The Island

by Heather Graham

  Sure.

  But when?

  That was the question of the hour.

  WHEN JAKE AND ASHLEY HAD gone to bed, Beth found that she was still too restless herself to sleep. She went online and looked up the island. To her surprise, there was a great deal written about Calliope Key. Apparently almost everyone since Columbus had put ashore there. Ponce de León had stopped by. The Spanish had claimed it, then the English. Despite its proximity to the Bahamas, it had remained part of Florida after trades between the Spanish and English, the Spanish and the Americans, and the English and the Americans.

  When the Spanish had held the island, they had often lain in wait to surprise English ships and lured them onto the reefs. Apparently the welcoming sight of the island, and the sound of the wind on the water and through the trees had beckoned them onward, and thus the name, Calliope Key. Sadly, the islet had been like a siren, enticing men to their deaths.

  There had been too many wrecks to count, but as she read, Beth came across one very specific incident. A battle between an English ship and a Spanish ship, the Sea Star and La Doña. Captain Pierce had battled Captain Alonzo Jimenez. All had been lost, including the innocent travelers aboard, seeking to reach Spanish ports in Central and South America.

  Beth stared blankly at the screen.

  The ghost story, the tale that Keith had told that very first night around their campfire, had been true, or at least based on truth.

  She was suddenly certain that meant something.

  That it just might be at the base of everything else.

  But what did it mean? Treasure seekers were always combing the coast of Florida. There were so many known wrecks that had yet to be found. The legend of the Bermuda Triangle had sprung up because so many had been lost and no trace ever found.

  She hesitated, then began combing the article again. Both ships had been lost with treasure aboard, as had so many ships before their sad encounter. But these treasures had been worth millions, even at the time. Heaven only knew what they would be worth now.

  Enough to kill and die for, certainly.

  THEY WERE STILL ANCHORED in the bay.

  Matt was pacing the cabin. “All right. Sandy and Brad are guilty. They’ve been stealing yachts. They have a base somewhere, and they’ve managed to get the boats to this base, where they’re being done over. Every law-enforcement agency out there is onto them. So…what is the difficulty now? Why don’t we just come out with the big guns—major league underwater equipment?”

  “We’ve got to be back out there in the morning, and we have to find it,” Lee insisted. “It’s ridiculous that we haven’t been able to.”

  “Maybe our coordinates are wrong,” Matt said.

  “I don’t believe that,” Keith said firmly. He was the one who had studied the accounts of the wreck, taking into consideration every storm that had ravaged the area since. He had also been the one to study and calculate what had possibly occurred after they had received the new records, only recently turned over to the United States by the German government. He had figured in time and tides.

  Keith stopped pacing. “Why do you think they didn’t try to steal this boat?” he mused.

  “Huge boat, three men. Witnesses,” Lee suggested.

  “Just two of them,” Keith mused. “Tough guys when they’re armed, against a retired couple, one friendly diver…”

  “But they hung around out there,” Matt said.

  “Maybe they were looking for the right opportunity,” Lee said. “Hoping we’d eventually show some vulnerability.”

  “They won’t dare show up out here again,” Matt said. “They must know the law is onto them.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Keith put in.

  “I just don’t get it. Why are we still tiptoeing around?” Matt said.

  Keith rose. “Because we work for a company with a government contract and this is what we were hired to do. Not to mention that we’ve got another dead diver on our hands.”

  “Who might never have been anywhere near Calliope Key,” Matt reminded him. “Plenty of assholes put on dive gear.”

  “This man was experienced,” Keith pointed out.

  “And didn’t own a yacht,” Matt added.

  “Accidents happen,” Lee murmured.

  Keith kept silent on that score. He had seen the body.

  There had been no accident.

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, the newspaper carried an account of a diver found dead in the Keys.

  Beth found herself obsessing over the article, reading it over and over again. When Ashley awoke, she stuck it beneath her nose.

  Ashley shook her head. “Beth, everything in the world isn’t related to a missing couple and pirated boats. Those two couldn’t have been everywhere.”

  “It was idiotic of them to have been in Miami,” Beth said.

  “Not really. Think about it. The area is huge, boats everywhere. Hide in plain sight.” She looked at Beth. “He didn’t have the kind of boat our pirates have been stealing. And, Beth…Jake and I were out one day in the Keys, diving down to the Duane. A guy on our boat wasn’t in the best shape and shouldn’t have been doing such a deep dive. He panicked, popped up to the surface and died. It happens.”

  “I know.”

  “So do you have a plan for the day?” Ashley asked, carefully changing the subject.

  “Besides just being worried sick?” Beth asked her.

  Ashley leaned forward. “They will be apprehended. And Amber will be protected. Look, Beth, you have a right to be scared. And angry.”

  “I’m angry about having to be scared. I have a lot to do this week.”

  “We can get a man into the yacht club, as well.”

  “Ashley, you and Jake can’t go calling in every favor you’ve ever earned. You have to let me pay these guys.”

  Ashley shrugged. “If you were to allow me just to report what happened—”

  “No. I will not risk Amber.”

  “But, Beth—”

  “Hey, I reported the skull. Lot of good that did.”

  “This is different.”

  “Maybe they’ll be caught soon,” Beth said. Her cell phone rang, and she excused herself and picked it up.

  “Where the hell are you?” Ben’s voice demanded angrily.

  “At Ashley’s,” Beth said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me? What were you doing, babysitting?” Ben asked.

  “Something like that,” Beth lied. She hesitated. Why not tell her brother the truth? Because he had doubted her over the skull? Because he would panic over his daughter? She didn’t like lying to Ben. But for the moment… “So what’s up? What do you need?”

  Ben was silent for a minute, still angry. His voice was tight when he said, “Amber is anxious about you—I don’t know why, and neither one of you seems to want to tell me. I have to clean the hull today, so I’m taking her to lunch at the club, and she’s going to swim and sunbathe while I’m working. Will you come?”

  She didn’t want to do anything but fume and fret and worry, she realized. But that was a stupid course of action to take. She had to trust in her friends, and wait for Sandy and Brad to be apprehended.

  They were probably hiding in plain sight, just as Ashley had said. And if so…

  They were hiding around boaters. She looked at Ashley. “Want to have lunch at the club?”

  “Sure. I just need to arrange a babysitter.”

  KEITH COULD HEAR THE LULLING sound of his own breathing, at forty-five feet down, following the path of the reef. With breaks here and there, it stretched for nearly a mile.

  Lee was topside. He and Matt were tracing a grid, with Matt perhaps twenty feet west of his position as they moved south.

  Matt looked over at him and made the “okay” sign.

  He returned it.

  They continued searching the area. In his mind, he ran over and over his conversation—conducted in the fishing rod aisle—with Manny Ortega.

  “You had my name
and number from Ted Monoco?” had been his own first incredulous and very suspicious demand.

  Ortega had given him a shrug and a shake of the head. “You didn’t know Ted, but he knew you. Four years ago, you were in the Everglades. A small plane had gone down. People he knew were on that plane. You and your crew rescued their daughter.”

  Manny continued. “I tried to reach you before. The number Ted gave me was for an office in Virginia, and when I called, they said you were away on assignment for an unknown length of time.” He shrugged. “I contacted the police. I believe they tried with what resources they had. But the law in this country is that you may disappear if you choose if you’re an adult and doing nothing illegal.”

  “Go on.”

  “The last time I heard from Ted was when he mentioned you and gave me your number to try to reach you. He thought he was onto something. He didn’t say that he was afraid of anything, he was just very excited. I didn’t think much of it until time went on and I didn’t hear from him. Then I began to worry. That was when I tried to reach you but couldn’t. I finally felt there was nothing I could do. Then you appeared here.”

  “So how did you get my cell phone number?”

  “It wasn’t as difficult as you think. You gave it to Laurie Green, the girl you pulled from the plane in the Everglades. I finally thought to call her and ask.”

  “I see. So what do you think I can do for you?”

  “Find Ted and Molly. Dead or alive. Though I’m very afraid it will be dead.”

  A ray suddenly dislodged sand near the base of the coral, drawing Keith’s mind back to the task at hand. The water was murky in the wake of the panicked fish. He nearly kept going.

  Then he saw something.

  Just the corner of something black that wasn’t coral.

  He circled, looked. The sand had resettled. Carefully, with just his fingertips, he explored the area. Dusted carefully, trying not to create such a cloud of sand that his vision would be impaired. Patience was needed for this kind of work, and he had learned to practice that kind of restraint through the years.

  His efforts paid off at last. He found the object.

  It looked like a crusted, big black button.

  But it wasn’t. His heart skipped a beat. He needed to get it back up to the boat, but he was almost certain what he had found.

  His hand curled around it. He looked over at Matt, who had realized he was onto something.

  For a moment he was tempted to drop the object, to shake his head to show he’d been mistaken and come back later. Mike was so convinced that there was someone on the inside….

  And Manny Ortega believed Ted and Molly Monoco were dead. So did Keith, but he didn’t believe they’d been killed for their boat.

  He believed they had found something on or near Calliope Key, then died for their discovery.

  Too late.

  Matt swam over to him. He produced the object. Matt stared at it, nodded silently, then studiously began searching the area further.

  Keith placed the object in a pouch and joined Matt in the search.

  They were close….

  So close.

  He had to wonder, though: Had others been this close before them?

  But had those others even known just what it was they were really looking for?

  14

  IT WAS ON THE DRIVE to the club that Ashley looked at Beth and said, “You really do need to tell your brother what happened.”

  “You mean about being attacked?”

  “Yes. You’re in terror about filing a report because of Amber. He has a right to know.”

  “He’ll tell me that I should file a report. And God knows—he might do something stupid and dangerous.”

  “You should file a report.” Ashley lifted a hand in the air to silence the protest she knew was coming. “Make it official. If Sandy and Brad are what I think they are—tough-talking but only preying on the vulnerable—they’re not brave enough to go up against real authority. They were at Nick’s, a piece of real stupidity. The place is known for being a cop hangout. I doubt they really know what you’re doing—it’s unlikely that they have the time to continue to stake you out. They intended to scare you. That’s all. Don’t let them succeed.”

  Beth mulled over her friend’s words. Then she asked, “They’ve killed before, so why did they just try to scare me?”

  “We don’t know that they killed the Monocos, and the couple in Virginia survived,” Ashley said.

  Beth shook her head. “I’m convinced the Monocos are dead.”

  “Maybe killing you was a risk they didn’t dare take. I don’t know, Beth. But I still think that you need to file an official report. Scare them in return. Hell, there’s already an APB out on them, which they probably know, so what’s the difference if you file a report, too.”

  They arrived at the club and easily found Ben and Amber at a table waiting for them. Amber still seemed anxious when she looked at Beth, who couldn’t help but hug her too tightly. Then she smiled at her niece and tousled her hair, trying to defuse the moment. Ben and Amber both greeted Ashley with pleasure. The Sunday buffet was elaborate, the club filled with members in good spirits, and Beth wished she could go back to a time when all she did there on a Sunday was enjoy herself.

  After lunch, Ben went off to work on his boat. Ashley, Beth and Amber went poolside. Beth was glad to see that it was busy, and that she couldn’t for the life of her figure out who Amber’s secret bodyguard was.

  “Where’s Kim today?” Beth asked Amber.

  “I don’t know. She just said she couldn’t come,” Amber said with a shrug. Then she hesitated. “Aunt Beth, I’m really sorry about the other day.”

  “You should be.”

  “I just…I want you to be happy.”

  “Let me be happy on my own, okay? Now swear you’ll never interfere in my personal life again.”

  “I swear,” Amber said.

  “And don’t ever try to scare me again,” Beth said.

  “I didn’t try to scare you,” Amber replied.

  “Oh? I remember what you wrote word for word. First the skull popped up and then, ‘I’ll be seeing you soon. In the dark. All alone.’”

  “I never wrote such a thing!” Amber protested.

  Beth frowned, feeling a new chill seep into her spine.

  “Then Kim must have done it.”

  “No,” Amber insisted. “All we did was write back to Keith on e-mail.”

  “Beth, it’s time you reported this. Officially,” Ashley said firmly.

  “You’re going to call the police about Kim and me?” Amber asked, stunned and horrified.

  “No, honey…there’s been more than that,” Beth murmured. She looked around uneasily. There was no one around who might be listening to their conversation, she was certain. There was a group of children playing with a ball nearby, and a few members of the women’s charities committee busily discussing their next fund-raiser.

  She was startled to see that Maria Lopez was there again. She was elegant in a one-piece black bathing suit, straw hat and sunglasses, down at the other end of the pool. She couldn’t possibly hear anything they were saying.

  She looked down toward the docks, shading her eyes. A number of the boats were out. She saw Ben, assembling his scuba gear—he meant to go down and clean the hull. As he gave his attention to his tank, a woman hopped to the dock from the deck of a boat farther down.

  Amanda.

  Dammit, didn’t she have any other place to go? From being an occasional visitor to the club, she’d turned into a regular—a very unwelcome one, from Beth’s point of view.

  As Beth watched, Amanda approached Ben, lightly touching his shoulder.

  Ben looked up and smiled.

  Beth looked quickly away, but Amber had seen the direction of her gaze. She groaned. “Can we get her arrested?” she asked Ashley.

  “Flirting isn’t illegal,” Ashley told her.

  “Simply being that woman s
hould be illegal,” Beth said dryly.

  “Beth…” Ashley persisted.

  “All right, all right,” Beth said. “But…let’s get through the afternoon. Let Ben clean his boat. And I’m telling you, no one’s going to be able to do anything.”

  THAT EVENING ASHLEY BROUGHT Amber to Nick’s with her. Jake, Ben and Beth went to the station, where Beth filled out a formal report. Ben was a nervous wreck—and extremely angry with his sister. Beth continued to remind him that he was among those who had kept telling her that she was paranoid. Luckily, with Jake there, they couldn’t fight too openly. Both he and Lieutenant Gorsky—the lead officer on the pirating case—tried to remain casual and calming as the two argued.

  They left in a state of stiff tension. But it was done. Ben’s house would remain under surveillance, and it had been suggested that Beth move in with her brother for the time being.

  Great. He was barely speaking to her.

  But since their lives might well be at stake, Beth agreed. She knew that the department didn’t have the manpower to protect them all as they tried to get through their daily lives. At least, because of Jake and Ashley, extra protection, in the form of off-duty cops, would be afforded to them.

  Still, the night was pure misery. Amber was confused, and her father warned her firmly that she wasn’t to make a single move alone. Beth tried to be reassuring, but she had to reiterate her brother’s words to her niece.

  On Monday morning she drove Amber to school, glad to see the officer following them all the way.

  He didn’t follow her to the club. He was staying downtown, where he would be keeping an eye on the school throughout the day, so Beth was careful as she continued to work. At the club, she noted that the security guard was not alone.

  She was nervous, wondering if anyone was inside the club itself or wandering the grounds to keep an eye on things. Midmorning, Commodore Berry came in and sat down gravely. He told her that he’d been contacted by the police and there was going to be at least one officer on duty inside the club or on the property at all times, keeping an eye on things. Since there were known pirates working in the area, he was grateful to have the assistance.