Page 1 of Harbor Me

Chapter 1

Aiden

The Chris-Craft’s been screaming for twenty minutes and my whole crew’s standing around it like it’s a casket.

“Kill it,” I yell.

Marcus cuts the engine and the workshop is suddenly quiet. Or as quiet as it gets around here. Hot metal ticking, gulls losing their minds out over the east dock, somebody’s radio playing country in the paint bay.

Diesel doesn’t lift his head off the concrete. Fourteen years of engine noise will do that to a dog. He’d sleep through the building coming down around his ears.

“Fuel pump,” Marcus says. “Gotta be.”

“Replaced it Tuesday.” Tommy wipes his hands on a rag dirtier than his hands. “It’s electrical. Telling you.”

“It’s not electrical.”

“You said the pump. It wasn’t the pump-”

“Both of you shut up.”

I duck under the hull and lay my palm flat on the engine. Hot, but not the wrong kind of hot. That scream wasn’t the thing starving for fuel. Starving stutters, coughs, then dies politely. This was howling. High and steady. Like something spinning loose that’s got no business spinning at all.

Takes me forty seconds.

“Impeller’s shredded.” I straighten up and grab a wrench off the bench. “Little rubber part spins the cooling water through. It chewed itself to bits and the bits are jammed exactly where they turn the engine into an oven. She’s screaming because she’s cooking herself alive and nobody’s cracked a window.”

Tommy squints. “That part’s three months old.”

“No. Doug sold us that part three months ago, claiming it was new. Doug’s been shipping garbage since spring.” I unscrew four bolts and lift the cover off. Reach in. Come out with a fistful of black rubber that used to have a job. Two chunks torn clean off it. I hold it up for the class. “Behold. Doug’s finest work.”

“Son of a bitch,” Marcus says, with feeling.

“How’d you get that off the sound?” Tommy’s still gaping. “We’ve been on this thing since seven.”

“Because I listen to the engine and you guys stand here arguing with each other.” I lob the wreckage at him. He fumbles it, obviously. “Now go find the two missing chunks before they turn up five miles offshore in August. And order the new one from Hamilton’s. Not Doug.”

“And if Doug calls?”

“Put him through to me. I’ll be looking forward to taking that call.”

There’s a small laugh from the guys, both secretly grateful they’re not Doug.

Diesel finally hauls himself off the floor, stretches till his spine pops, and follows me out into the sun at the exact speed of a dog who knows I’ll be having coffee now and there’s probably a biscuit or two in it for him if he looks sad enough about it.

The yard’s a wreck. Racks full, three boats hanging in the lift straps waiting on parts that aren’t coming till Thursday, and a forty-footer at the fuel dock whose owner’s been doing the arm-wave for ten straight minutes. The wave rich guys do when they figure a marina runs on their calendar. It’s July. Everybody wants everything yesterday, and yesterday I also had two guys and a dog.

Only so many hours in a day, and I don’t skimp on the quality of my repairs to keep millionaires’ schedules running smoothly.

Marcus falls in beside me halfway across the gravel. Which means he wants something. Marcus doesn’t walk next to a man unless he’s about to cost him money.

“Agency called again.”

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear what they said.”

“Let me guess. They’ll ship another kid up from Portland who quits by Tuesday? Heard it in June. Heard it in May. Got it memorized, Marcus. I’m sick of wasting time on training useless people.”