Way Too Deep (Love Overboard Book 1)

by Andrea K. Stein

  Alton bent over and set the silver tray in front of them. “I’ll be back with some ginger vegetable wraps for Fiona. Made especially for her.”

  “I’ll help you!” Becca bounced off the cushions and locked her arm in Alton’s as they walked across the deck, headed for the galley.

  “Suit yourself,” Alton said, but the brush of her skin on his made him nervous. And uncomfortable. And needing Lindsay.

  When Becca and Alton hit the galley, she started touching things—his chopped onions and vegetables, the marinating monkfish, his curried shrimp, and mango soup. He had to pull her back. He wanted to smack her hands but couldn’t. Instead, he found himself once again in a claustrophobic place with her half-naked body pushed up next to him, but he’d been having so much sex, nothing stirred in him except keen annoyance.

  “Easy, Becca,” Alton said. “Things are complicated enough.”

  “Putting me off again?” Becca pursed her silicone-enhanced lips.

  “I know. I know,” Alton soothed. “It’s just with all the people around, I don’t want to settle for quickies. I want to take my time.”

  Ha, that was a joke because he’d had sex with Lindsay in nearly every nook and cranny on the boat. Quickly.

  Becca pulled him into a kiss, and he did his duty, but it was a job—a spitty, sloppy, unpleasant job. Alton straightened.

  “Tell me I can kiss, that I’m better than that slut we picked up. She’s the problem.”

  Alton touched her cheek, and he felt like he was betraying Lindsay, but he had to save his career. “You’re an amazing woman, Becca. What your husband is doing is a crime. I’m sorry.”

  Becca sniffed back tears. “I am an amazing woman, and I will get through this. Thanks, Alton.” She hugged him, then turned and left.

  Alton was dizzy with relief. Good. Becca had gone with just a kiss and a little upper cheek rub. No lower cheek rubbing needed. Alton returned to his meal prep. It was time once again to work his magic. He was more than halfway to saving his career, his reputation, his whole life.

  He could imagine a triumphant return to L.A., blessed by Becca Carrothers, Fiona Stuart, and Moj. Their recommendations would put him back on top.

  But Lindsay would continue sailing around the world while he was once again crowned the Kitchen God. She wouldn’t leave her life at sea, and he couldn’t imagine trying to live permanently on a boat—not after a lifetime of hating ships, canoes, rafts, or any kind of floatation device. He wouldn’t change, and neither would she.

  Alton closed his eyes. He couldn’t think about that. It was time for dinner.

  Showtime.

  * * *

  Wednesday Night, Palm Island

  Lindsay looked down the top deck and realized Alton had outdone himself. He’d had Raoul light dozens of candles. The fat beeswax pillars glowed from the table, the deck surrounding the sunken dining area, and the raised decking supporting the custom cushions.

  The wind had died down with the sunset, and now the air was still, but alive with the lights dancing on the candle wicks. Silver place settings sparkled from folded linen napkins layered on multiple linen tablecloths.

  Lindsay made a mental note to make sure they were all snuffed out before the end of the watch. Fire and boats did not mix, not when they had acetylene and oxygen tanks in storage.

  Lindsay had taken care of the tanks, all the while worrying about Raoul.

  Tommy allayed most of her suspicions. “Raoul doesn’t have the sense God gave roosters. He saw tanks, he put ‘em all together. Having the acetylene isn’t a bad idea. We’ve had to weld before on trips. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

  So Tommy thought it was all stupidity as usual, but Lindsay wasn’t so sure.

  She moved closer as the dinner guests arrived - Moj and Fiona, Becca, Manning, and CeCe. Becca insisted the masseuse join them, though usually she would eat with the rest of the crew after the guest passengers feasted.

  Lindsay stood back near the lifelines at the edge of the deck with Raoul, in case Alton needed anything.

  She was exhausted from the tension of navigating through the reefs—in reduced light conditions - to get them safely to the anchorage at Palm Island. She breathed a silent prayer of gratitude to St. Nicholas.

  If only she could neutralize the shaky situation between Becca and CeCe, she could hit her bunk for a few hours of sleep.

  She couldn’t help smiling at Alton. He was like a circus ringmaster, describing the menu, grinning and flashing his knee-melting dimples.

  “We have grilled monkfish, which has been marinating in a Nantes-inspired mixture of herbs, spices, and lemon as well as special ingredients I swore to French aristocrats I would keep secret.”

  “Reveal your source in the French aristocracy, and I will tell you the ingredients within an eighty-five percent accuracy,” Manning said, his face a study in seriousness, confirming his status as tool.

  Alton didn’t bite. “Mr. Manning, that wouldn’t be appropriate. I have a reputation as someone who tastes but never tells.”

  Becca laughed a little too loudly at his comment, but seemed to purr as Alton continued to dazzle them. She acted as if she’d forgotten CeCe was even there, though the woman resembled a Botticelli painting in the candlelight. Her simple white dress made her skin tone seem richer and more exotic.

  During long talks on various voyages, Lindsay had discovered her crewmate was half-Swedish, half-Portuguese. She’d grown up in Horta, on the island of Faial, in the Azores with a Portuguese father and what seemed like a thousand male relatives. From CeCe’s stories, their swagger and machismo could put even Alton and René to shame. Her mother was a tall, blonde Swede who had abandoned the macho tribe when CeCe was a little girl.

  Lindsay had never asked, but she figured the ship’s masseuse was drawn to Jerome Carrothers because, like her father, he was a powerful, influential man used to getting everything he wanted. CeCe was a sucker for the alpha uber-stud.

  Alton gestured for Raoul to push a cart loaded with two soup tureens next to the table. He pointed to the smaller one. “I have a curried mango soup for our resident vegan and curried shrimp and mango soup for the carnivores.”

  “That’d be me,” Moj said. “I love shrimp.”

  Alton filled bright blue china bowls with his concoction, starting with Becca and moving on to CeCe, Moj, and Manning, before going to the second tureen.

  When he turned, Lindsay noticed Manning alternately stirring and studying his soup. In his right hand, he had a small glass vial.

  Alton didn’t seem to notice, which was the correct reaction because the spy wannabe was always looking for someone to cohabit his psychoses.

  Alton served Fiona’s soup, and then with a grand gesture and a smile wished them “Bon appetit.”

  “Wait!” Manning gave out a roar, holding the bowl of soup in his outstretched palm.

  Everyone froze.

  From his pocket, he took out his black smartphone, clicked on the light, and then frowned. “I was right. Do not eat this soup. It has been poisoned.”

  Lindsay glanced at Alton to gauge his reaction.

  “Of course it has, “Alton said with a thin laugh. “I have to poison people at least once every couple of weeks.”

  “Death is nothing to joke about.” Manning stood and extended the vial toward Alton. “There—see the blue color?”

  Alton swallowed hard, his smile shaky as a sail in a big blow. “Didn’t I see you sprinkle something in your food?”

  “I test all of my food for poisons before I eat, and especially on this trip.” Manning set the bowl on the table and twirled the vial in his hand.

  “Mr. Maura, you cannot deny you have a deadly culinary reputation. If I’m right, you laced this soup with the fugu fish, which you would have on hand for sushi and other delicacies. Certain parts of that fish are filled with tetrodotoxin, which is deadly.”

  Drops of sweat appeared on Alton’s forehead, and he leaned hard against Lindsay. H
e pulled out his smartphone and Googled fugu fish. After he read the main entry, he slammed the phone down so hard on the table, the screen cracked. He chucked it over his shoulder.

  Lindsay did a fast check on Raoul. He was still next to the lifelines, his expression inscrutable.

  “It wasn’t Alton. It was you, wasn’t it, bitch?” Becca jerked to her feet and swept the bowls off the table. She pointed a finger like a bayonet at CeCe.

  “If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t kill everyone else to do it,” the masseuse shouted as she leapt to her feet. “You think I’m a bitch? Look in the fucking mirror, bitch!”

  Becca didn’t even take off her earrings. She jumped across the table and hit CeCe full force. Both women tumbled backward, upset the cart, and the soup gushed down onto the deck, over the two women wrestling around in the muck. Scratching, soup-sliding, hair-pulling, and cursing followed.

  When Manning tried to separate the two, an errant kick knocked him backward. His smartphone fell and clattered across the deck, as did the vial of chemicals.

  Alton pushed away from Lindsay and stormed off to the galley.

  Lindsay was left to intervene. She pulled Becca off first so CeCe could get in a last good scratch.

  Raoul finally did something. He marched Becca off, leaving CeCe panting furiously. She turned on Lindsay. “Was it Alton? Was the soup poisoned?”

  “No, not Alton,” Lindsay snapped.

  “But yes, without question, the soup was poisoned,” Manning said, standing and brushing off his knees. “Of course, I didn’t want to use deadly force to stop the fight. I’m not used to holding back, so that’s why I went down.”

  Lindsay sighed. Leave it to him to pretend he hadn’t just been decked by a girl.

  Manning continued. “The real question is, who poisoned the soup? That is the mystery.”

  “And what are we going to eat now?” Fiona asked.

  Lindsay had to unclamp her jaws to speak. “If you give me a minute, Tommy and I will whip up some grilled cheese sandwiches in the galley. Nothing fancy, but filling and safe.” When she saw the horrified look in Fiona’s eyes, she hastily added, “Of course, steamed veggies for you.”

  And then she would get to the bottom of the fugu fish shit. She’d make sure whoever provisioned the poisonous food would spend a thousand years in some rat-infested island jail.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Wednesday Night, Palm Island Anchorage

  Alton sat on the galley floor, his long legs stuck straight out in front of him. He looked at his five-hundred-dollar Hugo Boss white topsiders. He’d have to pawn them. Couldn’t remember what the hell he was thinking when he blew a wad of money on the high-end yachting footwear in a gift shop on Bequia.

  From here on out, tire-tread sandals would be fine for him, like the ones Tommy wore—gauche, but no doubt good enough for wherever he’d end up next.

  He took another slug of Cruzan straight from the bottle. No need to add a shot glass to the pile of dirty dishes already in the sink. Thank God Carrothers kept a well-stocked liquor cabinet. From his blurry view of the bottle it looked like the island rum was about half gone.

  Piled in the sink were dishes full of food everyone was afraid to eat because of course, Alton Maura poisoned people. Third time’s a charm, right?

  Lindsay had already carted off bread and cheese and vegetables to give to the passengers. And her goddamn chips. And her goddamn Cokes.

  He tried to defend himself, but she wouldn’t listen. Kept yelling about ugly fish in a tank. He didn’t even bother to tell her he had no idea what she was talking about. Although he searched, there was no sign of a fish tank anywhere in the galley, and besides, he wouldn’t have provisioned the fugu fish for sushi. He could do sushi, sure, but half the fun of cooking was the actual cooking. With fire. Which he wouldn’t be doing anymore, not professionally.

  Getting hell-bent drunk was the next logical course of action.

  Probably would take another bottle of hooch to put him out of his misery, but before then, by God, no one was going to mess with his food—ever—ever again. Always some bastard hovering nearby waiting to poison people with his cooking.

  “And here comes one now,” he muttered under his breath. He got to his knees and grabbed a meat tenderizer as a weapon. Stationed by the door, he saw two blurred images, two blurry poisoners. Since he couldn’t decide which one to hit, he sank back to his former position propped up against the spice cabinet.

  “Alton, what are you doing?” Lindsay pulled at the sleeve of his chef’s uniform and lifted him to his feet.

  The poisoner sounded like Lindsay. He blinked. It was Lindsay. Now, maybe she would listen to reason. “Look, it wasn’t me. And do we really trust Manning? Maybe he did it, just to keep up his international man of mystery act going.”

  “He’s a tool, but he would never poison food.”

  “Bullshit!” Alton tried to bust past her, to eat up every drop of the soup. If it was deadly, well, good. Might as well go out eating.

  “Stop, just stop.” She ripped the bottle of Cruzan from his grasp and pushed him down. “You have to admit, this is all way too convenient. You’re hired on, and then the food winds up poisoned. Either you’re a serial killer, or someone is trying to frame you.”

  “Who? Becca?” Alton blinked and tried to scoop thoughts out of the kettle of drunk bleakness his mind had become. “Yes, it must have been her. Becca was here. Before dinner. She was touching my shit.”

  He stumbled up and grabbed a monkfish dripping sauce and took a bite. He chewed. Dang, even drunk, he knew he was the fucking Kitchen God. It tasted perfect. He waited. Nope. Not poisoned. He belched. Oh, wait a minute, it was the soup, not the monkfish.

  “Nice.” Lindsay’s voice dripped fury. “Pure class. So things go to hell and this is what you become? Really?”

  “This gig was my last chance, Linds,” Alton shot back. “What would you do if we lost the Bonnie Blue?”

  Lindsay lashed out. “We won’t lose this boat, and you better believe I’m going to get to the bottom of this. If you are innocent, you pretty much fucked it all up by getting drunk and being a tool.”

  She stormed back out into the passageway leading forward and slammed shut the door.

  “Must’a said the wrong thing.” Alton expelled another belch and then sank to the floor again. He was too exhausted to revisit the liquor storage.

  * * *

  Lindsay stopped in her headlong rush back to her bunk and leaned against the forward bulkhead wall of the crew dining quarters. Nobody there at midnight anyway.

  The passengers had eaten, morosely, and dispersed into different areas of the Bonnie Blue.

  Alone, Lindsay let the tears fall, the ones she could never let anyone else see, except maybe Tommy once in a while. She cried to mourn the first decent relationship she’d had in years, she cried to mourn her career as a captain once Becca blabbed to all her yachtie friends about the cruise from hell.

  And she cried because in spite of all the trouble the tall Kitchen God had rained down on her, she still wanted him. The real reason she’d fled the galley was she’d never wanted anything so bad as to join him on the floor for some sympathy sex.

  Finally, midway through the hiccup stage, she came to a decision. She couldn’t stay away from the big goon, but first, she needed to pull herself together.

  Only one place to do that: Up top so the stars would calm some of the storms inside her. She climbed the steps to the deck and stood silently, letting the night soak into her soul.

  She felt her father right then, but she didn’t know if he was proud of her or disappointed. She was living the life he’d always dreamed of, sailing, seeing the world, but at the same time, that dream was in danger. She’d made mistakes, but events seemed to be conspiring against her.

  Lindsay breathed in the sea air, closed her eyes, and felt the boat’s subtle rocking. She could only do what she could do. First things first—Alton.

  She bent
and scooped up a black smartphone from the deck. She remembered Alton tossing it after Manning accused him of poisoning the soup.

  She walked back to the galley, opened the door, and faced the drunken chef. She plopped down next to him, cross-legged on the floor, and pushed the phone into one of his pockets. Then she put an arm around him.

  “You really are innocent, aren’t you?” Lindsay said.

  Alton sighed. “Of being a dickhead and letting you down? No, guilty as hell. Of poisoning people? Totally innocent.”

  Holding him, she knew their romance had been doomed from the start. She loved the ocean as much as she had loved her father. He hated boats like last week’s canned Spam.

  “Why do you hate the water?” Subtlety was not one of her virtues.

  “What?” Alton leaned back and looked into her face. “You want to know that now?” He had to stall. “If I’m not the poisoner, who is?”

  “I don’t think it was Becca,” Lindsay said. “If anyone, it was Raoul. I can’t accuse him without proof, but it’s a little late to investigate. He most likely threw the evidence overboard. Not much I can do at this point. Might as well talk to you before Becca throws shit into the fan.”

  Alton closed his eyes. “Because if I’m lucky, I’ll only be thrown off the Bonnie Blue. Better than being thrown into some nightmare island prison. Bread and water only. No brioche. They’d probably give me moldy white bread and dirty water. No ice. No Pellegrino. I won’t make it.”

  He was avoiding her original question, so she waited. Didn’t say a thing.

  Finally, he spoke. “Senior year in high school. I went to the lake with a bunch of friends. Before that, I mean, I didn’t really have much experience in the world of boating. I went canoeing in Cub Scouts, a little water-skiing in middle school, but nothing major. Not like that day in high school.”

  Lindsay felt him shiver.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I brought sandwiches.” Alton smiled. “Ham and cream cheese sandwiches, I thought I was so clever. I also brought a mango chutney, which is hard to find in Iowa City, believe me. I made it myself, from a recipe I found online. Spent all my money on mangoes, and in the end, no one ate it, but the sandwiches were a hit. Sure. Well, maybe they liked my food because they were all so drunk.”