the turn to the harbor where the eucalyptus trees stood in silence, swaying 273

    slightly in the wind coming off the ocean. They barreled down the long, winding hill and through the short park to the entrance of the harbor, the spotlight illuminating Rikki’s boat and the man with one foot on the dock and one on the Sea Gypsy.
    He turned and ran back toward them. The spotlight pinned him, revealing the deep wounds covering his furious face. He held a gun in his hands, attached to a flexible pipe leading to the three canisters making up the rig on his back. He sprayed the car with flames, engulfing it immediately in bright-hot heat. For a moment they were in hell, the air sucked from inside, the scorching fire burning over the car and along the ground. Visibility went to zero, only the flames surrounding them, climbing up and over the vehicle.
    “Shit!” Jonas slammed on the brakes, jerking the wheel away from the spray of fire. The car spun, dirt and rocks flying high into the air, but at least they were able to breathe.
    Bullets tore into the front of the car and cracked the glass of the windshield, a neat hole appearing just to the right of Lev and spiderwebbing outward across the entire glass. Both men ducked and Jonas shoved open his door, diving to the ground away from the flames, rifle in hand. Lev tore off his seatbelt and followed, crawling on his belly across the seat to get to the open door as more bullets tore through the car.
    Jonas returned fire, trying to provide Lev with some cover, spraying his bullets through the fire in a straight pattern. Their assailant was on the move, running up the hillside, spreading flames as he went. He set the night on fire, uncaring of the homes or the landscape. Dozens of fires started up and there was no Rikki to call down the rain from the clouds overhead.
    Lev landed in the dirt beside Jonas, who was barking orders into a radio, presumably calling the fire department. The trees and ground were damp but not soaked, and the arsonist was using a highly flammable accelerant.
    The hillside was lit up a bright orange in the night. The crackling flames leapt and breathed in answer to the man’s demands. He couldn’t get the Sea Gypsy , although he’d tried, spraying out the flames in a wide arc as he’d run for the hills, hitting the dock, burning it black, but not igniting the wet wood. Smoky vapor rose from the dock, the heat mixing with cold and rising like a gray mystical cloak, surrounding the boats and obscuring vision out over the river.
    Sea Haven and most of the adjoining towns were too small to have a paid fire or police department. The sheriff patrolled the long coastline and volunteers manned the fire trucks. Jonas didn’t wait for backup; he started up the hill, trying to make his way through the fire line to get to the arsonist, 274

    but it was impossible. In the end, Lev and he worked as fast and as hard as they could to save the structures and trees as the fire tried to rush up the hill toward the heavier forest.
    It seemed hours before they could go back to the farm. More photographs. Statements. The fire department thoroughly putting out the last of the blazes. They had shell casings to bag and every scrap of evidence taken. Both of them were covered with black smoke. The car didn’t look much better, but it had survived with only superficial damage. Apparently that was also included in evidence.
    By the time they returned, tired, throats hurting