The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Maybe so, since he’s the one who killed Hollister,” Mitch replied, reaching out his hand to Raine and drawing her into his circle before pushing her behind him. “Add Hugo Reiner into that and I don’t think Dietrich is opposed to killing anyone. At least you’ll get your boss back.”

  Duarte frowned at that. “Don’t worry. I’ve made plans for him.” He tipped his captain’s hat toward Raine. “You have a good day now.”

  She’d never been so glad to see anyone before in her life as she was to see Mitch.

  And no one was more surprised than Mitch when she practically jumped on his back, eventually working her way to leaping into his arms.

  Mitch lifted her off her feet, swung her in a circle. He pushed her hair out of her face, framed it and kissed her flat on the mouth in front of everyone. “You okay?”

  “Better now.”

  Looking into those sharp green eyes of hers, the golden amber around the edges always made him think of fire. He’d always thought she looked like a young version of Meg Ryan. Today, she looked even better. When he noticed she was shivering, he removed the leather jacket he wore and draped it around her shoulders. He started walking her back toward the raft while his brothers kept a careful eye on Duarte’s men to make sure they weren’t planning a double-cross.

  But just as Duarte had promised, Sandoval took possession of Dietrich and Nathan’s body and they all climbed back into their rafts, heading toward the west, and the opposite direction.

  Mitch’s crew was halfway back to The Black Rum when they heard the first shot echoing off the water. Then came another.

  Certain they were being fired at, Mitch gunned the boat. “Stay low. Don’t give them a good target,” he shouted and motioned for everyone to crouch down.

  For cover, Mitch went around to the starboard side, out of sight from the shooters, so they could disembark.

  Mitch secured the lifeboat and helped Raine climb up the ladder.

  Once everyone was on the deck, Anniston came running up. “Did you see that?”

  “We were too busy trying not to get shot,” Garret told her.

  “Duarte wasn’t shooting at you guys,” she explained. “It seems as soon as he got back to the ship, he and Dietrich got into a very animated shouting match. I saw the whole thing through the binoculars. Dietrich kept pointing in our direction and yelling at Duarte, cursing actually. Then all of a sudden Duarte got fed up, took out a pistol and shot him in the head, point blank. I tried to use my phone to video the whole thing but it’s too far. There’s no detail.” But she handed off her phone to Mitch anyway so he could take a look.

  “But there were two gunshots,” Mitch pointed out while he watched the scene play out on Anniston’s phone.

  “Honestly I think Duarte put that second one into Nathan’s body. Duarte had his men throw Dietrich overboard first and then the sheet followed.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, they’re both gone.”

  As if she’d just realized Raine was with them, Anniston grabbed her in a hug. “Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

  “Other than pumping me with something called Ketamine, I’m fine.” She wiggled her toes. “You wouldn’t happen to have a pair of shoes I could borrow, would you?”

  “We’ll see if we can rustle you up a pair,” Mitch told her.

  Trying to get caught up to speed in a hurry was a problem. “Wait. Just wait.” She slid her arm around Mitch’s waist if for no other reason than to steady herself. “Are you saying Nathan’s dead? How’d that happen? Did he tell you anything about Livvy and the kids? Does he know who killed them?”

  “To answer all that could take a few hours. Let me get underway and I’ll tell you all about it.” Mitch turned to his crew. “Let’s see how fast we can make it back to Indigo Key. Flank speed!”

  Pulling Raine along behind him, he headed below deck to his cabin. “Let’s get you into some clean clothes and a hot shower.”

  “Really? Hot water? Is that allowed? What if I use it all up?”

  He laughed and swung her in for a kiss. “I’m pretty sure you’ve earned it.”

  Chapter Five - Justice

  He wasn’t used to sharing his personal space, but he’d make an exception for Raine.

  “I should call my mom, let her know I’m okay.”

  “When you’ve cleaned up, I’ll take you to the bridge. We have a satellite phone that makes it handy to call anywhere in the world.”

  She twirled into the stateroom like she was on a cruise. “Oh my, this cabin is so roomy, much larger than I ever thought possible,” Raine drawled, looking around. “I thought you’d share a bunk or something with four other guys. Is that a king-sized bed?”

  “I am the captain,” Mitch reminded her with a wide grin. “There are benefits to owning my own boat.”

  “And you do have long legs and big feet,” Raine added with a smile.

  He couldn’t stop his lips from curving up. He could barely believe she was standing in his cabin. She absolutely lit up the room. He was amused by her reaction to the bed, knowing he’d bought the boat—paid a little more than he should have—because of this very large stateroom that included an oversized place to sleep.

  In addition to the big bed framed out in golden oak, he had a desk, a nightstand, and an entire wall of bookshelves brimming with hardcover bestsellers and paperback thrillers. The cabin had its own mini galley with a compact fridge. He didn’t have to share a bathroom with any of the crew. He had his own personal head with a roomy shower, a huge bonus since it gave him the privacy on board he craved.

  “How is this possible?” she asked, running her hand over the soft, downy sheets. “It’s like a first-class stateroom on a cruise ship. I’ve seen the brochures.” She plopped down, gave the bed a testing bounce that made him smile again.

  “Not quite like that. But the boat builder did promise me a state-of-the-art fiberglass design that offered considerable less weight than older boats. I signed the papers and made sure he kept his word on that score.” He went over to a dresser and pulled out a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. “These are way too big for you, but it’s all I have.”

  “That’ll work. Anniston’s so tall, her stuff will probably be just as baggy as your clothes.”

  “I’ll get out of your way then and let you get settled.”

  “How long before we pull into port?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Three hours, tops.”

  “Okay. And Mitch?”

  “What?”

  She slid off the bed and came over to him. “Thank you for getting me off that boat and away from Duarte. I’ve never been that scared before in my whole life.”

  His lips curved as he framed her face. “No problem, since we got you into all this. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly. Livvy was my best friend. And after this, after what they did to me, I’m determined to help you get those bastards.”

  “We’re working on that.” He ran a finger down her cheek. “Besides, I couldn’t let my best girl sail off into the sunset with the bad guy. That just isn’t done.”

  He pulled her against him and scooped her up off the floor, clamping his lips over her mouth so quickly she had no time to deflect.

  She thought of nothing but rapture as she plunged headlong into the kiss. Steam rose up between them and hauled her into the wall of heat. She felt his hands grip her hips. It would be so easy to tumble into that big bed.

  Her head was spinning when he finally let her go. “That’s just a sample. I have a lot more stored up in me.”

  She fanned a hand in front of her face. “I’ve found through the years that no one kisses quite the way you do.”

  “I’m glad you remember. Now what can I fix you to eat? It’s my turn in the galley tonight and you must be starving.”

  She put a hand over her stomach. “I’m still kinda queasy, but I could use some chicken soup if you have it, maybe with a piece of plain bread.”

  �
�I can handle that. There are towels in the bathroom cabinet and my robe is hanging on the back of the door. It’s clean. If you need anything else, give a holler.”

  “Will do.” She patted his face. This time she brought his head down, stood on tiptoes to reach his lips. “I won’t be long.”

  Twenty minutes later, she floated out of the steam and back into the bedroom wrapped in a pale blue robe, soft as Egyptian cotton.

  Mitch handed her a bottle of water.

  She didn’t seem surprised to see him sitting on the bed. “My gosh, that bathroom is downright luxurious. And all these years I thought you were roughing it at sea.”

  He shot out a laugh. “Believe me, I did. For the first four years I shared a cabin with three other guys, one of them was Walsh. I can tell you this much, it was hardly a ride at Disney World. Hard work from six in the morning until I dropped into my bunk around eight at night. But I’m not complaining. It got me here, at this spot, watching you, half naked, standing in my cabin. What more could a man ask for?”

  “I’m not naked, half or otherwise.”

  “You could be.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be cooking?”

  “I got the stew started, Garret offered to watch it simmer.”

  “Get out of here and let me get dressed,” she said, sending him a laugh when he got to his feet. “We can’t do this here, Mitch. You have a boatful of crew and…there are friends on board.”

  “I know that. But I can still kiss you while you’re standing in my cabin wearing my robe, a dream of mine on so many long nights at sea.”

  She let him ravage her mouth again because it felt good. So did the strong arms that wrapped around her body, especially after what she’d been through the last twenty-four hours. But the comfort he gave her was no excuse to toss out the caution she’d practiced.

  “I’ll take that soup now,” she said, taking a deliberate step back.

  He simply grinned at her restraint. “You want it delivered?”

  “No, I’ll come to you.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Later they bunched around the galley table, taking turns catching Raine up on the past few days. Mitch went over everything, detail by detail.

  “Then you didn’t recover the documents and neither did Dietrich?” Raine concluded.

  “No,” Mitch said sadly. “But like I said, we’re working on it.”

  Anniston told her about what Nathan had written in blood.

  Skewing her mouth up at the word, Raine mulled it over for a full minute. “Nathan must’ve thought the word ‘pot’ was a significant enough clue.”

  “More like three letters is all the time he had before he bled to death,” Mitch pointed out.

  “The fact his last word was ‘pot’ has to be the clue,” Raine said in disagreement. “He has to be referring to the family tomb where he used to hide out from his dad and smoke weed all the time.”

  Jackson cocked his head. “How do you know about that?”

  She slanted him a long look. “How do you think? Because I went out there with him a time or two.” She lifted a shoulder. “Back then everyone did.”

  “I never did,” Garret stated. “Why wasn’t I included?”

  Raine patted his face. “Because you had your own spot, that place underneath the bridge just this side of town.”

  Garret grinned. “You knew about that, huh? Why didn’t you ever come out there with me then?”

  She sighed and sent Mitch a knowing look. “At the time I was madly in love with your brother and wanted to hang out with the older crowd.”

  Mitch reached across the table, squeezed her fingers. “Hey, madly in love, once upon a time.”

  “Aww,” Anniston said. “You two made up.”

  Raine tilted her head to look at Mitch. “I wouldn’t go that far. But he did save me from ending up in Romania or South America, probably targeted as a sex slave for the rest of my life. You know, that was my first thought when I woke up, locked in that cabin and couldn’t get out. At the time, I had no idea why they’d kidnapped me. That’s the only reason I could think of.”

  Mitch tightened his grip on her hand. “I’m sorry. You had to be scared sick.”

  “Oh, I was. I pounded on the door to the cabin, but no one responded. A man eventually showed up. I know now it was Duarte. He came to settle me down, but he never said a word then about trading me for Nathan. I didn’t know about that until he brought me up on deck as we were nearing Mutiny Bay. Then he sent one of his goons to stand next to me so I wouldn’t jump off into the ocean. As if.”

  “What do you remember about being taken, about that night?” Mitch asked. “Were you in the house?”

  She shook her head. “I’d done some cleaning to keep my mind off things. I tossed a lot of unwanted stuff in trash sacks. I’ve made a hundred trips to that dumpster late at night without a problem. Never again though. I raised my arm to open the lid and toss the bag inside and that’s when a hand clamped over my mouth.” She sat there a minute before going on. “Wait. He wasn’t wearing gloves. I remember that now. His skin was a little wrinkled, like an older man had hold of me. He had a ring on his right hand, one of those class rings, but different, not a school or university, but something else with an insignia. I remember fighting for a few seconds and as I did, I touched the ring. I’m sorry. I don’t know anything else about what it looked like.”

  Anniston patted her arm. “Sneaky bastard, picking on women. It sounds like something this bunch has down to a fine art. Women and little kids.”

  Raine sighed. “It just makes me want to help even more. I have my own score to settle with whoever did this. I can’t believe Dietrich is dead.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it either if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  Walsh came in to get coffee. “So what’s the plan once we get back to Indigo Key?”

  Mitch finished off his plate of stew and stretched out his legs. “We try to get our hands on Hugo’s precious documents, line up the translator for the diary, see if it holds any clues about this mythical Nazi bullion, and if it does, we get to it first.”

  Walsh lifted his brow as he sipped his mug. “Even if that means going up against Duarte’s men?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re serious.”

  “I am. There’d be a sizeable finder’s fee involved from all the countries involved that got ripped off during the war, all the countries that had banks plundered and raided, their gold stolen. Off the top of my head I can think of three, France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, to name a few.”

  “I read something about sunken war ships. Many are considered war graves,” Garret offered. “War graves would revert back to the original country automatically.”

  Mitch crossed his ankles, leaned back in his chair. “I can tell you this much. Duarte wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about returning anything to anyone, including remains. Any U-boat found in these waters would likely fall into that category. Germany would definitely want its missing-in-action soldiers back. But after that, I would say the countries I mentioned would fight to get the gold returned to them.”

  “It’d be a mess,” Walsh decided. “Do you really want to get tangled up in the courts for several years?”

  Mitch agreed. “It would indeed be a lengthy process. Plus, it could take years to find the damn thing. Maybe we should take a vote, here and now, about what we do going forward.”

  Garret held up a hand. “I hope you’re talking about getting to the gold after we set our sights on taking down that rat nest in town.”

  “That’s a given,” Mitch assured him. “The rat nest is our number one priority.”

  Raine didn’t hesitate. “I’m in. Whatever it takes to knock down Baskin’s house of cards, I want to be a part of it. If it includes messing with Duarte’s plans for the gold, I’m fine with that, too. I want my payback from them for scaring me half to death.”

  “As long as we get B
askin, Dandridge, Sinclair, and the rest first, then I’m good with hunting down the gold,” Jackson stated. “Maybe if our share of the finder’s fee is enough we could start a scholarship fund in Livvy’s name.”

  “That sounds like a fine idea to me.” Mitch turned to Anniston and Sebastian. “Your thoughts?”

  “I like the scholarship idea,” Anniston said. “Is there any way we could include Dack in that?”

  Mitch looked around the table. “Sure. If we end up going for the gold, everyone involved would get an equal share, including my crew. What each individual decides to do with their portion is up to them.” He turned to Sebastian. “Anything yet on who Dandridge really is?”

  Sebastian sent him a wry smile. “I’ve done some work on that in my spare time over the past forty-eight hours. Thanks to Raine coming up with that blog post Willis Hartman wrote before he died, I set up an appointment with Hartman’s daughter. As soon as I learned we were heading into port, I made arrangements to see her. I’m taking off for Port Saint Lucie tomorrow to see if she remembers anything about Dandridge. It’s a long shot I know. Could be that Dandridge simply lifted the sermon off an obscure website out of desperation. Maybe that Sunday he ran out of anything to preach about and stumbled on Hartman’s post.”

  “Could be, but something tells me it’s more than that,” Mitch said. “Maybe because since we came back home to Indigo Key that’s all we’ve been doing is uncovering everyone’s darkest kept secrets. These upstanding citizens we’ve known for years—the pastor, the string of businessmen, the chief of police—have something to hide. They aren’t who we thought they were. It disturbs me to know that. A dozen years ago I left a town behind that I don’t even recognize today. Knowing how easy it was for these guys to hide in plain sight within the community and no one questioned their backgrounds, it upsets me. The fact that no one truly knows who they are is something we should all take note. I mean, Mom and Dad attended that church for more than twenty years, thought they knew Boone. They didn’t. The fact that he was able to fool Dad is huge.”