Bluewater Bullion: The Seventh Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Bluewater Thrillers Book 7)

by Charles Dougherty

  ****

  "She's Harry Rawlings's widow? I'm stunned," Dani said.

  "I remember hearing about him when I worked for the E.C.," Liz said. "Hundreds of billions, right?"

  "That's what Denardo said," Phillip agreed. "She apparently adopted the name, Marilyn Muir, to escape the vultures in the news media. He said the press had her tried and convicted of killing the old man even before the body was cold. I don't remember it, but I never paid much attention to that kind of foolishness."

  "It was the sensation du jour, even in Belgium," Liz said. "Then she just vanished."

  "Who can blame her for that?" Dani asked. "But ... " she shook her head.

  "But what?" Phillip prompted, his voice tinny over the satellite phone's speaker.

  "I get why she's changed her identity, but why's she bothering with this Bond thing?"

  "Who knows how they connected?" Liz asked. "Elaine said he was always trolling for investors to bankroll his treasure hunts. It's no surprise that he might try one of the richest women in the world."

  "There are two problems with that notion, Liz," Dani said. "First, nobody's ever heard of Marilyn Muir, so he wouldn't have known she was one of the richest women around."

  "Well, okay. She still makes no secret of being well-off, but I'll grant you that one, for now," Liz said. "What's the second reason?"

  "Her motivation. Why would she bother with what would be a penny-ante scheme for someone with her kind of money? I don't see it."

  "There could be more to her motivation than money," Phillip offered. "Besides, we don't know what that wreck might be worth."

  "I'll go with your first point," Dani said. "But even if the wreck sunk with the combined wealth of both sides in the Civil War aboard, it would still be small change to somebody like her in today's world. Back then, a few million dollars was incredible wealth, remember. Even if Phaedra carried tons of gold, it would only be worth tens of millions of dollars today."

  "Okay, but it's a fact that she met with Bond," Liz said.

  "What we know is that she talked to Bond in a beach bar. 'Met with him' implies that there was some intent behind the encounter. Like I said before, he could have just been hitting on the prettiest woman in the place," Dani objected.

  "Let's approach this differently," Phillip suggested. "We can't know whether she's his investor, and we can't guess at her motivation."

  "Okay," Dani said. "Go ahead."

  "For the sake of argument, let's say she is his investor. Further, assume that the wreck they're seeking is Phaedra. The coincidence factor aside, there are a lot of wrecks down here, and a lot of treasure was shipped through these waters, but let's say she's got some inside information on Phaedra. Now, where would she have gotten that?"

  "Spying on Yates and Thompson," Liz said.

  "That dog won't hunt, Liz. She would have had to invest in Bond's venture before she even came to Antigua, and you said she met Yates there, at the Admiral's Inn, after Yates had already started his search."

  "But that could be why she was snooping in Thompson's briefcase," Liz objected.

  "Yes, but she would have still had to uncover her information before she ever met the two of them," Dani said.

  "Damn. You're right." Liz shook her head.

  "So, what's the answer, Phillip?" Dani asked.

  "I don't know. We'd have to know more about her background to uncover that. Let's let it rest for a while; maybe something will come up."

  "Should we say anything to Yates about her?" Liz asked.

  "I don't think so. Whatever's going on, she's entitled to her privacy unless we've got some solid reason to blow her cover. I still like her; in fact, I like her even more, knowing what she's been through. She's nice," Dani said.

  "I can't argue with that," Liz said.

  "Nor can I," Phillip agreed. "Stay in touch, you two."

  Chapter 28

  "It never crossed my mind that people were going to die, Marilyn," Yates said, fidgeting with the silverware on the placemat beside the remains of his breakfast. They were on the balcony of her suite, looking out over English Harbour.

  She gazed at him, sympathy evident in the set of her features. "None of that's your fault, Gerald."

  "Maybe not directly, but ... " he shook his head, looking down at the plate in front of him. "If not for me, none of it would have happened."

  "Come on, Gerald. So, you've got a gambling problem. That doesn't make it your fault that some bookie sent his enforcers after you. They're the ones who were going to hurt, maybe kill somebody. Thank God, Dani and Liz were able to turn the tables on them. I like those two; I wouldn't have wanted to see them hurt, but even if they had been, it wouldn't have been your fault. Can't you see that?"

  He lifted his eyes to meet Marilyn's gaze. "There's more to it, though, I haven't ... I mean Rodriguez said ... " He shook his head, looking down at the plate again.

  "Another low-life, from what Mickey said. He got what he deserved, Gerald. He was looking for revenge, and he ... "

  "No, Marilyn."

  "No?"

  "Well, I'm sure he was, but did you hear what he said?"

  She frowned and shook her head.

  "About my gold?"

  Her frown deepened. "Your ... gold?"

  Yates looked up at her and nodded. "After you offered him money, remember what Rodriguez said?"

  Marilyn shook her head again. "What?"

  "He said we'd 'get to Yates's gold, but that's later.' Or something like that."

  "I must have missed that in the confusion," Marilyn said, not able to meet his eyes. "What do you think he meant?"

  "The wreck," Gerald said. "There's supposed to be a good bit of gold there. Without Nick, I'll never find it, though. Nick, and all the others ... "

  "Stop it, Gerald. Maybe Nick was okay, but the others were scum, and they brought it on themselves. You didn't know they'd shoot Nick like that. And it's not like you need the money, anyway. We can take Vengeance and ... "

  "But that's just it, Marilyn, I do," he interrupted.

  "You do, what?"

  "Need the money."

  "Come on, Gerald. I'm from Georgia, remember? I know who you are — the sole heir to the Yates family fortune. You don't need sunken treasure. Let's just ... "

  "It's a myth, Marilyn."

  "A myth?"

  "The fortune. Most of it was gone when I inherited. The rest of it, I ... I told you. I'm a compulsive gambler. I'm broke."

  He took a deep breath and let it out, beginning to sob softly as Marilyn stood and approached him, wrapping him in a gentle embrace. Still in his chair at the breakfast table, he put his head on her breast and she stroked his cheek, murmuring that it didn't matter.

  ****

  Marilyn sat on the balcony, sipping from a cup of tepid tea left over from their breakfast. Gerald had crashed after his confession, and she had led him inside and settled him on the couch. She had continued to comfort him until, his emotion spent, he dropped into a restless sleep. She chuckled sardonically as she realized that the irony was complete. If she had not had her mother cremated, she was sure the old harridan would have been screaming so loud that the sound would have reached beyond the grave.

  She had some decisions to make, and she sensed that she shouldn't delay. Her heart was pushing her to tell Gerald everything, but her rational side argued for caution. No one liked to be deceived, especially in matters of affection, and she wanted to keep Gerald in her life. She had read that honesty between partners was fundamental to a lasting relationship, but she worried that the deceit had gone on for too long already.

  She wondered how Gerald would react if she told him who she really was. The fact that she was Harry Rawlings's widow would surprise him, but the fact that Zebulon Yates had been her mother's great-great grandfather was a different matter. The concealment of her married name would be nothing compared to the fact that she was a distant relative and had hidden that from him. The blood relationship might shock Gera
ld, but she knew that it wouldn't trouble him overly much.

  The bigger problem was that she had undertaken her own competing search for old Zeb's ship while she seduced Gerald, pretending to be a complete stranger. When she had embarked on this venture, she hadn't worried about deceiving him. That had been her intention, but she had not reckoned on the bond that had formed between them. She longed for a way to put this behind them; she could imagine nothing more appealing than having Gerald share her absurd fortune and her life.

  It would be ideal, she realized, if Gerald could somehow find the gold. That would salve his damaged pride. Otherwise, she knew that he would have a problem with the notion that he was the impoverished spouse of one of the wealthiest women in the world. She couldn't make him her economic peer, but if she could help him find the gold, he might be persuaded that their relationship wasn't completely skewed by her wealth.

  If only she could devise a way for him to 'hire' Merrill Bond, perhaps she could find a way out of her dilemma. She would give that some thought this afternoon. Maybe she could lend Gerald some money so that he could pay Bond, putting him on the same team with her. She would have to tell him that she had bankrolled Bond; that would explain her even knowing the man.

  She might manage to create the illusion that Bond had come to her looking for an investment, rather than the other way around. The strong likelihood that Nick Thompson had been feeding information to Bond would make this more credible. She already knew that Bond's loyalty was for sale; she would just have to pay him to forget that she had been the initiator of their relationship.

  ****

  "We can't just snatch them all and beat it out of them, Jake," Alex Hart said. "This isn't Iraq, you know. And we aren't working for the government on this one."

  "No, you're right. I know that, but how the hell are we going to figure out who's who?"

  "How about the lawyer?" Hart asked.

  "Beauregard? What about him?"

  "Think he might give up something if we worked on him a bit?" Hart asked.

  "No. He's an idiot; he doesn't know shit. He just about wet himself when I told him we killed Mickey Semmes. If he knew anything he would have already spilled it."

  "He's seen you, Jake. If he's that gutless, he's a liability."

  "Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it. He's history. I just need to wait a few days until the Jones trail goes good and cold. Then I'll give the word."

  "Meanwhile, this bunch all seem to be in shock. Yates is at the Admiral's Inn with the Muir woman, still. They haven't been outside her suite since they got back from that last boat ride," Hart said.

  "You bug her suite?"

  "No. When I was in there, there was no reason. The woman's a professional photographer; she does freelance work for a couple of travel magazines. She just met Yates since they've been here."

  "Glad you checked her out already, but it would still be nice to know what Yates thinks about all this. Could we plant something in her suite?"

  "Sure, if they go out for a while. I'll get somebody on it," Hart said.

  "Good. Now, what about the two women?"

  "On the boat?"

  "Yeah, them. Berger and Chirac. What are they up to?"

  "Not much. They've been staying busy tinkering with the boat for the last day. Hard to believe what Yates told Beauregard about them taking out those guys. They sure don't look the type."

  "The best never do, remember?"

  "Yeah, Jake, but you'd have to see them. Knockouts, both of 'em. And small, too. You got somebody working on them, right?"

  "Yeah. Should have something later today. You think they're bodyguards or something?"

  "Why would he hire bodyguards, Jake? He's just a damned writer."

  "Yeah, but there's something else going on here. I'd like to get a look at them."

  "No problem. I got pictures." Alex opened the laptop that was on the table between them and clicked open a folder on the screen, turning the machine so that Jake could scroll through the shots of all the people they'd been discussing.

  Chapter 29

  Merrill Bond was fondling the gold bar on the table beside him, feeling the lettering as he studied it. He thought the markings were persuasive, particularly the recessed letters, "CSA" on the large face of the bar at one end. At the other end, it was marked "93.7 FINE" and "1863." He had commissioned the bar several years ago on pure speculation. He had used it once before in one of his schemes, but the man to whom he had shown it was deceased now. No one else had seen it, besides the jeweler who had cast it for him down in Venezuela.

  He had a big loan payment on his salvage vessels coming due, not to mention a payroll to meet for his staff in Fort Lauderdale. He hadn't given up on the idea that they might find gold in this wreck; it was almost certainly Phaedra. He wouldn't, however, be able to meet his current obligations without an infusion of cash. The Muir woman hadn't seemed averse to the idea of funding his search for a little while longer when he'd spoken to her the other day. He had been subtle. He'd wanted to plant the seed and give it a little time to germinate.

  Now it was time to show her the gold bar. He would set up another meeting and give her a progress report — hopeful but guarded, he thought. Let her run her fingers over those letters on the bar, but remind her that there were any number of explanations for how a single bar of gold could be in a wreck. He would act discouraged and complain about the expenses — fuel, pay for the divers — and express some doubt. He had done this sort of thing before. He had no doubt that he could extract another hundred thousand or so in a few days.

  He stood up from the fishing chair and slipped the bar in his pocket. Davey and Jack would be surfacing soon; they didn't need to see it. He stepped around the fighting chair and opened the refrigerator at the wet bar, taking out a cold beer. Settling back in the chair, he popped the top and took a sip, a smile spreading over his face as he swallowed. He put his feet up on the stern rail. Life was good.

  ****

  "Feeling better?" Marilyn asked, laying a hand on Gerald's shoulder. He was still on the couch in the sitting area of her suite, but he was sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

  "Yes, thanks."

  "You're welcome. I ... um ... I'm not sure how to, uh ... "

  "Just say it. It's okay, I have it coming," Gerald said, clasping his hands and leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes downcast.

  "What do you ... "

  "Look, Marilyn, I lied to you, okay? I'm sorry about that, but I understand how you feel. It's all right. Honest. I'll just go — no hassle."

  Marilyn took a deep breath and waited until he looked up at her. His sad countenance brought tears to her eyes. "That's not what I want, Gerald. I ... "

  "It's not?" There was a tone of faint hope in his voice.

  "No, it's not. I appreciate your taking me into your confidence. I know that can't have been easy for you."

  He nodded. "No, you're right. When we started, I didn't expect that we ... that I ... "

  "Me, either," she took a deep breath. "Gerald, I haven't exactly been honest with you, either."

  "What do you mean? I don't ... "

  "Hear me out, please. You know this isn't easy."

  "Okay."

  "Before I say anything else, I want you to know I've fallen in love with you. I didn't ... "

  "No wait. You've fallen in love with a fictional version of me. I ... "

  "Please, Gerald?"

  "I'm sorry. Go ahead."

  "I'm not Marilyn Muir. Well, I am, but that wasn't always my name. I was born Mary Lynn O'Connell." She waited, gauging his reaction.

  "So Muir's your married name."

  "Well, no. I was married to a man named Harry Rawlings."

  "The Harry Rawlings? The billionaire?"

  "That's right. After he died, I ... "

  "They thought you killed him."

  "The idiots on television thought I killed him. His estranged children started that, trying to break the will because they
were disinherited. If you remember, his death was officially ruled accidental."

  He looked at her, his gaze steadier now. "Okay. And you just disappeared."

  "I didn't want to be 'Mary Lynn Rawlings, the Killer Widow from Kennesaw' any longer. So I became Marilyn Noble Muir."

  "Funny. There were some Noble connections in my family, going back a-ways."

  She held his eyes for a moment, and went on with her story. "And in mine, too. I couldn't hide under my maiden name, but I didn't want to completely lose any family connection. So I took Noble as my middle name. People assume it was my maiden name."

  Gerald grinned. "We might be related," he said, and laughed. His laughter died when he saw the pain in her eyes.

  "We're coming to the hard part," she said. "My mother's great-great grandfather was Zebulon Yates."

  A shocked look on his face, Gerald said, "The captain of the Phaedra was ... "

  "My ancestor," she said, interrupting him. "Now I'm going to tell you all about the real me, warts and all, and then we can figure out where we go from here, if you still want me around."

  ****

  Alex Hart, looking as nondescript as usual, sat in the lobby of the Admiral's Inn, waiting for Yates and the woman to finish their dinner and return to her suite. He had tested the wireless listening devices when he installed them a few minutes earlier, but he wanted to hear their initial conversation when they got back to the room. He wanted to be sure that he hadn't left some sign of his intrusion, and he might still need to make some minor adjustments to the repeater, which he had installed in the linen closet a few doors down from the Muir woman's suite.

  His patience was rewarded after another half hour. They left the dining room, and he took a device from his pocket that resembled an MP3 player. He put the ear buds in his ears and fiddled with the touch screen. Two minutes later, he heard the door open and close. A couple of soft thumps and the rustle of clothing preceded a breathless, "Oh, Gerald, yes ... yes, hurry ... " Satisfied, Hart removed the ear buds and slipped the device in his pocket. He and Meyers could listen to the recording later to see if there was anything worth hearing.