Catherine clicked off her phone, and they continued the five minutes to the marina entrance, talking of possible libel, but they could think of nothing she'd written that even hinted at it. "We were always so careful. Nathan and I discussed this so many times. Write nothing that even the sickest interpretation of the law might contort as libel."

"They're using bully tactics. You've pointed to no one, named no one. They're pointing at themselves." Lorne motioned to the helm. "You want to take her alongside?"

"A little disturbed at the moment. I'll watch you, though." She gave him a crooked smile.

"Who's the email from?"

She opened her laptop, browsed to the site and scrolled down. "Here it is. Give me a sec... No, nothing, it's not showing a sender." She dug further, then looked up and shrugged.

"We can search through the routeing and... Later, we're here now." A minute later, he gave the engine a final kick astern, then shifted to neutral, stepped off with the breast and turned it to the float cleat.

They secured the bow and stern lines and the springs in silence, then they stood on the float at Tastevin's stern and hugged, still silent.

Finally, he spoke, "I can dig out the source — I spent several years teaching myself hacking. Became quite the expert."

"Hacking? Why?"

"Tracking down Connolly, then searching for evidence." Lorne gazed into Catherine's eyes. "Heavy stuff. Really sick stuff." He looked away.

She hugged him tighter, her face tilted up, chin on his chest. "Let's ignore the email. A crank, a troll. Get lots of those."

"It's not only the email. We need to find who's behind this stuff, manipulating the reviews. We're too far into this now to stop, to be scared off by bullies."

She squeezed him tighter still. "Go below and dig it out? Or head over to my... Over to our townhouse to do it?"

"Below. It's closer."

He sat at her computer and started analysing the routeing on the email. "It's likely a proxy IP through one of the anonymous SMTP servers." He clicked further and scrolled down the strings of text and code. "Here... AnonyMail."

"How'd you get all that stuff on the screen?"

"Practice. Did it a lot, starting fifteen years ago. Hard to forget things like this." He continued scrolling and reading. "Here it is, the sender's address: [email protected]. Fuck!" He sat back quickly on the couch as his arms flopped to the side, and his head banged into the bulkhead. "Fuck, fuck, fuuuu..."

"What is it?" She reached over to him. "You hurt your head?"

"Head's the least of it." He lay back, rolling his head side to side, eyes strained wide. "Not good. Not at all good. Fuck!"

"What did you see?" She rubbed his chest. "What's going on?"

"George — his server was iam-ru.ru. That's where his pages were." He looked at her and curled his lips. "This isn't his email, though. Too clever for him. I don't recognise Bottom Line."

"Who's Bottom Line?"

"Don't know — zxcvbnm, the bottom line on qwerty keyboards. Clever. Too clever for George. I can do more digging."

"So, George? You recognise him now?"

"Yeah. The neck tattoo. He had only one chopped pinkie and a much smaller ear disc then. And a huge afro mop that... Fuck!"

"When's then?"

"A decade and more ago now. When I started digging, I tracked online images of me to his pages. Connolly's photos of me."

"Fuck! Sounds deranged."

"He was into child porn, torture and mutilation, both self and to others. Through his pages, I found my first leads to Connolly."

"Fuck! He recognised you last night. That's the reason for planting the GPS, isn't it?"

"Yeah. He must have recognised me from the trial. I had to testify against him. Child porn charges involving me. I was twenty-three by the time it went to trial, the Youth Criminal Justice Act no longer pertained, so I had to appear in court to testify against Nutcracker and —"

"Nutcracker?"

"Yeah, George's screen name. He's famous for his video of hammering a fellow's testicles to mush."

Catherine clapped her hands to her mouth, trying to control her gag. She rose and rushed toward the galley, much of her spew making it to the sink. Lorne rose behind her and rubbed her back. "Sorry, I do need to go slower with this crud."

She slowly recovered and turned her bowed head to look at him as he offered her a tea towel. "You've been through so many hells."

He rubbed her back and shoulders. "I don't want to drag you into any of them."

"I'm already in, Lorne. I'm part of you. We'll work through this together." She started cleaning the countertop.

"Don't worry about that. Let's clean you up. I'll do that." He turned her and kissed her forehead. "You go start a shower, I'll finish here."

"But it's my mess, I'll —"

"I caused the mess, you were only the messenger." He chuckled as he reached down and gave her bum a couple of taps. "Go. I'll meet you in there."

When he joined her in the shower, she was laughing. "Look at that stuff." She pointed down at the drain strainer. "I brought half the forest floor with me. Such a wonderful nook."

"Yeah. Kind of sweaty and sticky when we finished, weren't we?" They watched the accumulation build at the strainer.

He started soaping her back. "It's about a quarter to nine, we need dinner. Thoughts?"

"Let's pack up here and head home. Think of eating options as we go."

"Sounds good. Turn around, let me do your front. My God, you're gorgeous."

They finished, dried and dressed, then packed the laundry and their computers and headed ashore. "We could pick up some things at Urban Fare to cook for dinner." She nodded up the street. "I don't feel like dining out right now."

"Bit late for cooking. Not into another restaurant either. We could order in something." They continued their walk around the crescent.

"Or get a selection from Urban's hot bar."

"Yeah, let's do that. I do it often after a long sail."

She unlocked the door, led him in, and they stood in the foyer hugging. A long minute later, he said, "Strange, I felt unsafe back there — aboard. I've not felt that before, I've always felt safe in Tastevin. Until now."

"Spooked by the boarding, the GPS thing, by your memories of George."

"Yeah, guess so." He squeezed her. "Dinner, what should I get?"

"Food." She giggled.

"Yeah, how stupid of me." He kissed the top of her head. "I love you to bits, you silly girl. I hope you know that."

"What, that I'm silly?"

"That too."

He was back in twenty-five minutes with an assortment. "Way too much, but I didn't know what I felt like. Sort of all over the place tonight."

She took the large bag from him and glanced in. "Now you've a hint of what women go through with our cycles." She laughed. "Wait until this starts developing." She put a hand on her belly, and they both looked at it, then mashed together in a hug.

"Here I am, left holding the bag." She laughed, loosened her arm from around him, squatted to set the bag on the floor, then rose back to the hug.

He lowered a hand to her butt cheek. "We should eat."

"Yeah. Lots of options, the kitchen counter, the dining room, the coffee table with cushions, up on the patio."

"Your choice, you know them better than I do."

"Upper patio. It's a nice clear night, and we've radiant heaters up there."

"Great, the moon's up in less than an hour — still full."

She assembled a tray with plates, cutlery, glasses, napkins, a carafe of water and some candles and led him up to the top floor and out onto the patio. "I'll set this up; you bring up the computers. I'm curious to see the hit counts. Guess that's never left, wanting the confirmation, the acknowledgement and the acceptance."

The table was laid, the food ranged, the candles lit, and the heaters warming when he returned. He stood staring at the welcoming setting, then turned to her. "My God, I love you."

"We think so similarly," she said as they merged in another hug. "We should eat while it's still warm. This seems to be a global sampling. Samosas, pad Thai, tiddy oggies, souvlaki, pizza slices... What's the theme?"

"Confusion. Couldn't decide."

"Yeah, been there."

They sat and began eating, picking from their buffet. "Good timing for this. A bit stale and dry in the afternoon, after the lunch crowd. Late evening also, but always fresh with the crowds midday and mid-evening." She looked at him with a crooked smile. "This was my diet after Nathan was murdered. I had lots of practice getting to know the good timing." She laughed. "Also added quite a few kilos."

"That must have been a tough time for you."

"So many mixed emotions, sad, released, desolate, free, alone, unshackled, depressed, elated. Up down, up down, up down. So strange."

"And you played hermit?"

"Yeah. Stupid, eh? After the first few weeks, didn't want to see anyone, not even my folks. I couldn't trust myself to not inappropriately burst out into happy."

"Behind you now."

"Yeah. God, you're good for me." She leaned to kiss him.

A while later, she put her cutlery down and stared at him. "I can't believe how patient you are."

"How so?"

"Hit counts. Aren't you curious?"

"A bit, I suppose. We should check."

She reached for their computers and handed him his. Half a minute later, she shook his arm. "Look at this, the hits. Over seven thousand already. Two hours. How's yours?"

"Seems to be going viral. All over Twitter, Facebook, I haven't checked the others yet. Seems popular."

"Hits? How many blog hits?"

He clicked to Blogger stats. "Over a quarter million. The last hour. Fuck!"

"You're kidding. Let me see." He turned the screen to her.

"Fuck!" She put her hand to her mouth and spoke through it. "Told you it was needed."

"Yeah, guess it was. How are your comments?"

"Let me check." She saw her WebMail icon blinking, clicked it, logged in and scrolled through the messages, opening each to scan, then mark as unread for later. Partway down the page she opened one and stiffened, then put her napkin to her mouth to hold her gag.

Lorne watched her as she struggled, put his hand on her back and pulsed it. "Another strange one?"

She nodded and turned her screen toward him.

Tell your fucking stud to delete his blog post. If he keeps messing with us, we'll have to delete his crotch post. We'd love that double-headed monster in our trophy case.

Bottom Line