AJ laughed with the old man, relieved he could still find some humour. But it was short lived.
“There’s my best mate, Ainsley, floating on the top – that bastard Cavero had shot him dead – and when I surfaced, Gabriel Cavero was screaming for his life, getting carried away on the current. Served the arsehole right.” Whitey waved a hand in the air and shook his head. “I let him go.”
He stared at the table for a moment before continuing, “To this day, I’ve no idea why I did it, but I went back down, you know, cos the current was so strong I didn’t have a chance on the surface. So, I went down and managed to stay on the wreck, then I went back in the engine room and put the bloody key back. No clue why I did that, but something urged me to at the time. Now of course I wish I hadn’t cos Hazel wouldn’t have had anything to go there for.”
“Who knows though, right?” AJ said firmly. “Maybe she’d have gone anyway to talk to the bank, or try and find wherever you’d have tossed the key. Or you’d have kept it, and given it to her, and I never would have had the chance to meet her.”
Whitey nodded. “S’pose. Anyway, I wasn’t going to make it back and I knew it. Figured I’d run out of air and the current would take me off to be with Ainsley, and I was fine with that. Sure enough, I ran out of air and I just closed my eyes and let myself go. But I was over the shallower reef where there was hardly any current, and before I knew it, I’d surfaced and was just floating there. I ditched the dive gear so it would get pulled out to sea and swam to the bloody beach.”
“And you never saw Gabriel again?” AJ asked.
“Nope. Bastard was halfway drowned last I saw him, and they never found his body,” Whitey said coldly.
“Well, his son’s with him now, cos exactly the same fate happened to him.” AJ said, matching his tone. “And if his father was anything like Junior, then the world is a better place without them.”
“But they both took someone very special with them, and both were cos of me,” Whitey said with his old teeth gritted. He took a long, wheezing breath and looked at AJ. “You were with her? Hazel, you know, at the end?”
AJ swallowed and tried to pull herself together. She’d figured this conversation might come around and she wasn’t prepared to speak of it yet. It had been a month, but she could still see Hazel’s blood on her arms and chest, still hear her gurgled words, and see her pained face. It was all fresh and raw, the moment she ran to the bow when they’d arrived at the dock and held Hazel’s lifeless body until the paramedics pulled her away. When would something like this ever fade? How long before it didn’t haunt her mind constantly? She didn’t know, but this was her father asking and she owed him a response.
“Yes, I was with her,” she whispered.
For a moment she thought that might be enough, but after a minute he found the question he needed the answer to. “Did she fight?”
AJ couldn’t hold them back, her tears streamed like pain escaping down her face. “Yeah, she fought the bastard. She pushed him out the boat and saved my life, damn it, got herself shot instead of me.” Her face fell into her hands and she sobbed like a child. She felt the old man’s arms wrap around her and hold her tight like her grandfather used to do. Her body shook as the emotion poured from her soul and she wept uncontrollably. He kept his arms around her and whispered soothing words until she finally could stop. He stood back, his own face damp from tears and watched as she fished around in her pocket and placed the silver key on the table in front of them. AJ looked up at Whitey. He stood there with red, puffy eyes and shook his head.
“That bloody key has a lot of blood and sorrow on it.”
AJ wiped her face and looked back at the key. “What do you want to do with it?” she asked through sniffles.
“I don’t want the bloody money, I never wanted the money,” he said quietly. “There’s nearly four million in there you know?”
“That’s what Hazel told me, four million less thirty thousand. She said you wouldn’t tell her why the thirty thousand.”
“Ainsley’s cut. I gave Ainsley thirty grand from it. But I had two million in my hotel room when I got out the water; there was two million already in the bank, but I hadn’t had a chance to pay the new lot in. I had to sweet talk the lady at the bank into using the master key so I could put it there before I left. Would have been a lot easier if I’d kept that bloody key. Anyway, I wanted it all there. I didn’t want any of it. Money I gave Isabella was mine I’d earned; never stole a penny from them.”
She looked back at the old man. “How about something good in Hazel’s name?”
“Like a charity?” he asked, sounding intrigued.
“Or a scholarship or something. Maybe for young women or to keep the youngsters on the island off drugs?” AJ suggested.
“You’ve got the key, you can do as you please with it,” he said, managing to find a smile.
“I’ll set something up on the island with your blessing. We can think about what kind of scholarship Hazel would have liked to see,” she replied as he sat down again. He reached over and took her hand.
“Thank you,” he said, looking her warmly in the eyes. “Thank you for being there with her, and thank you for coming here to find me.”
“I had to,” AJ replied, trying her best not to lose it again. “You were the last person she spoke of.”
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without the continued, unwavering support and encouragement from my amazing wife Cheryl and great friend James Guthrie. I’m never alone on this perilous journey. My wonderful Mum and Dad always encouraged my creative adventures and for that and much, much more I’m forever grateful and in their debt. Dad would have loved this one. My editor, Andrew Chapman has been a game changer and an absolute pleasure to work with, thank you so much. He can be found at PrepareToPublish.
Thanks to Jen Skrinska of Greenhouse Cafe and Rosa Betancourt and her staff at Heritage Kitchen, for their input and permissions.
Above all I thank you, the readers, it is your kind words that have opened the door to more adventures for AJ Bailey and myself.
Let’s Stay in Touch!
If you’d like to keep up with new releases and news as well as subscriber pre-order special pricing, please join my mailing list at www.NicholasHarvey.org
If you enjoyed Wreck of the Raptor I’d be incredibly grateful if you’d consider leaving a review on Amazon.com
Other books in the AJ Bailey Adventure Series;
Prequel Novella: Cavern of the Lost Souls
Book One: Twelve Mile Bank
Book Two: Gardens of the Queen
About the Author
Raised in England, working in America and heading for Grand Cayman. That encapsulates Nicholas Harvey’s career, which has been dominated by motorsports from an early age as a driver, then race engineer, to senior manager at the top level of motor racing in the United States. His first novel, Twelve Mile Bank, was published in 2017 and in 2019 Nick became a full-time author with the release of Gardens of the Queen and Cavern of the Lost Souls.
Nick and his wife Cheryl can be found touring the world in search of adventure on motorcycles, mountains and dive boats.
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