Killers and Keepers

by Charles Dougherty

  "I think you know more than you're telling us," Kent said.

  I shrugged. "That figures, that you'd think that. It tracks with your reputation."

  "What do you mean by that?" Kent stood up, a scowl on his face. "My reputation for what?"

  I was tired of waiting for them to make a mistake. I decided to provoke one. "For being a dim-witted, hot-headed asshole who abuses women because you don't have the balls to take on a man."

  Kent lurched toward me, grabbing the front of my shirt and trying to pull me to a standing position. "I'll show you who's got balls!"

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Mary launch herself from the sofa in a blur of motion while Travis was distracted by Kent's rage. I let Kent pull me upright and kept up my momentum, driving the top of my skull into his chin from below with all the force of my leg muscles.

  I heard a loud crack — his jaw breaking, I thought — and he dropped where he stood. With him out of the way, I saw that Mary was holding Travis's pistol, pointed at him from a safe distance. He was holding his right wrist with his left hand as blood poured from a compound fracture of his right forearm.

  "Get a tourniquet on that," Mary said. "We don't want to lose him just yet."

  I nodded and unbuckled my belt, pulling it free. Moving around to approach Travis from his right side, I paused when Mary fired the pistol. Travis jerked back in the chair, his eyes wide, his face pale. At first, I wondered why she shot him. Then I saw the bullet hole in the chair's seat, an inch in front of his crotch. She was just softening him up, letting him know she could shoot.

  "If I wanted, that could have been your balls," Mary said. "You cooperate with Finn while he takes care of your arm, or I'll ruin you."

  Travis nodded, pushing himself back in the chair as he focused on the pistol in her hand.

  Working from the side to stay out of Mary's way, I passed the belt under his right armpit twice. I drew it up until the bleeding from the compound fracture moderated, then I tied it off and stepped away from him.

  "I want to check on Kent."

  Mary nodded. "I think he's done, but go ahead."

  I turned and looked at him. He was sprawled on his back, his head at a funny angle to his shoulders. There was no movement of his chest or abdomen; he wasn't breathing. I knelt and put two fingers to the side of his neck, feeling for a pulse that wasn't there.

  I looked at Mary and shook my head.

  "You broke his neck?" she asked.

  "I thought it was his jaw. Necks don't usually crack like that."

  "Maybe you broke his jaw, too. How's your head?"

  "I'll live."

  "Good."

  I patted Kent's body down and took the pistol I found in his waistband — a tiny, .25-caliber semiautomatic. "Lady's gun," I said, showing it to Mary.

  "Figures. Cover me while I check his arm." She handed me Travis's pistol, a nine-millimeter Glock.

  "Check his arm?"

  "You'll see."

  She moved around to the side of Travis's chair to stay out of my line of fire. Travis watched her, squinting, lower lip caught between his teeth, his brow furrowed.

  "Feel free to scream if you need to," she said, reaching for his broken arm. "I understand there's nobody around to hear you. And just so you know, you hit like a girl even before I broke your arm."

  Travis's eyes followed her movements as she gently grasped his right forearm, her left hand above the protruding, broken bones, her right below the break. She smiled at him and nodded.

  "This may be uncomfortable," she said, twisting her hands as if wringing out a wet towel.

  Travis's scream was bloodcurdling. His back arched, and the chair rocked back for a moment. Mary waited until his scream faded to a whimper, her hands still gripping his arm, but relaxed, now. She smiled at him again, but she didn't say anything. Beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. He blinked his eyes several times. His jaws were clenched.

  "Perfect," she said.

  "What are you doing? That hurt like hell." There was a tremor in his voice.

  "I thought it would, but I needed to make sure before we went ahead."

  "Make sure of what?" Travis's face was pale.

  "Make sure it would hurt. We have some questions for you. Cooperate, and we'll grant you an easy death."

  What we learned from questioning Travis was interesting, but not too revealing. We both were quiet as we got in the black SUV. I was lost in my thoughts, organizing my recollections of his answers. I was sure Mary was doing something similar; we would soon have to brief Bob and Aaron.

  "Too bad we didn't get to question Kent," Mary said. "Why'd you have to go and kill him so fast?"

  Using the key I found on Travis's body, I started the black SUV. Turning the hulking vehicle around, I drove across the clearing to the dirt road the taxi used to bring us here.

  "It was an accident. I took my best shot; I wasn't sure whether you'd need help with Travis."

  "Oh, ye of little faith… I'm surprised you don't have a concussion — no, on second thought, I've never known anybody as hard-headed as you."

  "It's a gift."

  "Sure it is," Mary said. "On a different subject, where are we going to ditch this thing?"

  "There's parking along the roadside a few hundred yards before we get to the marina. We'll leave it there with the keys in it and walk the rest of the way. Somebody will steal it and help cover our tracks. If we hustle, we'll have time to go to the boat and get our paperwork before customs closes."

  "You planning to clear out this afternoon?"

  "The port authority office is open until five," I said. "We shoul have time. We can be on our way this evening."

  "Got anywhere special in mind?"

  "No. Do you?"

  "You know me," Mary said. "I always want to go back to Isla de Aves, but something interferes with our plans every time."

  "Maybe we can do that. I could stand some peace and quiet."

  "Don't you think Bob and Mike will want us to pursue this business with the hacker?"

  "My mystery client?" I asked, grinning at her.

  "Nice job of picking up on that. I was hoping you would catch my drift."

  "I was getting ready to jump Kent before you said that."

  "I could tell, but from my angle it looked like Travis would have a clear shot at you. That's why I spoke up. I thought if we dragged things out long enough, one of them would make a mistake."

  "You were right, but I'm glad you shook your head. I might have gotten shot except for your signal to wait. But then I got tired of waiting, and I could see that Kent was ready to blow his stack. So I pushed his button."

  "It worked," Mary said.

  "I didn't mean to kill him right then, though. That was an error on my part. He was the one we needed to question."

  "Don't beat yourself up about it. From what we saw, they seemed to be equal partners. I don't think Kent knew any more than what he told Travis."

  "He might have known the name of the person he was encouraging to take over the O'Hanlon network," I said.

  Mary shook her head. "He would have told Travis. Travis even said he didn't think Kent knew the man's name — just that he was in email contact with a man O'Hanlon trusted, remember? He was trying to set up a meeting with him."

  "You were inside O'Hanlon's circle for a good while. Any idea who that could have been?"

  "No," Mary said. "I've been racking my brain; I can't come up with anybody. Especially not anybody who's still alive. Think Bob will be disappointed? He wanted us inside Kent's organization."

  "Bob's seen plenty of these deals. He knows what it's like in the field. Besides, we've cut off the snake's head. Both snakes. That was the ultimate goal. It doesn't matter who Kent was working with in the States to distribute the drugs if there's no source of drugs."

  "But somebody will come along and try to put it all together again, Finn. That's what's so frustrating about all this. It never ends."

  "Look at the brigh
t side," I said.

  "What's the bright side?"

  "We have continued employment for as long as we want."

  "I guess you're right," Mary said. "Isn't this where you planned to park this thing?"

  "Yes. Here's as good as anywhere."

  I pulled the SUV onto the shoulder of the road behind another parked car and turned off the engine. We got out, leaving the key in the ignition, and started walking to the marina gate.

  23

  "I guess we can't put it off any longer," Mary said, emerging from the companionway with a tray that held two mugs of coffee and our satellite phone.

  We were under way, having left the anchorage in Rodney Bay a half-hour earlier. After we got clear of the other boats and made sail, Mary went below to brew coffee. We were delaying the call to Aaron and Bob. Neither of us was eager to explain what happened during what was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission.

  "May as well get it over with." I took a mug of coffee from the tray, and Mary settled in beside me behind the helm. "Go ahead and call."

  Mary took a sip of her coffee and set the mug down. She powered on the phone and waited until it acquired a signal, then she pressed the speed call button for Aaron.

  "Finn? Mary?"

  "Both of us," she said.

  "Good. I have some news for you two. I was hoping you'd call soon."

  "Will yours keep? We've got news, too," I said. "Urgent news. Can you add Bob on?"

  "Yeah, sure. Wait one." The connection went silent.

  "Bob?" Aaron said, a few seconds later.

  "I'm here. Finn and Mary?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "What's your urgent news?"

  "Our recon mission blew up on us."

  "Uh-oh. At least it sounds like you're both safe."

  "Yes, we are. I'll cut to the finish, though. We had to kill both Kent and Travis."

  "Okay. Not exactly how we planned things, but we can live with that. Kent was in St. Lucia? What happened?"

  We told them the story, from the time we did our walk-around of the Sundowner Club up through our interrogation and execution of Travis.

  "I'm sorry I killed Kent before we got to question him," I said, in wrapping up. "It ruined our chances to find out who he was working with to rebuild O'Hanlon's network. That sin is on my head."

  "Don't second-guess yourself. What Aaron's uncovered since we last spoke with you will be your redemption, I believe. Aaron?"

  "We got lucky with our efforts on the hacker. All that stolen computer time finally yielded results from the metadata analysis. Looks like your would-be client was none other than Michael Kent. We found the MAC address of the hacker's computer. It belonged to Kent. Once we knew the identity of the hardware, things fell into place. It was like opening floodgates. The computer's located at his plantation in St. Vincent. We got — "

  Mary was shaking her head. "That doesn't make sense, Aaron."

  "Why not?"

  "Because when we questioned him, Travis told us Kent was in email contact with a man that O'Hanlon trusted."

  "The only relevant email contact Kent had was through that blind email drop you and the broker used. We've remotely cloned his PC, and in the last 24 hours, we combed through all his emails. Don't draw a conclusion based on Travis's use of the word 'man.' There was nothing in any of the exchanges that you or I had with Kent that showed your gender; he couldn't have known you were the one he was corresponding with."

  "He's right, Mary," I said. "Think back over the way they treated us. They were focused on me; they referred to you as my 'lady,' and my 'girlfriend.' I remember thinking at the time that they only saw one use for women. And you even played along with that. Remember?"

  "Yes, but I had no idea…" She shook her head and started laughing.

  "What's funny?" Aaron asked.

  "The irony. It's really too bad Kent missed seeing me make Travis scream, not to mention seeing me kill the bastard."

  "There's no 'mystery person' in the U.S.," Bob said. "That was you all along, Mary."

  "But how did Kent know so much about what happened with O'Hanlon? Aaron, you said he even knew about O'Hanlon hiring me to get the records from the Daileys and kill them."

  "Like I said, we have all his emails. He was corresponding with O'Hanlon way back before you came on the scene. They compared notes on shipments and receipts. That was one of O'Hanlon's first clues that the Daileys were skimming. And O'Hanlon told Kent all about how you were taking care of that. But he never mentioned your name, or that you were a woman. I guess Kent just assumed O'Hanlon hired a man to do what he considered to be a man's job."

  "Misogynistic bastards, all of them," Mary said. "I'm glad they're dead. Too bad Finn killed Kent, though. It would have served him right to die by a woman's hand."

  "Sorry," I said. "I told you it was an accident."

  "Oh, I'm just teasing you, Finn. You did the right thing."

  "She's right," Bob said. "Good work, even though it didn't go as planned. We got to the right place in the end."

  "Speaking of that," Aaron said, "where are you two headed now? Taking a break?"

  "Sorry to interrupt," Bob said, "but I was about to tell you we need you both back in Florida as quickly as you can get here. Mike wants to sit down with all of us at the lodge. We have work to do in the States. Right now, I need to fill him in on all this, and I'll want you on the line, Aaron. You two let Aaron know when you have your travel plans sorted out. Stay safe." With that, the connection dropped.

  Mary took a sip of her coffee and looked at me. "Are we ever going to get back to Isla de Aves?"

  "We could always quit working for Phorcys."

  "No, we can't. We'd both go crazy. Neither of us enjoys being idle. Besides, you're going to teach me to be an assassin. Plain old killers are a dime a dozen. I need broader skills to be sure Phorcys keeps me around."

  "Don't worry about job security. You're no 'plain old killer.' You're definitely a keeper."

  "Thanks, sailor."

  "Back to that notion of being idle," I said, turning the autopilot on and reaching for her.

  "What are you doing, Finn?" she asked, melting into my embrace.

  "Enjoying our idle time."

  The End

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  A Note to the Reader

  Thank you again for reading Killers and Keepers, the sixth book in the J.R. Finn Sailing Mystery Series. The next book in the series will be released later in 2020. Please sign up for my mailing list for more information on release dates.

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  The first five books in the Finn series are available in audiobook format. As of June 2020, Killers and Keepers is in production. Learn more about these audiobooks on my website.

  I also write two other sailing-thriller series set in the Caribbean. If you enjoyed the adventures of Finn and Mary, you'll enjoy the Bluewater Thrillers and the Connie Barrera Thrillers.

  The Bluewater Thrillers feature two young women, Dani Berger and Liz Chirac. Dani and Liz sail a luxury charter yacht named Vengeance. They often find trouble, but they can take care of themselves.

  The Connie Barrera Thrillers are a spin-off from the Bluewater Thrillers. Before Connie went to sea, she was a first-rate con artist. Dani and Liz met Connie in Bluewater Ice, and they taught her to sail. She liked it so much she bought a charter yacht of her own.

&
nbsp; Dani and Liz also introduced her to Paul Russo, a retired Miami homicide detective. Paul signed on as her first mate and chef, but he ended up as her husband. Connie and Paul run a charter sailing yacht named Diamantista. Like Dani and Liz, they're often beset by problems unrelated to sailing.

  The Bluewater Thrillers and the Connie Barrera Thrillers share many of the same characters. Phillip Davis and his wife Sandrine, Sharktooth, and Marie LaCroix often appear in both series, as do Connie, Paul, Dani, and Liz. Here’s a link to the web page that lists those novels in order of publication: http://www.clrdougherty.com/p/bluewater-thrillers-and-connie-barrera.html

  A list of all my books is on the last page; just click on a title or go to my website for more information. If you’d like to know when my next book is released, visit my author’s page on Amazon at www.amazon.com/author/clrdougherty and click the "Follow" link or sign up for my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/bKujyv for information on sales and special promotions.

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  About the Author

  Welcome Aboard!

  Charles Dougherty is a lifelong sailor; he's lived what he writes. He and his wife have spent over 30 years sailing together.

  For 15 years, they lived aboard their boat full-time, cruising the East Coast and the Caribbean islands. They spent most of that time exploring the Eastern Caribbean.

  Dougherty is well acquainted with the islands and their people. The characters and locations in his novels reflect his experience.

  A storyteller before all else, Dougherty lets his characters speak for themselves. Pick up one of his thrillers and listen to the sound of adventure as you smell the salt air. Enjoy the views of distant horizons and meet some people you won't forget.