by Junie Coffey
“Lance and Tiffany must have it with them,” he said.
“Barry must have one,” said Nina, wading out to his boat. She grabbed it off the seat and handed it to Danish.
“Here. Take his emergency flares, too, just in case,” said Nina.
“Kevin is going to get to know the naughty-step very well,” said Pansy to no one in particular. “A cell phone is not a toy.”
Danish took the rifle out of the boat, put his knapsack over his shoulder, and grabbed a jug of water.
“Drive carefully, ladies. Don’t forget where you left me, eh?” he said. Then he trudged up the beach to where Barry sat tied to the tree.
12
Nina started the boat and nosed out from the shallows. Once they were out in the main channel, she opened the throttle, and they zoomed back to Coconut Cove along the coast of Pineapple Cay. Now that they knew where they were going, the trip seemed much shorter. Nina eased the boat into the municipal dock, and Pansy hopped out to secure the rope to a cleat. They walked quickly up the hill to Water Street, trying not to attract attention.
“I’ll call you when we get back, Pansy. If you don’t hear from Danish or me by eight o’clock, call the police and tell them everything, OK?” said Nina.
Pansy looked uncertain. “I should go with you.”
“We need you to stay here to call for help in case something happens. Which it won’t,” said Nina. “Just one more thing. Do you have a portable stereo or boom box at home?”
“Yes,” said Pansy, breathlessly. “We have an old one we use for the beach and pool parties.”
“Perfect,” said Nina. “May I borrow it for a couple of hours?”
As Pansy took off at a trot, Nina called after her, “And bring the loudest or most annoying music CD you have! Meet me at the dock as soon as you can.”
Nina walked quickly down the street to the hardware store. She knew exactly what she was looking for. She pushed open the door and walked into the dark shop, looking around her as her eyes adjusted to the change in lighting. She was looking for the bin filled with fireworks that she had seen on her first visit a week ago. The bin was still there by the counter, but it was now filled with colorful plastic balls and children’s sand pails and spades. Nina hurried over to the counter as Harold emerged from the back room.
“Back again! What can I do for you, Nina?” he asked with a smile.
“Hi, Harold. The other day when I was in here, this bin was full of fireworks,” said Nina.
“Yes,” said the man, nodding. “Mrs. Savage was in here yesterday and bought the lot for the museum barbecue tonight. I didn’t think I was ever going to get rid of them. It was supposed to be a surprise, so you’ll keep it to yourself, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” said Nina. She was dismayed. Her plan hinged on those fireworks. She stood there for a second, wondering what to do next. Go to the police station, then go get Danish, she decided.
“Now if I could only get rid of the other four boxes out back. Were you looking for some?” he asked.
“Yes!” said Nina. “I’ll take them all.” She went out back with him and carried them to the counter, where she paid for the fireworks, along with a heavy-duty flashlight, a box of long matches, a hunting knife, and some cord. She borrowed a wheelbarrow to carry it all down to the dock. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ted’s Jeep roll slowly by her, hauling a boat down Water Street, but she didn’t look back.
She hopped into the boat, put in the boxes, took a long swig of water from a jug, and lifted the red fuel can to see how much gas she had left. It was more than half-full. Pansy’s turquoise golf cart wheeled into the loading area next to the dock, and she ran down onto the dock carrying the biggest boom box Nina had ever seen.
“It’s got batteries in it, and here are some CDs. I hope that’s what you had in mind. Be careful!” she said as Nina waved and pulled away from the dock.
In another minute, Nina was flying back down the coast, her hair whipping in the wind. She glanced at her watch as she slowed down to approach the back side of Love Cay. Twenty minutes to sundown. She could see Danish sitting on the sand with the rifle across his knees and Barry beside him, still sitting with his back resting against the trunk of the palm tree. Danish stood up as Nina nosed the boat up onto the beach, hopped out, and pulled it up onto the sand. Together they lifted the boxes of fireworks out and hid the second boat next to the Zodiac.
“I just snuck back to the hut to see what Lance and Tiffany were up to,” he said. “Lance was starting a fire, and Tiffany was still lounging on the bed in her birthday suit. I don’t think they’re planning on going anywhere tonight.”
“Good. Now we lay the charges,” said Nina. Danish looked at her with raised brows.
“Fireworks,” said Nina, smiling. “The boom-boom surprise.”
They gave Barry a drink of water, ignoring his verbal abuse, and then Nina sat on the sand by the boat bundling up the cakes and tubes of fireworks as quickly as she could. She dug through the boxes to see what types she had to work with, planning the sequence in her mind’s eye. Then, with Danish’s help, Nina quietly made a couple of loops around the hut with a string of firecrackers and set a ring of rockets and Roman candles alongside those, about thirty feet back from the hut. Lance and Tiffany were back inside, once again otherwise occupied on the air mattress.
“I guess they really do love each another,” whispered Nina sarcastically.
Nina and Danish laid another row of charges alongside the narrow path out to the beach to the spot where they had found the Zodiac. Nina made sure to place the rockets about fifteen feet off the track and zigzagged the firecrackers back and forth in the sand along the edge of the forest near—but not too near—where they’d found the Zodiac. Finally, she set up a battery of fireworks behind a boulder near where they’d found the Zodiac. She angled all the rockets away from the island and from any traffic in the boat channel. They walked back to their boat on the opposite side of the island, where Nina picked up the CDs.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Raffi, the Archies, or Nickelback? The Gallaghers certainly have eclectic musical tastes.”
“Let’s go with the Archies. It’s been a while,” said Danish. Nina loaded it into the stereo, which she set gently on the sand.
“OK,” said Nina. “Time to call the police.”
Danish pulled the ship-to-shore radio off his belt and turned it on. He took a deep breath and pressed the “Outgoing” button.
“Calling the Pineapple Cay police detachment. Come in Roker, over.” The radio crackled. Two seconds later, they heard Blue Roker’s voice coming over the radio.
“This is Roker. Pineapple Cay Police. Is this Jensen? What do you want?”
“Jensen here. Roker switch to channel six eight, over.”
Danish switched the knob on the radio to a secure channel so that Lance and Tiffany wouldn’t hear if they happened to have their radio on in the hut, and neither would any passing boats. The radio crackled again.
“All right, Jensen. What do you want? I’m busy,” said Blue.
“Well, Deputy Superintendent Roker, sir, I just thought you would like to know that my associate and I have located Tiffany Bassett and her abductor. It turns out she abducted herself with the help of her lover, Lance. We also have apprehended Mr. Barry Bassett, who was armed and about to kill them both. The Morning Glory necklace is also here. I have had a visual on that. We are here on Love Cay in Diamond Cays National Park, if you would like to come collect all the criminals we have bagged here this afternoon. Over.”
“Tell him to approach the island from the channel side, the west side,” said Nina quickly. “Otherwise a rocket might fall on them.”
Danish pressed the button on the radio again. “Pineapple Cay police, come in. Jensen here. Please approach Love Cay from the west side for your own safety. Just to clarify: that is not a threat, just a safety tip. Over.”
There was silence on the other end of the r
adio for several seconds. Then it crackled to life again. “I am six minutes away. Do not do anything stupid. More stupid. Stupider. Do you hear me?” shouted Blue.
Danish held the radio away from his ear. “Okeydokey. See you soon. We’ll put the light on for you. Over,” said Danish.
“He said thanks and he’s on his way,” Danish said to Nina.
“I heard,” she said. “We haven’t got much time. Let’s go.”
She handed Danish the stereo and the flashlight and grabbed the long matches and the duct tape. They crept up the sandy path to the ring of firecrackers and fountain fireworks they had placed around the hut. Nina took a deep breath and ran swiftly around the ring, lighting the cakes of rockets and then the fuse on the string of firecrackers.
“I hope this works,” she said apprehensively as they watched the cord burn toward the first rocket. The spark reached it, and it shot into the air with a huge bang, exploding into a shower of red and gold above the trees. Nina pushed the “Play” button on the stereo, and she and Danish ducked down in the shadows of the trees to watch. Sparkling fountains of colored sparks sprang up ten feet tall around the hut, lighting up the clearing. The firecrackers sounded a rat-a-tat over the voice of Andy Kim, like a machine gun strafing the forest floor. The rockets shrieked and boomed, one after another. Shriek, boom; shriek, boom; shriek, boom! The sky was full of shimmering, cascading flowers and starbursts in green and gold, red and blue. Just as she expected, Lance came running out of the hut followed by Tiffany. He was dressed in just a pair of shorts, and she in one of his T-shirts and underpants.
“What is that? Someone’s shooting at us!” yelled Lance. Nina heard Tiffany scream repeatedly as she hopped up and down in her bare feet. They spun around, looking for their attackers, and then looked up into the sky as the colorful rockets burst into bouquets of pink flowers in the now–midnight-blue sky above them. They were so distracted by the constant hiss and boom of the rockets and the flashing lights that they did not see Nina and Danish crouching in the forest a short distance away.
“Grab the necklace, babe, and let’s get out of here!” shouted Lance.
“You get it!” screeched Tiffany. “Why would you even ask me to go back in there when the roof could fall in on my head? Don’t you care about me at all?” He disappeared inside the hut and came back with the necklace in his hand.
“Let’s go!” he shouted. “To the boat!” He grabbed her hand, and they started down the path to where Delmont Samuels’s Zodiac had been hidden. Nina lit the first charge along the path. It exploded with a shower of sand as they passed.
“Ahhh!” shrieked Tiffany. Nina lit the string of firecrackers along the path, and then she and Danish crashed through the undergrowth onto the beach just as Tiffany and Lance emerged from the forest path. They were both yelling, and the sky was full of starbursts, streaks, and flashes of colored light. Lance and Tiffany looked around wildly, pulling fallen palm fronds away from the area where they’d left the Zodiac.
“It’s gone!” said Lance incredulously.
“You idiot!” said Tiffany, rounding on him. “I suppose you left the keys in it!”
“It had an outboard motor; you don’t use a key, you idiot,” he said nastily. The firecrackers near where the boat had been hidden started to pop, and Lance and Tiffany hopped up and down on the sand with their arms shielding their faces.
“OK, Danish, now for the big finale,” said Nina. They dashed across the darkened beach and behind the boulder where the battery of fireworks was set. Nina lit the fuse, and five rockets shrieked into the night sky, bursting into a grove of sparkly green-and-gold palm trees above the island, their fronds drooping gracefully into the treetops. Then red chrysanthemums filled the sky. As they faded, multicolored starbursts burst one after another, lighting up the water. Silver spinners whirled, and red-and-yellow comets shot up into the sky, rapid-fire. The show ended with a grand finale of glittering silver-and-gold starbursts trailing down into the sea, a giant emerald nestled among them. The faint chords of “Sugar Sugar” could still be heard from the woods.
As the shrieks and pops of the rockets subsided, Nina heard the steady drone of two boats approaching, one engine with a low whine, the other at a slightly higher pitch. She looked out at the dark water and saw a large dual-engine powerboat racing toward them with three bright floodlights mounted on a frame lighting up the water in front of it and the beach where Tiffany and Lance were cowering in the sand. From where Nina stood, it looked like Lance was trying to shield himself from Tiffany as she slapped at him with both hands. Behind the big boat was a Boston Whaler. As the light landed on them, Tiffany and Lance froze and looked out at the water.
“This is the Pineapple Cay Police. Halt, and put your hands above your head,” boomed Blue Roker’s voice through a megaphone.
“Oh, no!” shouted Lance. “Quick! To the other side of the island! Whoever did this got here somehow. Maybe there’s a boat!” He turned and scrambled up the beach toward the forest path, still clutching the necklace in his hand, not even looking back to see if Tiffany was following him. She stood there for a second, looking after him and then out toward the lighted police boat, the word POLICE now clearly visible in navy-blue capital letters on its white flank. There were the silhouettes of a half dozen officers in it. She turned and started to scramble up the beach after Lance. Nina had a flashing vision of Barry’s speedboat anchored in the shallows on the other side and their own rental boat nearby.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” she said, breaking out of her crouch behind the boulder on the beach. She pounded across the hardpacked sand along the water’s edge with her hands above her head. When she reached Tiffany, she tackled her to the ground. Tiffany went down with a grunt. She struggled wildly, more angry than frightened, trying to see who had flattened her. Nina sat on Tiffany’s back, pinning her arms to the sand.
“Hello, Tiffany,” she said. “Going somewhere? Everyone’s been so worried. Did you enjoy the show?”
“You!” screeched Tiffany, straining to turn her head to glare at Nina.
Nina could see Danish churning up the beach and into the woods after Lance, and then she heard a muffled thump and some grunts. Danish dragged Lance out of the trees and onto the sand by his ankles. Nina quickly duct taped Tiffany’s arms together behind her back and threw Danish the roll of tape. She could hear the boats skidding onto the sand directly behind her, and several pairs of feet splashing through the water and up onto the beach.
Blue Roker ran by her to where Danish was struggling with Lance. Lance was taller and stronger than Danish, and now that the element of surprise was a no longer on his side, Danish was having trouble subduing him. Lance threw Danish off and sprang to his feet, which Danish had somehow managed to tape together. Lance hopped around like a pogo stick, hitting at Danish with both fists. Then he lost his balance and tipped over into the sand, where he lay on his side, struggling to right himself as Danish danced around him. Blue grabbed Lance’s wrist and flipped him onto his stomach, putting his knee across his back; then he grabbed Lance’s other hand and twisted it behind his back, snapping on a pair of handcuffs, all in one smooth motion. He pulled Lance to his feet and stepped back. A second officer moved in, grabbing Lance’s bicep in one hand and putting the other hand on the top of his holstered gun.
Nina was still sitting on Tiffany’s back. Blue walked toward them, staring at Nina with a look of bewildered amazement on his face. Nina rose from Tiffany’s back and took several slow steps back. Blue pulled Tiffany to her feet, cut the duct tape on her wrists with a knife, and cuffed her with a pair of regulation police handcuffs. An officer stepped forward and held her in the same manner as the first officer held Lance. The pair of them stood squirming angrily in the firm grasp of a muscular, uniformed officer.
“You led them right here, didn’t you?” said Tiffany angrily to Lance. “Did you even bother to look to see if anyone was following you?”
Blue cut in to read them their rights,
but Tiffany couldn’t help herself.
“We were so close, you dumb jock! All you had to do was go to Star Cay and collect the money, and we’d be in Rio tomorrow!”
Lance, head poseur in the Beer Commercial, exploded.
“Guess what? Your husband didn’t want to pay to get you back. He thanked me for taking you off his hands. In fact, he offered me a million dollars to get rid of you permanently! Said he wouldn’t tell the police that we’d stolen the necklace if I did it. I told him to go to hell, but I should have taken it!” he yelled.
“Deputy Chief Superintendent Roker, sir,” said Danish, brushing the sand off his clothes and sidling up next to Blue. “Barry Bassett, attempted murderer, is currently tied up to a coconut tree on the other side of the island. He has been treated humanely, given water and a granola bar.”
Blue sighed loudly and gestured for two other officers to go get Barry. They took off at a synchronized jog, lighting the forest path with flashlights they pulled from their belts.
“Now that I’ve had to spend so much time with you in that hut, I wouldn’t spend another night with you for a million dollars!” Tiffany shouted at Lance. “You snore! And the way you eat spaghetti is revolting!”
“OK, princess,” said Lance, “for your information, you get a subscription to Cosmopolitan magazine, not a prescription for it. If you’ve got a prescription for it, I think you’ve been overdosing. The hooker look seemed hot, but the novelty has definitely worn off.”
“Where’s the necklace?” asked Nina. It suddenly occurred to her that no one was holding it. “The last time I saw it, it was in Lance’s hand,” she said.