* * *
Wednesday Noon, En Route to Mayreau
Alton sagged against the galley counter when he heard Lindsay’s voice crackling through the intercom.
“Alton? Are you there?”
“Yes, Lindsay. I’m marinating monkfish filets for dinner tonight. What do you want?”
“You know what I want,” she said, lowering her voice, and then giggled.
“Lindsay, we have to stop. This can’t end well. If Becca finds out, she’ll come after you after she chops me into little pieces. We’ll be destroyed.” Alton sucked in a breath. He’d managed to keep Becca at bay for the time being, but throw another woman into the mix, Alton would have no more excuses. Becca would either roast him with her jealousy or fuck him to death.
Which was what Lindsay seemed to be doing. But not this time.
“Actually, I’m finally hungry. Is there anything down there you could throw into a salad?”
“With a side of chips and a Coke?” he asked, relieved they might have returned to a normal relationship where every encounter didn’t turn into a sex-filled marathon.
“You know me well,” she said. “And could you bring my food up here? I don’t want to leave the wheel. We’ll be near the reefs soon.”
“On it, my captain,” he said, and clicked off the intercom.
Alton headed to one of the coolers and retrieved a bag of greens and then started water to boil for one of the angry crabs scuttling around and terrorizing the neighborhood in a large metal tub in the corner.
He whistled a tuneless ditty while pulling out a grater and a chunk of pecorino cheese. At last. He could cook for his honey.
Potato chips. What could he do with potato chips? He had to do something special for his Precious Sex Princess.
Then he remembered one of his mom’s favorite recipes. He could make a mean cookie out of chips, butter, and brown sugar. He couldn’t wait to see what Lindsay would do when she saw how clever he could be with potato chips. Couldn’t wait to see how grateful she’d be, how wet she’d be.
A sudden hard-on made him thankful he was alone in the galley, reminded him how close he was again to the madness that had brought him to the brink of disaster in the first place. Elodie’s jealousy had cost him everything. He couldn’t afford to have events play out that way again with Becca.
* * *
Wednesday Afternoon, Saline Bay Anchorage, Mayreau
Lindsay had Tommy work the anchor this time at Saline Bay on Mayreau. All the mooring balls were taken. It was the high season. She signaled him when the Bonnie Blue was in thirty feet of water. Didn’t want to press her luck in any shallower depths.
She had no idea what Manning was up to, but she reckoned with his side trip to dive, they’d probably be pulling in to the Palm Island anchorage around nightfall. Maybe she could pick up a mooring ball there and bypass the whole anchoring process.
And with any luck, Becca would have tossed back enough vodka by that time to soften the blow of watching CeCe come aboard. She’d considered breaking the news to Mrs. Carrothers before they got there, but then decided she might as well wait for the fireworks as have them going off all day.
Or maybe the excess alcohol effect would heighten the fun. Just like “Saturday night in Sioux City” as “The Duke” used to say in the old Westerns she and Tommy watched when she was a little girl.
Alton interrupted her dark thoughts when he arrived with a tray full of goodies, and, bless him, her Coke. The salad he’d whipped up was way fancier than anything she’d expected. Tasty-looking chunks of crab, an assortment of greens and chopped red pepper. She took a sip from the longneck bottle and reached first for one of the fat cookies piled on a small plate next to the salad.
“Where are your manners? Dessert first?” He slapped at her fingers and set the tray on the low table between the port and starboard wheels. He straightened and looked around. “Where’s your first mate? There’s plenty of food to go around.”
Lindsay pointed toward the bow. “Tommy is lying flat up there to keep an eye on the reefs. We’re in super shallow, treacherous water.
Tommy raised an arm then and pointed off the port side of the boat. She made a slight correction with the wheel but kept her eyes riveted on his signals coming from the bow.
“I’ve never seen coral up close,” Alton said.
“Go to the lifelines and look down. The reef is all around us.”
He walked to the side and leaned over, quiet in concentration. “It’s full of colored fish. They’re everywhere.”
She smiled at his childlike excitement and while his attention was diverted, snagged another cookie. “Wow. What’s in these cookies?” she asked, and grabbed a third one.
“Potato chips,” Alton said, and turned back to her with a smug look. “Eat your salad, not just the cookies. You’ll get scurvy, or whatever it is those old sailors got from not eating fresh produce.”
At the sound of a quiet cough, she turned to see Raoul, an expectant look on his face.
“You have orders for me?” He oozed disdain. Made her want to smack him.
“Mr. Manning would like to dive between Mayreau and the Tobago Cays. Take him in the tender and then wait for his return. He’ll take a waterproof radio to let you know where and when to pick him up. With the current there, he’ll be doing a drift dive and could end up at least a mile away. Make sure to monitor the radio while you wait.”
“He dives alone?” Raoul raised an eyebrow.
“He’s what we Americans call a lone wolf,” Lindsay said. “I’d appreciate you getting the oxygen tanks and diving gear ready for him.”
“It’s all in the stern bay, captain, where the tender is stored.”
“Great, then get to it,” Lindsay said. At that moment, she saw Tommy signal thumbs down for a safe anchoring spot. After letting the anchor drop to the bottom, she put the engine in hard reverse to test the hold.
Later, she’d have Tommy add a second anchor off the bow angled about forty-five degrees from the first one. The currents in the area ran strong, and she wanted to make sure there were no ugly surprises while she waited for the “secret agent man” to come back from his dive.
Raoul scowled, turned on his heel and headed below decks.
Lindsay pushed a button beneath the topside nav console to lower the back of the stern to allow access to the tender and storage area. She motioned for Tommy to hurry back to monitor the anchor hold so she could leave the helm. Time to check on the tender and Manning.
When she got there, he was already kneeling and testing the tanks. He motioned to Lindsay to move closer.
When she knelt down, he turned his head toward her and asked in a quiet voice, “Do you realize you’re stowing acetylene tanks right next to the oxygen? Do you want to lose a third boat, captain?”
Chapter Eighteen
Wednesday Afternoon, Saline Bay Anchorage, Mayreau
“Acetylene?” Adrenalin pumped through Lindsay’s body and pooled like acid in her belly.
Manning nodded, ultra-serious. “As I thought. You had no idea. And I would imagine Tommy is also unaware. Which means our friend Raoul has become our lead suspect.”
“The Russian,” Lindsay whispered. She would murder him, have Alton turn him into Borscht, and then pour him into the Caribbean for the barracuda to slurp up.
“Of course he’s Russian,” Manning said. “I don’t know his real name, yet. However, I have sent his DNA to my lab in Geneva. Only a matter of days until I discover who he really is.”
“We have to confront him,” Lindsay said. She jumped up to find the Russian weasel and rip off his fur.
Manning pulled her back. “No, we shan’t. And we’ll continue to watch him. I do not want my game ruined yet. Move the tanks, keep your wits about you, and we’ll play this out to the end.”
Raoul strutted toward them, a superior smirk on his face. Lindsay couldn’t help herself. She grabbed his uniform shirt and jerked him close.
“
What were you thinking storing acetylene next to the oxygen? Don’t you know what could happen if there was a leak?” She let go and used her hands to mime an explosion.
“Tanks belong with tanks,” Raoul said, and shrugged. “I did not know. I will move the acetylene to the bow storage.”
Manning ignored them and continued to prep his gear. He would be angry because she confronted the nimrod Russian, but it was her ship, her career, not his.
“No,” she said. “Take Devin on his dive. I’ll deal with the tanks.”
Raoul said nothing but hit the lever that released the launch into the water.
Lindsay hung on to the painter line and held the tender close to the stern even though she’d rather growl and throw things.
After the launch slipped into the blue lapping water, Raoul climbed down and helped Manning with his gear. Before getting in, Manning turned to her. “You must learn subtlety, captain, if you expect to win the game.”
“I don’t play games,” Lindsay said.
“We all play games.” Manning said over his shoulder and then jumped down into the boat.
She hefted a tank onto her shoulder to transfer down to him, and though the metal bit into her skin, she didn’t care. She was too mad and worried.
Either Raoul made a stupid mistake with the tanks, or something else going on. She gave herself a head slap when she realized she was buying into Manning’s paranoia. By the time Lindsay had lugged the heavy tanks to a forward storage area, she’d worked off some of her frustration.
* * *
Alton stood at the shiny galley counter and chopped, which for a chef is like shuffling cards before a world champion poker game, every meal, every day. Chop, chop, chop. He wielded Sophia, his sixteen-centimeter chef’s knife with the Granton edge. A good knife, the perfect tool to create a meal to impress the new guest, CeCe, the massage therapist.
He knew Lindsay was worried about the potentially violent clash of Carrothers’s women.
In a stolen moment when she wasn’t kissing him, fondling him, or riding him like a mermaid on a wave, she’d said her boss was insane for bringing his mistress aboard along with his wife.
Alton wasn’t surprised. Men like Carrothers had everything—the power, the money, the perks. All that was left was their ability to flex their muscles and abuse what they had.
Carrothers would get off on having both women on the same ship and then laugh when they fought over him, sickening behavior Alton understood all too well. During his halcyon days of fame and money when he had been doing Lani and Elodie at the same time, the combination of sex and power had been intoxicating.
The hangover since? Yeah, not worth it.
* * *
Wednesday Night, on Course for Palm Island
Lindsay leaned back on her elbows at the bow, legs crossed at the ankles, and took a short break. She reached to her side and hoisted the last of her final icy Coke of the day. While chugging the last sweet drops, she assessed the high, feather-like clouds above the fast sinking sun.
The next day’s weather should be bluebird clear, but those clouds promised high, steady winds. Already she was calculating the best course to follow to Grenada in the morning after they picked up CeCe that night at Palm Island.
The wind was still holding to an easterly and she figured she could get by on a beam reach ninety degrees off the worst of the gusts. Far enough off to avoid subjecting the passengers to being heeled hard over all day.
She stood up, shaded her eyes, and scanned the waters around the Bonnie Blue. Tommy was at the helm, and they were headed toward the narrow cut between Union and Palm Islands.
Raoul and Manning still hadn’t returned, but she’d received a weird radio call from Raoul saying he was headed back and she should start down island. He’d catch up in the high-powered tender. At the last minute he’d added something garbled about Manning meeting them later. If he’d been a normal passenger, Lindsay would have had a panic attack. But if he said he’d catch up, he would. Maybe his next form of transportation would be a deep-sea submersible.
A sudden wind disturbance made the sails snap and flutter and she could imagine Tommy cursing at the helm. Then she was momentarily deafened by the sound of a black helicopter descending toward them.
Manning. He was coming back by chopper, which explained the turbulence smacking around their sails.
The helicopter drifted away from the boat and closer to the water, sending waves of white splashing in a circle around downdraft generated by the spinning propellers. A door opened on the side and a man in scuba gear leapt and splashed into the drink. There was Manning. Hurray. Not.
Lindsay expected the helicopter to take off back into the sky, but it stayed hovering above the water.
She was about to radio the bird’s captain, when a rope with a hook tied to the end was pushed out the door.
After Manning rose from the surface and connected a black mesh bag to the hook, the helicopter rose into the air and roared away. Then he turned on his back and kicked lazily toward the Bonnie Blue.
What the hell?
Lindsay was at the ladder when Manning hauled himself up.
“You’re not going to tell me what that was all about, are you?” she asked.
“No, not this time.” Devin unsnapped his dive vest and shrugged it and his other gear off his dripping body. His gaze was cool.
Lindsay sighed. He was mad at her for confronting Raoul about the tanks.
“Fine. How was your dive?”
Manning paused. Leveled his eyes. And, with a lift of his brows, said, “Interesting.”
Raoul chose that moment to roar back with the launch, so she didn’t have time to grill Manning on what he meant by his cryptic remark. By the time she and Raoul secured the shore boat, her spy-wannabe had disappeared into his cabin.
* * *
Late Wednesday Afternoon, Palm Island Anchorage
When the Bonnie Blue pulled into Palm Island’s anchorage, and Raoul took the tender ashore to collect CeCe, Alton came up on deck to offer baked oyster and wild mushroom canapés to accompany the fireworks of mistress meeting wife.
The drama never ended on this tub. After Manning’s cinematic return to the ship, the battle of the babes might be anticlimactic. Probably not.
Fiona and Moj were already relaxed on the cushions in the main deck’s dining alcove, enjoying the late afternoon sun. Since her cure and the subsequent hallucinations, Fiona did seem much better. Less fearful, less fake, more real.
Alton couldn’t help staring when Lindsay helped CeCe up onto the deck. The sleek blonde woman with bronze-tinted skin carried a small tote in her strong hands. Her skin tone and hair color complemented each other, making her glow golden in the deck lights.
Her excited smile and twinkling eyes made Alton smile along with her. She seemed so young and carefree, until Becca came out onto the deck in her bikini top and a fringed wrap around her middle. And of course, a wine glass glued to her hand. Alton was pretty sure the ever-present accessory was an implant.
Though the setting sun’s rays still echoed at the horizon, a chill wind swept across the water, making Alton move closer to Lindsay.
Becca and CeCe glared at each other, both frozen like lipsticked statues. Time slowed to a crawl. Alton felt Lindsay tense, but then, he was already strung so tight he could hear his heart beating through his skin.
They were ready to get between the women once the fury broke loose. Then something inexplicable happened.
“Hello, CeCe, darling,” Becca said, and grinned like a primal jungle cat. “My husband said we would be stopping to pick up some of his special friends. Devin Manning is aboard, somewhere, and now you. How nice.”
“Oh, good,” CeCe said. “Devin is here. Did he parachute in or was it a jetpack this time?” The masseuse kept her lips closed tight over her teeth and returned Becca’s smile.
There was a distinct accent to her words, but from where, Alton had no idea. She seemed Mediterranean, but
her coloring and hair were a touch too light for that part of the world.
Becca continued her feral grinning. “Parachute, and apparently a helicopter just an hour ago. You missed all the excitement.”
“He does like to keep us guessing,” CeCe managed to say through gritted teeth.
Alton knew the “he” could be applied to Carrothers as well as Manning. Alton pitched forward into the conversational crevasse before the women could draw pistols,
“Welcome aboard, CeCe. I’m Alton Maura. Would you like a little something to eat?”
“The chef from that Kitchen God show? Yes!” she said, and laughed. She scooped up a canapé with French manicured nails and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm. Delightful.” She closed her eyes, let her head fall back, and licked the crumbs from her lips.
“But you don’t have to waste this sensational food on me.” She widened her eyes and straightened, the invitation in her ocean blue eyes unmistakable. “I’m only the help.”
Alton gulped and got out of the way. God only knew where the conversation would go from there.
“Oh, no, CeCe, you’re family here,” Becca said, with a dangerous feline purr. “We’re all just one big happy fucking family on this fucking ship, aren’t we, Fi?” Becca took another hit of her wine.
“Yeah, Bec,” Fiona said, but nestled closer into Moj’s embrace. “Whatever you say.”
Becca brushed her wine glass over her lips. “That’s right. Whatever I say.”
Lindsay swooped down and snagged CeCe’s bag. “Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping. We’ll be up front, like that one trip to Rio. Remember? We had a good time.”
“You bet we did, Captain Fisher.” After one last dazzling look for everyone with a special pause at Alton, CeCe followed Lindsay below decks.
“Oh, Becca, I’m so sorry,” Fiona said, and touched her friend’s shoulder when she slumped down next to her in a wine scented huff.
“Don’t be,” Becca shot back. “We’re all adults here, and it’s my husband’s drama, not mine. As long as she behaves herself and stays away from me, we’ll be fine.”
Way Too Deep (Love Overboard Book 1) Page 14