Marni’s voice, so weak it was barely audible, came through. “Please, Wendy. I need you.”
Hook got back on, “Well?”
I gasped for breath as I forced the words out. “What’s wrong? What do the doctors say?”
“She has bad stomach pains, been vomiting for five days, and her hair’s falling out. I can’t get a damn doctor to come look at her. She’s burning up with fever.”
“Get her to a friggin’ hospital!”
“It’s too late.”
“Bullshit!” My vision dimmed and my entire body shook. What was this monster doing to her? I took a deep breath and sucked it up.
“I’ll be there with Kit.”
“We don’t need that smart-mouthed fairy.”
Through tight jaws I said, “Marni wants me there and I won’t come without him.”
“Alright. Let Marni’s last days be good ones.”
Her last days?
“How the hell am I supposed to find you?”
“In two and a half hours Jaxbee will have my helicopter at the same hanger where we first met.”
I dialed Kit and begged him through my tears. “I don’t know what I’m getting us into, but once we get on the Predator, I’ll call the feds. Pack an overnight bag. I’ll pick you up in an hour, okay?”
He started to ask a question but bit if off and said, “Whatever you need, sweetie. I wouldn’t think of letting you go alone, even though I’ll have to miss the dress rehearsal for my new drag show.”
The room spun. A thought fought through. Marni’s last call. Was this what she was afraid of?
I grabbed a small suitcase and threw in jeans, t-shirts, bathing suit, sweatshirt, and cosmetics… the basics. I was set to go. I called our receptionist. “Linda, I’ve got to go out of town for a few days. Keep the clients happy. Call Treanna and tell her not to worry. I’ll see her next weekend.”
She tried to squeeze in a question but I cut her off and hung up.
Locking the front door, I spun and slammed my suitcase into the abs of a jerk in a cheap brown suit. Just what I needed, Roger fucking Jolley.
“I have more questions, Wendy.”
I shoved him down the steps. “Not now. I’m in a hurry!”
“You could be arrested for failure to cooperate with a federal investigation.”
“I don’t give a damn, but you’ll have to arrest me later. Hook’s sending his helicopter for me. Marni is dying.” I couldn’t believe I was saying those words.
“From what?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out and save her.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Like hell. Hook won’t let you anywhere near his yacht. And the only person who wants you there less than Hook is me.”
He winced like I’d slapped him. Then his face got red. “You’re protecting him. I wasn’t sure before, but now I know you’re part of his operation. Well, you’re not skipping out on me. Not when I’m this close to recovering his treasure.”
“I’m not letting you anywhere near Marni. You’re trying to frame both of us.”
“How do I know she’s really sick? It’s convenient Hook called right now.”
This guy was so ridiculous that he was calming me down. “You stand here all… earth-toned and threatening. Why should Hook let you set foot on his ship? Move. I have to go.” This goofball needed to get out of my way.
“I trained as a medic in the army. I specialized in tropical diseases.”
That got my attention. Marni sick with god-knows-what and that scumbag Hook not taking her to the hospital. “You trained as a medic? Did you actually practice medicine?”
He shook his head. “I pass out at the sight of blood.”
What a loser. I wanted to pop him one, yet I could see he might have value. And now that my blood pressure was back down to near normal, I noticed he had the cutest expression on his face like a little boy admitting he’d just broken a window.
“If Marni’s really sick, we’ll make sure she gets medical help. If you’re shooting straight, you’ll want me to go. You tell Hook I’m your personal physician. Her life might depend on my being there. If you don’t want me to go, I’ll know everything you just said is a lie.”
I didn’t give a damn about whether he thought I was lying or part of Hook’s schemes. But I did give a damn, a whole lot of damns about Marni. I might have more or less inherited her, but I couldn’t fail her, and maybe more importantly my dear old friend, her mother. Maybe a tropical disease specialist could help.
“I hope you’ll be comfortable in those clothes, doctor. There’s no time to go home and pack.” I pointed to his suit and snorted.
“You don’t think my suit is perfect for yachting?”
Could he be more irritating?
Chapter Nine
The last time I’d stood at this hanger, Marni was with me. The chopper landed on the tarmac with a bounce. We shielded ourselves from the wind and vibration until Jaxbee waved us on. Kit, Roger, and I crab-ran to the aircraft. I held onto Kit’s hand so I didn’t blow away. We threw our two small overnight bags to Roger as he jumped into the back seat. The cabin was a tight fit – the pilot with two passenger seats up front and one behind.
I took the middle seat next to Jaxbee with Kit on my right. The noise from the rotors was so loud it made my head hurt. She gave us a thumbs-up and motioned to the headsets. Roger, Kit, and I clamped on the earphones. We buckled in and a wobbly instant later the ground dropped away. I gritted my teeth as my stomach turned over. The cruise ships beneath us became toys in the blue-green sea as the fuel smell in the cabin dissipated.
Jaxbee’s voice crackled in my earphones. “Wendy, I’m so sorry.”
I nodded. My hands were sweaty and I felt dizzy. If I’d had more time to think about this, I might have chickened out. Kit grabbed my hand and held on – two wet palms meeting in panic.
“Who’s the dude in the back?”
“My doctor.” Now I was lying for Roger.
“It’s almost a two-hour flight to the yacht. Want to take the controls?” Jaxbee asked.
I shook my head, no.
“It’ll take your mind off Marni. This can be your first Jaxbee flying lesson.” She placed my left hand on the stick and held it there. “That’s the cyclic, it makes the nose go up or down and changes the direction. I’ll hold your hand on it.”
My fingers trembled. I was afraid to move.
“Watch your rpm’s. I’ve got the rudder pedals.”
What the hell was she talking about? I had visions of us falling from the sky like a bunch of Looney Tunes characters. Acme helicopter bites the dust.
The chopper had a glass dome that curved from above our heads to below our feet. It created a dizzying depthless torment to my coordination-challenged mind. I couldn’t gauge how high above the whitecaps we were as the blue ocean raced beneath our feet. I imagined at any second we would plunge into the sea.
Scared frozen – my hand remained on the stick and my eyes fixed on the horizon. Jaxbee’s hand never left mine as she moved the cyclic giving me the feeling for the control.
We’d flown for what seemed like the longest hour and a half of my life when Jaxbee nudged my hand off the stick. “Hang on,” she said as the chopper dropped twenty feet. “Going below line-of-sight before we land on the ship. The Predator’s cloaking shield is up.”
“Where? I can’t see the ship! Oh shit!” I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for the impact.
Nothing.
I opened one eye. We were flying about fifteen feet over the water alongside the Predator. It appeared as a hologram over Jaxbee’s shoulder, close enough to touch. She twisted the top of a lever on her left and the bird climbed level with the upper deck of the monster ship. Hearing a whirring noise, I looked back. It was the tail rotor kicking in. The chopper turned into a landing position facing the helideck, lowered, and slid onto the landing pad coming to a perfect stop as gently as a butterfly landing on a flow
er. I was more than impressed. I had yet to master parallel parking.
“You only have fifty-nine more hours till you get your license. You can breathe now,” she said as she cut the engine. Three crewmen rushed out and tied down the chopper. I scrambled out as the blades slowed. Kit and Roger followed.
Hook walked out to meet us with Dale at his side. “Who the hell is this?” He pointed to Roger.
“He’s my personal physician here to save Marni. Dr. Roger Jolley.”
“I didn’t give you my permission to bring anyone else.”
“You can sue me once we get her to a hospital.”
“Bitch. Dale will take your cell phones.”
Dale sneered and held his hand out. A tattoo of a fanged snake curled around his wrist and ended at his fingers.
“I’m not parting with my phone. Screw you,” I said.
“Marni’s in an oxygen tent. We can’t run the risk of a spark. You’ll get them back when you leave.”
I looked at Kit and Roger. They shrugged. We handed over our cells.
Dale grabbed all three phones. He made a show of walking to the railing and pitching them into the ocean, then turning to Hook for approval.
“Oh shit.” Kit said. He ran to the railing and grabbed for his phone. Dale backhanded him. Kit came at the quartermaster knocking him against the railing and giving him a knee in the groin. Dale doubled over.
“Enough!” Hook snapped.
Dale straightened up with a look to kill on his face. He put his hand on the butt of his gun.
Hook shook his head and Dale backed off.
Kit stepped between the pissed-off quartermaster and me.
I shuddered. It was too late to protest, our phones were gone. Roger shot me a look that said “let it go.” Marni was my instant concern. Deal with Hook and his twerp later.
We followed our host down a spiral staircase to a corridor leading to the last stateroom in the stern. A huge platform bed sat in the center of the room. A tiny creature lay in a gauzy tent.
Marni’s dog, Tinkerbelle, scampered across the floor to me. She jumped at my legs as I stepped over her and ran to the bed.
Roger was one step behind me. “That’s not an oxygen tent…there’s no supply,” he said. “Don’t touch anything.” He grabbed my hand as I was about to pull the tent from her face.
Marni’s body was withered, her beautiful raven hair had fallen out, her eyebrows were gone, and her eyes were dead orbs.
Hook stood in the doorway looking like the worthless lump of shit he was.
“Take her to a hospital,” I screamed at him.
“And get nabbed? Hell, no. I’m not going to some prison where you have to protect your ass and piss on your own feet.” He left the room.
Marni moved her hand on the bed, motioning me to come closer. Roger pulled me back. “Here put this mask on and don’t touch her,” he whispered. A box of disposable face masks rested on the dresser. “This isn’t any tropical disease. I think it’s radiation poisoning, probably polonium.”
I squinted my eyes trying to focus on him. Who was he to tell me this? What the hell was polonium? Stepping back to the doorway, I felt light-headed and dropped to the floor. Roger and Kit sat down beside me.
Roger held my hands as he spoke softly. “The Russian spy murdered a few years ago… that’s the stuff they used. It only takes a small amount. She has all the symptoms. There’s nothing that can be done for her. Hook’s right. It’s too late.”
Kit helped me to my feet. I staggered to Marni’s bedside. Slipping the mask over my face, I leaned close to the tent. Marni struggled for each word. “Please be there for Hook. Promise me. Take care of him.”
And so I promised. The mother of all promises.
Tinkerbelle whimpered to be lifted. Pushing on the tent, the puppy tried to lick Marni’s face as if willing her to live. I pulled Tink back before she ripped the tent. The feeling of helplessness was overwhelming. I thought of Marni’s mother, before she got breast cancer, bringing her little girl into the office. Marni dragging her glittery-gold princess Barbie.
Two days later, her last day, I donned protective surgical gloves, picked up the edge of the tent and pressed a wet cloth to her parched lips. Marni whispered, “Remember, you promised.”
I swore again to care for Hook. I wondered about the statute of limitations on promises made to dying daughters of friends. Marni slowly drifted from this life on a morphine cloud. It was as if her body had turned to dust even while her heart kept beating.
“I can hear the dolphin crying,” she said, and then she said no more.
***
We buried her at sea. It was a stormy day when the crewmen slipped her withered body, wrapped in a white sheet, into the vast black, roiling ocean as we stood at her side. I recited Psalm 23 from memory. When I got to I will fear no evil, I lost control and couldn’t continue.
Hook never shed a tear. Where was his heart that he could stroll through life feeling nothing?
Jaxbee and I walked around like zombies.
The splash of Marni’s corpse entering the water would haunt me forever. More angry than sad, I dreaded the day I’d have to talk to her mother. I wasn’t close to Marni, and her conning herself into love to get into Hook’s wealth had really put me off, but she didn’t deserve this.
That sonofabitch Hook let her die to save his own skin. I had to find out who killed her – for Marni, her mother, and me.
Chapter Ten
The Wall Street pirate spent the rest of Marni’s funeral day on the bridge with Jaxbee and Dale. It was a perfect time for me to snoop in his suite. I took tweezers and a kitchen knife. Not knowing how to jimmy a bolt, I planned to use the learn-as-you-go method. As it turned out, the door to his suite wasn’t locked. I guess Hook figured no one would have the audacity to go into his room.
If poison had killed Marni and if Hook were the murderer, I figured he might be stupid enough to keep the empty vial in his bathroom. My hands shook as I opened his vanity drawers and checked out his bottles. He had the usual meds for a man his age – things to deal with blood pressure, cholesterol, hair loss, and a bottle of little blue pills. Ick… sperm germs. I placed the bottle back in the drawer and pumped a fistful of liquid soap in my hands. I did two washes and a rinse before drying my hands on my shorts.
Finding nothing incriminating in his medicine collection, I rifled his desk. Most of the drawers were locked. I found a business card clipped to his lampshade. It read Island Insta Bank International, Nevisland, Nevis Island and a telephone number. The only decoration on the card was a large old-growth oak tree in an unusual shape – no limbs on the left of its thick trunk and a full trailing cluster of branches on the right. I replaced the card, did a quick check of Hook’s closet and then… damn!
The suite door opened and the newly minted widower walked in.
I jumped back into the closet and huddled in a ball under Marni’s long dinner dresses that hung from padded hangers. What could I say if he found me? I could claim my grief had driven me to wallow in Marni’s closet… sounded weak.
His footsteps echoed on the teak floors. Ice cubes clunked in a glass and liquid gurgled from a bottle. Hook swallowed with a loud gulp.
I counted to one hundred to let the alcohol get into his system. My choices were three… I could wait until he fell asleep, which might be days, or I could crawl out on my hands and knees and hope he didn’t notice me, or I could bluff. In for a penny, in for a pound, I stepped out of the closet.
Hook was looking out at the gray-blue sea and away from where I stood.
I cleared my throat… let the gaslighting begin. “What did you want?” I asked the back of his head.
“Huh?” He turned to face me… befuddled.
“You asked me to follow you. What do you want?”
Hook squinted his reptilian eyes, looked confused and frowned at me. “Get out of here!”
“Gladly!” I stomped my foot and turned on my heel exiting his suite. Knu
cklehead.
It was time for a drink. A rather large drink. I scooted to the salon bar and made myself a large pitcher of screwdrivers. Once back in my room I shed my mourning clothes, threw on my bikini, and drank till I passed out.
Chapter Eleven
After awaking in my suite to the advances of the UpUGo-engorged Hook and escaping to the sun deck with Tink, I started to take a hard look at our situation. Hook refused to let us leave the Predator, and it was my responsibility to find a way to get Kit, Roger, and me off this tub. I wiped the tears and manned-up.
The sun warmed my face. The breeze took my mind to Miami, a couple of hundred miles away. Maybe I could swim for it? Or fly away? I could get Jaxbee to teach me to pilot the helicopter, but that was a joke. I could barely drive a stick shift.
My eyes watered from the glare of the sun on the brilliant turquoise sea. I put my hand up to shade my face and spotted a silver object filled with ants flying over the waves headed in our direction. A second object appeared in the wake of the first. As they closed on us, the objects became Zodiac-like inflatable speedboats and the ants became people. No planes overhead… it wasn’t the feds.
Hook’s worst fears were bearing down on us as if they could see right through the Predator’s high-tech camouflage. Somebody had found Hook and was coming at him, Terminator-style. I didn’t care about Hook, but we could be collateral damage.
Tinkerbelle’s internal alarm was sounding, and she scurried away as my panic kicked in. I scooped her up and raced for the bridge nearly losing both of us down the stairs and over the side. Cutting through the white-on-white main salon I slid on the marble floor and crashed into one of the Roman arches. I scrambled to my feet and continued my mad dash.
“We’re under attack!” I yelled as I burst onto the bridge. I grabbed the giant ornamental brass bell and pulled the rope causing it to make an anemic clang. So much for mustering the troops.
“Let’s pretend I’m in charge,” said Captain Henry at the helm. He hit some buttons on the control console but nothing happened. The silence was deafening.
“What the hell?” Hook screamed.
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