“You’ll handle this?” I asked, motioning to the boat as a firefighter doused the back end with water from a cannon pumping it in from the marina.
“Wait,” Emerson said before Calder answered. “I can’t leave my boat. My stuff is on it, maybe I can save something.”
A piece of paper with charred edges twisted its way toward the dock beside us.
“I’ll take care of it, Emerson. You listen to Knox and let him keep you safe,” Calder said and swooshed his hand in the air like it was his final determination.
She crinkled her nose but didn’t argue. For about thirty seconds.
“If I leave, who will make sure the manatees are safe while everyone moves the boats?”
What in the hell was she talking about? She tried to walk to the end of the dock. My brain flooded with fear as I thought about her getting close to her destroyed boat and another bomb exploding. That would not happen on my watch.
“Hey! What the hell?” she yelled as I lifted her off the ground and dropped her over my shoulder.
This was just how things went when a client went rogue. A SEAL did whatever it took to get the job done. And I wasn’t leaving here without Emerson.
“Don’t struggle so much,” I said as her left foot came back and almost kicked me I the head. “Just trust me.”
“I don’t even know you,” she yelled as I started toward the end of the marina.
I chuckled. Something told me we were about to become much closer. “Do you want to end up like Maribel?”
She paused in thought before finally answering. “No.”
Thought so.
“Then let me do what needs to be done to keep you safe. That’s the best way to help the manatees.”
“You’d do that?” she asked, turning her head toward me but not getting a better view.
My answer came quickly because it was the truth. “Even if I wasn’t being paid.”
A second of silence passed between us. “Okay fine. You can let me down now.”
“You promise not to run?” Knowing the little I did about Emerson, I wouldn’t put it past her to take off and jump in the ocean the first time I blinked.
She nodded, and I let her slide down my body next to one of the cars Calder kept parked at the marina for cases. “Give me a second to grab the keys. I’m trusting you.”
Emerson gave me a four-finger salute as I walked toward the box with the car keys. I punched in the code, watching her as I did. Emerson wiped her eyes as she watched the firefighters on the dock, but she didn’t go back to the scene.
The car beeped as I unlocked it, and she got into the passenger seat.
“It’s probably just some kid screwing around, and it got out of hand,” she said as I slid into the driver’s seat.
The human brain’s ability to rationalize the worst events always amazed me.
“Kids don’t accidentally blow up a single boat in a full marina,” I said as we turned toward the hotel.
Emerson jerked in her seat. “Then who?”
I tilted my head toward her but didn’t answer verbally. This was the work of Rex Thorton. He loved a good explosive, and it was too targeted an attack to be an accident. But it seemed like she didn’t want to admit that.
“Where are you going? I have to go home,” she said as I turned toward the downtown section of Tidehaven.
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. If they got your boat, they can get your house.”
“They wouldn’t,” she said, horror lining her voice.
