Dana Mentink - Dangerous Tidings

“I’m sorry,” Candace said. “Please go if you need to. We all understand.”

“Not until this situation is under control.”

Angela helped herself to a cup of coffee. “I heard everything you said, Donna, but I see in your face that there’s something more, so tell us.”

“This attack wasn’t random. The guy wanted something in Dad’s files.”

She caught the look Candace leveled at Angela. The “she’s going off the deep end” look.

Angela spoke carefully. “What do the police think?”

“Their position hasn’t changed. They think Dad’s death was an accident.”

Candace laid a hand on Donna’s shoulder and squeezed. “Honey, is it easier to think that Dad’s death was intentional because then you can do something about it? Get justice for him somehow? Or maybe...”

It would help you forget the hurt you caused Dad? The way you flouted his advice and took up with the wrong guy? Donna stood abruptly. “No, that’s not it. The circumstances confirm what I’m thinking. Pauline disappears. Dad dies. Someone breaks into the office. That’s not coincidence.”

Angela sipped from her mug. “Why did Pauline come to Dad in the first place?”

“I don’t know. I wonder if she was afraid someone was after her and the names in the file are Dad’s suspect list.”

Marco cleared his throat. “Why didn’t you tell the coastie what was in the file?”

She wanted to brush aside the question because she was afraid her answer would make her sound even crazier to her sisters, but Marco would not let her look away.

“Because Brent Mitchell’s name is number one on the list.”

* * *

Brent jogged back to the Glorietta Bay Marina and boarded the boat he was taking care of for a buddy. His friend’s 1988 Bayliner motoryacht had seen better days. It was small, but then, so was his studio apartment near the San Diego Naval Base. He didn’t particularly care where he slept so long as it was near the beach and plenty of places to run and train. Coronado would not be his first choice, since he’d learned that Dan Ridley, Carrie’s ex-boyfriend, had been hired as the island’s newest cop. Ridley blamed Brent for Carrie’s death six years before. The guy was right. If it hadn’t been for Brent, they would never have been up in that small plane in the first place.

“I don’t like flying,” Carrie had said. “And it’s stormy today.”

He’d embraced her. He was a brash twenty-two-year-old new coast guard seaman who wasn’t afraid of anything in the world. “I’ll be right there in case something happens, but it won’t. Planes are safer than cars,” he’d teased.

Only this Cessna 152 hadn’t been, and a perfect day of whale watching had turned into the worst day of his life when the engine failed and the plane slammed into the Pacific Ocean. The sound of Carrie’s screams and the pilot’s frantic Mayday still echoed in his ears after six long years. Both had died on impact. Brent, for some reason that he could not fathom, had not. Brent pressed down the throbbing in his gut, threw on some dry clothes and hopped on his motorcycle, grateful that the rain had slowed to a mist.

As he drove to his sister’s home not far from Coronado Beach, his thoughts thrummed through him with growing urgency.

Where is she? And what had Donna’s father known about it?

He tried to keep his thoughts positive without success. Being the sole survivor of a plane crash tended to strip the optimism out of a person. He struggled with the tragedy, and the God who allowed it, every moment of his life. And every rescue mission he went on, every time he geared up and strapped into that helicopter, he resolved to defeat the ocean and God in order to get that victim out alive. Most of the time, he won. Sometimes not. This time, he was not about to lose.

He parked the bike in the driveway of Pauline’s quaint Tudor home. White icicle lights decorated the eaves, reflecting sparks on the rain-soaked grass. Up and down the block, strings of lights gave the houses a holiday glow and he thought of his sister’s enthusiasm for Christmas. Pauline insisted on putting out her festive decor the day after Thanksgiving and went so far as to burgle his apartment one year to install a tree on his kitchen table, complete with tinsel and popcorn strings and some creepy elf thing.

“You’re a grinch, Brent,” she’d said. “The holiday is supposed to be filled with rejoicing.”

Rejoicing wasn’t something he’d ever made time for. Fun, sometimes. Mischief, certainly. But now he wondered if he’d missed the mark. Lives were so fragile, blown out in a moment like a candle in a strong wind. His heart thumped hard.

Quit going to the worst-case scenario. You’re going to find her.

He upended the stone rabbit sculpture where Pauline had always hidden a spare key and where he’d replaced it after his visit last week.

Pausing before he fitted the key into the lock, he noted a car driving slowly by. He stepped into the shadows. It was not the vehicle he’d seen at the Gallagher place. The vehicle continued on. He waited. Another three minutes and it came by again, this time, pulling to a stop.

A familiar figure got out.

“Busy night for you,” he said.

Donna jumped. “You scared me.”

“That’s because you’re the trespasser now. I’m surprised Marco let you come here alone.” Even in the dim light, he could see the chagrin on her face.

“He’s traveling,” she mumbled.

“And you waited until after he left, didn’t you?”

She flipped her hair away from her cheeks, her posture straight, defiant. “I need to know.”

Brent noted how her skin shone luminous in the moonlight. “Thought you were a veterinarian. Decided to take up the family business?”

She stiffened. “Shouldn’t we take a look inside?”

Brent considered. “We? I didn’t think you were interested in working together on this.”

She stayed quiet for a moment. “Figuring out what happened to Pauline may shed some light on why my father was murdered. We’re both after the same thing.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go inside, then. I’ve already checked it out, but maybe I missed something.”

Donna considered the house. “This is a nice place. What does your sister do for a living?”

“She’s the activities director for a group home for mentally challenged adults.”

He read the expression, the one that said, “And how does someone who makes that kind of money afford a house like this in Coronado?” “She was married, briefly. Her husband died. She bought this house with the life insurance money.” Not that it’s any of your business , he felt like adding.

They entered the kitchen and Brent turned on the lights. Spotless. It was always spotless, even during his last visit on Thanksgiving, when they’d eaten take-out chow mein after she’d burned the turkey and they’d watched an old Abbott and Costello movie. Everything was painted in soothing ivory, complementing the marbled counters. Fat red Christmas candles sat on the kitchen table, unburned.

Just like last time, he saw nothing unusual, until he noticed the corner of a plastic bag sticking out from the kitchen drawer. Inside, he found a plastic zip-top bag containing travel bottles of shampoo, conditioner and hand lotion. A Post-it note was stuck to the bag. Stop mail.

His heart surged as he held it up for Donna to see. Pauline really was on a trip. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed the bag sticking out of the drawer on his last visit.

“Everything looks neat and tidy,” Donna said. She opened the refrigerator. For some reason, the intrusion into Pauline’s privacy bothered Brent. “There’s nothing left to spoil. That seems to confirm she’s traveling. Her car’s not here, either. What does she drive?”