Shannon saluted. “Aye-aye, Captain.” She opened her laptop and her search engine. The page defaulted to Exuma Wi-Fi, and for just ten dollars, she could have Internet access for twenty-four hours or one hundred megabytes. She showed Jake. “I guess they have a captive market.”
After entering her credit card information, she read several pages. “You should see how much information there is about pig bites. You’d think this happens often.”
Jake poured hydrogen peroxide over Debi’s hand. “And what’s it say?”
“She needs to take amoxicillin and clavulanic acid.”
Jake raised his eyebrows at Debi. “Do we have that on board?”
“Only the amoxicillin.”
* * *
Shannon plopped onto the settee in the salon of A Dog’s Cat. Finished with her search for medical knowledge, she opened her email. She selected and deleted three newly received and unread emails from Lance the Loser. Heat stung her cheeks just from seeing his name. She didn’t want to focus on the anger that rushed through her like water blasting through a cut, so she turned to Debi.
“When’s the last time you checked your email?”
“Not since Nassau.” Debi stood beside the galley sink and held her hand in front of Jake. He gently wrapped a bandage around her hand and taped it. He pressed with his thumb, securing the wrap in place.
“Thanks,” Debi said. “You’re good at this.”
“On the job training.” Jake opened the medical kit, tipped out two amoxicillin tablets, and handed both to Debi. “Take two now and one before bed.”
Debi poured herself a glass of water and swallowed the pills.
“I’ll check the cut in the morning,” Jake said.
Shannon pushed her laptop across the dinette toward Debi. “Do you want to read your email now while we have a connection? I’m done with mine.”
The bandage on Debi’s hand looked clumsy and overly large for the bite, but Shannon refrained from commenting. Jake had been gentle when he took care of the wound, so what did an awkward application hurt?
Debi sat at the rounded settee and opened her email account. Jake leaned with his butt against the stove. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and his biceps bulged underneath his t-shirt. He’d been wearing the same board shorts for days, but who was Shannon to comment. She seemed to be in love with her own denim shorts.
“Hear from Lance today?” Jake asked.
Shannon directed her anger at Lance to the only male in the room.
“Don’t you have something else to do?”
Jake crossed his arms and made himself comfortable. “Nope.”
“Oh no.” Debi’s face paled, and she drew a deep breath. “This can’t be.”
“What’s wrong?” Shannon and Jake asked at the same time.
“Some tourists found Waterfall.”
“Where?” Shannon asked.
“The boat washed up on shore in the Turks and Caicos.”
“But how did it get there? Uncle Bobby was found on Long Island.”
Jake stepped toward Debi. “What else does the email say?”
Shannon frowned at him when he asked his own question and didn’t give Debi a chance to answer hers first.
“The police say there’s no evidence of foul play. They think he fell overboard and drowned.”
“Do you have charts of the area?” Jake asked.
“Yes. Why?”
“Aren’t you curious exactly where Waterfall is? The boat’s been floating around for a while. She could have landed anywhere.”
“The charts are below the mattress on my bed,” Debi said.
Jake jumped down the three steps and slid out the charts. He brought them back to the dinette and spread them across the table.
“Let’s see where Waterfall went ashore.”
Debi read the latitude and longitude listed in the email, and Jake put his finger on a beach.
“I want to go there,” Debi said.
“Why?” Shannon asked.
“I need to see the boat. See what’s left of her.”
“We can do that.” Jake nodded slowly as if he were making a plan in his head. “It’ll take us a few days, maybe a week to sail that far, depending on the weather. We can skip George Town and sail from here.”
Debi shook her head. “I’m going to charter a flight from Staniel Cay. I bet I can fly tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to come?” Shannon asked.
“No. You and Jake keep moving A Dog’s Cat south. I can fly back to wherever you end up. Follow Bobby’s trail. I want to find the last time anyone saw him. Whatever it takes, I’m going to find out how he ended up falling overboard.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jake
Staniel Cay, Bahamas
The Staniel Cay airport had a shack beside the runway where a person could wait for a flight. One step up from the Norman’s Cay airport with its runway flanked by trees and no shelter in sight, the roof protected a traveler from rain, but the lack of walls and doors let the wind blow through the rickety structure. Jake stood beside Shannon on the front step.
The chartered plane rumbled across the uneven tarmac and took off inches above the tree line. Piddles sat at Jake’s feet and whined. Some dog instinct told her Debi left on the plane.
“Now what?” Shannon asked.
Jake scratched the back of his neck and felt the beginnings of a sunburn. He still kept his hair RCMP short even though he knew the style made him look like a cop. Longer hair just didn’t feel right to him. Besides, he liked coming across as authoritative.
“We keep moving south, just like Debi asked.”
Shannon’s eyes followed the twin-engine plane until all that remained was a dot on the skyline, giving Jake a chance to take her in. He couldn’t help admiring her beauty.
“We could sail to George Town straight from here,” Shannon said.
Jake had other ideas. “That’s an option.”
“But…”
“You heard your aunt. She wants us to follow Bobby’s trail. I think we should see if anyone saw him in Staniel. If he was here, maybe we could find out where he went next. He might not have gone straight to George Town.”
“Okay.”
“Do you want me to call a taxi?”
Shannon laughed. “There can’t possibly be a taxi here. Let’s walk. It’s not far to the yacht club. We can snoop around there. You could get a steak or some other manly meal before we go back to the boat.”
Jake ignored her jibe and focussed on the warmth of her laugh. “Did you notice the redness around the bite on Debi’s hand when I changed the bandage this morning? Will she see a doctor in the Turks if it gets worse?”
“Maybe. She’s a bit stubborn that way.”
They walked side-by-side along a paved road. A Bahamian family of seven, all squished into a golf cart, drove by and waved at them. Jake listened to their chatter until it faded in the distance.
They made a wrong turn. Garbage smoldered in the island dump, and Jake wished he didn’t have such a keen sense of smell or that they’d taken the correct route to town. They turned around, ascended a hill, and the odor diminished.
“Debi’s been good to you,” Jake said. “Seems like she took to being your guardian naturally.”
“She’s a great aunt. I was already close to her before my parents died. I wouldn’t have wanted to live anywhere else. What about you? After your parents died, I mean.”
“Let’s just say I was an unhappy teenager.”
Shannon smiled and jabbed him in the ribs. “Don’t want to talk about it?”
“Any idea why Debi didn’t have children?”
“I never asked her but think it was because of Charlie and me.”
“Who’s Charlie?”
“My brother. Debi was only twenty-six when we moved in with her and Uncle Bobby. They were instant parents to two lost children. I like to think we were enough.”
“Did you and Charlie become closer
after your parents died?”
Shannon took a long deep breath and shook her head. “The opposite really. Charlie withdrew. He had some trouble at school, and he kinda became a loner.”
“Sounds like me. After my parents died, I got into fights at school, argued with teachers for no reason. I needed time to get over being angry.”
“I think that’s what happened to Charlie. I missed my parents, but Debi and Uncle Bobby were so great to us. It made up for a lot.”
They reached the edge of town, and three Bahamian Potcakes ran out at Piddles, barking and growling as any dog protecting its territory would do. The Potcakes were a mixture of anything and everything, resembling no dog breed and all breeds at the same time. Before the dogs reached her, Jake scooped up Piddles and faced the pack. He stretched his right arm straight at them, palm open and said in a firm but calm voice, “No.”
Shannon slipped behind him, and her delicate hand rested on his waist. He ignored the sensation. He couldn’t go there again, not after what happened to Becky. Guilt slapped him as soon as he remembered in vivid detail what he’d done to her. He was a jerk and didn’t deserve another chance. Disgusted at himself, he focussed back on the dogs.
The pack circled Jake and Shannon, and Jake turned with them, keeping his body between her and the dogs.
“Go home,” Jake said.
The owner of the dogs must have heard the barking because she came out of a nearby house and chased the dogs with a stick. Even though she only hit one of them, all three dogs retreated with tails between their legs.
“Sorry about that. They’re all bark. They wouldn’t bite or anything,” the woman said.
* * *
“Time for a beer.” Jake nudged Shannon away from the direction the dogs had run, and they walked the rest of the way to Staniel Cay Yacht Club without incident.
People filled the tables in the small seating section outside the club, so Shannon tied Piddles to a post, and they entered the bar.
They stood beside a group of men who looked as if they’d been in the Bahamas for a while if their dark tans, longish hair and stubble were an indication. They each wore stretched out t-shirts and long shorts. The uniform of cruising men who’d stopped caring what they looked like. Jake felt preppy in their presence.
“You two just arrive?” the nearest man asked Jake and Shannon.
Shannon smiled right to her eyes, and Jake felt a sharp stab of jealousy. In a flash of desire, he wanted to kiss her as if he’d lived all his life just to press his lips onto hers. All she’d done was smile, and he wanted that smile to himself. He couldn’t explain the emotion, and he thudded onto a barstool.
“Are you okay?” Shannon asked.
No, he thought. “I need a beer.” He’d never felt something that strong before, and he needed to get a grip. She’d already noticed something was wrong. “Wanna try a local beer?”
She nodded, and he ordered two Kaliks. Anything to get his mind off her.
Shannon spoke to the nearby men. “Are you on boats?”
The three men nodded in unison. Apparently her beauty numbed them, too. After a bit of chitchat, Shannon found out the guys all had wives who were off doing groceries at the blue store, wherever that was, and that they were planning on spending the winter in the Exumas and the spring in the Abacos.
“Are you going to George Town?” Shannon asked.
The man with a scar across his nose laughed. “Are you kidding? There are too many rules there.”
Jake didn’t understand what he meant, but didn’t want to stop the flow of conversation by asking. Shannon was pulling information without the men realizing she was on the hunt for details. She sipped her Kalik and licked her upper lip.
“Were you here last year?”
The red head said, “Yep.”
“Did you ever come across a guy named Bobby Hall? He owned Waterfall. It’s a Niagara forty-two.”
“I met him and his girlfriend.”
A woman walked up behind the red head with a grocery bag in one hand. She placed her other hand gently on his shoulder in a show of affection.
“She wasn’t his girlfriend, so stop gossiping.” The woman turned to Shannon. “You’ll have to excuse my husband. All the men thought of Bobby as their hero for having such a young girlfriend.”
“But you don’t think they were dating?”
The woman laughed. “Oh, Nicole wanted to date him, but Bobby would have nothing to do with it. He kept mentioning someone named Debi and that he was hoping she’d join him. He didn’t seem too positive about her coming, but I got the feeling he wanted her to. Nicole didn’t want to take the hint.”
“You don’t happen to remember her last name, do you?”
Jake smiled. That would have been his next question, too.
“Dace. I remember it because it’s an odd name, and our daughter married a guy whose first name is Dace. Usually only boat names stick with me.”
“Aren’t you proud of yourself,” the red head said to his wife and winked.
“When was the last time you saw Bobby?”
The woman looked at her husband. “Do you remember?”
“It was here at the bar, but I don’t recall when.” He shrugged at Shannon. “The season kind of blurs into one big event. It could have been January or February.”
“Do you know if they left here together?”
“I think so. Nicole talked about going to George Town with him.”
* * *
Jake hopped into the dinghy, and Shannon huddled with Piddles opposite him. He pulled away from the dock, drove past Rocky Dundas, and headed for Big Major Cay. They left the shelter of Staniel Cay, the wind picked up, and the waves slapped against the dinghy, making it a bumpy ride.
“You should have asked if any other boats were traveling with Waterfall.”
Shannon jutted her chin at him. “I didn’t hear you asking questions.”
And just like that, he’d put her on the defensive without even trying.
“You were on a roll, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“I got her last name. That’s pretty good.”
“It’s something.”
The dinghy bounced over a wave, and Shannon lifted off the pontoon and landed with a flop. “Man, you’re hard to please.”
Jake had a flashback to Becky telling him the same thing. They’d been on their deck in Whistler, and the sun eased over a mountain peak, silhouetting her body. Instead of telling her how beautiful she looked in the morning light, he’d given her a hard time about staying in bed so long. He liked to have a coffee in hand as he watched the sun brighten the snow-covered slopes, and they’d both slept in, neither putting the coffee on. She’d put her hands on her hips and said, “Man, you’re hard to please.” The exact words Shannon had used. Why couldn’t he take the easy way and play nice?
Not in his nature, he decided. “I have high standards.”
“Sorry I don’t measure up.”
A wave sprayed over the bow and soaked Shannon. Were the gods of love ganging up on him? The wet t-shirt outlined her perfect body, clinging to every inch of her. Could she not have worn a bra?
“Oops.”
“Did you do that on purpose?”
“No. It was an accident. I swear.”
Shannon’s smile widened, and she laughed. “Let’s not fight. We’ve got a long way to travel together.”
Jake pointed over Shannon’s shoulder. “Look who’s in the anchorage.”
To the west of A Dog’s Cat, Orion pulled against her anchor chain, bouncing in the waves.
“Do you think Darren’s following us?” Shannon asked.
“It’s possible.”
“What should we do?”
“Nothing. Yet. Is that Internet connection still good?”
Shannon checked her watch. “Good thing this is waterproof, or you’d owe me a watch. The password is valid for another couple of hours. Why?”
“I have an idea.”
Once on board A Dog’s Cat, Shannon went below to change. Her wet shirt clung to her back, outlining her toned muscles, and Jake admired her until she was out of sight, but not out of mind. He opened his laptop.
“Hey, Champagne. What’s the password to the Wi-Fi?”
“Stop calling me Champagne, and I’ll tell you,” she called from below.
Piddles jumped onto the settee and rested her chin on Jake’s thigh.
“Really, this is important.”
“So, really. Stop calling me Champagne.”
“Okay. Shannon, would you please tell me the password?” Jake leaned low and whispered in Piddles’ ear, “Good girl.”
She wagged her tail in response and pressed her chin deeper into his leg.
“Not one word about the password,” Shannon said. “It’s Piddles.”
Jake laughed out loud. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“So you do like the nickname.”
“I do not, and I said not one word. Weren’t you listening?”
“If you don’t like it, why did you use it as a password?”
Shannon bounced up the steps, wearing a spaghetti strap t-shirt and what he would call very short shorts. She grabbed a couple of clothes pins.
“I don’t know. It’s the word that came to mind when I had to type it in.” She headed outside and hung her wet clothes on the lifeline.
Jake wrote an email and hit send.
“So what’s your great idea?”
“My cousin works for the RCMP. She has a friend in Florida who’s a sheriff. I asked her to call the guy and see if he can find out anything about Nicole Dace.”
“Is that legal? You’re not exactly employed by the RCMP anymore.”
“Do you want to find out who she is?”
“I do.”
“Then don’t ask that type of question.”
Shannon sat across from him and rested her elbows on the table.
“Why’d you quit?”
He hadn’t been expecting that one. His cousin suspected the real reason he’d quit but had never outright asked. Kendra knew why he’d gone hiking with Becky the day she died. After she died, they’d never spoken about the plan, but Kendra had been solid for him. When he told her he was quitting, she had only nodded.
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