by Lori Wilde
After meeting with the D.A. on Monday morning, Scott met Juliette at the restaurant where they’d previously had lunch. He passed her fifty thousand dollars of marked government bills. They arranged a meeting time for later that evening for delivery of the product.
In the meantime, Carl got Coast Guard officers in place, hiding on the banks of the mangrove channel to intercept the transaction and take possession of DeCristo’s drone submarine. They also put an undercover Coast Guard on Juliette and at sunset, Scott went to join Carl’s crew in the mangrove channel.
All during the stakeout, Scott thought of Jackie. He couldn’t shake her from his head. He should have his mind on capturing DeCristo’s sub, but all he could do was think about how crushed Jackie had looked at the thought he was dating another woman. Hell, who would ever want another woman if they had Jackie?
Jackie.
She intrigued him like no woman ever had. Could he be falling in love?
It was a startling realization. He hadn’t expected it, but she’d come blowing into his life like a hurricane. He had no gauge for what he was feeling. He only knew he couldn’t imagine his life without her in it. He’d straighten this all out. One way or another he’d convince her they had something special.
The Coast Guard agents watched the mangrove channel for hours, but Juliette never showed up. What if Carl’s tourist was wrong and DeCristo did not have a stealth submarine? What if it was all rumor and legend?
Scott’s stomach soured that he’d pulled the brass in on the sting without sufficient proof of the submarine’s existence.
This was not good. He was supposed to meet Juliette at midnight, so all he could do was pray she would show up for that assignation. If nothing else, at least they could bust her and get her back into custody. Still, he hungered to get his hands on DeCristo.
He paced the wharf they’d designated as the rendezvous spot. Lanterns lit the town behind him. A cacophony of music blended. He thought of the night he and Jackie had walked on the beach. He checked his watch. Ten minutes past midnight. He wanted to call the officer who was tailing Juliette, but he didn’t want to be on the phone if she showed up late.
Then, his phone rang, the caller ID announcing it was Juliette. Relief slipped over him. Okay. No need to panic yet.
“Hello?” he said, trying to keep the tension from his voice.
“It’s not happening tonight,” Juliette’s voice sounded high and reedy.
His entire body tensed. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What time?”
“I’ll call and let you know.”
Great. More waiting. “I—”
But she’d already hung up. Cursing under his breath, Scott spun on his heel. He did not like this. It could be a legitimate delay, but it made him uneasy when things did not go according to plan. He stalked to his car, called Carl and told him what was up. Then he called the undercover officer staking out Juliette. “You got your sights on her, Phil?”
“She’s at the Hotel Delgado, penthouse suite. I’m in the lobby.”
“Are you sure she’s there?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“Can you get closer than the lobby? I’m scared she could give you the slip.”
“I’m sitting right by the elevators. I can’t access the penthouse suite.”
“Okay,” Scott muttered. “Do the best you can.”
He went home and tried to get some sleep but insomnia dogged him. Finally, he got up and went to kayak the mangrove channel just as he had the first morning he’d seen Jackie. He paddled past where she had her equipment anchored.
She wasn’t there. Thank heavens. Maybe she’d taken his warning seriously. He could only hope so.
The stakeout continued throughout that day. Juliette never called. The fifty thousand dollars of government money that he’d given her burned a hole in his craw. He had a very bad feeling about this.
Finally, he could stand it no more and in the early evening of the third day of the stakeout, he called Juliette and got a message that her cell phone was no longer a working number.
Swearing viciously, he called Phil Drummond. “Has she left the hotel?”
“Not since this thing began,” Phil said.
“What about your relief?”
“She said all was quiet.”
“Dammit.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “Flash your badge at the hotel manager. Get into the penthouse. Call me the minute you find out something.”
“Will do.”
Scott paced Carl’s office. Placed his hands on top of his head. He had a very bad feeling.
Ten minutes later, Phil called back. “Bad news.”
“She’s gone,” Scott guessed.
“Yep.”
Scott blew out his breath and reality struck him like a fist to the gut. Juliette had absconded with his fifty thousand dollars and he wasn’t any closer to catching DeCristo than he’d been before. He let out a string of curse words. Then he did what he’d been dreading. He called his bosses and told them just how badly he’d screwed up.
“Pull the plug on the whole operation,” his boss said curtly. “And when you get back to D.C. there will be a reckoning.”
“I might have gotten taken by the woman,” Scott said, “but my gut tells me that the small-time dealer Carl arrested is telling the truth about the stealth drone submarine.”
“Do you have actual proof?”
“No.”
“Then pull the plug.”
“If you just give me a few more days… It’s time for a shipment. I think that pulling the officers off surveillance of the mangrove channel would be a big mistake.”
“Just how much of the taxpayers’ money are you willing to waste, Everly? Cut your losses. Bring the officers back in. Now.”
13
Under Staffed, Can’t Go, that’s the U.S. Coast Guard for you. They couldn’t find cocaine right under their noses.
—Drug kingpin Juan DeCristo
ON THE THIRD DAY AFTER she had spent the night with Scott, Jackie woke up feeling worse than ever. Wasn’t it supposed to get better with time? Isn’t that the way it worked?
She stayed out of the mangrove channel, not because he commanded her to do so, but because she didn’t want to take the risk of running into him.
She tried to concentrate on writing her research paper. Except she was having so much trouble getting fully into the project. This had never happened to her.
Disconcerted, Jackie took a walk on the beach to clear her head, but instead of finding clarity, she’d been painfully reminded of her walks with Scott.
Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? Every time an image of his face popped into her mind—which it did with alarming frequency—her heart gave a strange hitch. Dejected, she tracked back to her apartment, her spirits heavier than ever.
Once inside, she clicked the door closed and sank down onto the couch. Her butt had no more than settled onto the cushion when the alarm went off on her monitor just as it had the evening Scott had messed with her equipment in the mangrove channel.
Adrenaline surged through her veins as all the data recordings disappeared from the screen.
“Here we go again,” she muttered, jamming her feet into her sand-dusted flip-flops.
She was in the boat and out on the water before she remembered her promise to Scott that she would not go into the mangrove channel without his go-ahead. Surely that edict didn’t pertain to an emergency. She kept driving, headed for the estuary. Besides, he wasn’t the boss of her.
Remember how scary it was when you thought he was a drug smuggler?
Yes, but that had been stupidity on her part. If she found someone monkeying with her equipment this time, she would back off and call the Coast Guard. She would not confront anyone as she’d done before. She had learned a thing or two.
It was probably nothing more than the equipment had somehow gotten dislodged. Since she hadn’t checked on it since before M
egan’s wedding; almost anything could have happened.
When she rounded the bend, the sun was starting to slip down the horizon, but it was still an hour or more before sunset. She had plenty of time to at least check things out, if not fix them.
The mangrove channel was completely empty. Not a soul in sight. The estuary stretched up ahead. No boats. No people. Nothing.
Scott had been alarmist, she assured herself. There was absolutely nothing to worry about.
WHILE JACKIE WAS HEADED down the mangrove channel, Scott sat on the front porch of his bungalow, his cell phone on the small table alongside a half-empty bottle of beer. Over and over again, his mind kept returning to the foiled drug deal. What had he done wrong?
He’d made mistakes, but sitting here doing nothing felt like an even bigger mistake. Yes, his boss had pulled the plug on the operation, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t continue to investigate on his own. He had to redeem himself for losing the fifty thousand dollars of government money to the conniving Juliette.
He needed more evidence. If only he could talk to the tourist Carl had arrested. Why couldn’t he talk to Carl’s informant? Maybe he could get something from the guy that Carl hadn’t.
Strengthened by having something constructive to do, he got up and headed toward the rental car. It wasn’t until he was halfway to the county jail that he realized he’d left his cell phone back on the porch.
JACKIE ANCHORED her boat beside the small buoy she’d put out to mark the spot. Through the wavy blue depths, she could see something big and dark underneath the surface.
What was it?
She hoped the object wasn’t too far down. She had brought diving equipment with her, but she knew better than to dive alone. Diving 101. The buddy system or nothing.
But she was just slipping underneath the water a few feet. She’d be down no longer than she could hold her breath to see what was lurking just underneath the surface.
Probably nothing more than some strange flotsam that had floated up and gotten entangled in the Kevlar cable. Maybe it was simple. She could give it a good shake, dislodge whatever had gotten caught up in her equipment and everything would be right in her world again.
She put on goggles, stripped down to her swimsuit and slipped into the water.
Something had gotten entangled in the cable. But what in the hell was it?
The object was metal. Six feet long. Curious, she cocked her head, ran a hand over the surface. It looked like some kind of undersized submarine. Was it an elaborate remote-control toy?
Her lungs began to hurt. She needed to go topside and get another breath of air. Or better yet, call Scott and ask for help.
Call Scott? No dice. They were through. Calling him now would be like ripping the Band-Aid off a wound before it had a chance to heal.
She turned to head back to the surface, air hunger urgent now, and that’s when she spied it.
The thing she’d been searching for.
Her heart took flight and for a brief second she forgot about the need to breathe.
There, darting in and out of the mangrove roots, swam the Starksia starcki.
“WHY SHOULD I TALK to you?” the defiant prisoner asked Scott.
“I’ll speak to the judge on your behalf. Tell him you cooperated fully in my investigation. You could get several years shaved off your sentence.”
The thirtysomething guy with shoulder-length, greasy brown hair, hangdog mustache and a Margaritaville tattoo on his right forearm looked skeptical. “I’ve been hearing a lot of reassurances, but I ain’t seen any results.”
“You haven’t come up for trial yet.”
“You’re not going to catch him, ya know.”
“I’ll go to my grave trying to put him behind bars,” Scott said. “One way or the other, I will get him.”
The guy slumped in his chair, tossed his head to fling dirty strands of hair from his eyes. “DeCristo never comes to the States. He uses intermediaries. He’s too smart to get caught by the Coast Guard.”
Scott looked at the folder in his hand. It was one he’d gotten from Carl. “I see you’ve got a family, Mr. O’Hara.”
“Are you threatening me?” The guy hardened his eyes.
“Not at all. I’m assuming you’d like to see them again before you’re gray-haired and using a walker.”
O’Hara shifted in his chair. “Can you make me any solid promises?”
“I can promise that if you don’t help I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you serve every second of the sentence you’re handed down.”
“If DeCristo gets word that I was the one who squealed, he’ll kill my family.”
“We can protect them,” Scott said. “And if you help me, you won’t ever have to worry about DeCristo again.”
“You underestimate him.”
“No, I don’t. I fully understand what he’s capable of. He killed my father.”
That got the guy’s attention. “You’ve got a vendetta against him.”
“I do.”
The guy thought about it a long moment. “Then maybe you can catch him. It will take someone with a strong sense of revenge to make it happen.”
“I’m that someone.”
O’Hara said nothing for a long time, then finally he nodded. “Okay.” Then he proceeded to tell Scott everything he wanted to hear.
When O’Hara finished, Scott tore out of the jail. He had to get to the mangrove channel immediately. According to O’Hara, Juliette had lied about the delivery date. It wasn’t two days ago, but now.
The drone submarine was coming up from Cuba this evening.
JACKIE SAT IN HER BOAT, hauling in great gulps of air, feeling both giddy and concerned. At last! She found the Key blenny. Her theory was correct. Her father was wrong.
Was it petty to take joy in being right? Probably. She tried to suppress the smile. Her professor would be ecstatic about her discovery.
But for now she had other fish to fry.
That submarine thing down there belonged to someone and from Scott’s warning it was most likely not a friendly someone. She needed to call him and let him know what was going on.
Yes, he was going to lambast her for coming out here, but if she hadn’t she wouldn’t have discovered the Key blenny.
A fresh thrill of happiness had her shivering in the warm rays of the descending sun. Never mind. She’d put up with the chewing out he was sure to give her because she needed his help dealing with that submarine. She fished her cell phone from the console on the boat and punched in his number.
It rang several times, and then finally went to voice mail. Dammit. Where was he when she really needed him?
“Scott, this is Jackie. I know you told me not to go to the mangrove channel, but I’m here and I’ve found the strangest thing—”
The answering system cut her off.
Technology. What a pain. She thought about calling him back and leaving another message, but a sense of urgency told her she needed to get out of here. It would be dark before long and the last thing she needed was to be out here alone if the owner of the submarine showed up to retrieve it.
What to do?
Thoughtfully, she glanced around her boat and her gaze landed on the box that contained her oceanography supplies. She had a tracking device called a D-tag in there that was used to temporarily track whales, dolphins, manatees and the like.
What if she attached the D-tag to the submarine? That way, if it did turn out to be something nefarious, Scott would have a way of tracking the sub.
And if it didn’t, you’d lose expensive tracking equipment that belongs to the university.
So what? If it got lost, her father could pay for it. He owed her for not believing in her.
But if she attached it to the submarine, she needed to put on her scuba gear. She couldn’t accomplish her task on a single breath of air. It would take several minutes.
Jackie paused, torn.
She knew better than to dive alon
e. It was the number one thing drilled into every diver’s head. Never, ever dive without a buddy. No exceptions.
But she had no time to go looking for a diving buddy. The sub wasn’t that far down. It wouldn’t take long to attach the D-tag. One quick dive and she’d be right back. No harm, no foul, no worse for wear.
Okay. Right or wrong, she was making an executive decision, even though she could mentally hear Scott bawling her out.
What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Taking a deep breath and pushing back the teaching that was screaming “no, no, no!”, Jackie got in her diving gear, took the tracking device from the metal box and went over the side of her boat.
She saw the Key blenny again. There were dozens of them, none longer than two inches long. The silver fish with a dark line running down their middles had her grinning wide. They might look insignificant to most people, but Jackie had never seen a prettier fish. She paused a minute to admire her splendid discovery before finally moving on.
The submarine lay about eight feet below the surface wedged in between a snarl of mangrove roots. She swam deeper until she was underneath the sub.
It was inky dark down here. She switched on her flashlight, and holding it tucked underneath one arm, she rolled onto her back to attach the tracking device to the hull.
It took her a good ten minutes to get the D-tag secured. Anxiety at diving alone gripped her. She needed to get out of the water. It would be dark soon, if it wasn’t already. Time to head back to Key West and try to call Scott again to let him know what was going on. Besides, she couldn’t wait to share her good news with him. He understood what this find meant to her and she realized he was the one she most wanted to tell.
Experiencing an unsettling mix of conflicting emotions—joy over the blenny, smugness at besting her father, guilt over diving alone, hope at the thought of seeing Scott again—she broke the surface and stripped off her mask.