Rising Tide

by Wayne Stinnett

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. “Hang on, Jimmy. Set it down a sec. I have a phone call.”

  “I remember a time when you didn’t even know where your phone was,” Jimmy said, as we set the frame down. “I remember finding it once in the cockpit fridge on the Revenge.”

  I fished my phone out and looked down at the screen. “The times, they are a changin’.”

  “Dude, you can’t quote Dylan when talking about a cell phone.”

  I stabbed the Accept button. “Scott, it’s been a while.”

  Scott Bond was a former Navy lieutenant, and like my friend and partner, Deuce Livingston, a SEAL. He’d worked for a couple of years with Deuce’s Caribbean Counterterrorism Command.

  “Hi, Jesse. Yes, it has. How are things down in Florida?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I replied, grinning. “I haven’t been up there in a while. I remarried a few months ago and we’re very content down here in the Keys. What’s up?”

  “Congratulations!” he said, sounding genuinely enthusiastic. “Listen, I got a call from a friend up in the Windy City—a PI named Kevin Grainger. He was asking for a referral in the Fort Myers area to do some discreet protection work.”

  “Why didn’t you call Deuce?” I asked.

  “Well, Fort Myers is your hometown, right? I figured you might be interested, and you’re more likely to know someone there than he would.”

  I’d moved away from Fort Myers when I was seventeen and joined the Corps. While it was my hometown-of-record, I’d only returned there a handful of times since I’d left the Marines. But there it was, popping to the surface twice in one day.

  “Do you have any details?” I asked.

  “He wouldn’t give me much. A former client, a wealthy woman by the sound of it, has a teenage niece who got into a scrape with some gangbangers down there. The rich aunt wants to protect the girl and her family without them knowing it. Can she contact you directly?”

  I thought about it for a moment. I disliked giving my number to people I didn’t know. “Yeah,” I said. “Tell him to have her call me at the Rusty Anchor tomorrow evening. You still have the number there?”

  “I do. What time’s too late?”

  After the charter, Jimmy and I had decided to stay aboard Salty Dog, rather than try to get back to the island in the dark. Lobster season was over, but there were still six weeks left in stone crab season and the traps’ buoys were just as dangerous to a prop as any other.

  “Any time after nineteen hundred,” I replied, figuring we’d have the Atlanta bubbas back to the dock before sunset.

  “Will do,” Scott said, as we ended the call.

  “What was that all about?” Jimmy asked.

  “That was Scott Bond,” I replied. “You remember him. He used to be part of Deuce’s team and has a friend who’s in trouble.”

  Jimmy looked at me with real concern in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s just a little protection job, which I never did much of anyway. He was just looking for a referral. But don’t say anything to Savannah about it. Or Florence when she comes home.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re in operational mode, man. You just called Flo by her full name.”

  After setting up the bed in the living room, it looked more cluttered than it ever had. My little house was only a thousand square feet or so, and the living room and kitchen were more than half of that. My friend Tank had recently bought a house on Grassy Key that had a master bedroom nearly as big as my whole house.

  “Why don’t I move my workbench into the bunkhouse?” I said. “Then we can move the bed up against that wall under the window.”

  “I thought you were going to make it a place for Flo,” Jimmy said.

  Savannah took my hand. “He was. But now Kim and Marty are house hunting on the mainland. They plan to settle in Everglades City or maybe Goodland.”

  “Really?” Jimmy asked. “That’s cool. So, that means the west bunkhouse will be Flo’s permanently?”

  I nodded. “At least as permanent as it had been for Kim.”

  The west bunkhouse had undergone many changes over the years. Initially, it had been a simple bunkhouse, just like the other one—six sets of bunkbeds and a small desk. It came in handy when Deuce’s counterterrorism team needed a secluded place to stay and train. But his team had included three women, so it’d quickly turned into two rooms, basically overnight, with the smaller half having two sets of bunkbeds, as well as a desk—sort of a command-and-control center for Chyrel Koshinski, the team’s computer and communications tech.

  Then Kim came to live with me, and she turned the larger half into a small studio apartment. When Hurricane Irma destroyed it and just about everything else on the island, we’d rebuilt it into a home for her and Marty. But by then, they were working for Fish and Wildlife up on the mainland.

  “I have an idea,” Jimmy said. “Let’s leave two sets of bunkbeds for whenever we have people on the island and use the rest of the space as a workshop. Tearing down an outboard in the hot sun is getting old.”

  He had an excellent point. I could rebuild a carb or rewire a dash at my workbench but working on one of the many outboards we had meant mounting it to a sawhorse and working outside.

  Having a full shop would be great, but it’d be an ambitious project, to say the least. And to what end? I was scheduled to fly over to Bimini in just six days, to take command of Ambrosia.

  “I’m leaving next week,” I reminded him.

  Savannah’s face went kind of pale. “But what about Alberto?”

  “We’re not even sure that’s his name,” I said. “And we don’t even know if the police will be bringing him here. They might have already found his parents.”

  She eyed me cautiously. “We should go on the assumption that he’ll be staying with us. What is it you always say? Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

  I hated when she used my own logic against me.

  Taking her shoulders, I looked into her eyes. “Yes, we should. But we have obligations. If he does come to stay with us, and it extends beyond next weekend, you may be taking care of him on your own.”

  “Me and Naomi will be here, man,” Jimmy added. “If it comes to pass, we’ll help take care of him.”

  I looked from Jimmy back to Savannah. “And what about when I finish the familiarization cruise and you come to join me? We were planning to live aboard, for the most part, coming back here once a month or so. Remember? You wanted big ocean adventures.”

  “We can bring him with us,” she said defiantly. “You should call Jack and tell him now.”

  “I can’t insist—”

  “Yes, you can,” she said, cutting me off. “We already told him that if he wants you at the helm, it was a package deal.”

  She had me there. Jack Armstrong had already agreed that Savannah would be joining us as part of the crew and that our kids could visit from time to time. But this wasn’t quite the same.

  “We don’t know anything at all about him,” I argued. “For all we know, the boy might be a pickpocket or an arsonist.”

  “He’s just a little boy,” she scolded. “And he needs help.”

  “Okay,” I conceded. “I’ll call Jack.”

  “Now.”

  “Yes, right now.” I turned to Jimmy. “Start clearing my bench. We’ll move it tonight.”

  Savannah smiled as I dug my cell phone from my pocket and turned to walk out onto the deck. Outside, I pulled up Jack’s number and tapped the Call button.

  “Good evening, Captain,” Jack said, his voice almost jovial. “Nils and I were just talking about you. We’re both looking forward to your arrival next week. Ambrosia is nearly ready to sail.”

  Nils Hansen had delayed his retirement long enough. He was in his seventies now and still as sharp-minded as ever, but he was tired of being at sea all the time. I’d already delayed tak
ing command twice.

  “Yeah, Jack. About that,” I began.

  Then I went on to tell him about the events of the day and Savannah’s idea.

  “How old is the boy, again?” he asked.

  “We’re not really certain,” I replied. “The doctor thinks he’s about six or eight.”

  There was a long pause before he spoke again. “You know I grew up on oil exploration ships and platforms,” he finally said. “It won’t be easy—not for him or you.”

  I remembered him telling me that once. I also remembered him telling me about his own son, who had been killed along with his wife in the World Trade Center attack.

  “This isn’t my idea,” I said. “Savannah insisted after the detective told us the boy would go into foster care.”

  “I happen to agree with her,” Jack said. “A kid could do a lot worse than having you and her as parents or foster parents.”

  “That’s just it, Jack. We’re not foster parents. Hell, I’m a grandfather and our youngest is in college. I’m sure this arrangement will only be temporary. The detective just needs a safe place for the kid until he can get to the bottom of things.”

  “Bring him,” Jack said. “And bring Savannah on Friday. I’ll get the crew busy converting Nils’s quarters into a two-bedroom suite, joining it with the cabin next to it.”

  “Whose cabin is next to it?” I asked, surprised that he’d agreed so quickly.

  “That’s the first mate’s cabin,” he replied. “Sara is flying home tomorrow. You’ll have a new first mate, and he can take a cabin on the main deck.”

  Sara Patrick had been Nils’s first mate for more than ten years. We’d had a long-term, long-distance relationship that ended some years ago, but the split had been amicable—neither of us had ever been emotionally committed—and I’d just assumed we’d move into an awkward working relationship.

  “She’s leaving?” I asked.

  “First flight out tomorrow. She’s getting married, Jesse.”

  Married? I hadn’t even been aware that she was seeing anyone.

  “Well… good for her,” I said. “Who’s the lucky man?”

  “He’s an Englishman by the name of Brent Tumlinson. They met when we were doing that project in the Seychelle Islands.”

  “I’m happy for her, Jack.”

  “And she was happy for you,” Jack replied. “So, bring Savannah and the boy on Friday. We’ll have things ready. If the police need him to go back, you and he can fly back in less than a day.”

  We ended the call, and I went back inside, a little bewildered.

  “What did he say?” Savannah asked.

  “He said to bring you and the boy on Friday. He’s having Nils’s cabin converted into a two-bedroom suite.”

  “His cabin’s on the bridge deck,” she said. “I remember from the tour Jack took us on. The only other cabin on that deck is Sara’s.”

  “Sara Patrick will soon be Sara Tumlinson,” I said. “She’s leaving Ambrosia.”

  “She’s getting married?”

  “Apparently so,” I replied. “A British guy she met in the Seychelles last year.”

  I helped Jimmy finish boxing things up from my workbench. It was a heavy piece, so everything had to be removed.

  “Let’s just get it over there,” I said, as we lifted the bench and started toward the door. “We can remove the other beds tomorrow, then set things up how we want later.”

  With the bench out on the deck, Jimmy and I went back inside and moved the little bed under the window. Savannah slipped down to the Revenge and got some extra linens from the guest cabin, which had two single bunks. While she set about making the bed up, Jimmy and I went outside and started to lug the bench across the clearing.

  “What if the boy doesn’t come?” Jimmy asked. “All this work would be for naught.”

  “No, it won’t,” I replied. “It’s what Savannah wants.”

  We got the bench inside and returned for the boxes of fly-tying equipment, tools, and the other odds and ends that had accumulated on it and in its cabinets and drawers.

  By the time we finished around 2100, the first quarter moon was already past its zenith and heading toward the western sky. The air was a little on the chilly side, so I started a fire in the ring. We’d worked right through sundowners, so I figured a couple of beers might be in order.

  The fire ring was one of the few things left after Hurricane Irma. It’d been on the island long before I bought it. The thick, heavy steel ring had had some rust back then, but I’d been able to clean it up and maintain it all this time. It was too heavy for the hurricane-force winds to blow away, but the storm surge and waves that had put the whole island under water had moved it a few feet.

  Within a few minutes, bright colored flames were dancing in the center of the ring. Savannah must have seen it, because when I looked up, I saw her coming down the back steps carrying a small cooler.

  We make a good team, I thought.

  Savannah and I had been finishing each other’s sentences and anticipating one another’s wants and needs very soon after we’d left on our Western Caribbean cruise over a year ago.

  As she approached, Jimmy and Naomi crossed the short distance from their house. He was also carrying a small cooler.

  I took my usual seat on a low bench we’d made from a cypress tree that’d washed up over the winter.

  Savannah sat beside me and opened the cooler, handing me a stubby brown bottle of Red Stripe and an opener.

  “You can have two,” she said. “You need to get up early.”

  Jimmy and Naomi sat silently on a couple of worn beach chairs. He pulled a bottle of mango juice from his cooler and set it aside. Then he took a bottle of wine out and looked over at Savannah.

  “Wine?” he asked.

  “I’ll just have one of Jesse’s beers.”

  He poured wine into a plastic cup and handed it to Naomi. Then the four of us sat quietly for a long moment.

  Jimmy finally broke the silence. “It ain’t gonna be the same around here, man.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Y’all being gone,” he said.

  “We were gone for most of last year.”

  “But we knew you were coming back, dude,” Jimmy said, “This feels a lot more…permanent, I guess.”

  “We’ll be back once a month or so,” I offered, then took a long pull from my beer.

  “At first.” Jimmy sighed and took a drink of his juice. “But that ship goes all over the world, man. How’s this little island ever gonna compare with living on a two-hundred-foot yacht?”

  “It’s not a yacht,” I replied. “At least not anymore. It’s a working research vessel.” I looked around the island’s interior, bathed in the light of the dancing orange and green flames. “This is home,” I said quietly. “No other place will ever compare. Look at it this way; you and Naomi will have the whole island to yourselves.”

  He reached over and put a hand affectionately on Naomi’s knee. “I know, hermano. I’m just gonna miss you. That’s all.”

  The charter the following day was, for the most part, uneventful. At least nobody had to swim to shore. The guys from Atlanta caught a lot of fish; grouper, snapper, a few Spanish mackerel, even a big amberjack, a species we called reef donkeys because of their enormous strength and durability. It took two of the Atlantans to boat it.

  At sunset, we had them back at the Rusty Anchor, where we’d picked them up. By then, they were drunk and happy as clams. Jimmy cleaned their fish for them, and they tipped him well. By 2030, he and I were at the bar and the bubbas were headed back to their hotel.

  “Sounds like quite a day,” Rusty said, after Jimmy recounted the events.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I think they had a good time. I know they caught a lot of fish.”

  “Beer?”

  “Nothing for me, man,” Jimmy said, spotting his girlfriend coming through the door. “Naomi’s here. We’re going out for a while, then back to
her condo.”

  “Sure,” I said to Rusty, checking my watch.

  “You expecting someone, too?”

  “Phone call,” I replied.

  “You done called Savannah when you first got here,” he said. “She s’posed to call you back?”

  “Someone else,” I replied.

  “Well,” Jimmy said, slipping an arm around Naomi’s waist, “we’re off to a party, amigos. We’ll probably be back to the island by mid-morning.”

  I nursed a few beers after Jimmy left and ate a blackened grouper sandwich. It’d been a long day and I was tired. I should have specified a time for the woman to call.

  Just after 2200, the antique rotary phone Rusty kept under the bar rang and he picked it up. “Rusty Anchor.”

  He listened for a moment, then looked across the bar at me. I nodded, expecting the call.

  “Hang on,” he said, holding the receiver against his chest. “Some woman for you.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  He pulled the phone’s base out and set it on the bar, passing me the receiver. I put the clunky device to my ear.

  “This is Jesse McDermitt,” I said. “Speak.”

  “Mr. McDermitt, my name is Nancy Liddell. I’m sorry for calling so late, but it was the only time I could call for reasons I’ll explain in a moment.”

  Although I was expecting the call, I had to know it was the right person. “How did you know where to find me, Nancy?”

  “A private investigator who did some work for me back in Chicago named Kevin Grainger found you for me. Kevin used to work for DHS with an associate of yours and that associate gave Kevin your name and where I might reach you.”

  “The associate’s name?”

  “Scott Bond.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Scott’s a good man and I know him well. How can I help you, ma’am?”

  “Please, just call me Nancy.”

  “Okay, Nancy, how can I help you?”

  “First, I’d like to apologize again for calling so late. I’m in Boston right now with my niece and I had to wait for her to go to bed before calling you. I don’t want her to know I’m doing what I’m doing.”