Terrors of the High Seas - DK6

by Melissa Good

  “Hold it!” Kerry stepped between the two of them and held up her hand. “C’mon, guys, we don’t have time for this.” She raised her voice when Charlie kept coming. “Stop it!”

  One, two, three, four… Kerry counted silently, feeling the boat shift a little under her as something started moving.

  The door to the cabin slammed open and Dar bounded out onto the deck, her eyes immediately taking in the situation. She pounced on Charlie, grabbed his shirt, and unceremoniously hauled him backward. “Hey!” she barked. “Cool it!”

  “Let go of me!” Charlie yanked against her grip. “I owe that bastard a big right one.”

  Dar got in front of him and blocked his way. “I said, cool it.”

  She bristled. “We don’t have time for this crap. Like you said at the hospital—you made the choice to trust him. No one forced you.”

  Charlie tried to brush by her. “Dar, get out of my way.”

  “No.” Dar didn’t budge. “Don’t even think about trying to move me.”

  He stopped and stared at her. “You think you’re Andrew? Get your ass out of my way, girl.” He put his hand against Dar’s shoulder and pushed.

  Dar didn’t budge. She lifted her hand and closed her fingers around Charlie’s wrist, tightening her grip with sudden explosiveness. “Charlie,” she gazed steadily at him, “this is my 266 Melissa Good boat, and you’re on it,” she said. “Stop it.” Their eyes locked. “I’m not my father,” Dar warned him softly.

  Charlie examined the glittering blue eyes, cold as ice, that were fastened on him, then he stepped back. Dar released his arm and he resumed his seat on the stern bench. “When we get off this boat,” he told Dar, “you ain’t stopping me.”

  Satisfied with the answer, Dar turned. “All right.” She looked at Bob. “This has gotten a lot more serious. You can stick around, but keep your mouth shut, and if we need you to do something, don’t make me have to explain it in words of less than one syllable.”

  Bob took a step backward. “Maybe I should just go hang out somewhere else.”

  Kerry turned. “DeSalliers kidnapped our friend Bud and he’s threatening to kill him,” she said. “Sure you want to go out wandering around?”

  Bob looked honestly shocked. “No kidding? I didn’t think he…

  I mean, yeah, he’s famous for all this salvage crap, but I never thought he’d get as serious as that.”

  “Let’s go inside.” Dar opened the door. “Hopefully, he’ll call soon and we’ll know where we stand.”

  Kerry led Bob inside, taking a moment to give Dar a wry look and a pat on the side as she passed her. “Would you like some coffee?”

  Dar gave a tiny moan in response. She turned and waited for Charlie to get up and limp over, standing back to let him enter. He paused as he came even with her and their eyes met again. After a minute, Charlie shook his head and walked past.

  Dar turned and briefly surveyed their surroundings. She scanned the nearby boats, assessing their occupants. Nothing jumped out at her, and of course, DeSalliers’ yacht was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes spotted two policemen, however. One was standing near the beginning of the wooden dock, and the other was walking up and down near the beach.

  She heard the sound of engines behind her, and she walked to the other side of the boat and looked out over the water. A racing boat was idling into the marina, big, throaty engines rumbling as it moved past them. There was a man behind the controls, with what Dar could only describe to herself as a babe next to him.

  The man looked around and caught Dar’s eye, producing a smile and a wave in her direction. “Nice boat!” he yelled.

  “Same to you,” Dar responded with wry civility. She watched the boat move past, making note of the name and the Miami Beach home port under it. The racer pulled into a slip two past theirs and disgorged its occupants onto the dock. The man gave the woman a slap on the butt and pointed up to a nearby restaurant. He turned Terrors of the High Seas 267

  and walked the other way, toward Dar’s boat.

  “Figures.” Dar stuck her head inside the door. “Got company.

  Ker, watch my phone, will ya?”

  Kerry had artfully positioned Bob and Charlie as far away from each other as she could in the living area and was preparing coffee behind the galley. “Aye aye, Cap’n Dar.”

  Dar shut the door and walked to the side of the boat to meet their visitor.

  “ANYWAY, SINCE YOU’RE a neighbor, I thought I’d pass the word,” the man said with a wry grin. “It was a hell of a weather system, and since it’s headed this way, you might want to check your float plan.”

  Dar exhaled. “We had a bad storm here the other day,” she said. “I thought we’d finished with the tropical weather this year.”

  The other boater shook his head. He was a relatively good-looking man, of medium height and the type of build that indicated he guilted himself into a gym a few times a week. “Yeah. And you know, I just heard we’re up for an El Nino again this year.

  Weather’s been real weird.”

  Dar glanced up. “Well, if what they say about global warming is true, better enjoy the islands now,” she said. “We’ll be diving them as reefs some day.” Her hand extended over the water.

  “Thanks for the warning, Roger. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” The man clasped her hand. “Hey, you said your name is Roberts?”

  Uh oh. Dar nodded warily. “Yeah.”

  His head tilted and he looked at her. “You’re not any relation to Andrew and Cecilia Roberts, are you? They’re my slip neighbors over at the South Beach Marina.”

  Oh. Dar managed a relieved smile. “Yeah. They’re my parents.”

  “Had a feeling.” Roger pointed at her. “You look like Andy.

  He’s a trip. Well, good to meet you, Dar. Have a safe trip back, and watch out for that storm.” He lifted a hand and started back down the docks.

  “Small world,” Dar murmured in bemusement. “Small, small world.”

  “SO THAT’S WHAT happened.” Kerry put the Thermos of coffee on the tray and added some cream and sugar. She picked it up and brought it over to the table. “Whatever it is you’re looking for, Bob—it must really be there.”

  Bob exhaled. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too, when the cops came after me. No smoke without cigarettes, right?”

  268 Melissa Good Kerry looked up with a dubious expression. “Right.” She set down the tray, and then jumped as Dar’s cell phone rang. With a quick glance toward the laptop, she picked it up and opened it.

  “Hello?”

  “Roberts?”

  Kerry considered lying, but discarded the idea. “No,” she answered.

  “Put the bitch on the phone right now.”

  The door opened and Dar entered. Kerry held up the phone and then directed a rude gesture toward it. Dar’s eyes narrowed as she crossed the deck and took the instrument. “Yeah?”

  Kerry dropped to the couch and pulled the laptop over, clicking on the window Dar had running for the cell phone. The program had activated. She noticed Charlie had moved to the edge of his chair, listening intently to Dar’s conversation.

  “Write this down, Roberts. If you fuck it up, your little buddy’s toast.”

  Dar took a deep breath, willing herself to patience. “Go ahead.”

  “I’ll give you two coordinates. You be there at midnight tonight. Bring what you’ve got, plus twenty-five thousand dollars,”

  DeSalliers said. “That’s to cover the cost of fixing my boat.”

  Considering his demands, Dar pulled her new pocket watch from her shorts pocket and opened it. “Forget it,” she told DeSalliers crisply. “Try again.”

  There was a momentary silence. “You’re not really understanding the situation, are you? You don’t tell me what to do, Roberts; you do what I tell you to do.”

  “Listen, moron, the bank’s closed,” Dar said. “If you want to recoup the cost of repairs to your hull breach, gimme the bil
l or rethink your plan.”

  “That’s not my problem, Roberts. It’s yours. Bring the cash and the relic, or I’ll chop this piece of shit up and use him for bait.”

  The phone went dead; Dar closed it. “Shit.”

  Kerry studied the screen. “Looks like he’s out on the water, Dar,” she said. “Nearest coordinates are just west of St. Johns.” She tapped a few more keys. “Jesus, you captured the digitized output?”

  “I never do things halfway.” Dar sat down. “We’ve got a problem. He wants twenty-five grand.” She studied the phone. “So now, in addition to a relic I don’t have, I also have to turn over a suitcase of cash I don’t have. This is getting better and better every damn minute.” Her disgust was evident in her expression. “And to top it all off, a damn tropical weather system’s headed this way and it might be developing circulation.”

  Kerry frowned. “At this time of year? Dar, it’s December!”

  “No kidding.” Dar rubbed her eyes. “All right, let’s see where Terrors of the High Seas 269

  these coordinates are.”

  Charlie got up and walked over, leaning on the couch arm to see what Dar was doing. “Weather means trouble,” he commented.

  “But not ’til after this damn thing’s over.”

  Dar typed in the two coordinates DeSalliers had given her and waited for the program to plot them on a map. The grid drew in, then a sketchy outline of the islands, then a blinking crosshair. It was set in the middle of the water, as she’d expected it to be, in a lonely stretch of water south of the islands.

  “No-man’s-land.” Charlie grunted. “’Bout two hours run out there. Not much but a hole in the ocean.”

  “So he has to get from here...” Kerry put her fingertip on the place where the cell signal had been tracked from, “…to here. And we have to get from here…” she pointed to where they were in St.

  Thomas, “…to here. Much shorter.”

  “We could get there first,” Bob commented. “You think they’ll have your friend in the boat with them? I guess they’d have to, huh?”

  Dar studied the screen. “If they actually intend on making the swap, yeah.” She heard Charlie suck in a breath. “I figure I need to make him show me he’s got Bud before I agree to anything.”

  “You think he’d double-cross… Oh, what a stupid question.”

  Kerry rubbed her face with one hand. “Dar, if we don’t really have anything to give him, what are we going to do?” she asked. “You can only bluff him so far.”

  Dar folded her hands together and rested her chin against them. “I know that.” Her pale eyes became hooded, the lids becoming mere slits over icy eyes. “If it takes us two hours to get out there, we’ve got until around nine thirty before we have to leave the dock. We’ve got until then to get something to turn over to him that’ll seem real enough to pass.”

  “What about the money?” Charlie asked. “Got some people I can call.”

  “Not that creep from this morning!” Kerry blurted out. “Christ, I’d rather hock the boat than see his face again.” She reached forward and pulled over the coffee tray, setting up two cups and starting to prepare them.

  “No.” Charlie cleared his throat gently. “Somebody else.” He stood up and took out the cell phone. “Damn bill’s gonna cost me an arm this month.” He limped toward the door and went outside, closing it behind him.

  Kerry and Dar exchanged glances. Dar pulled the laptop over and opened another program. “I’ll get a wire transfer through, but it won’t clear until tomorrow. Maybe if he can get something temporary until then…”

  “Expensive vacation.” Kerry leaned against her lover’s 270 Melissa Good shoulder. “Next time, how about we just go do something traditional, like visit Niagara Falls?”

  “It’d probably stop while we were there and we’d have to fix that, too.” Dar finished her request and hit enter with an annoyed click. “Okay.” She examined her other running programs. “Nothing else yet.”

  “You think there will be?” Kerry asked.

  Dar shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. And you know something? I’m getting pretty tired of saying that I don’t know.” She rested her head against her hands again, banging her forehead against her fists lightly as she rocked back and forth.

  Kerry put an arm around Dar, rubbing her back with light fingertips. “Okay, Bob, what specifically did you think you’d find here? Really, I mean.”

  Bob had been staring at Dar in fascination. Now he looked at Kerry with startled eyes. “Um…I dunno, really. I kinda expected...um…well, Tanya thought the old man would maybe work a deal with us if he knew we were trying to rake something up.”

  “No, huh?” Kerry’s brow creased. “Somehow, a guy who would steal from his own mother doesn’t seem to me to be the type to deal.” She gently moved the laptop away from Dar and cracked her knuckles before opening a database request and starting to type.

  “Now, if we assume Grandpa Wharton wasn’t nuts, then he was here for a reason, right?”

  “Mm,” Dar grunted.

  “Okay. I’m going to search the exports from here during that time period and see what I can find. If he was here, it must have been for something worth his while. Since he was a fisherman, I doubt it was timber.” Kerry typed quickly and accurately. When she felt warmth on her shoulder, she looked up to find Dar’s chin resting on it. Her hand stopped moving for an instant, then started up again. She was very aware of Bob’s watching eyes, but the comfort of Dar’s cheek pressed against her jaw trumped the mild embarrassment at the intimacy, and she leaned her head against Dar’s.

  “Hey,” Dar breathed into her ear, “while you’re there, do a search in the public archives for smuggling busts during that time period.”

  Kerry turned her head slightly and looked into Dar’s eyes at very, very close range. “Smuggling?”

  “Smuggling?” Bob asked.

  “And do a public records search on him in Maine,” Dar said.

  “We’re assuming he was here for a reason. Nothing says it had to be a legal one.”

  “Hey!” Bob protested. “He was a good guy.”

  Terrors of the High Seas 271

  Kerry nodded slightly as she typed.

  Charlie came back in, his face visibly red. He limped over and sat down, juggling the cell phone as though he wanted to chuck it against the cabin wall. “Waste of a phone call.”

  Dar looked up from a conversation on her own cell and shook her head.

  Kerry motioned him over to the galley where she was standing.

  “Want a beer?” she offered sympathetically.

  Charlie sat down on the stool bolted to the deck and rested his arms on the galley counter. He played with the phone, still visibly upset. “All we done for them, and they tell me to get lost.” He rested his fist against his jaw. “Thought after all this time, things’d changed. Guess I was wrong. Wait ’til the next time those bastards show up with a busted head, wanting Bud…” He stopped suddenly and his eyes blinked a few times. “Damn, I hope he’s all right.”

  Kerry set an opened bottle of beer in front of him and leaned on the counter. “I’m sure he will be, Charlie. We’ll do our best to make sure of that,” she assured him in a gentle tone.

  Charlie looked at her. “I feel like a first-rate fool. Thinking them people’d gotten to be our friends.”

  Dar walked over and leaned next to him. “All right. I arranged for a draft for tomorrow. When I talk to DeSalliers tonight, I’ll have to work a deal with him. I can’t get it any sooner. There isn’t a big enough supply of cash on the damn island. The nearest place I could get it from was one of the cruise ships, and the closest one isn’t due in until tomorrow night.”

  Charlie looked at her. “DeSalliers ain’t gonna buy that. He wants to get the hell out of here.”

  “I know,” Dar agreed. “So I have to make what I’m gonna give him good enough for him to forget about the cash.”

  Kerry tapped her
on the arm. “Dar, we don’t have anything.”

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  “You can’t risk it,” Kerry protested quietly.

  “Kerry, what choice do we have?” Dar asked, just as quietly.

  “The searches came up with zilch. We’ve got no clue as to why Wharton was here. We have no proof he was nuts, no proof he wasn’t. What we have is a damn wooden cigar box and my ability to lie through my teeth.”

  Kerry closed her eyes. “Christ.” She exhaled, staring at the counter. Then she looked up. “DeSalliers is probably going to head around St. Thomas and then around the east part of the island to the meet point, right?”

  “Probably. Why?”

  “Why don’t we go dive the site? What do we have to lose? Maybe we can find something,” Kerry said. “We’ve got a couple of hours.”

  “Hey, that’s a great idea!” Bob had joined them. “He won’t 272 Melissa Good even be paying attention to the site now.” He sounded excited for the first time since he’d joined them. “Let’s do it!”

  Dar calculated the times, then turned and headed for the door without a word. Maybe they would find something, maybe they wouldn’t, but it was something physical she could do and that sure as hell beat the crap out of sitting around the boat for four hours pulling her hair out. And sometimes, she acknowledged, she got lucky. Dar hoped this was one of those times.

  Chapter

  Twenty-three

  IT WAS VERY quiet at the wreck site. The sun was gliding seaward, and there was just a very light chop on the water. The air was cool and dry, and Kerry tipped her head back to see a cloudless sky above her. “Nice.” She was dressed in her shortie wetsuit for the evening dive, the neoprene compressing her body with a slightly annoying snugness that would relax once she was underwater.

  Dar, also in her wetsuit, was standing by their gear. She put a bootied foot up on the bench and strapped a dive knife to her leg, then turned and sat down, getting into her BC and strapping it across her chest.

  “Are you sure I can’t go down too?” Bob asked for the fourth time. “Honest, I think I’d have a better idea of what to look for.”

  “No.” Dar stood up and cinched her straps tighter. She tied an extra dive light to her belt. “You said you didn’t have any clue what you were looking for; don’t change your story now.” She motioned Kerry over to get her tank. “We don’t have that much time.”