A Dangerous Harbor Read Online Free Page B

of the store clerk's hand, she stomped outside and finding a passing ice cream vendor, bought herself a Mexican fruit ice and sat down on a nearby bench. Pulling the paper off the crushed and frozen treat, she bit into the solid and deliciously ripe strawberries and laughed to herself.   "Well, some things are still as they should be."

Chapter Five:

    High above the town of Ensenada, Raul Vignaroli pushes open the heavy door of his home to the hush of the air conditioner and the faint sound of children laughing. At the drop of his keys onto the entry table, a woman calls, " Cena , querido ! "
    "Yes, my love, dinner. I'll be right there." But instead, he detours away from the light where children laugh and his wife's voice echoes in his head and stumbles for his bathroom and a shower.
    Eventually, with towel wrapped around his waist, he rubs the steam off the mirror and faces the dour face and shadowed eyes. His thick black hair curls wetly around his ears, indicating a much-needed haircut. He rubs a hand over the stubble on his chin, then fingers the shaving cream, considering… and he hears her voice calling again, "Dinner, my love!"
    He curses loudly and explodes, tossing the can across the room. Then he lowers his head, smothers his frustration in a cold wet face cloth, and dips down to pick up the can, replacing it back in line with the other toiletries. Turning each label to the front as if they were tin soldiers in the fight against unruly beards and sweaty armpits and a life that extends no farther than the walls of this house.
    The ongoing argument with his sister was finally beginning to wear on five years of denial. She'd told him it was madness to remain in this crazy house, and crazier still to keep a grieving, featherless parrot.
    " Cena querido ! "
    But then, how else would he ever hear their voices again?

    After cobbling together a late dinner of tinned food from her dwindling food locker, Katy sat in her cockpit and gazed across the night-time marina.
    What a mess, she thought. I suppose it would be too much to expect Gabe to read my mind and show up here tonight. And didn't I tell him to stay away from me ? Now I gotta take it all back. Gabe may be on the lam, but if anyone can find him, it'll be me.
    She'd ferret him out of his latest hidey-hole, see what he knew about the girl and her murder. She was sure of it now, it was a murder, and if she wasn't a suspect she certainly was of some interest to the chief inspector, if only because of her association with Gabe. Why oh why couldn't she have kept her mouth shut? She could only hope that the chief inspector didn't have the resources to dig up the history between her and Gabe.
    Surely she was being paranoid. It was simply a coincidence and the shock of seeing Gabe again that had stuck her feet to the floor and subsequently given the Mexican chief a possible suspect.
    Time changes people. Look at me. I've changed. Not the same naïve little sweet-on-Gabe Alexander I was in high school, that's for sure. And Gabe. God knows he'd changed, what with living on his wits all these years, surviving on God-knows-what to live on. Okay, so he'd had it rough, but if anyone deserved a time in purgatory, it was Gabe—after what he did to her.
    She would find him, talk him into leaving town immediately—but not back to the States. Then they would both be safe.
    Tomorrow, she would make inquiries as to where she might find him. She'd start with the sergeant's cousin, the gate guard. Granted, he'd immediately tell the sergeant and then the chief inspector, but what choice did she have?   She had to start somewhere.
    And that comment by the sergeant… what was it he said?   That the bar was a dangerous place where men could acquire anything they wanted. She wondered if it was the sort of place Gabe frequented. Maybe she should look there. Then again, she didn't have her badge or backup should there be trouble she couldn't handle, and what was it the sergeant said about