“Could be treasure buried under it.”
Flo grinned, as she once more leapt off the cliff, screaming, “I bet it’s Anne Bonny’s.”
Savannah grinned and shook her head. “You never know.”
“If she found it at the top of the trail, why didn’t she just walk back down to look for the treasure?”
Savannah laughed. “Several years ago — I guess Flo was about five or six — she wanted to walk down. She ended up falling and tumbling over some rocks before going over the cliff. She was scraped up a little, nothing serious, but she now has a rule against walking down the trail when she can just jump and walk up it.”
Charity smiled. “Well, a girl has to have her rules.”
Savannah stood and took her shirt off. “Let’s go see what she found.”
Charity rose as Savannah trotted to the edge of the cliff and looked down. She removed her shoes and wiggled out of her shorts, tossing them on the ground.
“You’re jumping?” Charity asked, pulling her tank top off.
“Last one in!” Savannah shouted as she threw herself over the edge.
Charity heard the splash just as she reached the edge. She pulled her shoes and shorts off, leaving them with Savannah’s things. Taking a few tentative steps closer to the edge, she saw Savannah and Flo swimming out away from the sheer rock wall.
In two steps, Charity was standing at the edge of the crumbling limestone. All through her teens and twenties, she’d been a competitive swimmer, culminating with a bronze medal in the Sydney Olympics at the age of nineteen. She’d tried diving, but much preferred the adrenaline rush when the competition was right beside her in the next lane.
Charity leapt, pushing up and out with her powerful legs. She extended her arms out to her sides and arched her back in a strikingly graceful pose. Her body hurtled toward the water, slowly tumbling forward. At the last moment, just before she became perpendicular to the water, she stretched her arms over her head, interlocking her thumbs.
Though only about twenty feet, the fall seemed to take a long time. Her entry wasn’t perfect; she didn’t quite rotate to fully perpendicular. But she hadn’t meant to. As she entered the water, the slight angle helped propel her away from the rocky wall beneath the surface.
Diving at least ten feet below the surface, Charity arched her back to turn upward. She opened her eyes and kicked toward the surface amid a thousand tiny bubbles.
“That was awesome!” Flo shouted when Charity surfaced face first, allowing her hair to stream down her back. “Can you show me?”
“If it’s okay with your mom.” Charity swam toward them. “Just not from way up there at first, okay? If you mess up, you’d be surprised at how quickly a swan dive turns into a belly flop.”
All three laughed.
It felt good to laugh. Charity hadn’t laughed a lot in the last two years. When she was with Victor, he was very subdued, always looking over his shoulder. Even when they made love, he took it too seriously. He tried so hard to concentrate only on her that it seemed like a performance.
“Where’d you learn to dive like that?” Savannah asked as the three of them swam slowly toward a large cavern with a sand beach. Water and wave action had cut the rock away beneath the overhanging cliff, creating a cavern.
“I was once a competitive swimmer. Mostly high school and college.”
They reached the wall, and Flo scampered up onto the beach. Savannah and Charity moved a bit slower, stepping up into the large alcove using several rocks sticking out from the wall below the surface.
“This is an amazing place,” Charity said, looking out over the calm surface of the water. “Kinda spooky, too.”
Savannah looked at her quizzically. “You had an accent when we first met. Cuban, if I remember correctly. And black hair.”
Dammit, Charity thought, I’m slipping.
What the heck? That part of her life was over now. And she felt pretty certain that Victor was just being paranoid and there wasn’t anyone after him, either.
“I should apologize,” Charity said.
Savannah lowered herself cross-legged to the sand, arms wrapped around her knees. “Apologize for what?”
Sitting next to her, Charity thought about what she could say. “For lying,” she began. “When we met before, I was working undercover for the government. My real name is Charity Styles.”
There was a shriek and a blur, then Flo hit the water twenty feet out. She surfaced and swam toward them, again scaling the rocks at the edge like a mountain goat.
“There wasn’t anything under the bottle,” Flo said. “I dug and dug. Just rock.”
“Well, it’s still a nice bottle,” Charity said. “And Anne Bonny spent a lot of time in these waters.”
“I’m gonna go jump again,” Flo said, then disappeared up the trail.
“Undercover as what?” Savannah asked.
Charity looked across the water to the opposite wall. Covered with vines and brush, it towered twenty feet high all around. “I worked for Homeland Security until just a few months ago.”
“What kind of work did you do?”
Charity didn’t want to tell her that she had been a government assassin. She liked the woman and didn’t have many whom she could call friend.
“I don’t work for them anymore,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “At the time, I worked for an anti-terrorist group within Homeland Security, helping to keep our southern waters safe.”
“There’s a terrorist threat in Florida?”
“Throughout the Caribbean,” Charity replied. “You’re a cruiser. You know how easy it is to move in and out of Florida by water. I worked to help expose and eliminate any threats.”
“I see,” Savannah said. “But you’re no longer working for them?”
“Our unit was dismantled a few months ago,” Charity replied, now actually believing it was true. “I had some money set aside and decided to just drop out for a while.”
“I can certainly understand that,” Savannah said. “I moved aboard because I was on the run from an abusive ex, then shortly after, an escaped homicidal maniac. That was nine years ago. The ex is no longer in the picture, and the escaped murderer is dead. But Florence and I have enjoyed the lifestyle so much, we’ve just never gone back.”
“Flo’s father?”
“Well…” Savannah started.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I left my husband before I became pregnant. Legal separation and all. After a couple of months, we decided to reconcile. But it didn’t last long. We split up for good before I knew I was pregnant. The truth is, he might not be Flo’s father.”
“Ooh, the plot thickens,” Charity said, grinning. She decided that she liked this woman. Though they’d only met once, the fact that she had a secret made her more human, which in turn made Charity feel more human, as well.
Savannah laughed. “Yeah, well, nobody’s going to write a story about my life.” She looked out over the deep, mysterious water for a moment. “When my husband and I first separated, I went to the Keys with my sister. We took our dad’s yacht, and even hired an experienced captain so we could just enjoy ourselves. My sister died last month.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Charity said.
Savannah seemed to shake off the sudden melancholy and grinned at Charity. “Anyway, I met a guy while we were in the Keys, and we had a short affair. Then my ex and I decided to give our marriage one more try. There’s a chance that the guy in the Keys might be Flo’s father.”
“Does he know?”
Savannah looked seriously at Charity, arching an eyebrow. “If you were uncertain, would you tell a guy whom you’d had a short fling with that he might be a father?”
“Probably not,” Charity replied after considering it a moment. “So yo
u don’t even know.”
Savannah again looked off across the water and sighed. “No, I don’t. Everyone just assumed that Flo was Derrick’s daughter. He’s my ex. I’ve only told one other person that he might not be.”
Charity laughed lightly as she stood up and offered her new friend a hand. “Well, your secret’s safe with me. It’s doubtful either of us has any friends in common, anyway.”
Savannah smiled and took Charity’s hand. “I mean, is there any rule that says a kid has to have two parents?” she asked, rising to stand next to Charity. “Can’t a woman fill both roles? I am Flo’s parents.”
“Absolutely,” Charity agreed, liking this self-assured woman even more. “Speaking of Flo, she’s about a minute past due for her next jump, isn’t she?”
“She’s okay,” Savannah said, turning toward the trail. “Probably digging for Anne Bonny’s treasure.”
Just then, they heard a man’s voice, which froze them both in place. It seemed to come from all around as it echoed off the cliffs surrounding the hole. “Hey! You down there! Better get up here!”
“What the hell?” Charity said, instinctively looking around for anything that could be used as a weapon.
Savannah moved quickly to the trailhead. Scrambling up the rocky incline, she sent several rocks toppling into the water.
Charity hurriedly caught up to her. “Wait,” she said, grabbing her elbow.
Savannah turned sharply. There was a fire in her eyes unlike any Charity had seen before. “Someone’s up there with my little girl!”
When Savannah turned and started back up the trail, it was all Charity could do to keep up with her. The two of them quickly reached the top and found three men clustered around their blanket. A fourth was standing near the edge of the cliff, holding Flo. One of the men at their blanket was rifling through Savannah’s basket.
“Well, well,” the man holding Flo said. “Would you look at what we got here.”
All four men’s eyes roved over the two women’s bodies, clad only in their swimsuits. Charity’s eyes quickly assessed the men. The one holding Flo wasn’t very big, but the leader was usually the one in charge and he was holding the girl. He had a meanness in his hard-set eyes which Charity had seen before in other men. He was the leader. He had long brown hair and a scraggly beard. His friends looked about the same, only bigger. Boat bums.
“Let go of my child!” Savannah shrieked, taking a step forward as Charity slowly side-stepped away from her. A bald man by the blanket lurched forward, arms spread like he was trying to herd a chicken into a pen. It was enough to stop Savannah from taking another step.
“Shut the hell up!” the man holding Flo said. “I’m giving the orders here, not you.”
“Where’s your men?” asked the guy going through the basket.
“Asleep,” Charity lied, getting five feet of space between her and Savannah. “On the boat. But one yell, and all three will be here in minutes. And they have guns.”
Charity knew she couldn’t predict how Savannah would react when Charity moved against these men. She might crumble in fear, or maybe even get in the way with some sort of desperate attack.
But Charity knew how the men would react. In the first microsecond, they’d dismiss her advance as their number, size, and sex gave them a false sense of superiority. That would change to confusion when the first man went down, and the others would come at her, thinking it a lucky kick or punch. The last two would then become enraged when a second man fell.
Men’s emotions made them easy to manipulate. They were either on or off.
The man holding Flo quickly shoved her to the ground beside him and pulled a revolver from his waistband. He pointed it at the two women. “Lying bitch!” he yelled at Charity. “We checked the boat first. Nothin’ but a mutt. Where are the men?”
A blur caught Charity’s eyes. Out of nowhere a large dog charged straight through the group of men by the blanket, knocking one of them to the ground. Still a good ten feet from the gunman, the huge beast leapt. The man didn’t even have time to aim before the animal was on him. The impact carried them both over the edge of the cliff, just as the gun went off wildly into the air.
Florence ran to her mother, who shielded the child behind her.
The man who had been knocked aside as the charging dog attacked the gunman got quickly to his feet. He pulled a long knife from a sheath at his belt and held it menacingly. He was shirtless, dark-tanned, and muscular, with his blond hair twisted and matted into dreads.
“Fuckin’ bitch,” he hissed. “You killed Kenny! Now I’m gonna carve all three of you up.”
Charity would have laughed at his declaration if it hadn’t been for the seriousness of the situation. Dread Head and the other two men started forward, spreading out. Charity’s mind worked swiftly. So far, the only weapon these three had brandished was the hunting knife. There was no doubt in her mind that she could take all of them, unarmed. But the man with the knife would have to be first. And the other two men were bigger than him.
When they came within ten feet, just as Charity was about to make her move against the dreadlocked man, Savannah took a sudden step forward. In a flash, she spun on her bare left foot, leaping high into the air like a pirouetting ballerina. Her right leg whipped out as she spun around backward. The impact of the sole of her foot on the side of the first man’s head sent him tumbling sideways. He collided with the man in the middle and they both went down.
While the knife wielding man was temporarily distracted, Charity moved. With lightning-fast precision, she stepped forward with her left foot, then brought her right foot up in a snapping front kick, striking the man’s elbow and causing him to drop the knife. She then stepped in close before he could recover from the stinging pain in his elbow, and hammered him with a vicious right uppercut just below the sternum. Air whooshed from the man’s lungs as he doubled over.
Without waiting, Charity grabbed the man’s hair on both sides of his head, forcing him down even faster as she brought her right knee up into his face. She followed through, arching her back and driving her knee higher. She didn’t have to wait to see if he was going to go down. She knew the strike was true.
She turned to face the two bigger men. The one Savannah had kicked was moving slowly, but the larger, bald man was already on his feet.
Without warning, Charity attacked. She simply opened that part of her mind that held all the demons and turned them loose on the bigger man. She executed a shoulder roll that culminated in a crouching whip kick designed to sweep the man’s feet out from under him. When she heard the sharp crack from the man’s knee, she knew he was finished, and turned her attention to the man Savannah had kicked.
To Charity’s surprise, Savannah was already on him, landing blow after blow to his face and head. Not slaps or backhands, but solid, powerful punches, meant to incapacitate at the very least. He never regained his feet.
The man with the dislocated knee was screaming in pain. Charity calmly stepped over and kicked him in the head, ending the noise.
Flo ran to Savannah, who held her close, pulling her face to her and wrapping her arms around the girl’s head, so she couldn’t see the men.
Savannah snapped her head around, her blond hair whipping across her shoulders. “Woden!”
Charity watched as the huge Rottweiler charged up from the path as if answering to Savannah’s summons, stopping at the top. His lips pulled back menacingly, exposing two-inch canines. The dog moved swiftly to Savannah’s side, placing himself between Charity and those he was obviously trained to protect at any cost. The dog stared at Charity, its lips quivering as a low rumble emanated from deep in his massive chest. Charity harbored no doubt that the dog would attack instantly, with just one word from his master.
Savannah quieted the dog with a touch on his muscular flank. “She’s with us, Woden.”
Charity went quickly to the ledge and looked down. The man with the gun floated face-down in the water, just a few feet from the rocky wall. The water around his head was tinged pink, and there was a large red stain on a jagged outcrop at the edge.
Charity ran to her bag and pulled the Colt out as Savannah reassured her daughter. “Come on,” she urged them. “They might not be alone. There could be more.”
Leaving their belongings, Charity led Savannah and Flo down the trail toward the beach. The dog passed her and led the way to the dinghies.
Another boat was anchored near Sea Biscuit. It was a derelict-looking sloop about thirty-five feet long that appeared to be in complete disarray. The sailboat’s hull was dingy, and there were water stains below the scuppers. The starboard hand rail was missing halfway to the bow, and the sails looked in poor shape, just piled up on the foredeck and hanging across the boom. There didn’t appear to be anyone aboard. Charity doubted more than four would travel together in such a small craft. On the beach sat a third dinghy, looking much like its mothership. The inflatable had patches on patches, and bare wires were dangling from under the console and wrapped around the throttle control. It was obvious that it had been stolen.
Charity went to her dinghy and opened the little anchor locker. “Get back out to your boat,” she said to Savannah. “Stay there until I get back.”
“What are you going to do?” Savannah asked, as Charity pulled a long coil of anchor line from the bow of her dinghy. Attached to it was a fifteen-pound mushroom anchor.
Charity looked at Savannah, then down at Flo. “Go out to your boat. I have to clean this up.”
Turning, Charity started back up the trail, throwing the coil of rope over her head and shoulder. Savannah took two quick steps and caught her arm.
Charity wheeled, the adrenaline still coursing through her veins.
“What are you going to do, Gabby?”
“My name is Charity,” she stated flatly. “This is the kind of work I did for two years. Now go to your boat and look after your daughter.”
Enduring Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 4) Page 3