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T he warm tongue lashing her cheek woke her first. As soon as Missy knew that Schooner was in the hospital room with her, she chuckled and gave him a big hug. She looked over to find Trey standing in the doorway, his arms crossed, as he leaned against the door jamb, smiling at her. “That’s a hell of a way to wake up,” she muttered, as she struggled to calm down the dog.

“He seemed to need to come in and see you guys,” Trey shared, with a smile. “These animals have feelings too.”

She smiled over at him. “They sure do, and he and my dad have one heck of a bond.” Almost in sync with her wording, Schooner headed over to the side of the hospital bed and licked her father’s hand several times. It broke her heart to see the dog waiting there, waiting for some reaction, any reaction at all, and getting nothing.

She slid off the cot, wincing at the chill that had settled in, then walked over to give Schooner a cuddle. “Give him time,” she whispered. “He’ll be back. Give him a little more time.”

The dog woofed, more of a whine than a woof, but it was enough to reinforce that he knew exactly how much trouble her father was in. She looked over at Trey. “How did the trip go?”

“You mean the second trip?” he asked, with a smile. “We got the boat back,” he announced, with a shake of his head. “Rob and I started the patch work yesterday, and it was plain luck that the boat was still there when we got back today. He used an inflatable airbag inside the cabin that put pressure against the damaged hull, so we could bring her back in again.”

“That sounds pretty amazing. I know they do things like that for submarine rescues, to lift it to the surface, but…”

He nodded. “I don’t know that there’s anything on the market like this for civilians, but I think Rob is more or less determined that, if anybody else goes missing, he’ll have something to help them.”

“You would like to think these situations just wouldn’t happen,” she muttered with a wry smile, as she stretched. Then she bent over to cuddle Schooner again. She was pretty sure the dog wasn’t allowed in the hospital, so gave him an extra hug in case he got kicked out.

Trey nodded. “Yet in reality we know that it’s quite likely to happen again.”

“I do know,” she stated. “It’s just so upsetting to think that so much can go wrong in what should be a simple, enjoyable trip, but then everything goes to hell.”

“That’s just life, I guess.” He sent her a smile.

She couldn’t argue that because he was right. It was one of those things about life that always got to her. She sat back down on the cot and frowned. “What’s this?” She pointed at his hands.

He looked down self-consciously at the knitted blanket, then shrugged and held it out for her. “You looked cold when I was here last.”

Stunned at his thoughtfulness, she reached out and accepted what appeared to be a very soft blanket.

“It’s one of the ones that Elizabeth makes and sells,” he explained. “I figured maybe you could use a little extra warmth in here, when you’re tucked up, waiting for your dad.”

Surprised and touched, she hugged it close and whispered, “Thank you. They gave me a blanket but it seems the opposite of warm when I’m trying to sleep.”

“Part of it’s the stress,” he noted, “and part of it’s the trauma. All kinds of things can go wrong at this stage in life, and all you can do is hang on for the ride and hope he pulls through.”

“Honestly, it frustrates me to no end that, with all the medical knowledge I’ve gained in my studies to be a vet, I really don’t know a single medical tip that can help him.”

“No, but you have the one thing he really needs.”

She looked over at him with her eyebrows raised. “And that is… what exactly?”

“Love, silly,” he said. “It’s your love, your voice that’s keeping him fighting. If there’s anything left he can fight for, you know that you will be the thing that keeps him going.”

She nodded as she looked over at her father. “I thought I saw him shift and fight for a moment yesterday,” she shared, “and he seems to be much calmer today.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he pointed out. “Being calm is probably a whole lot better than trying to fight his own healing. We don’t want him to have nightmares or to think he’s still fighting to save you. That would put him struggling against his own healing resources.”

“Agreed,” she murmured, “but that’s easier said than done.… So, back to the Forget Me Not . Is she fixable?”

“That I don’t know,” he admitted, “but I would imagine so. Rob is bound and determined to get her back up and running again, just for Silas and you. I just don’t know what the extent of the damage will be at the end of the day.”

“What about the bill?” she asked, with a wince. “That sounds expensive.”

He gave her a noncommittal smile. “You and I both know that’s quite possibly an issue, but it’s also the boat that your father loves, and it’s been in your family for generations. Now that you two are rescued and safe, that matters to Silas.”

“Of course it does,” she agreed, with a smile. “Rob and my dad have always had this competitive off-and-on relationship,” she noted. “I never really understood it, but I guess I don’t need to understand it to know that Rob was always there for Dad, especially when it came to the boat.”

“Of course.” Trey walked inside and stopped at the foot of Silas’s bed. He studied him for a long moment and then nodded. “He looks better.”

She bounded to her feet and joined him, staring down at the prone figure. “Do you think so?” she asked anxiously. “I keep thinking to myself that he does, but then I’m afraid it’s just wishful thinking.”

“Keep it up,” he urged her. “I’ll never be somebody who denies the power of thoughts. Honest to God, we could all do with a whole lot more hopeful dreams and prayers.”

“I’ve been praying a lot,” she said. “It’s not something I normally do, but…”

He smiled. “It’s one of the things that people instinctively do the minute they run into trouble. They don’t really know why they’re doing it, but they feel the need to have somebody’s help, and that somebody usually takes the form of the divine,… especially when we’re desperately hoping for an answer.”

“I just never know if there even is such a thing,” she admitted. “My father wasn’t big on religion or faith of any kind. He was more about faith in himself and in his ability to handle things,” she shared, as she stared down at the quiet figure. “I’ve no idea what he would think about this right now.”

“He would tell you to get on with your life and to stop moaning and groaning about it all.”

She gave a startled laugh. “Wow, that sounds exactly like what he would say. I forgot how well you knew him.” She turned to face Trey. “You did go out fishing with him all the time, didn’t you? My memory is messed up, I swear. I feel as if I am zoning in and out of reality most of the time.”

“Yeah, that happens to the best of us at some point. However, in your case, you’ve also been through a lot. So give yourself a break. I did spend a lot of time with Silas, but that was a long time ago. I’m pretty sure he was disappointed that I decided to go into the military, in my case the navy,” he noted, with a smile. “It had to be the navy, because you know me and water.”

She smiled. “Yeah, you should have been born a duck. Dad too. He couldn’t join, you know,” she added, looking over at her father. “He really wanted to and tried hard, but he had some spinal condition when he was younger that kept him out. It’s not something he really talks about, but I do know that he didn’t pass the physical, and it crushed him.”

“I didn’t know that.” Trey frowned at her, before he looked down at Silas. “Look at you, man. I’m still finding out things about you that I didn’t know.”

She smiled. “You’re not allowed to tell him that I told you either.”

He laughed. “I might tease him about it, when he comes out of this and is back in good form, and I highly suspect he won’t mind.”

“No, probably not,” she agreed, “particularly since you’re now out of the military. He lost a really good friend to the military service, and I know that was always a bone of contention for him.”

“Sure, but we can lose friends walking across the road too,” he argued. “My family used that on me too but—”

“Yet you still don’t have a whole lot to do with them, do you?”

“More with my brother than anyone. My dad no longer knows who I am. That’s tough.” He shook his head. “They wanted me to move back when I got injured, and, well,… I felt as if I needed to heal first and to get to the point that I could be on my own—you know, independent and not a burden. I’m stubborn that way, or so I’m told.”

“I don’t know about that. I don’t think being stubborn when it comes to independence is all bad. It’s one thing to be close with friends and family. It’s another thing entirely to depend on them. And the longer you don’t heal inside, the more you end up relying on others. Then the harder it is to stand on your own. And that just feels like unfinished business or something to me.”

He seemed to hear her but didn’t make a comment about that. Then he said, “I’m heading down to take a look at the boat, now that we’ve got her in the dry dock. I’m guessing Rob is probably already working on her.”

“Of course.” She glanced at the clock and winced. “Good God, I had no idea it was so early.”

“It’s one of the reasons I snuck in because a couple people here won’t let me bring Schooner inside.”

“I don’t get that,” she muttered, “because he’s hugely important to my father. Still, rules are rules.”

“Exactly, but now that the hospital is beginning to stir, I better sneak him out again,” he shared, with a big smile. “Try to get some sleep, and hopefully now you’ll be warmer.” He gave her a brief wave and was gone.

She leaned down, gave her father a kiss on the cheek, then walked back to the cot, wrapping the special blanket around her shoulders. With a smile on her face, she went right back to sleep.

Knowing it was early but that Rob would be up, Trey drove toward the marina. Rob had a big shed just off to the side across the road. He worked on multiple boats for various people all the time. It was his passion. He needed just enough money to keep going, and rarely charged people as much as he should. He had a good heart, a good soul, but not everybody realized or appreciated it because he could be rough around the edges. He was abrasive as hell and definitely the person who would call a spade a spade. If you happened to be on his shit list, he had no problem calling you out for anything you may have done wrong.

That bluntness wasn’t welcome in so many circles. Yet, when people needed help, they were right there looking for Rob to give them a hand, particularly if no cost was involved. Trey parked at the end of the main parking lot to the marina, let Schooner out, calling him back as he immediately raced down to the wharfs. Trey had to call him back several times before the dog really listened.

“Sorry, buddy. We’re here for work. Let’s go talk to Rob first.” Clipping the leash on Schooner, Trey headed over to Rob’s shop. Trey went through the gate and headed around to the back. Sure enough, there Rob sat, his cap turned around on the back of his head, scratching his temple, a big thick ceramic mug full of coffee in his other hand.

He looked up, but no surprise was on his face when he saw Trey. “I wondered how long it would take you to get here,” he muttered, with a smile.

“Stopped at the hospital first and checked up on Missy and Silas,” he added.

“And?”

He shrugged. “No change in Silas’s condition, and Missy?… Well, she’s hanging in there.”

“She’s a good ’un,” Rob noted, returning his gaze to the boat sitting on the dry dock in front of them.

“Any thoughts on this mess?” Trey asked.

“She’s not as bad as she looks. Once we repair what Mother Nature did, that won’t be much of an issue. Now repairing what man did?… That’s a different story.”

Twisting, Trey turned to Rob. “What does that mean exactly, Rob?”

“It means that Silas was right. Looks as if the plug was drilled, and then was secured with something dissolvable,” he explained, getting up and pointing to the hull. “So, when the plug started to fail, they took on water but slowly. When in bad conditions, Silas might not have noticed right away. Then the plug would have given way completely, and, by then, the boat would have been very heavy with water, which steered them off their route.”

“And yet Missy didn’t mention anything about that.”

Rob smiled over at him. “I doubt Silas would have figured it out himself until it was too late, and then he wouldn’t have necessarily told her why the problem happened either.”

Trey stared at him and then nodded. “He would have wanted to protect her, I guess.”

“Yep, that was Silas, through and through.”

“That is Silas,” Trey corrected him sharply.

Rob gave a sage nod. “Let’s hope so. The other thing is, his fuel tank gauge read half full when we got there, but she’s totally empty. So somebody could have tampered with that. I don’t know that Mother Nature would have had anything to do with his fuel gauge not working correctly, but I do know that Silas would have never left shore without a full tank—or believing that’s what he had.”

“Meaning that they would get way out there, start taking on water, and be stuck out there, with no way to save themselves?”

“Unless they had a working radio, which they also did not have,” Rob pointed out. “Silas always carried a spare handheld shortwave radio with him, and I’m assuming that’s what Missy was able to answer you on. Do you know where that ended up?”

“She gave it to the Coast Guard when they picked her up, but I know one of the guys there, and he returned it to me, to give to Silas and Missy.”

“Considering it’s how you knew she was alive and still out there, she might just want it.”

“Silas would want it for sure,” Trey added. “Are you saying that the ship’s radio was damaged?”

“I’m saying that the battery failed on the ship’s radio, which is odd considering the fact that Silas had really good radios, with a redundant setup that could be charged with solar, electric, and a third option I didn’t even recognize, but none of that was working either.”

“Would he have known that as soon as he headed out?”

“He might have but might not have thought anything of it, thinking he would get out a ways, and then he could stop and fix it. He was really good at tinkering with that stuff and wasn’t one to cut corners where safety was concerned. There’s absolutely nothing in that boat that’s the same as when his father had it. Silas was always tinkering and making upgrades. His dad did the same thing when he had it. There have been considerable changes over the years, made by both of them.”

“Right, so not only are these changes that he made, but there are also changes his father made?”

“Exactly. When Silas wakes up, we can ask him about it. In the meantime, we know that we have a radio that wasn’t working, and we have a gas tank gauge that was not accurate, and we have the drain not working, and a bilge pump that I can’t get to work.”

“Any one of those is an issue that could conceivably happen,” Trey noted, “but, when you look it all together, it was a mess of problems.”

“I would say it’s much bigger than that. There are too many issues for this to be coincidental. One maybe, two possibly but not this many. Which means that not only did somebody not want him to come back, but they also wanted to ensure it.”

With that, Trey sat beside Rob with a hard thunk . “That begs the next question.… Who hated Silas enough to make that happen?”

Rob shook his head. “Oh, he had enemies. I won’t lie. He did have enemies but mostly because of the fishing tournaments. Some people thought he cheated. Some people thought he had a little spot where he was feeding fish and tracking them, had them penned up or something. I don’t even know what the hell people thought. It just boggles the mind to think that anybody would care that much about a damn competition,” he muttered.

At that, Trey agreed. “Yet we know that it happens, and people can get a bit fanatical about it.”

“Not a bit fanatical,” Rob corrected, “but all-out crazy. It absolutely blows my mind how spun up people can get, but they do, and that’s the bottom line.”

“So, you’re thinking that’s the reason for sabotaging the boat?” Trey asked.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me because it’s just a game, but I don’t really know how much money we’re talking about. Maybe that was a factor, but again, no matter what it is, it’s got to be a pretty inconsequential amount for somebody like Silas, who makes big money.”

“But it’s all relative, you know? It might not be inconsequential for somebody else,” Trey pointed out. “I don’t know what kind of money we’re talking about, but pick a number. Ten thousand to guys like you and me isn’t chump change by any means, but it’s not the end of the world either. Yet it may mean absolutely nothing to a guy like Silas. But to a lot of people, especially someone in a financial bind, it could be everything. And, if Silas always came out on top, time and time again, that could rub somebody raw. So, in that case, we would have a fairly obvious list of suspects, but I don’t really see them as suspects at the moment because they would need access to his boat to sabotage it four ways to Sunday. So has to be somebody nobody would notice or would care about. Yet it would need to be somebody who understood what he was doing.”

“Not necessarily,” Rob argued. “You can sabotage all kinds of shit and be an amateur at it. But whoever did this may not have known that Silas is pretty decent at fixing things himself.”

“Which goes along with the fact that it was sabotaged in multiple ways, just to ensure he couldn’t fix everything, which is a hell of a thought,” Trey muttered.

Rob nodded. “Agreed, but there’s always the chance that we’re completely off our rockers, and this is something else entirely.”

“As much as I want to say, I hope so , I don’t see it. Just too much is here that you’ve already found. It would be one thing if Silas was a guy who does things half-ass, but he’s not. He’s the proverbial Boy Scout, all about being prepared.”

Rob gave him a hard look, shook his head, and stated, “Agreed. The question is, do we bring the sheriff in on it?”

Trey winced. “I tried to get the sheriff to come talk to you, but he got pulled away on a call, even while we were talking.”

Rob shrugged, along with a smirk. “He’s not really a water man anyway. He would avoid all kinds of watercraft, if he could.”

“That’s unusual for this location.”

“Might be unusual, but he likes his job just fine. That doesn’t mean he’ll let somebody get away with murder.”

“No, but that’s another thing. He’s not likely to have any murders around here for him to gain any experience with. This is a very small-town sheriff, with very little experience in sabotage, and almost no experience in this level of crime.”

“What are you calling the level of crime in sabotage anyway?”

“To me, it’s a crime of passion, not romantic passion but emotional, you know?”

Rob smiled. “So speaks a young man who still finds passion all around.”

“Of course I do,” Trey admitted briskly, “and so do you. More than that, this deal is a no-go for you. With all the people you’ve helped out of bad spots on or around the water, you would do an awful lot to stop anybody capable of doing something like this,” he pointed out. “You might hide behind a gruff exterior, but you absolutely detest injustice.”

Rob gave a slow nod. “I don’t know what the hell blew my cover on that,” he muttered, “but you are correct. So we’ll have to find out what the hell happened here.”

“The other thing is,” Trey added, bending down closer, “we’ll have to do it alone. Whoever did this was prepared to kill Silas and his daughter. So they really won’t want to get caught.”

“Too damn bad.” Rob snorted. “I’m old and don’t really give a shit about my life anymore, but nobody gets to ruin this beautiful boat like they did.” He shook his head. “That’s a crime in itself in my book.” With that, Rob put his coffee cup down and stated, “Now, let’s get to work.”

Surprised and not quite sure what Rob meant but happy to help, Trey followed Rob inside the Forget Me Not . “What are we looking for?” Trey asked.

“I know it sounds foolish but fingerprints.”

Trey frowned. “Even after all the seawater?”

“Even after all the seawater.”

“So, do you feel like telling me what you used to do in real life?” Trey asked Rob.

He snorted. “Catching assholes, but that seems like a very long time ago.”

“You were a cop?”

He nodded. “I was a cop, but, if you tell anybody, I’ll deny it. Then I’ll kick your ass.”

Trey laughed. “Is there a problem being a cop in this world?”

“No, but I don’t really like the memories it drags up. So save us both some trouble and don’t bother repeating it.”

“I won’t. I’m just happy to hear that you’ve got skills that go along with mine.”

At that, Rob faced him and asked, “Did you do this in the military?”

Trey nodded. “Something like this, yeah.”

“Good. In that case we should solve this in no time.” He brought out a pad and pen from his shirt pocket. The notebook was at least three inches long. He handed both over to Trey. “You’ll keep the running notes, just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

He glared at him. “Just in case somebody doesn’t like me poking around.”

“It’s not just you though,” Trey pointed out. “We have to keep Missy safe too.”

He nodded. “That will be your job too.”

Trey frowned, but he also nodded.

“And you’re right,” Rob added. “She has to stay alive through this. That’s your number one priority.”