Misery Bay: A Mystery by Chris Angus Page B

coming in,” she said. “Leftovers of that hurricane that hit down in Florida. One of them anyway. Been a busy season that way. You don’t want to be out when something like that makes landfall.”
    “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said.
    She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve done a lot of kayaking then?”
    “Long time ago, when I was in my twenties. Fact is I was kind of into it. Kayaked around the entire province of Nova Scotia. Took three years. I got so I could replace a broken rudder cable in a gale.”
    She looked suitably impressed. “So what sort of recon were you doing?”
    “I’ll tell you in exchange for a scone and a cup of tea.”
    Inside, Sarah went about making tea while Garrett put an obscene slab of butter on his scone.
    “I’ve actually got two avenues that might require a little boating,” he said. “One is checking out an island on Lake Micmac in Dartmouth, whose owners probably don’t take kindly to trespassers.”
    “And the other?”
    He stared out at the ocean. “We can’t catch those SOBs in a Coast Guard cutter. They can hear us coming for an hour.”
    “So you’re going to sneak up and ram them with your kayak? Good plan.”
    “Well, you got the ‘sneak up’ part right. Not so sure about the ramming part.”
    “You won’t do that alone, will you?” The concern in her voice was real.
    He stopped eating and looked at her. “No, I won’t. Probably Tom and maybe one of my cousins will go along. Anyway, nothing can happen until we get the next tip. Then, we’ll see. But …”
    “What?”
    “Would you go for a paddle with me this weekend, take along a picnic, maybe check out that whale?”
    She brought his tea over and put it on the table. Then she lingered, putting one hand on his shoulder. “Are you asking me out on a date, Garrett, or just wanting company to help you find the whale? It’s been a long time and I can’t really tell.”
    He looked into her eyes and studied the set of those thin lips. Then very slowly, he pulled her down and kissed her. She hesitated at first, then relaxed and put the requisite amount of effort into it.
    When they separated, she stood up, her hand still on his shoulder, but squeezing a little tighter. “I guess that means it’s a date, huh?”
    “Pretty and smart is my favorite combination in a woman.”

13
    R OLAND WAS SEETHING AS HE pulled his boat up to the wharf. God damn Ar-teests were insufferable. They were trying to make a fool out of him, which of course was the result of his efforts to catch them, especially Grace, sunning themselves. Ingrid’s naked body did nothing but anger him. She was actually making fun of him by exposing herself. He felt the anger rise in him like bile.
    Ingrid was the worse of the two, hands down. He couldn’t imagine what her husband saw in her. He didn’t find her angular features and large breasts the least bit attractive. But Grace was something different. He couldn’t keep himself from thinking about her. She was just so incredibly beautiful and had been a part of his fantasies from the moment he first laid eyes on her.
    He finished tying off the boat, carried the handful of bait fish he’d caught to his cooler, and deposited it inside. He listened to the satisfyingly loud roar of the compressor. Maybe he could tweak it a bit louder still. Trouble was he didn’t want to burn out the motor. He decided to leave it alone for the time being.
    As soon as he entered the house, Rose called from her room. “Whad’ya catch?” she said.
    “Nothin’ but bait fish, Ma. There’s nothin’ left out there. If it wa’nt fer the scallops, we’d be eatin’ seaweed all winter long.”
    “It’s the seals,” said Rose. “Critters eat all the fish. Them and the oil rigs fouling the water.”
    It was a long-standing belief that seals were responsible for the declining fish industry. In recent years, fishermen had taken to shooting the creatures on sight. It was nonsense, of course. The local