Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors)

by Susannah Sandlin

  “We’ll get them in Wilmington.” Shane tightened the new bolt, giving it a few extra vicious turns. “I know she has a right to go, and I know she’s going to hate us.” Hate him. She’d know it was his decision.

  Jagger was silent for a while, and Shane wished he’d go back to singing his tune for the day, “Beast of Burden.” Because when Jagger was silent, Jagger was thinking. And when he thought this hard, something Shane didn’t want to hear was usually forthcoming.

  “You’re afraid we won’t be able to find the wreck or find the Templars’ cross,” Jagger finally said. “And you don’t want her to see you fail. You don’t want to let her down, at least not where she can watch it happen.”

  Shane sat up without clearing the edge of the hatch and cracked his head on the steel door. “Shit.” He opened his mouth to argue with Jagger, then closed it. No point in arguing with the truth. He hadn’t thought about it in those terms, and he’d like to think he was man enough to feel comfortable failing in front of a woman whose opinion he cared about, but that wasn’t the way he rolled. Sue him.

  He snatched the next bolt from Jagger’s outstretched hand and hit his head on the other side of the heavy door on his way back to his supine position.

  “Oh ho, not even going to argue?” Jagger laughed and dug in the box for yet another heavy bolt. “Then might I add that one of the reasons you don’t want Gillian to see you as a failure is because you have the hots for her.”

  “Fuck you.” Shane refused to sit up again before he finished this bottom row of nuts and bolts; if he cracked his head too many times and ended up with a concussion, a successful dive wouldn’t be possible. “You forgot the part about how many years it’s been since I did a dive as complex as this one has the potential to be.”

  “Yeah, there’s that, too. But she still has a right to be here.”

  Shane didn’t answer. He’d said all he cared to on the discussion of the trip and Gillian’s absence from it. Jagger had even argued that they take her at least to Wilmington, but Shane didn’t want Charlie telling tales Gillian didn’t need to hear. His uncle had always possessed the social skills of a timber wolf, and Shane had no idea what kind of past history the man would dredge up when they arrived.

  Jagger wasn’t giving up. “Besides that, you two look good together. Once this is all over, who knows? She might be the one. Not many women would put up with your lack of social skills.”

  Shane finished up the bolts and gave his friend a sour look as he climbed to his feet. “My social skills are fine.” Unlike his uncle’s. “Now you’re not only Martha Stewart, you’re also handling advice for the lovelorn? Look in the mirror, hippie boy. I haven’t seen you finding the one despite your self-proclaimed social skills.”

  “I’m like my man Mick. I like to spread it around.”

  “Yeah, you’re spreading around something, all right.” They walked back to the salon and settled on either side of the table, where Shane had placed a couple of rolled maps. “When’s Harley getting back?”

  “Should be soon. Hope it’s okay—I gave him about five hundred dollars from the safe in the master suite. The man didn’t even have underwear. My clothes are too little for him, and yours are too big, you ox.”

  “That’s Mr. Ox to you, and of course it’s all right. Whatever he needs.” Shane unrolled the set of maps depicting the US east coast. “Our cruise permit’s good for anywhere in the US, right?

  Jagger went to the fridge and came back with two beers. He handed one to Shane, who looked at it longingly and handed it back. “I’m on the wagon.”

  Swapping the beer for a soda, Jagger returned to the table and leaned over the map. “Yeah, since we’re not on a commercial run we should be good. I think we just need to check in at Wilmington when we get there, or at the nearest port of entry if we stop along the way. I’m not sure about Canada. We’re not on a commercial venture, at least as far as the Canadian government is concerned, so it shouldn’t be complicated.”

  They spent the next hour going over their routes, looking at the pros and cons of cutting through the river routes of central Florida to reach the Atlantic instead of traveling all the way to the Florida Keys. Every decision had to be made with Tex’s ticking clock in mind.

  Speaking of deadlines, they really needed a solid destination if they were going to make this whole scheme work. Shane rerolled the map and snapped the rubber band back around it. “You think it’s possible Gillian’s holding out on us about the location? I kind of got the feeling her great-uncle told her more than she let on.”

  Jagger finished off his beer and let out an echoing belch. “What a novelty that would be. One of you hiding something from the other. Could that possibly be true?”

  “Asshat.”

  “Fucktard.”

  “I might be better off living in the ashes of my house than stuck on a boat with two grown men who act like thirteen-year-olds half the time.” Harley dropped a pile of bags on the salon floor and turned back to the passageway. “Don’t mind me, by the way, I’m only sixty. I don’t mind bringing all this shit in from the deck by myself.”

  Shane groaned and stood up, twisting to stretch his back. He was still sore from sleeping on that damned futon. “I dunno, Jag. I think he’s gonna be grouchy.”

  Jagger followed Harley down the hall. “Yeah, and I can already tell he’s going to play the old-man card whenever the heavy lifting starts.”

  On deck, they found boxes and bags scattered over both sides of the gangplank entrance. Most of the bags were unmarked white plastic; a lot held clothes. “Where’d you get all this?” Shane hadn’t shopped in a while, but this was a ton of stuff for only five hundred bucks. They should have given him more.

  “Let’s get this stuff below and then I’ll tell you about it. Take it to the salon and we can sort it there.” Harley’s voice sounded gruffer than usual, so Shane let it go. He and Jagger carried armloads of bags back to the salon, which he’d always thought of as a combination dining room-meeting room-game room. There was a DVD player and screen tucked behind a wooden panel on the back side of the galley cabinets.

  “We can sort the clothes and put them in the smaller bedroom; Jagger and I will share the master,” Shane said. He and Jag looked at each other with a tacit understanding: I will not sleep with you. One of us will sleep on the floor. After age twelve or so, there were places friends didn’t need to go, and the possibility of accidentally waking up in a spooning position was one of them.

  About half of the bags contained food and household goods. Nonperishables, sodas, and snacks. Detergent and soap and toilet paper. Shane held up a box of tampons and raised his eyebrows at Harley. “Is there something you haven’t told us about yourself?” Before the man could respond, Shane turned to Jagger. “And don’t you dare sing ‘Let It Bleed.’”

  Jagger grinned. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

  “Please don’t sing at all. I’ve had a hard-enough day.” Harley slumped on one of the upholstered benches. “Sit down; I want to talk something through with you.”

  Jagger took the bench opposite Harley, so Shane sat on the floor with his back propped against the lower galley cabinets.

  Harley looked hard at Jagger, then at Shane. “First, today was a humbling day.” He looked down, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. Damn it, the man was going to cry. The only thing worse than a crying woman was tears from a man he respected the way he respected Harley.

  “What happened?” Shane crossed his legs, yoga style, and propped his elbows on his knees.

  “I went to Tierney’s to pick up some clothes—nothing fancy for me, you know. T-shirts and underwear and pants. Simple stuff.”

  Shane dropped his gaze to the floor and picked at a loose thread on the sturdy red and brown rug. Damn it, the whole idea made Shane want to barf, or shoot someone. This man had worked too hard to have to start over. He or Jagger should at least have done the shopping for him.

  “Something happen a
t Tierney’s?” Jagger asked.

  Harley nodded. “I put all the stuff in my cart, took it up to the front to pay, you know? People stopped me in the store, told me they were sorry about the bar. Not just my regulars, either. Folks I didn’t know. So I go to check out, and the clerk bagged it up and said it was on the house. Wouldn’t take the money. Told me to go on up to the Baptist church and there were more things there people had been dropping by since last night.”

  He looked away from them, pretending to watch something outside the small side windows, but Shane had seen the tears on his cheeks. His own eyes had filled, and he fought back the urge to give in to it.

  Jagger wasn’t even pretending not to cry. “All this stuff was there?”

  “This is a damn fine place, Cedar Key.” Harley nodded. “Which is why I want to go with you to do this thing you’re doing. But you have to be straight with me. I’m not stupid. It has something to do with that woman, Gillian. And something to do with that guy you chased after, when he left the bar last night, Cal.” He rarely called Jagger by his nickname and probably never would make it a habit.

  He looked down at Shane. “And you’re up to your neck in it, Shane Burke. The fact you called Charlie tells me it’s serious. And if it’s the thing that caused my bar to be burned down, I deserve to know what it is.”

  Shane banged his head against the wooden cabinet he was leaning against. “Yeah, you do. I went back and forth as to how much to tell you, what would put you in the least amount of danger.”

  Harley leaned forward, every year of a hard-working life etched into the lines on his face, and the stress of the last twenty-four hours darkening the skin below his blue eyes. “I figure I’m already in it, whether you want me to be or not. I know neither of you visited this on me, so don’t think I’m casting judgment. It’s just that I’ve got some experience behind me, and I might be able to help. It’s my fight now, too.”

  So Shane told him. Once he started talking, he found it helped to unload. He began his story with the visit from the First Bank and Savings bullfrog, because even though he didn’t like to admit it, the money was the first lure for him. “The thing was, Gillian knew I was in big trouble and desperate for money so I wouldn’t lose The Evangeline. She knew that because the guys putting the screws to her knew it. They researched the person who might be stupid enough and desperate enough to do a suicide dive for the money.”

  And damn it, he hated—hated—being that person.

  “And they knew Jagger was your friend, just like that Vivian woman was Gillian’s friend,” Harley said. He was staring into space, his dark brows gathered. “They knew the two of you had a connection to me. They knew about Gillian’s little niece down in Fort Lauderdale.” He shook his head. “If this whole Templars’ cross thing wasn’t known to them before Gillian’s TV interview, that means these people had less than three days to pull together all that information. Not just anybody can get that much detail on somebody, not that fast.”

  Shane had been thinking the same thing. “It’s somebody rich as God, but we already knew that. Gillian had almost a quarter million in cash with her that first day, and she offered me another million for the dive.” Of course she’d pretended it was her money, her project, but her acting skills weren’t that good. She was basically an honest person and all this subterfuge didn’t fit her well.

  “Not just rich,” Jagger said. “It’s also gotta be somebody with a lot of connections, with…I don’t know the word.”

  “Reach,” Shane said. “That’s what this Tex guy told Gillian. That his employer has a lot of reach.”

  “Then at the risk of sounding like one of those loony, paranoid conspiracy theorists, gentlemen, I’m guessing we’re dealing with a military guy—intelligence, maybe.”

  “Or a politician,” Shane said. “Maybe a dirty one. Somebody who deals in favors and secrecy.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes before Harley got up. “I’m going to fire up the engine, let it warm up, make sure everything sounds like The Evangeline’s ready to go. Shane, you mind if I pilot her out?”

  “Don’t mind at all, Harley—go for it.” Besides, he wanted to think about this military or political connection some more. He’d been thinking maybe it was someone in law enforcement, someone familiar with surveillance equipment, but it also had to be somebody with that infamous “reach,” which local law enforcement wouldn’t have.

  So maybe it was someone on the national level with both reach and a big financial reserve. He needed to do some Internet research of his own. There couldn’t be that many people who met all the criteria. Unless they could get to the guy in charge, Tex and his arsonist buddy wouldn’t be touchable.

  Which reminded him of Gillian. She was smart, and the research end of things was where she could really help them. She was off doing research at the public library right now—and she was going to be seriously pissed when he called her. The thing that would piss her off the most was that she couldn’t withhold that information on Duncan Campbell for long without jeopardizing all of them.

  While Shane had been thinking and Jagger had been puttering around the galley, putting away food, Harley had started up The Evangeline’s big engines. The rumble from underneath was a sensation Shane loved. It meant open water and blue skies and salt-tanged wind was coming. In a half hour, just before five, the grind of the anchor being raised drove Shane’s adrenaline level skyward, and he and Jagger exchanged knowing smiles. Yeah, it was dangerous, but this is what they were made for.

  A few minutes later, they were underway. Jagger took a sidestep into the galley and grabbed the edge of the counter. “Gonna take a day or two to get our sea legs. It’s been too long with nothing but short coastal runs.”

  “Way too long.” Shane blinked and looked toward the ship’s bow. “Did you hear something?”

  “No, I—”Jagger frowned as another loud thump sounded from near the pilothouse. “I’ll see if Harley’s okay.”

  He walked out of the galley and stopped, staring down the passageway, hands on his hips and a big shit-eating grin on his face. He broke into a chorus of “Play with Fire.”

  “What is it?”

  Shane had climbed halfway to his feet when something hard barreled into him, knocking him flat.

  He looked up at the foaming lips and white teeth of the world’s most evil dog.

  Tank.

  EPISODE 4

  CHAPTER 13

  “Do I know how to make an entrance, or what?” Gillian followed Jagger down the narrow side passage and turned left toward the master suite. He pulled her red rolling case, and Tank trotted behind them.

  “That was classic.” Jagger had grinned continuously since Tank had charged Shane, knocked him flat, and dripped foamy drool on his chin.

  Shane hadn’t come within a fathom of grinning. He’d climbed to his feet, given her a fierce look with eyes burning like green flames, and pushed past her on his way to the pilothouse. His only words: “That hellhound better not piss on my boat.”

  The pilothouse door was, thankfully, closed. “Think he’ll cool off, or throw me off at the first port?”

  Jagger switched her bag to his right hand and with his left, opened the door to Shane’s room. Tank sat in the hallway, not entering the room that smelled like his archenemy Shane but at least not growling. Gillian said a silent prayer of thanks that—so far—her dog was giving Jagger the treatment he gave most strangers: ignoring him.

  “Shane’ll get over it; he never stays mad for very long.” Jagger deposited her bag at the foot of the bed. “We’ll figure out who’s bunking where later. I’m just gonna set this in here for now. Might want to take a shower. You’re kinda bloody.” He looked pointedly at the reddened scrapes on both knees, one with a trickle of blood that had trailed all the way to her running shoes and dyed the built-in white lining a shade of pink. “You fall down a lot?”

  Too much, and she had scar tissue beneath the scratches on both knees to prove it. He
r parents had hoped she’d outgrow it, but when her teenage clumsy phase extended into a college clumsy phase, they’d given up. “Any shower rules for living onboard?”

  “Keep it short. We didn’t have time to fill the extra tanks.”

  Yeah, they didn’t have time because Shane was in such a freaking hurry to leave without her. “Look, I know you guys don’t want me aboard, but let’s make the best of it. I can sleep in a corner somewhere.”

  Jagger showed her where the built-in linen closet was located, tucked above the tiny washer and dryer halfway down the starboard passageway. He handed her a towel. “For what it’s worth, I told him you should be here. So did Harley.”

  Yeah, but the big old bully had prevailed, and Gillian was tired of being bullied. “Even though you outnumber him, Shane still got his way.”

  Jagger shrugged. “It’s his boat, plus he’s the diver, not me or Harley. However this dance ends, its outcome sits on his shoulders, and he feels the pressure even if he doesn’t show it.” He paused and lowered his voice. “Look, if you tell him this, I’ll throw you overboard myself. He didn’t leave you behind because he didn’t think you had a right to be here. He won’t admit it, but it’s because he hasn’t done this kind of dive in a while and he’s nervous about it. He’s afraid you’ll distract him.”

  A flush of fury spread through her quick as a brushfire after a long drought. “Distract him? So he thinks I’ll be sitting on deck, perfecting my tan and buffing my nails? Treating this like a party boat?”

  That did it. Forget the shower. She and Shane Burke were going to clear up a few things, beginning now. Gillian edged past Jagger and stuffed the towel back in his hands. “You can let that spoiled brat have his way if you want, but I’m going to show him what a real distraction looks like. His days of bullying me are over.”

  “Whoa, hold on.” Jagger wrapped his fingers around her wrist and stopped her forward motion. “I didn’t mean that. I meant…” He winced as if the words he was about to say might rip out a few teeth as they passed his lips. “He’s…into you. That’s all. He’s not afraid you’ll distract him; he’s afraid he’ll let himself get distracted whether you intend it or not.”