The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

-Somebody called Jack.

  Troy immediately dialed her number. Voicemail. Somehow the texts had finally come through, but the signal was lost again. There was no telling how long ago she’d sent the texts. It might be too late. Jack…Jamaica Jack Barron. He was Barry’s dad? And Barry was the killer? Puzzle pieces clicked into place, but Troy didn’t know what the full picture was. He did know that he needed to find them as fast as possible…but where were they?

  He looked at the texts again. On a boat. Jack was taking them somewhere, but where? He wracked his brain for a good three minutes and then remembered their fishing trip a few days ago. Sharkin’ grounds…that’s where Jack would take them, and he knew Jack’s favorite spot.

  He stood up and his knee buckled. With one good leg, he wobbled over to a nearby stop sign. He tapped out of the messages Meira had sent and dialed.

  “Hello?” a confused voice answered the call.

  “Duffy, is that you?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Duffy, it’s Troy. No time for B.S. Look, Meira’s in trouble. I know who the killer is and he’s kidnapped her and her daughter.”

  “Huh? What?”

  “I’ll explain when you get here. I need a ride.”

  “I’m on my way. Where are you?”

  He looked up at the street sign above him.

  “Linda and Curfew,” he said. “And don’t waste time. The girls are in trouble and I’m not sure how much time there is to save ‘em.”

  “Got it.”

  Before Duffy hung up, Troy heard the sound of his siren fire up in the background. Five minutes later, he was sitting in the passenger’s seat of his patrol car. He explained the situation to Officer Duffy and told him he needed to get to his boat as quickly as possible.

  Duffy nearly ran over a dog and two old ladies screaming down the highway towards the pier. The patrol car skidded into the sandy parking space and Duffy jumped out.

  “No!” Troy shouted as he limped down the beach toward his rowboat. “Get on the horn. Get the Guard out. We’re either gonna find a couple of kidnappers or a couple of murderers. Gonna need the cavalry on this one.”

  Duffy nodded and ducked back into his car. Troy groaned with the simple effort of pushing his dingy into the water. He fell into the boat and grabbed the trolling motor. No time for rowing now.

  As it cranked up, Troy cursed himself for not upgrading to a motor that would travel faster than ten miles an hour. He crept through the water at a frustratingly slow rate and finally reached his 1998 Island Packet 40 foot cutter. He leapt out of the smaller boat, not taking the time to tie it off. Climbing the rope onto the cutter was painful, but not nearly as painful as his knee hitting the solid deck. He limped his way to the anchor, pulled a knife from his belt and cut the rope, letting it sink into the water. He’d buy a new one later. By the time he reached the wheel, his leg was pounding from the pain. He slumped back in the chair and fired up the motor. This boat wasn’t built for speed, but he slammed the throttle down and steered out toward Jamaica Jack’s favorite sharking ground. As he got under way, he grabbed a bottle of aspirin from under the dash and tossed several into his mouth. He crunched them back and swallowed.

  For the second time in as many days, a peal of thunder announced a coming storm from the south.

  “Dangit,” Troy muttered and slammed his hand down on the wheel.

  Part III

  Avast Ye Land Lubbers

  “There is, one knows not what, sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seems to speak of some hidden soul beneath.”

  -Herman Melville

  20

  Tug-Tuggin’ Along

  Troy felt the first sputter of the engine when he was five miles out from the shore. That was when he felt the first stinging raindrops too. What is it with the dang ocean and storms? Like a long lost lover you just can’t shake, thought Troy. He ignored the sputtering, but eased the throttle back just a bit. The old girl was holding up pretty well for a twenty-year-old boat, but she had her moments.

  “She’ll hold together,” he said out loud to no one.

  As if in reply, a louder, deeper bang erupted from below him.

  “Baby, baby, hold together,” he muttered and rubbed his hand on the dash.

  As the rain began to pelt in sheets, he steered farther north than he’d planned, trying his best to stay ahead of the roughest waters. Waves began to swell higher and higher and his boat rose and fell on them, sending a churn into his belly. He’d been a seaman for a long time, but even now, rolling waves sent him into fits of nausea.

  He pulled his phone out and saw nothing new from Meira. Probably too late, he thought. Jack’s probably turned ‘em over to his boy, Barry, and God only knows what that boy is capable of…

  The ocean became a mix of spray and sheeting rain. Dark clouds began to rumble overhead with lightning that threatened to strike at any second. He shuddered at the thought and suddenly, out of nowhere, a strange memory came to him.

  Drinks. Drinks with umbrellas in them. Kim and Dana laughing. The haze that had clouded that night began to fall away. It was a strange feeling to have a dark curtain pulled back from a memory like that. Details that were gone flooded back into his mind as sure as the water flooded over onto his deck.

  He could see the bar at Fish Heads clearly now. He could see Dana and Kim, the two servers from the Austin Seafood Company. They were both drunk…so drunk they’d begun comparing tattoos and it was getting a bit too risqué for the bartender. He’d come over to quiet them down, but one look at the Celtic cross on Kim’s lower back and he’d poured them all a new round of shots.

  And then Troy saw him. Down at the end of the bar, leaning over a mug of beer, red hair and scowling face. Barry. He’d been there that night. The night the girls had been murdered.

  “Dangit, how could I have missed him?” Troy shook his head as he murmured the thought aloud.

  And almost as soon as he’d thought it, he remembered the sheer volume of alcohol he’d been pouring into his belly all night. It was enough to cloud any man’s judgment, and he was all too familiar with the tunnel vision a few too many drinks brought on.

  A few more rough shakes from the boat’s engine brought him out of his thoughts, but the pieces began to click into place so clearly, that he didn’t need the memory to help him now.

  Barry had been there that night. He’d seen the girls having a good time with Troy, and maybe he’d gotten jealous, or angry, or whatever. He’d probably seen them leaving alone and followed them out to the parking lot. Hell, they’d know who he was from the restaurant and maybe even gotten a ride from him. And somewhere along the way, Barry had snapped and killed them.

  But why bring them out here? Troy wondered as he glanced around his boat at the water sloshing back and forth on the deck. Why put their…heads…in my…

  “Oh,” Troy finished his thought as the boat gave a final bang and went silent. “He was jealous. That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?”

  His course had put him just above the northern edge of the storm. The waves were smaller here and the boat rocked back and forth in silence. He looked down at the dash and saw the fuel gauge hanging well below empty.

  “Really?” He tapped the dial. “Out of dang gas? At a time like this?”

  He slumped back in his seat and stared out at the rolling black clouds. The squall was coming fast and soon he’d be back in the deluge. Nothing to do now but call shore. He was dead in the water and the waves might be enough to sink him. He picked up the radio and clicked over to channel sixteen.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday,” he spoke into the receiver. “This is the Rogue Wave in trouble.”

  He waited a second and said, “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Troy Bodean on the Rogue Wave. Anybody listening?”

  The radio crackled, but no one answered. Dangit, he thought, I’m gonna die out here and nobody’s gonna know what happened. He clicked the button and repeated his distress call, but the s
tatic continued uninterrupted. He hung the CB radio receiver in its cradle and inhaled deeply.

  “Probably shoulda had that sail repaired before now,” he muttered to himself.

  The last serious storm he’d been in had torn his mainsail clean off the mast and ripped it to shreds. The irony wasn’t lost on him that he was sitting on the edge of gale force winds in a sailboat with no sail…and, as it seemed, no gas either.

  His drifting thoughts seemed to mirror the boat’s drift on the waves. He smiled at the thought of his time back at the Peppermint Hippo. He wondered what had ever become of Debby. And he couldn’t help but think of Karah, so young and full of promise. There had been some love there, but nothing serious…at least that’s what he kept telling himself. He’d left that romance behind when he left Pawleys Island.

  And then there had been Meghan. He’d serendipitously found her business card at Captain Tony’s and dragged her into his treasure hunt out in the gulf. He thought of Meghan as the one that got away. Maybe if he got out of this, he’d head back down to the Keys and see what was going on at the museum.

  But then again, Mindy had been something special too. She was strong and sure. Without her resilience, he might have died in that lighthouse back in Key Biscayne. Dang if she wasn’t young too, Troy thought. I must like ‘em young.

  He tipped his cowboy hat back, and the strange and dark memories of his time in Savannah tried hard to settle in. But he pushed them away. He hated that time in his life and did his best to forget it ever happened.

  And then Meira’s face came to him. Beautiful, strong, confident. His equal in a lot of ways. His better in so many more. And she was of an acceptable age, too.

  As he recalled all of the women in his life and the unfortunate events that seemed to surround each of them…he came to the conclusion that Meira was the best of them. And Troy Clint Bodean promised himself that he’d tell her so, if he ever saw her again.

  Lightning flashed out and struck the water nearby. It was close enough to make the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  “Geezus!” he exclaimed and jerked the radio to his lips again. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Hell, is anybody listening? I’m gonna get sunk out here!”

  “Tr— is that —? What the — are you — out here?”

  The voice that crackled and sputtered over the static on the radio was oddly familiar. He couldn’t place it, but he didn’t give two squats about that right now.

  “I’m getting’ drenched is what I’m doin’,” he yelled into the receiver. “I need help! Who is this? Where are you?”

  The man on the radio amazingly reported his coordinates clearly enough for Troy to check on his GPS. Hot dang! Whoever it is, is pretty close by, he thought.

  As the rain returned in torrents, Troy gave the man his location and waited with his hands white-knuckled on the wheel. He wasn’t sure why he was hanging on, but at this point, it was all he had left to do. Ten minutes later, he saw the vague outline of a large tugboat peek through the sheets of rain. He’d never seen a rustier and more beaten down tug in his life, but he’d never been happier to see one like it.

  A man in a yellow raincoat stumbled out onto the tug’s deck and flung a line over to Troy. He missed the rope once, but caught it the second time. Strapping one of his moldy old life preservers around his neck, he wrapped the rope around his waist, put his legs up on the rail of his boat…and jumped.

  He woke with his lungs feeling like they were exploding. He coughed and spat and suddenly a rush of water spewed forth from his throat.

  “Really?” a voice that was clearly not the one from the radio said. “I rescue you from the storm of the century and the thanks I get is that you vomit on me?”

  Troy looked up. For a second, he couldn’t make his mind work. He couldn’t pull up the familiar face from his memory banks. It was an odd feeling to see someone you were sure you knew, but couldn’t pin it down. That frustrating moment when you can’t remember your favorite book, or your favorite song…or maybe who wrote it or who sang it. He wretched again, careful not to get it on his rescuer, and looked up at the face again.

  Female, good-looking, youngish, hair up in a tight bun. Suddenly, the image snapped together with his stubborn memory.

  “Clarice?” he asked and coughed again. “What in God’s name are you doin’ out here?”

  “Saving your sorry ass it looks like.” She smiled and handed him a towel.

  “Much obliged,” he said putting the towel on his head to dry his hair.

  A shockwave ran through him as he realized something was missing from his head. The hat. He’d had the Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat with the peacock plume since all the way back in Pawleys Island. God, how long ago had that been? He wasn’t sure, but it had to be going on six or seven years now. A feeling of sadness struck him harder than he’d expected, and Clarice must’ve seen it in his eyes.

  “Troy,” she said softly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Ah, nothin’.” He sniffed and took a deep breath. “Just lost an old friend is all.”

  Her face reflected his tone and she put a hand on his shoulder. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry.”

  “S’ok. I’ll be okay eventually.”

  She took a deep breath in.

  “Well, I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

  “Thanks, Clarice.”

  A silence fell between them. Then Troy snapped his head up.

  “My boat! Dangit! We’ve got to get to the sharkin’ grounds!”

  “I’m sorry…what? Troy, your boat is at the bottom of the ocean right now. And sharking grounds? What is that?”

  “My boat is…”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry. It got washed over right after you jumped in. Went down fast.”

  He was stunned. It wasn’t just a boat. It was his home. Gone. All gone. The ocean had won again. And now he was on a slow-moving tugboat going to the middle of nowhere with a nudist protestor — albeit an attractive nudist protestor. He jumped up and tossed the towel back on the bed he’d been lying on.

  “Wait…how fast is this tug?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “No clue. I’m just riding along with Mel.”

  “Mel? As in old Mel?”

  She smiled. “Yup. That’s the one. We’re heading out to get his boat back in.”

  “Then there might be a chance to save them. Where is he? Is he up top? I need to—”

  “Whoa there, cowboy.” She interrupted him and put a hand on his chest to stop him. “You need to get out of those wet clothes. I found a few things packed away that must belong to the owner of the boat. They look like they should fit okay.”

  She motioned to a stack of clothing sitting on the foot of the bed. Troy turned to see what looked like a neon pink shirt on top of a pair of white shorts, but he nearly fainted when he saw what was sitting on top of them. There she was…his hat. Damp and a little rumpled, but intact. The plume was gone, but that wasn’t so bad. He figured he’d replace that with something or other when he got time. He picked it up and worked his hand inside to help restore its proper shape.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead. He rested the hat on his head and breathed in deep and slow. Welcome back, old friend, he thought.

  He unfolded the pink tank top to find an airbrushed sunset image on the front with the words – MYRTLE BEACH MURFF CLUB. He had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t care. It was dry and pretty close to his size. He pulled his hat off and laid it on the bed. His linen shirt was soggy and stuck to his skin. He peeled it off and dropped it on the floor. He used the towel to dry his back and chest and was surprised when Clarice whistled. He turned around and saw her still standing in the doorway leaning against the jamb.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ll uh…I’ll meet you up on deck, I suppose.”

  She grinned at him. “Troy, it’s okay. I’m a nudist. Remember?

  He felt his cheeks flush and scratched his b
eard. “I know that, but I ain’t. So, if you don’t mind?”

  “Shucks,” she tsked. “I’ve been wondering what was under all those clothes.”

  Troy opened his mouth, but found he had no reply for that. She didn’t say anything, but she held his gaze for a moment longer.

  “Maybe next time,” she said as she turned and walked away, closing the door behind her.

  Troy shook his head and felt his eyebrows rise. Interestin’, he thought. He pulled the pink tank top on and changed into the white shorts. A different look for him, for sure, but somehow, the clothes seemed to fit just right.

  He opened the door and wobbled down the hall and up the tiny stairs to climb up to the deck of the chugging tugboat. It was a dark gray and rust colored heap of tank-like boat slamming heavily through the waves. Troy held tight to the rail as he walked to the cabin. He jerked the door open and slammed it behind him.

  “Well, well, well,” a craggy old voice said to him. “Look what the nets have brought in. The sea spits out what it don’t like, ya know that?”

  Troy couldn’t help but grin at the old man, but his grin was quickly erased as he took in the full picture of the salty sea dog sitting in the chair. He looked like he always did—gray headed, gray skinned, wrinkled, and ruddy from years on the open water. But as he swiveled in his chair to face him, Troy realized that the man was naked.

  Troy quickly averted his eyes, holding up a hand to block his view.

  “Geezus, Mel,” he blurted. “What gives? Why ain’t ya wearin’ no clothes?”

  He heard Mel laugh behind him, a gravely hoarse sound like an old radiator coming to life.

  “Ha! What’s the matter, boy? Ain’t never seen a real man before?”

  “I’ve seen plenty,” Troy replied, still holding his hand up. “But usually they have clothes on for cryin’ out loud.”

  “Well, Clarice here is showin’ me the joys of livin’ life in the buff. Repressed people like you have made us believe that wearin’ clothes is the natural way of things. It ain’t! We’re the only race on the planet that actually covers our bodies.”