by Chris Niles
Kate started up the stairs but paused when a woman screamed, “Lucas, get your ass back here now!” She crept up two more steps then peeked around the safety rail at the top of the staircase.
It was the redheaded woman, Tina, from the campground. She was leaning over the port railing and bellowing at her son.
From the boat below, a young man shouted through sobs and hiccups, “No, Mama. These people are hurt and need help. You hurt them, Mama. They need help.”
Kate tucked her feet up under her and coiled to jump.
“Shut up, you useless waste of air.” Tina pulled a gun from her waistband, pointed it down toward the Island Hopper, fired.
“That was your son, you bitch!” Kate screamed and dove at the woman, knocking the gun from her hand. It splintered the smooth teak as it hit the deck then spun away from them.
Tina rolled, curled her legs, then thrust them, kicking Kate in the gut.
Kate slid to a stop. On the other side of the sliding door, Whiskey snarled and threw himself at the glass. She pulled the door open, releasing the dog. He lunged at Tina.
She ducked and rolled under his body, popping up between him and Kate, then ran at Kate, her shoulder low. Whiskey took two strong strides before launching at Tina. The momentum caught both women, then all three flew over the railing onto the bow of the Bayliner. Whiskey was thrown toward the stern. Kate’s head slammed against the edge of the helm. Her vision went blurry.
Tina was dragging her into the forward cabin when three unmistakable blasts sounded. Kate smelled saltwater and gasoline. And as everything went dark, she felt Whiskey’s wet fur against the side of her face.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Kate came to when she crashed against a bulkhead in the Bayliner’s tiny cabin. Whiskey, silhouetted in front of the hatch, fought to keep his balance. Beyond the sound of water against the gunwales, the boat was silent. It rolled unevenly in what should have been a calm sea.
They must be untying it from the yacht.
She glanced around the dim cabin. The boat was listing slightly to starboard, and water sloshed below her in the bilge. She could stop the leak, restart the pump, then limp to shallower waters. If she could move.
She couldn’t have been out for long, but it was long enough to lose everything. Again.
Three shots.
Her friends were gone. If she got to land without drowning, it would just be her and Whiskey. Alone.
She’d started over before. She could start over again.
Kate crawled to the port window. The Tax Shelter was drifting away, or maybe she was drifting away from it. Either way, Baumann’s lean form stood in the high flybridge, directing Tina as she prepared to raise the boat’s anchor. Kate could just make out the stern of the Island Hopper on the other side, drifting away from the Tax Shelter. It listed heavy to port, the opposite corner of its transom high in the water. It would be on the bottom in less than ten minutes.
Kate rolled back over, rubbed her head. Felt a sticky wetness. She pulled her hand back to examine her own blood. It would be so much easier to just go back to sleep and let the boat sink. She closed her eyes.
They jerked open again as the boat rolled over another swell and Whiskey scrambled to keep his position.
Whiskey.
He couldn’t swim far enough to survive. She could accept this as her end, but she couldn’t let him drown. Her breath quickened. Her gaze darted around the cabin. She counted seams in the paneling until she could think straight again.
Kate pushed herself up. Found an oily rag to wipe the blood from the back of her head. Tore a wide strip from another rag, tied it tight around her head. She opened the hatch to the engine compartment. A series of holes from a shotgun blast had ripped through the fiberglass hull, and the charred remains of the bilge pump sat in the deepening pool of oily water.
The speedboat was going down, and there was nothing Kate could do to stop it.
She peered out the porthole. The giant white yacht loomed over her. When she turned astern to see how much further the Island Hopper had sunk, she saw movement. Just a hand gripping the starboard gunwale near the transom. But a hand that hadn’t been there before. A hand pulling someone up the side of the sinking boat.
Kate scrambled to the hatch then grabbed a set of fins lying in the cockpit. No mask or snorkel, but she’d have to make it without. She scanned the bilge of the small boat and estimated the time it had left.
She kissed her hand, then lay it between her dog’s ears. After a moment, she whispered, “Whiskey, stay.”
Kate scanned the hull of the Tax Shelter, made sure she was clear. She sucked in a deep breath then launched herself over the gunwale and under the surface of the water.
With no mask, everything under the clear water was blurry, just brightness and shadows, but the Tax Shelter’s keel was unmistakable. She finned hard toward it, her lungs screaming for fresh air. The drone of the yacht’s idling engines grew louder, and Kate burst to the surface just inches from its swim platform. Two sets of scuba gear still dangled in the water, clipped to the cleat where she’d left them less than an hour before. She reached into the pocket of her BC, pulled out the KA-BAR knife she’d taken from Vince that first night, then tucked it inside the zipper of her wetsuit. Clinging to the edge of the boat, she scanned above her and prayed she’d stay hidden in the light surf.
She could see the top of Baumann’s back in the upper flydeck.
From the starboard corner of the swim deck, she could see the Island Hopper. The bow was low in the water, but it was higher than she’d expected. Then she spotted the lazarette door in the center of the Tax Shelter’s transom. She kept her head as low to the water as she could and, hand over hand, pulled herself around to the center edge of the swim deck.
Kate pulled off her fins off then tossed them up against the transom. The moment Baumann leaned forward out of sight, she dolphin kicked hard, rolled up on to the swim deck, pushing fast against the fiberglass to stay out of sight.
She popped open the small hatch then slipped down the ladder. The compartment smelled of diesel fuel and rot. Crates and cases filled with treasure were stacked in every spare cubic inch. Kate climbed back into the engine room. The purring twin diesels vibrated the whole compartment. Hoses and valves and tubing stretched wall to wall. A huge white generator sat to the starboard side of the hatch, and a bright yellow walkie-talkie sat on top of it.
The walkie-talkies Steve and William had been using to coordinate between the boats. The walkie-talkie whose partner had to still be aboard the Island Hopper.
Kate grabbed it and mashed the button. “Kate to Hopper. Kate to Hopper. Hopper, can you hear me?”
She released the button and waited. Her heart pounded harder than the diesel engines. “Hopper, do you hear me?”
The walkie-talkie crackled then a weak voice crackled across the static. “Good to hear your voice. Where are you?”
“I’m on the Tax Shelter. What’s your condition?”
“We could use a little help over here if you can spare it. We’re all hurt, and we’re going down fast.”
“Chuck, I’m …” Kate looked around. “Your money …”
“Let it go, Kate. It’s just money.”
“How long …”
“We’re in bad shape. Vince and Lucas are dead. Michelle’s been shot, and Steve and William are unconscious. I’ve only got one hand and one leg. When this boat goes down, we’re all dead.”
“How long can you hang on? I can’t let him get away. He can’t win.”
“Let him win, Kate. Just help us.”
Kate looked around at the crates and sacks filled with millions of dollars in gold and jewels. Treasure Chuck’s grandfather had risked his life for. Treasure that had built Shark Key.
Treasure that should have kept it safe.
“Okay, Chuck. I’m on my way.”
The walkie crackled one more time, and Kate’s brain lit up.
Three minutes later, th
e Tax Shelter’s engines roared to life. Kate folded the knife, tucked it back into her wetsuit, then slipped through the lazarette hatch. She glanced toward the ocean’s murky floor, fit the fins onto her feet, filled her lungs, then dropped off the swim platform into the boat’s growing wake.
Kate kicked across the choppy water until she reached the Island Hopper. She scrambled over the gunwale, just barely above the surface, then clambered up toward the transom. The Hopper rocked in the last choppy remnants of the Tax Shelter’s wake. The huge yacht was disappearing into the horizon.
“Chuck, where’s that walkie? I need it now!”
“Help me get untied.”
“Chuck, the walkie!”
“Right there. The camera rack… but we need help.”
Kate ran to the camera table, rifled through the pile of electronics until she found the walkie. She checked the channel then mashed the talk button.
She stared at the horizon until a plume of black smoke rose toward the sky. A second later, the sound of the explosion reached her ears.
Then she leaned over the transom. “Whiskey, come here boy!”
The dog launched into the water. Kate pulled the knife from her wetsuit, cut the zip ties from Chuck’s wrists, then deployed the Hopper’s inflatable life raft.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Applause rose from the long picnic table when the flaming sun slipped below the ocean. The horizon in front of them glowed orange while a deep purple darkness stole across the sky from behind them. Tiny white lights draped above the deck twinkled as if the heavens had been lassoed and pulled close enough to touch.
Kate lifted her empty glass toward Amy, who was pouring from a pale green pitcher.
Steve stood and blew into a huge conch shell. A solemn blast wailed from it — the traditional farewell to the day.
Tonight, that farewell was for more than just the day.
From the head of the table, Chuck tapped his glass with a fork handle and cleared his throat.
“I want to thank you all for coming this evening to honor the life of our friend Susan Welch. Susan was family to all of us, and we will miss her. But tonight is about more than just mourning and sadness. It’s about hope.” He adjusted the crutch under his arm.
“This past week has been tense. Dangerous. Susan made the ultimate sacrifice, and many more of you made sacrifices, too, because Shark Key was in trouble. I was in trouble. But thanks to all of you, today, and for as much future as we have in this paradise, our little corner of it is safe.”
Kate wiped a tear from her cheek.
“I met with the bank this afternoon. With Baumann out of the picture, they’ve been quite accommodating, to say the least. Without each one of you helping, none of us would be sitting here. So, thank you.”
Chuck toasted, and glasses clinked around the table. Branson Tillman played Susan’s favorite songs softly from the corner of the deck.
Michelle leaned over to Kate. “How did you get to us? I thought we were goners.”
“Honestly, I did, too. I heard a lot of gunshots from the Hopper and assumed Baumann had killed all of you. I hit my head so hard, I thought I was gonna drown. My head was bleeding everywhere. It was Whiskey that got me up out of that sinking speedboat. I knew he couldn’t swim to shore. And when I saw Chuck’s hand on the side of the Hopper, everything changed … I didn’t have any other option.”
At the sound of Whiskey’s name, he leaned against Kate and tipped his head backward to gaze at her. She scratched his head and continued.
“When I got aboard the Tax Shelter, I saw the Hopper wasn’t as low as I thought. And I knew if Baumann got away, everything we had been through would have been for nothing. Worse than for nothing. I knew there was no way I’d win in a direct fight against the two of them, so I sneaked into the engine room. And when I saw the walkie-talkie, it just clicked. After I talked to Chuck and confirmed the other one was on the Hopper, I stripped the wires to the battery, cut a fuel line with my dive knife, then got out as they sped away. It killed me to sink everything we had worked so hard to find and Chuck needed so badly. But we’ve all lost everything before. I couldn’t let that bastard get away with everything.”
“You made the right choice, kiddo.” Chuck limped up behind her and rested his hand on her shoulder.
She reached up and patted his hand.
“We had enough stashed in the Hopper to last me longer than I deserve. I’m paying off the note on this place, upgrading some of the facilities, and I’m going to dredge your slip and put a new motor in Serenity, if you’ll let me.”
Kate started to tilt her head back toward him, but the pain reminded her of the gash wrapped in gauze on the back of her head. She squeezed his hand and turned toward him, not even trying to hide the tear in her eye.
Amy leaned in to refill their glasses from the pitcher she carried around the deck. As she poured, she whispered to Chuck, “I’m releasing all of your grandfather’s belongings back to you. Take your time and go through all of it before you decide what to send back to us. There’s too much of your family’s history here for you to just hand it over without knowing what’s in it.”
William wrapped his arm around Michelle’s shoulders, and Steve sat on the bench opposite, taking in the group of mourners sharing stories about Susan and paying their respects. Babette sat encased in pillows with her legs propped up at the end of the table, sipping a virgin margarita.
“Snorkelers and divers will be pulling coins and gemstones out of those quicksands for years. Since it’s all protected under the wildlife refuge, I’ve gotten a commitment from the park service that they’ll never issue salvage permits for anyone to dredge or sift for it. But anything that a random snorkeler finds, they can keep. Tourism is gonna go through the roof when the story gets out.”
“I’m gonna need a bigger boat.” Steve smiled. “Who better to help find it than the people who put it all there?”
Kate couldn’t disagree with her friend. “I can’t wait to get back down to chart the rest of the Katherine K. There’s a lot of history on that wreck, and the marine life that’s made a home there is just amazing. Maybe I’ll even take a few more charters when you ask.”
On a TV behind the bar, news footage of the explosion ran on a loop. Kate scanned it as the captions scrolled across the screen.
Off the coast of Key West, an unusual find. Beneath the wreckage of a luxury yacht that exploded last week killing four people, recovery teams have found cases filled with gold and jewels that appear to date back to the time of prohibition. Key West was well-known as a bootlegger’s paradise, with liquor being run between the Florida island and Cuba to the south throughout the thirteen-year dry period. The Mel Fisher museum will be assisting in determining the provenance of the unusual find….
Kate fingered a heavy gold coin, flipped it, then dropped it back into her pocket.
A gentle breeze drifted in off the flats in the darkening night. Chuck flipped off the lights, and the family of friends sat beneath the twinkling stars, just laughing, sharing stories, and pouring margaritas.
THE END
Thank you for reading LOST KEY. I hope you enjoyed joining Kate and the Shark Key family on this adventure.
I’m working on a shorter book that takes Kate and Chuck into the Keys backcountry where they run into just a little more trouble than they bargained for. I’ll be sending that out entirely for free to my VIP Reader Group as soon as it’s ready.
If you’d like to read that, please join my VIP Reader Group at chrisnilesbooks.com/vip!
Also by Chris Niles
The Shark Key Adventures
LOST PALM
An extraordinary prize lies hidden in the remote Florida Keys backcountry.
When Kate Kingsbury finds a map tucked in the pages of a rare Hemingway novel, she sets off to discover a little more about the islands around her new home.
But in an instant, her sunny adventure becomes a dangerous fight for her life.
; Can Kate survive the threat lurking among the mangroves?
LOST PALM is exclusively available to members of my VIP Reader Group. Join today for free at chrisnilesbooks.com/VIP
LOST KEY
It only takes a moment to lose everything.
When a corrupt real-estate developer sets his sights on Kate Kingsbury’s marina in the Florida Keys, Kate and her neighbors must band together to save Shark Key. Their only hope is a lost treasure stolen from the infamous Al Capone. Can they find what’s been hidden for almost a century before time runs out?
LOST RELICS
In the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, five long lost indigenous idols are linked to a series of missing teenagers in the Dominican Republic. And when Kate Kingsbury joins the search for the ancient zemís, the killer sets his sights on her.
Can Kate find the ancient idols before he kills again?
LOST FLEET
A shocking secret lies at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea.
When her journalism mentor is killed in a horrific plane crash off the coast of Key West, Kate Kingsbury travels to New York to lay him to rest.
At his funeral, she learns he might have found proof that a Chinese fleet arrived in the Caribbean nearly a hundred years before the Europeans. As she follows his leads, she meets the charming David Li, whose uncle — a powerful Chinese oil magnate — is searching for the fleet, too.
Is David searching for the truth, or is he a mole for his uncle? And will Kate live long enough to find out?
The Anna Mitchell International Thriller Series:
DAYBREAK
The new cold war is heating up.
Russian-backed terrorist Sasha Volkov plans to launch a series of attacks on American soil that will plunge the world into chaos. And only former CIA operative Anna Mitchell can stop him.