Chapter 5
B rody arrived at Fortunate Harbor half an hour early.
He walked around the main building, glanced inside, and spotted Rae seated at the bar with Cameron and his sister.
He backed away until he was certain the lengthening shadows fully enclosed him.
He walked the crossover and stepped to where the retreating tide left a strip of hard-packed sand.
He had spent countless happy hours standing right here, in the space where it all came together.
Ocean and shore and sky and wind and tomorrow.
Most sailors avoided the open waters. Either they sailed the inland waterway or they held to tidal currents and kept the shore in sight.
Brody had never felt that way. He wasn’t like some sailors he knew, who treated fear as a vice, an ailment they were immune to.
Brody had been terrified more times than he could count.
It was part of being out where human control of the situation could be erased in a split second.
Where waves could go from rough to higher than the mast in a few minutes.
He accepted the risk and the fear that came with it because it was the price necessary.
His passion required an ability to look beyond fear and do whatever it took to survive.
Because the alternative was simply out of the question.
Stand on the shoreline, remain landlocked and stationary while the open waters and the wind sang their siren’s melody.
To an outsider viewing the carefully constructed script of Brody’s existence, the single glaring flaw these days was his social life.
He didn’t have one.
His time in competition meant he was simply unavailable for what normally passed as a working relationship.
Unless, of course, his partner was either some angelic being who was able to cope with his absences and the risks they carried, or a crew member on the same boat.
And the prospect of yet more casual temps, as he had secretly come to call them, left Brody feeling ancient at thirty.
This semi-enforced solitude was one of the few steps he’d recently taken that carried a genuine rightness. Or harmony. Something.
The gathering night became stained by faces he scarcely recalled. These same images had forged the reasons why he stood here tonight, alone and seeking a way out. Knowing it was time to flee the life he had struggled to make his reality.
He checked his watch and saw it was time to meet Rae.
He took the wooden path back across the barrier dunes and spotted her seated alone at the bar.
The sight brought him to a standstill. A single candle illuminated her features.
She sat with shoulders hunched and face creased by emotions she probably assumed no one could see.
The bar’s shadows looked ready to swallow her whole.
Another man was watching Rae. Brody had spotted him standing beneath a different boundary palm while leaving the parking lot.
The man had shifted closer to the bar now, holding to the peripheral shadows.
Brody had seen a lot of professional bodyguards; the ocean racing scene was a gathering spot for the superrich.
But this guy was different in how he watched Rae.
Then Brody spotted his boss.
The restaurant terrace was gradually filling up.
Tall heating lamps were now stationed among the tables and a chest-high Plexiglas wall held back the ocean chill.
At a table on the terrace’s far end, the CEO of Brody’s company was holding forth, probably entertaining a group of sponsors and their wives.
The man’s capped teeth shone in the light as he completed his story and was rewarded with loud laughter.
If he noticed Brody crossing the terrace and entering the bar, he gave no sign.
Which was just like the man. Continuing the pattern Jacob Whitinger had maintained since Brody joined the company and his racing team. Doing what came naturally, keeping his staff in their place.
Making sure Brody understood the boundaries of his life.
Rae had spotted Brody when he climbed the beach crosswalk and entered the hotel’s exterior lights. If he noticed one of Holden’s team standing further along, Brody gave no sign.
She regretted everything about the night now. Agreeing to be Brody’s spokesperson had saddened one of her closest friends. Not that Rae was any better in the honorable-action department. She sighed into her empty glass. Wishing the night was already over.
Brody approached, but remained standing. “What’s wrong?”
“I shouldn’t ever have agreed to speak on your behalf.” She pushed her glass toward the hovering bartender. “You made me hurt my oldest and dearest friend.”
Brody sighed his way down onto the neighboring stool. “I should have seen that coming.”
“Yes, Brody. You should have.”
“I’m trying to correct some of my lifetime mistakes.” When the bartender set down her freshened glass, he pointed and raised his finger. “I’m really, really sorry. It only made things worse.”
“You can’t avoid being honest, if honesty is what you’re after.” Rae caught a glance of herself in the bar’s rear mirror. She huffed a bitter laugh. Listen to her, giving advice to this guy. What a joke.
“No, you’re right.” They sat together, mired in a glum silence that both joined and separated. Finally, Brody offered, “We can call tonight off if you want.”
“What I want is to know the truth.” She ignored how Holden’s guy had shifted over to where he now stood in the exterior lights, clearly wanting to catch her eye. “What on earth happened to you?”
Brody thanked the bartender, sipped his wine, said, “One of the first lessons the Outer Banks taught me was, sometimes life can be too perfect.”
Rae lifted her glass, drank, said, “That sounds more familiar than you will ever know.”
“The summer before I turned fourteen, my uncle Travis gave me a summer job as dock boy.”
Rae recalled a burly man with a seaman’s smile so constant, the creases fanning from his eyes and mouth shone bone white when he frowned. “I remember him.”
“He ran the Island Marina and Boatyard. For fifteen dollars a week I worked dawn to whenever. My job was to do whatever anybody told me. I was in heaven. Travis threw in all the sailing time I could manage in the idle hours. When he saw I worked first and sailed second, he started teaching me how to race. Centerboard hulls, that was his passion. I spent that first season crewing on his Dutchman. Two years later, I was racing the marina’s Finn. ”
“And winning.” Rae recalled watching Brody race, the sheer unbridled joy he brought to the sport. “You were great.”
Rae thought the compliment made him sadder still.
“Four years later, I was head dockhand and sailing instructor. And I was crewing on the top local ocean racer. With my tips and salary, I was pulling in around four hundred bucks a week. I was driving Travis’s old Jeep and living in a studio apartment above the shop. ”
Rae nodded, a tiny gesture. She remembered that apartment.
“I was ready to put a downpayment on a new Mustang convertible, the Shelby Cobra model. Three sailing buddies and I were looking for a place on the island to rent.” He hesitated, glanced at the windows leading to the restaurant terrace, then forced out, “I surfed, I sailed, I fished, I had a second boat offering me their top slot. It was the only life I knew, the only one I ever wanted.”
The man, the life, this was what she remembered about Brody.
She even remembered the friends, how they made their search for a place part of the never-ending joyride.
Only now this man she once knew had to force out the words, an evening confession that had him sweating.
And something more. Every time he glanced out the bar’s rear windows, he tensed.
Not that looking outside was any reason to party for Rae.
Tonight’s guard on beachside duty was Ellis, one of Holden’s senior crewmembers.
Ellis remained where the spot lit him like a human statue.
Watching. Which of course was what she had hoped would happen.
Back when she thought it was the right move, meeting Brody here.
She asked, “What’s out there on the terrace that worries you?”
He was as grim as she’d ever seen. “My boss.”
“The one you say is trying to keep you in a cage.” When he nodded, she went on, “I have to tell you, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why don’t you just quit?”
He kept nodding. “I probably should have taken that step long before now.”
“So?”
Brody’s only response was to hunch over his drink.
The position reminded Rae of a child fearing a blow.
For the first time that night, Rae was fully connected to the place and time.
“Brody, look at me.” When he glanced over, she told him, “You’re not in this alone.
I know it’s hard to open up. But you need to. Really. Trust me to help you find—”
“I started working for this group straight out of grad school. Jacob Whitinger is well known in sailing circles. He’s a top-flight competitor, his boats are the latest in design, his crew as good as they come.
To be invited to join them was a dream come true.
” He lifted his glass, then set it down.
“I’ve known for years he wasn’t paying me what I deserved.
But the racing made that almost okay. Until three months ago. ”
“What happened?”
“I was invited to give the keynote address at a major conference. Totally out of the blue. Being included as a speaker is like having an international spotlight put on my professional standing. And not just me. The firm is treated as a headliner.” His words were one thing.
His position totally another: his gaze was flat now, his forehead beaded with sweat. “Jacob was furious.”
She could feel his tension in her own gut. It required real effort to keep her voice steady. “What can you tell me about him?”
“In the private investment universe, Jacob Whitinger is a major player.” The hand that lifted his glass sent tremors through the liquid.
“When I returned from the conference, Jacob screamed at me. I couldn’t understand it.
I had sent the standard sort of memo, saying I’d been invited and was heading out.
I went to conferences like this four or five times each year.
No biggie. The only reason I mentioned it to Jacob was, you know, kudos and all that.
The day I got back, he was so furious he could hardly get the words out. ”
Rae thought she could give the man’s attitude a name. “You’d discovered a way out of his cage.”
“I didn’t know it then. But two weeks later, yeah, one of our major competitors offered me a job. Almost double my salary.”
She could read the answer now. “If you accept, you lose your position on Jacob’s boat.”
“It’s a lot worse than that.” Brody drained his glass. “I can race because Jacob doesn’t count the time against me. If you factor in training and trials, that makes up almost three months every year.”
The man’s tension could no longer touch her. She was incredibly grateful for this moment, the opportunity to move beyond her own splintered motives and focus on her client’s genuine need. “He’s holding that over you, isn’t he.” When he did not respond, she demanded, “What has he done, Brody?”
“Refused my end-of-year bonus. Almost a third of my salary.” Brody lifted his glass, realized it was empty. Held it toward the bartender. “Told me I wasn’t performing up to standard.”
Rae rose from her stool, waved away the bartender. “Let’s go.”
Brody jerked as if coming awake. “Rae, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered—”
“Stop. Just stop. We’re going outside, we’re having dinner, and we’re talking next steps.” When he remained seated, uncertain, worried, she tugged on his arm. “Come on, sport. It’s time to mess with that man’s night.”