by Zoe York
Julie obviously didn’t do fluttery. She did serious. Smart.
And Julie was his, damn it! Not Tobin’s. No way.
Sure, Seth got his fair share of interest from women, but they were rarely the kind of woman he was interested in. And for once, it felt good to be chosen in a direct comparison to his happy-go-lucky brother. The one who got everything so easily: girls, fun, crazy adventures.
Seth, on the other hand, got into good schools. Got promoted. But he never got to be just himself, except around her.
Julie liked his jokes. Julie had no fear. Well, hardly any. She could talk boats, sports, and politics. She’d seen the world, but when she looked into his eyes, it felt like everything else ceased to exist.
Including his brother, whom she’d never shown any interest in. Even now, she seemed immune to Tobin, concentrated entirely on patching him up. And Tobin had been remarkably hands off so far. Seth had to give him that.
Just in case, though, he handed Julie the bottle of antiseptic and motioned toward his brother’s face.
Tobin caught a whiff of it and leaned back. Way back. “Shit, that’s gonna sting.”
“Don’t want it to get infected,” Seth said. Which was technically true.
Tobin made a hissing noise when Julie dabbed it on, and she started speaking so quietly, Seth almost missed her first words.
“The man in charge of the Xtlemacán excavation site — Leeds — gave me some documents to deliver. Stupid, I know.” Her voice was all anger and no self-pity. “But after getting chased, I figured something was up. So I looked in the package.”
The cabin went still until Tobin spoke up. “And?”
“There was a box inside the box.”
“So what was in it?”
“I don’t know.” She started unpeeling sticky sutures and lining them up over Tobin’s gash. “I mean, I know, but I don’t know what it’s for.”
“What what’s for?” Tobin mumbled out the side of his mouth.
“And what’s the rush to get out of here? They have what they want.” Seth waved a hand west, where the motorboat had gone.
“No, they don’t.” She stuck on a last suture and leaned back to examine her work then gave a little nod.
“Julie!” Tobin forced her to meet his gaze just on the strength of his voice. “Explain.”
She bit her lip and started studying the floor. “I took the inner box out. Filled the outer box with about the same weight of stuff.” She glanced up with a rueful expression. “I owe you a couple of paperbacks.”
So that’s why she’d taken so long before dinner. Then a realization clicked in Seth’s mind.
“Not the Patrick O’Brians!”
The look she gave him said, Are you kidding? “No, I took those smutty adventure books.”
Tobin yelped. “Not my Caribbean pirate series!”
She gave a weak nod. “Sorry.”
Tobin rushed to the forward cabin then rushed back, looking positively anguished. “There was a picture in one of those books…”
“I took out the notes and bookmarks and stuck them behind the shelf.” Julie disappeared into the forward berth then backed out. “These?”
Tobin snatched the papers and held them to his chest, but not before Seth got a look at the top one — and did a double take.
“Jesus, man, you still have a picture of Cara? That was like five years ago!”
Tobin swung his body away to shield it. “Six,” he mumbled then stalked forward to tuck the picture out of sight.
His brother was still pining for Cara? Seth thought Tobin was long since over the fiasco of his almost-wedding. But judging by the way Tobin looked at the photo now — holding it in two hands like his most precious possession… Maybe not. Considering how much it hurt to have lost Julie for two months… Seth didn’t want to think what six years would be like.
Except that now was hardly the time for all that. He rocked on his heels, trying to piece together Julie’s story. “So those goons have a couple of paperbacks and we have…what?”
“Where?” Tobin added.
Julie’s eyes slid toward the bathroom cabinet between the main cabin and forward berth.
“Under there.”
Seth was on his knees in a minute, pulling out fishing gear and spare parts.
“Stuck up by the sink drain,” she whispered, so quietly you’d think she didn’t want it found.
He groped around until his hand found a square corner among the curved pipes then followed it along the edges of a box. He worked it out of the tight space, then sat back on his heels, looking at it. A Marlboro carton, frayed around the edges. He turned it over and gave it a shake. Solid, by the feel of it. Not too heavy, not too light. “So what’s in it?”
“Have a look,” Julie sighed.
He brought it to the salon table and stared at the flap for a minute. Who stashed documents in a Marlboro carton? Who delivered things to convents that way?
“Open it already,” Tobin urged.
Seth popped the end flap open, tipped the box, and shook it a little so the first sheaf of paper slid out.
For a minute, there was only a collective catching of breath, the distant murmur of waves on the beach. Then Tobin let out a long, appreciative whistle.
Seth leaned back.
Julie took a breath so deep, the air pressure in the cabin dropped. “There’s more.”
He shook the box again, mind spinning as he did. “How much more?” he asked as the next batch of greenbacks came edging out.
“Oh,” she said, “about a hundred thousand dollars more.”
— TWENTY —
Seth had done his share of night sailing when he and Tobin brought the boat down the East Coast of the US to the Caribbean, but that was in open water. Navigating through reefs at night went against every sailor’s rule of common sense. He could feel his grandfather’s ghost peering over his shoulder as he started the engine and weighed anchor. Hand over hand, he pulled the chain up, every link a gritty reminder of why this was such a bad idea.
But staying was a bad idea, too. They’d been through the options and reluctantly agreed to Julie’s plan. There was no better way.
He hauled up an arm’s length of anchor chain and decided she was crazy. On the next length, he went back to thinking she was brilliant. Or maybe just a combination of the two. His thoughts seesawed that way through another eighty feet of chain.
“Anchor up!” he called back to Tobin, who stood at the wheel. Julie was below, eyeing their GPS, calling out instructions to the helm as they backtracked over their exact inbound track. Slowly. Very slowly. Seth stayed at the bow as lookout, though the only reefs he could make out in the light of the moon were dull underwater shadows that were only clear when they appeared directly under the bow — much too late to call a warning. So far, they’d been lucky.
So far.
His mind spun over the possibilities one more time.
They couldn’t go to the police, because the men who’d pointed guns at them less than an hour ago were cops. Corrupt cops, from the look of it.
They couldn’t dispose of the cash or simply keep it, as Tobin suggested. Dirty cash was dirty cash, whether it came from the illegal sale of illicit artifacts or drugs — and getting rid of it or running wouldn’t get the corrupt cops off their backs. Then there was the source: when Professor Leeds found out his package never made it, he’d come after Serendipity, too.
“But a boat is a boat,” Seth tried. “We can always take off for Mexico or Honduras.”
“Yeah,” Tobin said skeptically. “All those not-at-all corrupt places. We can add Panama to the list. Maybe go to Colombia.”
Point made. And anyway, they’d never outrace the motorboat if it decided to take up the chase.
They couldn’t accept Julie’s original suggestion, either: that since it was all her fault and she was such an idiot — her words — they ought to dump her at the nearest port and let her deal with it on her own.
Right. Lik
e he’d ever let that happen. Hell, he’d had the woman up against a tree at the beginning of this crazy night. And the secret promise he’d made then — that he’d do anything to convince her to give him one more chance — was one he’d never break.
But to get to the point where they could even think about that, they had to get rid of the cash in a way that got the cops off their tail. But how?
Serendipity nosed out of the lee of the island and into open water. It was a relatively calm night with a steady trade-wind breeze. That much, at least, was on their side for what they had in mind.
They’d need any luck they could get, because the trickiest option was the last one — the one they were heading for like three blind mice.
— TWENTY-ONE —
Julie kept her eyes on the GPS and her hands gripped tightly along the sides of the chart table. All those reefs and a very thin, meandering line to follow between them — at night. And it wasn’t like Serendipity had headlights; all they had was the light of the moon. Seth had even turned off the mast-top light and taken down the radar reflector to make it harder for Hernandez and his men to find Serendipity when they realized they’d been duped. Which probably wouldn’t take long.
The electronics console in front of her had a busted radio. Tobin, steering at the boat’s wheel, had a busted cheek, because of her. Seth, keeping lookout at the bow, had a fire in his eyes that scared her with its intensity. And Julie, she had a busted ego. She’d messed up — no, fucked up — big-time. She’d caused all this.
“A little more to the right,” she called out the cabin door.
“Starboard,” Tobin called back quietly, his voice light and patient. Which only made her hang her head lower. She’d never taken the younger brother seriously, but the man had the heart of a soldier, the courage of a lion. He had no reason to help her on this at all — but he was all in. Unquestioningly on her team.
God, she’d lucked out with these two. Especially with Seth. How had she ever doubted him?
Well, she’d bury her head in a bucket later — if Hernandez and his men didn’t do that for her. Right now, she had to focus on guiding the boat out of the reefs, then getting to the convent.
Which was probably going to be about as safe as sailing a boat through a maze of reefs at night. But she was sure that was the only way. Professor Leeds wanted the package delivered to the convent at Matigúas? He’d get it delivered.
“But are the nuns really nuns?” Seth had made a good point when they hashed it out.
“There was a name on the package,” she said. “A man’s name. Roberto somebody. So I’m guessing the nuns are legit.”
The more she thought about it, the more she decided the convent and orphanage really were legitimate. Professor Leeds had pictures of it all over the excavation office — lots of shots of happy kids giving the camera a thumbs-up. News article clippings, even. If Leeds was using the convent, it was as a front.
“I don’t get it. Why is an archaeologist sending money to a convent?” Seth had asked.
She shrugged. “I bet he’s selling artifacts illegally in Guatemala then laundering the money through Belize. I bet part of it really does get to the nuns and the kids. But the rest probably goes to a private account. And this guy Roberto, I figure, is Leeds’ inside man.”
“A guy in a convent?”
“A gardener, maybe,” she guessed. “The rector? Who knows? Just someone to handle Leeds’ payments without drawing attention to himself.”
“Let’s hope Roberto isn’t the guy who buries bodies in the yard,” Tobin had muttered then.
In the end, they decided it didn’t matter — much. If they could get the money to the nuns, it would be off their hands. There’d be no evidence of wrongdoing on their part, and Professor Leeds, if he had his own band of goons, couldn’t reprimand her for delivering the package as requested. Right?
“Unless the convent turns out to be a drug den,” Seth pointed out. “Then we’re completely screwed.”
They would be screwed. Her logic was shaky at best, the whole plan a long shot. Julie chewed her lips and plucked at a strand of her shirt as her eyes strained at the GPS screen. No need to get ahead of herself. Right now, getting back to the mainland was all that mattered.
“A little more lef— port,” she called.
“A born sailor,” Tobin chuckled. Humor in the line of fire — the man had guts.
She eyed the distance to the mainland on the chart. Twenty miles. Didn’t seem like much, but Seth said it would take about four hours.
“Except the damn tide’s against us,” Tobin muttered.
Right, the tide. She eyed the navigation instruments uncertainly. Some pirate she’d make.
Seth, on the other hand, made a damn good buccaneer. Scruffy hair, shadowed chin, dark eyes. The couple of times he ducked into the cabin to check the instruments, he could have had a knife between his teeth and said Arrr, arrr! When he checked with Tobin at the wheel, his commands were curt and confident, as if he’d been piloting these waters all his life.
That second chance he’d been talking about — she wanted it, too. If they ever got out of this mess.
It took five hours in the end, and her eyes were dry and scratchy by the time they dropped anchor in a secluded cove not far south of Santa Marta. The place didn’t even appear on the chart, just as a sketch on the back of a beer coaster another sailor had given Seth some time ago. He had a whole collection of them — navigation coasters, he called them with a little grin.
When Julie finally left the chart table to come on deck, the sky was split into a dozen layers of pink, orange, and red.
“Wow,” she breathed. Sunrise over the ocean was even more beautiful when seen from a boat, the water all around Serendipity turning gold.
It would have been a Kodak moment if she hadn’t had so much on her mind. Then an arm slipped around her waist, and Seth was there, leaning his head against hers, giving her silent reassurance. The fringing jungle was alive with avian squawks and whistles, and the moon hung just above it, as if it had been waiting for them to wave it good day. A moment she didn’t need a camera for to remember forever.
She sighed, and he did too. If only they could hide beneath a blanket and push the world away. But the sun was rising; it was time to get moving.
“Okay, Indiana Jones, you lead the way,” Tobin said once they’d beached the dinghy and faced a thick wall of jungle.
She looked left, then right. The coastal road wasn’t far inland, but getting there… She reached over a shoulder and withdrew her machete from its straps on the outside of her backpack, then glanced at Seth one more time.
He was gazing back at Serendipity, anchored so serenely in the cove, its reflection rippling slightly in the calm water. Then he caught her gaze and she saw it: a vision of the two of them on that boat, in another cove, another day. With all the serenity and none of the anxiety.
She took a deep breath and stilled her wobbly knees. Mission first. Future later.
Zing! She slashed the machete through the knotted undergrowth. Swish! A clutch of vines fell. Whoosh! Leaves the size of umbrellas fluttered to her feet. Given a couple of days, Mother Nature would work her magic, closing the gap like it had never been there.
Thwack! Step by step, she led her little band forward. There was a certain thrill to it, a high. And even though sweat was pouring down her face and her arm aching by the time they broke out onto the road, it felt good to be doing something other than running away.
“Now what?” Seth asked, looking up the empty road.
She wiped the sleeve of her T-shirt over her face. “We catch the first bus that comes along, get the bike, and hightail it to the convent.” She patted the bulge in her backpack, feeling the package they couldn’t wait to get rid of.
“Easy,” she finished, hoping she was right.
— TWENTY-TWO —
An hour later, Julie was humming down the road on her motorcycle, street dust sticking to her sweaty ski
n. The bus driver had given her directions to the convent, twenty miles up into the hills, when he’d left them a few blocks from the place she and Seth had stashed her bike before fleeing for the boat.
Everything was a rush except getting on the bike, because the place she’d hidden it — in the bushes beside the beach bungalow where she’d been staying when she first met Seth — was full of memories. She could have stood there and relived them all day: the laughs, the late-night talks, the early-morning sex, and well…pretty much everything in between. Amazing how two people could tumble right into love, given the right time and place. She’d been scared to use the word then, but it was getting closer and closer to the tip of her tongue with every minute she spent with Seth.
Every minute, and every mile. Because they’d covered a hell of a lot already — on foot, by road, and on the boat. Hell, what an adventure.
When she shook herself out of her reverie and onto the bike and Seth swung up to sit behind her, that L word was closer than ever. The bumps in the road nearly rattled it out of her, as did the beauty of the morning sun, slanting gold-green over the fields and patchy forests along the way. It was quite the contrast to a night of sashaying gracefully over the ocean waves on Serendipity. And quite the contrast to her usual mode of travel — alone.
Seth’s arms wrapped so far around her that they overlapped at her waist. He wasn’t just hanging on. He was protecting, promising. If the Kawasaki’s engine weren’t so loud, she might even have said it.
I love you.
She pulled in a deep breath, letting her ribs expand under his touch. It was just the two of them, because they’d left Tobin in town. Assuming everything went smoothly, they would meet back at the beach bar later. A big assumption… But if things did pan out, she’d have a hell of a lot to say to Seth the minute she got the chance. Starting with those three words and I want a chance with you, too.
The hill was getting steeper and the truck in front of them slower, so she glanced at the triple image in the cracked side mirror.
The road was clear. She sped past the truck then pulled back into the right lane. A red car behind them did the same, and again when they both overtook a straining little three-wheeler piled high with fuel jugs. When the red car revved up to pass the next car, too, she looked more closely. And when it swung into the sharp right turn to the convent at the same time as her, she muttered out loud.