1
It’s never a good sign when your vacation begins with the overwhelming urge to vomit, thought Tina Chen as she clung to the railing of the water taxi. That part was supposed to happen after too many piña coladas on the beach, or after stumbling home at four in the morning after a night of clubbing.
Not that Tina did that sort of thing anymore. Now she was Detective Tina Chen and her party days were behind her. Sadly, her vomiting days were not, and the trip out to Sea Smoke Island always had a way of bringing that point home.
Gritting her teeth, she focused her attention on a floating clump of uprooted seaweed; the pilot veered sharply to avoid it. Did he have to steer like that, every move so sudden and jarring? Or were smaller boats always like that? She could have taken the regular ferry boat, but she’d reasoned that speed was more important than a smooth ride. Possibly a major miscalculation, because this little craft took every wave like a gleeful kid on a roller coaster ride.
“Good thing it’s a calm day out here,” the captain called cheerfully to her as he steered them directly into what seemed like a tsunami. He wore wraparound shades and a dab of sunscreen on the skin above his beard.
Calm? Calm? That asshole had to be messing with her. Those lines of white foam on the ocean’s surface did not scream “calm” to her.
“Ghhmm,” she managed. She was afraid to unclench her jaw for fear of what might come out.
“You staying at the Lightkeeper Inn?” Either he was unaware of her agony or torturing her just for fun.
She nodded, just a tiny bobble of her head, but even that made her stomach roll. Damn her seasickness. It had become a running joke in the department. As a pre-vacation gift, the other members of the Harbortown PD had gifted her a bracelet that was supposed to prevent nausea on boats. Now she wondered if they’d found one that increased it and given it to her as a joke. She wouldn’t put it past them. The department loved a good prank.
If only her last case had been a prank. But no, the reality was that her former partner had been a straight-up sociopath and that made her a fuck-up. Why hadn’t she noticed something wasn’t right with him? Why hadn’t she suspected earlier? She had the highest solve rate in the state of Maine, possibly in New England, though she’d never bothered to check because stats weren’t listed that way. How could she, Detective Tina Chen, have been so fooled by someone she worked with nearly every day? It was enough to threaten her confidence and question her entire existence.
Her police chief had ordered her to take some time off, even though she’d protested furiously that what she needed most was to get back to work.
“You have six months of accumulated vacation time,” he’d told her.
“That’s because I hate vacations.”
“Then don’t call it a vacation. Call it a mandated rest and recovery period. I’ve seen what trauma can do to an officer. I don’t need that in my department. Take a fucking break.”
So here she was, queasy like Sunday morning with a hangover, heading back to Sea Smoke Island. Because Tina Chen didn’t take vacations. Oh no, she had other plans for this time off.
The boat captain was talking to her again. “You gotta try the Zombie’s Revenge.”
“Huh?”
“The bar at the Lightkeeper. It’s a drink they serve, it’s got rum, heavy cream, creme de cassis, whipped cream, maybe some coconut cream in there too?—”
“Stop,” she half-begged, half-gagged. “Stop saying ‘cream.’”
“Sorry, what was that? What about ‘cream’? Something about ice cream? Yeah, they got ice cream out there.” He raised his voice to be heard over the sound of the engine. She caught him trying to hide a smile, and it clicked.
“You’re evil! Who put you up to this?”
He tilted his head back and laughed, just as a wave caught the boat. “Police chief’s a buddy of mine. Sorry.”
Okay, she had to admit through her misery, that was a pretty good one. It actually made her feel sort of warm and cozy inside, like her team was thinking of her. She was still part of the gang, despite her massive fuck-up.
“What’s your name, so I can mention you on TripAdvisor?”
“They call me Captain Sparrow.”
“No, they don’t.” She didn’t believe that for a second.
“Have it your way. Stare at the horizon, that’ll help,” the captain told her kindly.
“Now you tell me.”
The tip helped, and her nausea eased. She managed the rest of the trip without emptying her stomach into the evil captain’s water taxi, though it would have served him right if she had. She used the opportunity to study the land mass known as Sea Smoke Island.
The island had a timeless quality that really spoke to Tina. Her life had been marked by hard work and hard partying, and not a lot of lounging in between. As a child of immigrants, she’d had the hopes of her parents pinned on her from birth. In high school and college, she’d rebelled by going through a party phase. Then she’d quit all of that cold turkey and plunged herself into hard work and the drive to become the best police officer she could be. As an Asian woman in a nearly all-white police department, that had required a very tough skin.
