Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(62)

An hour went by. More than four hundred oysters shucked, sold, and served.

A waitress came over and handed me a paper. “Your friend said you forgot this.”

I took the paper. It was a ferry schedule. Dense rows of locations and departure and arrival times. A single line was circled in blue ballpoint pen. A 2:05 departure to Sausalito, across the Bay. I checked my watch. 1:59. I had to hurry.

I was the last one to board, hurrying onto the walkway as the engines powered up. Onboard, the ferry had three levels. The bottom, where I had boarded, was indoors, with a small bar at one end. The bar was crowded. Sea voyages seemed to inspire people to drink. A ferry across the Bay wasn’t a steamship crossing the Pacific, but the water was salty enough and we were floating. The essentials were there. I bought a coffee and walked upstairs to the middle level, feeling the engines thrum through the deck as we eased out. People sat on benches and milled around. Easy to pick out the tourists from the locals. Only a question of who was taking the pictures. It was a bright, windy day and the water surged with whitecaps. Behind us the wake frothed. I walked up to the top level. It was much windier up there. Fewer people. Most of the benches empty.

I found him leaning against the railing, watching San Francisco recede. I remembered the thin face, that mix of intelligence and caution. He wore a scarlet windbreaker emblazoned with the Stanford tree logo and the usual socks and sandals combination, a blue Clipper card visible in his pocket. One of the Bay Area all-purpose transportation passes, good for busses, trains, and ferries. “Hey, Oliver,” I greeted him. “You picked a nice day for a boat ride.”

“Did anyone follow you?” he wanted to know.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Reasonably.”

His mouth tightened and he glanced around. “That’s hardly reassuring.”

“How’d you choose Oliver?” I asked. “Out of all the names. You a Dickens fan, too?”

“What?”

“You know, Oliver Twist.”

He gave me an uncomfortable look. “I don’t understand.”

I put my elbows on the railing and watched the water. “I always used to think it was just a brilliant name. Oliver Twist. Then I realized it’s actually a Cockney accent, asking, ‘Olive ’er twist? Olive or twist?’ One of the most famous names in literature, just a bartender asking about a drink. It always made me wonder. Were martinis around back then and, if so, how did Dickens take them?”

He shook his head and peeled an orange that he had taken from his pocket. “I don’t read Dickens and I don’t drink. So I don’t see how that applies to me.”

“Careful,” I warned. “You’re starting to sound like you have too much fun.”

He angrily threw a piece of orange peel over the side. I watched the peel until it became invisible against the water. “Spare me your jokes, okay? A woman I work with—worked with—is dead. Dead. For doing pretty much what I’m doing. Talking to people I shouldn’t be talking to, about things I shouldn’t be talking about. Go find someone else if you want to crack jokes. I shouldn’t even be here. I should be as far away from you as I can get.”

He had a point. “Sorry. You’re right. No more jokes.” I drank some coffee. The hot liquid felt good against the breeze. “So tell me, what shouldn’t we be talking about?”

“Everything.”

“That might limit the conversation.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said again. “They killed her.”

“Who killed her?”

His face was pinched and fearful. “How am I supposed to know? There were rumors that the company was investigating employees, and then she turns up dead. They sent an e-mail—that’s all she was worth in the end. We are deeply sorry to inform you that a beloved colleague passed away…” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

“So why are you?”

“If there’s a right side and a wrong side, I want to be on the right side.”

“Then tell me about In Retentis.”

I had thrown the words at him like a fastball. His eyes widened and his gaze shifted to my left for a split second. Then his features were back to normal. “In what?”

“You know,” I said. “Or you don’t know. I’m tired of guessing. If you know, tell me. If not, I don’t know why we’re talking, because that means I know more than you do, and don’t need you to tell me anything.”

His eyes were wary. “You first. What do you know about it?”

I pulled a photograph from my jacket and put it on the railing between us. I had to keep my finger pressed tightly down to prevent the picture from blowing away like the orange peel. A Middle Eastern woman with a set, determined jaw and large sunglasses. I slapped down another like I was dealing blackjack. A young, dark-skinned man, photographed walking out of a café, coffee in one hand, wearing jeans and a soccer jersey. I put down a third. A fourth, a fifth. “That’s what I know.”

His eyes were focused intently on the photographs. I took another look at his Clipper card, the upper edge jutting out of the small side pocket of his jeans. Easy to reach when rushing through a turnstile with people crowding from behind. No one wanted to be the person fumbling in a wallet and holding up the line. He was still staring at the pictures. I let one of my hands fall from the railing toward his pocket. There was a huge cargo ship stacked high with rust-colored containers, working its way toward us on the other side of the bridge, Chinese lettering on the side. I wondered what the cargo was.