[Indigo Brothers 01.0] Indigo Fire

by Vickie McKeehan

  Walsh pushed back. “No one left this ship unattended. I guarantee it. We’ve taken leave together as a unit only once since we got here and even then we assigned a guard. That was the night we went to the bar.”

  “Then one of the crew fell asleep on lookout.”

  Walsh shook his head and fired back. “You know these men. I’m telling you that isn’t the case.”

  “Then tell me how it happened?”

  “Whoever did this swam up to the side of the boat and tossed several devices over the railing, fast and quick. The IEDs landed on deck near the helm but didn’t detonate.”

  “And you’re saying no one heard that? Scary thought. Who was on guard duty?”

  “Prentiss was on the starboard side.”

  “Are you certain he never left his post?”

  “I’ve asked him. He swears he didn’t even take a break to go to the bathroom.”

  “Then how’d you find it?”

  “After eating supper I went up on deck for a smoke and to take Prentiss a plate of food. I almost stumbled over one of the damn things. We managed to find two more about ten feet apart.”

  Mitch scrubbed his hands over his face at the thought of it. “Thank God no one was hurt. I want to talk to Prentiss myself. From now on we make sure each side is covered. If morale is a problem, double their pay.”

  When Walsh continued to eye him with curiosity, Mitch returned the gaze. “What now?”

  “What exactly have we gotten into here, Mitch? We’ve been a team for almost ten years. We’ve been in some pretty tight scrapes, from the shores off Morocco to the waters in the Congo, even had to draw our guns on another boat in the West Indies in a standoff once. But no one’s ever tried to blow us out of the water until now.”

  Mitch blew out a breath. “I have no idea. If I knew, I’d let you in on it. Is the crew ready to bolt?”

  “No, no, they’re sticking. But I’d be lying if I said they weren’t nervous.”

  “They have every right to be,” Jackson tossed out, as he came around the port side, and stood next to his brother. “Maybe that’s why I’m having second thoughts about leaving for North Carolina with Tessa. I think I should stay here.”

  “I’ll leave you two to hash this out in private,” Walsh said sending his captain a mock salute and turned on his heels.

  Mitch did his best to put on a brave front. “If you’re considering disappointing Tessa because of this little incident, my advice would be not to. When the time comes Tessa will need you there with her. You’re sleeping with the woman. That should mean supporting her through one of the toughest times of her life.”

  Jackson wasn’t buying the bravado. Mainly because his brother gripped the railing so tight his knuckles were white. “I know that. But she could fly up with Mom and Dad so she wouldn’t be alone. I could take another flight in time to make the funeral, be gone no longer than overnight. You don’t fool me, little brother. The Black Rum and all on board could’ve ended up toast this evening. Using C-4 is a serious indication someone is worried about us. And for whatever reason, they’re scared. We keep pissing these people off. Maybe Anniston’s right, we’re getting closer than we think to the answers.”

  “I’m beginning to believe that. I’m sure Garret and I should be able to handle whatever comes up here.”

  “Okay then, I’m counting on y’all to solve this thing while I’m gone.”

  For the first time in hours, Mitch’s lips bowed into a grin. “We’ll do our best.” When Jackson started to walk away, Mitch grunted in that direction. “But Jackson…”

  “What?”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to cut the trip a couple of days shorter that what you’d planned.”

  Jackson chuckled, gave his brother a salute of his own. “No problem. That sounds like a plan I can keep to.”

  Later that evening after things had settled down, Jackson took Tessa for a walk around the bay. It seemed like a romantic stroll but it was also a decent vantage point where he could scan the harbor and keep an eye on The Black Rum. From this point forward, they’d need to be extra vigilant. But right now his focus had to be on the woman walking beside him. Not ten minutes earlier, she’d finally received that call from the medical examiner she’d been dreading.

  “You let your dad know?”

  “It broke my heart, but yeah. Dad’s taking care of the funeral arrangements.” She stopped to look up at Jackson. “You know, I had a long talk with Raine and Anniston about what happened on Mitch’s boat. The three of us are aware the situation has changed dramatically. Obviously someone thinks we’ve hit a nerve.” She tightened her hold on Jackson’s hand. “Enough that someone wants us dead. They shot at us out at the preserve. Now they’re trying to scare us with explosives.”

  She had such worry in her eyes he tried to downplay the whole thing. “But no Indigos were on board the boat tonight.”

  “That just means they were sloppy. Tonight. My point is, if you should decide to stay here and not go with me to Nags Head, if you need to stay behind and be with your brothers, I totally understand.”

  He tucked several strands of copper hair behind her ear. “That’s good to know. But I’m still going with you. The thing is, before heading back to North Carolina, I have a favor to ask. I’ll go with you back to Ryan’s funeral. But when it’s over and you’ve spent a few days with your family, I want you to come back here with me. Come back with me to Indigo Key, Tessa. You still haven’t found out how Ryan died. The answers you want are right here within these shores.”

  “Is that the only reason you want me to come back with you, Jackson, to find out who killed Ryan?”

  He cupped her neck, brought her closer. “No. I want you here with me, back where all this started, where I started.” An almost needy emotion landed in the pit of his stomach. “I’d like you here with me to be with me, for me. We aren’t opposites, Tessa.”

  That made her smile. “No, we aren’t. Are you asking me to come back because you feel sorry for me? Because of the lousy situation I have with my stepmother? Because once I go back home to my empty apartment, I’ll miss you like mad.”

  She was going to make him say it. “I’ve fallen in love with you. Through all this madness, you and I seemed to be the only thing that makes any sense at all around here. I’m not sure how it went down. I come back home to a crisis like this and end up finding the best thing that’s ever happened to me right here. But that’s how upside down things are right now. Go figure.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, covered his throat with kisses. “I fell in love with you that night on the dance floor, the night we made love in your grandmother’s cottage.”

  He framed her face with his hands. “I’m glad to hear it because I bought it, the cottage. I figure whatever happens, the house will stay in the family. But what I’d like, what I’m hoping for, is that you’ll move out of Raine’s place and stay with me at the bungalow. It already has a bed and furniture and you seem to like it there.”

  “I adore it. I adore you.”

  “Then I’m hoping we’ll figure this thing out. Together.”

  Anticipation rose in her chest replacing the despair of recent weeks. “It’s hard to believe I’m feeling this elated with so much sadness around us.”

  “Don’t think about the sadness, not tonight. You and I deserve this, Tessa.”

  “We do. I want happiness again, Jackson.”

  They bumped bodies, pressed their lips together—the promise of faith and hope on the horizon. They had to believe better days were yet to come.

  Turn the page for a sneak preview

  of the second book in the trilogy

  Indigo Heat

  Indigo Heat

  Skeeter Bronson loved the ocean. All he’d ever wanted to do in his life was to become a shrimper like his daddy. As a child, during the summers and on weekends, he’d worked on his father’s boat from the time he’d turned eight.

  So when he somehow manage
d to scrape enough money together to buy his own shrimp boat, it was the happiest day of his life. Course, he would never admit that to his wife, Adele.

  Skeeter named his pride and joy the Southern Star, painted the name on her himself. The first time Skeeter had laid eyes on her, she was a beat-up old beauty, a double-rigged trawler with a two hundred horsepower engine. It took him almost two months of hard work to get her in seaworthy condition.

  In thirty years of shrimping, she’d always been good to him, always brought him back to port in one piece, no matter how bad the weather.

  The years had come and gone, some good, some not so good, but his home away from home would always be the sea. And God help him he loved the Southern Star almost as much as he did Adele.

  During the good years he would upgrade the trawler with new engines, rigging, and every piece of equipment he could afford, including the latest and greatest fish-finding echo sounders. It had taken him forever to learn to read the damn thing and all the instrumentation that came with it.

  In those early months with the modern technology, he’d felt like a blind man with his first guide dog. He’d been the first to install state of the art gear and immediately became the butt of jokes from the other shrimpers. For about two months he endured the ribbing. That is, until he was able to bring in twice the catch that the other shrimpers brought in.

  These days, he could tell if the shrimp were large or small or where they schooled in massive quantities at the precise location on the bottom of the sea floor. With his knowledge of the ocean, he rarely bothered with tide charts because he knew the area around the Keys like an old familiar lover. No one was better at it than Skeeter Bronson. He’d shrimped in the west in the cooler Atlantic but preferred the warmer waters to the east in the Gulf of Mexico.

  Tonight, he was after pink shrimp and maybe if things went well, he’d take a run around the Tortugas for some Royal Red. That would bring in some extra cash he could use to remodel the second bedroom his wife wanted to turn into her hobby room. The money would go a long way to getting her off his back.

  He was two hours into his run, eyes glued to the fish finder, looking out for the telltale signs of the larger schools when an unusual echo popped up. For now, he ignored the strange blob on his screen and focused on the massive school of shrimp swimming along the sandy bottom.

  Skeeter directed his crew to drop the tickler chain to get the shrimp moving and to avoid a large by-catch.

  But the echo kept repeating. He realized his nets were about to get tangled up in whatever it was so he maneuvered the boat into position, avoiding the echo as much as he could but still aiming for the schooling shrimp. He ordered the outrigger lowered, the nets, and the bag line.

  Everything was running smoothly until he felt the long line jerk, caught on something. God, he hoped he hadn’t ripped another net. He should’ve heeded the echo and avoided the area altogether. Reluctantly he powered down the engine and ran to the winch, hoping like hell he hadn’t torn a hole in the net too badly. In all his years of shrimping, he’d dragged up just about everything you could think of, tires, fishing gear, half a lifeboat, a buoy, a car hood, and even an old World War II mine that gave him gray hairs until the Coast Guard took it off his hands.

  The winch began to strain with the load as it brought up some type of large cylinder-shaped object. Skeeter elbowed his crew chief, Bobby Joe Wylie, in the ribs and bet him five bucks that they’d snagged their first washing machine.

  “Maybe it’s one of those old bells. You know, like from the Titanic,” Bobby Joe said hopefully. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “I don’t think it’s a bell. Too small,” Skeeter declared with some maritime knowledge of such things.

  So when a fifty-five-gallon drum surfaced in the net—a dull black barrel with silver markings, the kind used in chemical storage facilities—the two men traded annoyed looks.

  “Damn illegal dumpers,” Skeeter muttered. Every time someone dumped waste into the gulf it screwed with his livelihood. If the markings on the drum could be traced back to an owner, he wanted to know who and what they’d dumped. But as he took a closer look he noticed all the key numbers had been sanded off, leaving nothing to identify the vendor.

  “What the hell have we got here?” Skeeter asked as he angled the winch holding the drum and carefully lowered it onto the deck so Bobby Joe could work it out of the net.

  “Check the net for damage,” Skeeter called out as he grabbed his crowbar and tapped the drum a few times to determine if it might be empty or full. He decided the only thing to do was to pop off the lid to see what was inside.

  He used the crowbar to chisel around the rim and pry off the sealed top. As soon as he was able to inch up the cover, the odor hit him and knocked him back a step. He recognized the smell of death from his two tours of duty in ’Nam. Fearing what was inside, he knew he had to finish getting the lid off.

  He raised the heavy top high enough to get a peek in. The first thing he spotted was the long hair that signaled an adult female body and the plastic bag over her head. He took a few steps back to gain his composure and took a deep breath of fresh air before returning to the drum to open it the rest of the way. By this time the crew had gathered around the barrel to watch.

  Skeeter had to find the mettle to take a good long look at what was in there. When he peered in, he saw immediately an additional smaller body, the petite head, a child’s head with dark hair that obviously belonged to a little girl. Large chunks of concrete had been dumped in the bottom of the barrel and used to weigh it down to make it sink. If not for getting tangled in the nets, it might never have surfaced at all.

  Skeeter stepped back in horror as realization hit him. He knew then exactly what he had on his boat. He choked back tears, but tried to hold it together enough to get his mind right. “Bobby Joe, get on the radio and call the Coast Guard, give them our location and tell them we may have found that missing lady and her daughter.”

  While the night spun out around him, Skeeter heard Bobby Joe’s rattled voice in the distance. “This is the Southern Star calling the Coast Guard, this is the Southern Star calling the Coast Guard, Mayday, Mayday.”

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Vickie McKeehan is the author of twenty-one novels.

  She makes her home in Southern California.

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