Into the Deep

by Virginia Smith

  But what about that note?

  Ben’s step faltered as he passed a twenty-two-foot sailboat getting ready to leave the pier. Okay, the note could be explained, too. Somehow the Reynosa people had found out about Nikki’s visit. Or…maybe they’d witnessed the encounter on the pier. He’d long suspected they were keeping close tabs on him. Yeah, that was probably it. They jumped on the opportunity, decided to use her as another scare tactic to force him to act.

  But there was no way they could know for sure he had the flash drive. They were guessing, hoping to force an admission out of him. The best thing he could do was treat this attempt like the others, and ignore it. As long as he didn’t confirm their guesses, he and Nikki would both be safe.

  His course of action decided, the confidence returned to Ben’s step as he continued down the pier. Up ahead, he saw activity around the Sally Jane, the larger of the two dive boats owned by Key West Water Adventures. He bypassed the shop and went to the edge of the pier.

  Tyler, co-owner of the shop and dive master on the Sally Jane, stood in the boat, snapping a diving cylinder into white plastic tank holders. On the dock, a cart with one more cylinder waited nearby. Ben dropped his backpack on the pier and grabbed it. When Tyler turned around, Ben handed the tank into the boat.

  “Hey, man. You’re here early.” Ben nodded at the nineteen cylinders already secured. “I would have helped if you’d just waited a minute.”

  “No problem,” Tyler assured him. “I wanted to get a jump on the day. Now that you’re here, could you grab the weight belts? We’ve got eight divers this morning, all renting equipment.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Ben scooped up his backpack and tossed it onto the empty metal cart. He started toward the shop, pulling the cart behind him.

  “Oh, yeah,” Tyler said. “When I came in this morning there was an envelope on the floor. Had your name on it.”

  Ben stopped. Though the early morning sun was already working overtime to warm the air, a chill cooled his core. He turned. “My name?”

  Tyler nodded, unconcerned. “Somebody must have shoved it under the door. It’s on the counter.”

  Without another word, Ben hurried toward the shop. He left the cart in the center of the floor while he scooped up a manila envelope from the edge of the counter. Careful block letters spelled out his name in blue ink.

  Fingers trembling, Ben bent open the metal clasp and unfolded the flap. A single piece of paper had been slipped inside. A sentence of Spanish scrawled expansively across one side.

  Tráigalo al Mallory Square en la puesta del sol.

  The second note in two days, but this one had the unmistakable sound of a demand. Bring it to Mallory Square at sunset. No doubt what it the note referred to.

  Ben turned the paper over to look at the back side. When he did, his heart skidded to a stop.

  The door behind him opened. He whirled, and then leaped forward to grip Tyler’s shoulder. “Can you handle the morning dive without me?” He hadn’t meant to shout, but his voice filled the small dive shop.

  Tyler’s eyebrows arched. “Sure, Ben. I’ll give Jason a call. He can always step in on short notice.” Concern colored his boss’s features. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah. No.” Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve got to go.”

  He scooped up his backpack and shoved the door open with his shoulder. He stuffed the paper in the pack as he sprinted down the pier toward his bicycle.

  Nikki’s resort was located near the center of the four-mile-long island. Ben arrived there in a matter of minutes. He didn’t bother bringing the bike to a stop before jumping off in front of Building C. By the time the bike hit the side of the building and came to an abrupt halt in a flowering shrub, Ben was already beating a fist against Nikki’s door.

  “Nikki, it’s Ben.” When she didn’t appear immediately, he pounded the wood harder. “Come on, Nikki. Open the door.”

  A sound came from inside. A scrape, and then the dead bolt turning. The door opened inward. Nikki stood inside wearing a pair of stretchy sweats and a rumpled T-shirt, a blue coffee mug in one hand.

  Her lips twisted sideways. “This is becoming a habit, Ben.”

  Relief washed over him. She was okay. With an effort, he restrained himself from wrapping his arms around her in a protective hug. Instead, he took a step forward.

  She didn’t move. Her hair, inches from his nose, smelled of soap and flowers. A clean smell, outdoorsy and fresh.

  “May I come in?” Her head started to shake, but he spoke again quickly, before she could deny him. “Please, Nikki. I need to tell you something important.”

  Her sigh delivered a whiff of coffee-scented breath before she stepped back. “All right, but I don’t have long.”

  He brushed past her and edged around a chair in the entry. What in the world? When she closed the door and turned around, she saw him looking at it.

  “I, uh, propped it under the door handle last night.” A flush colored her cheeks. “You had me pretty spooked.”

  “Good. You should be.”

  He entered the condo and plopped his backpack down on the breakfast counter. She went into the kitchen and stood on the other side, watching him with a cautious tilt to her head.

  “I’d just about convinced myself that you were right, that you being here is nothing more than a coincidence.” No need to mention his night spent outside her door. He slid the pack’s zipper open and pulled out the paper. “Until I found this waiting for me at the dive shop this morning.”

  Nikki held his gaze as she took the paper. When she looked down, she gasped. Color drained from her face. “It’s a picture of me. This…this was taken last night.”

  Ben looked at the black-and-white photo. It had been printed on regular paper by a computer printer. Even so, the quality was quite good, not grainy at all. In it, Nikki reclined on a lawn chair, a cell phone held to her ear. Her lips curved into an attractive half smile, and her eyes held a faraway look, her attention focused on whomever was on the other side of that phone. A stab of jealousy surprised Ben. Who commanded her attention so thoroughly?

  He shook away the question. Behind her in the photograph, the patio door stood open. Through it, he glimpsed familiar-looking furniture. A quick look over his shoulder verified his guess. The picture was taken here, just outside on the patio.

  “I thought so.”

  “I…I heard it. The camera.” She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and gave a shaky nod. “I remember hearing a noise that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place what it was. Now I know. It was the sound of a camera taking a picture.”

  “There’s more.”

  He took the paper from her and turned it over to let her read the note on the back. Her eyelids narrowed as she translated, then looked up at him.

  “What are they talking about, Ben? What do you have that these people want?”

  “Nothing.” His protest met a stony expression. He spread his hands. “Honest, I don’t have it.” He swallowed and lowered his eyes. “I did have it. Briefly. But they don’t know that.”

  She crossed her arms. “Don’t play games with me, Ben. Just tell me. What is it?”

  For the span of a few seconds, they indulged in a stareathon that he had no chance of winning. Nikki wasn’t about to back down until he came clean with her. Ben filled his lungs and blew the air out slowly. She had a right to know, especially since she’d been dragged into the situation against her will.

  He slid the paper toward him and folded it over and over, mostly for something to occupy his hands while he told her about the night Sergio Perez Rueda was killed on a Cozumel beach not far from Ben’s apartment. Then he described how he’d found the flash drive wedged in the tank of his toilet the next morning. Nikki’s eyes widened appreciatively when he told her how he’d discovered that Sergio was a known associate of the Reynosa drug cartel. She had spent enough time in Mexico to know exactly how alarming that was.
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  “And what was on the flash drive?” she asked.

  He pressed one last fold in the paper and avoided her eyes. “I didn’t look.”

  A movement forced his gaze upward. She stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “I know you better than that, Ben Dearinger. The curiosity would have driven you nuts. You looked.”

  He conceded with a dip of his head. She did know him well. “Okay, okay. I looked. But believe me, I wish I hadn’t. The information on that drive was…” He selected a word carefully. “Incriminating.”

  “To you?”

  “No. To someone important.” He glanced over his shoulder, toward the empty living room area. A stupid gesture, but he couldn’t help it. If anyone heard what he was about to say, it could be bad. Very bad. He lowered his voice. “Have you ever heard of Senator Adam Webb?”

  Nikki reeled as though she’d been slapped. She couldn’t have been any more stunned if Ben had told her that Santa Claus had just landed his sleigh on the roof. In fact, she’d believe that more easily than believing that Senator Adam Webb, the man who was daily on the front page of nearly every single newspaper in the country, was somehow involved with the infamous Reynosa drug cartel.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s true. There was a spreadsheet on the flash drive, and it had two pages.” Ben pulled out one of the high-backed bar stools and slid into it. His forehead wrinkled at a memory. “The first page didn’t make sense. Just row after row of numbers and dates, none of them formatted. One column looked like it could have contained dollar amounts, but the others were too long, just a string of unintelligible numbers. Then I saw the tabs along the bottom of the screen. It said Depósitos.”

  “Deposits,” Nikki said. She used spreadsheets at work all the time. She could picture exactly what Ben described.

  He nodded. “The second sheet was labeled Cuentas. Accounts. At the top of that page were the names and addresses of several offshore banks in the Cayman Islands, each with an electronic routing number. Cayman National Bank. Banco do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. First Caribbean International Bank. Then beneath each bank were two columns. A name, and a number that corresponded with one of those long numbers on the first sheet.” His fingers sketched invisible lines on the countertop to demonstrate. “So the first sheet contained deposits made to specific bank accounts, and the second sheet identified the bank account’s owner.”

  Nikki lowered her voice to match his volume. “And Senator Webb’s name was one of them?”

  “Yeah. That’s what got Sergio killed, Nikki. If anyone finds out that Adam Webb is on Reynosa’s payroll…” He let out a low whistle.

  He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Nikki’s imagination filled in the details. The famous senator had won his senate seat primarily because of his hard stand against the Mexican drug cartels and his efforts to stamp out their presence in his home state of Texas. He was widely acknowledged as one of the favorite candidates for his party’s bid for the next presidential election. If it became known that Senator Webb was secretly being paid off by one of the most notorious cartels, it would be among the biggest scandals in the history of the country. Proof would certainly send the senator to prison, not to mention wreck his political future and those of many of his highly placed supporters, as well.

  This was big. Way too big for them.

  “You’ve got to call the FBI, Ben.” She picked up the phone from the far edge of the counter and scooted it toward him.

  Ben backed away like the telephone was poisonous. “I don’t think so. I’d rather not get involved with the feds.”

  Nikki tightened her lips. That was so like Ben, Mr. I-don’t-want-to-get-involved. He hadn’t changed a bit. “You’re already involved. With Reynosa. Personally, I’d prefer the FBI.”

  “I’ve got it under control,” he insisted. “I just have to convince them that I don’t have that flash drive.”

  She couldn’t stop a sarcastic comeback. “Yeah, ’cause that’s worked out so well for you up till now.” She studied him more closely. “Why did they follow you to Key West, anyway? They must have some reason to suspect you’ve got that drive if they followed you all the way from Mexico.”

  He rubbed a hand across his chin. “I wish I knew. I never let on at all. Just played dumb, even when they almost broke my jaw.”

  Nikki straightened. “They hit you?”

  He winced. “That’s an understatement. The day after Sergio died, my room was ransacked. Then that night I surprised a couple of men searching the scuba boat. They roughed me up pretty good.” He ducked his head. “That’s when I knew I had to leave Mexico. I hightailed it outta there the next day.”

  She pursed her lips and watched him. He must have mistaken her silence for an accusation, because he placed his hands flat on the counter and said defensively, “Hey, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. They’d have killed me for sure.”

  “Oh, I agree. I was just thinking that you leaving so suddenly probably looked suspicious. Either that or you didn’t give a very convincing performance when they were, uh, questioning you.”

  His shoulders heaved with a soundless laugh. “Trust me. I did my best.”

  He sounded sincere. If this evidence was important enough to the Reynosa people to beat up Ben and then follow him to Florida, what did that mean for her? Her presence here was a coincidence, of that she was certain. How could it be anything else? But now she had alerted them to her existence. It seemed obvious that someone had seen them together on the pier yesterday and followed her back here, searching for a way to use her to pressure Ben to hand over that information. If they investigated her, it wouldn’t take much to uncover her past relationship with Ben. And if they checked into her life any further, they’d find out that she didn’t live alone. Her blood chilled at the thought.

  Oh, why didn’t I just stay home, where it’s safe?

  The idea to celebrate her birthday in the Florida Keys had been hers, though when she first mentioned it to her friend, she’d assumed that Allison would come with her. She’d thought they could split whatever cost was involved in using the place for the week and figured it would be affordable since it belonged to Allison’s father. She’d never dreamed she would be given the use of the condo for free.

  Even worse, she had almost brought Joshua with her. If she had…

  Her coffee mug rested on the counter, the contents cold by now. She picked it up just to have something to hold on to. “Maybe you ought to just give them the flash drive.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t do that. I really don’t have it.”

  “What did you do, destroy it?”

  He didn’t answer and wouldn’t look her in the face. Instead, he stared at the snapshot of Nikki from last night, his head bowed over the counter. She studied the top of his head. His hair needed to be trimmed, as always, but the curly, carefree style suited Ben in a way a more conservative cut wouldn’t. She gripped the cool coffee mug to keep her fingers from smoothing down a dark, wavy lock. Joshua’s hair had the same amount of curl.

  Her throat tightened. If the Reynosa people had moved so quickly to take advantage of her presence in Key West, what would stop them from investigating her? A sick wave of panic threatened.

  “Ben!” She spoke more sharply than she intended. His head jerked upward. “What did you do with that drive?”

  He leaned forward and held her gaze. “I left it in Mexico. And I don’t want them to know I ever had it to begin with.”

  “Then what are you going to do about that?” She dipped her head toward the photo with the note.

  Ben’s lips became a tight line as he stared at the paper. She watched thoughts play across his face. Then he snatched up the note. “I’m going to meet them at Mallory Square at sunset. I’ll talk to them, explain that I don’t have whatever it is they’re looking for. I’ll convince them this time.”

  Nikki turned her back on him to dump the cold coffee into the sink. She shou
ld follow through with her plan. A phone call last night confirmed that there was a plane leaving the Key West airport at two-twenty this afternoon. The flight was full, but she had put her name on the standby list. If she didn’t get on that one, she’d planned to rent a car and drive to the Miami airport. Anything to get off this island and away from Ben.

  But now, she wasn’t sure that was a good idea. What if she left and Ben failed to convince the Reynosa cartel that he didn’t have the flash drive? They had followed him from Mexico to Key West. Would they follow her from Key West to Portland? If an ex-girlfriend looked like a good tool for blackmail, a child he didn’t know about would be even better.

  I can’t lead them to Joshua.

  She whirled around. “If that’s the plan, then I’m going with you.”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing his jaw drop.

  FIVE

  Mallory Square was packed with people. Nikki hung close to Ben, wishing she could cling to his arm so they wouldn’t get separated. On her train tour yesterday, she had visited the famous pier and snapped a few pictures of the chickens running free in the wide-open area where the nightly sunset celebration occurred. The place had looked big and empty during the day, but now an astounding number of people crowded into the square. A variety of music clashed in a cacophony of sound, both from street musicians and from a nearby bar. Performers of all kinds vied for attention, everything from performing dogs to tightrope walkers to a Houdini wannabe pulling brightly colored scarves seemingly out of thin air. Along the perimeter, rainbow-hued umbrellas arched over handcarts displaying an array of wares for sale.

  “Is it always this crowded?” she shouted toward Ben.

  He placed his mouth so close to her ear that she felt his warm breath on her cheek. “Almost always. But Saturday nights are busier than most.”

  A man jostled against her so hard he almost knocked her over. “Shorryboutthat.” His words slurred together, and Nikki winced at his alcoholic breath. He was sucked into the mass of people before she could reply.