Tied to the Stern

by Mark Stone

  Tied to the Stern

  Coastal Justice Book 9

  Mark Stone

  Sunday Dinner Press

  Contents

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  The End

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Untitled

  Tied to the Stern

  Coastal Justice: Book 9

  Chapter 1

  My fist made a weird popping sound as it slammed against the guy’s jaw. As much as it hurt, and it did, it didn’t look like anything compared to the wave of pain radiating off the bastard’s face as he went winding to the sandy beach below. I had chased this guy for a couple of weeks now. A mid level drug dealer who had been filling Naples’ streets with garbage for at least the last six months, I finally caught him in the act.

  The sun was barely rising, just enough to send an orange-red tint through the sky, when my team and I broke up a drug deal on the docks. The man who had just received the best my balled up fist could give him was named Al Davidson. Intel told us he came from Mississippi, and had been causing trouble since at least the time he could recite his ABCs. This guy had an arrest record that would have made the most prolific crime boss blush out of a sense of insecurity. The thing was, he also had a brother-in-law who was a DA back home.

  Al Davidson wasn’t home anymore, though. He was in Florida, and he was about to find out just how differently things worked out here.

  “Al Davidson,” I said, taking a deep breath and looking at the man as he touched at his nose and came away with blood. “You’re under arrest. You have the right to-”

  Before I could finish reading off the waste-of-space’s Miranda rights, I heard a couple of shots ring out through the air. Instantly, my training kicked in, and I hit the ground. Making a mental note to finish reciting those rights as I tossed my body against the cool, morning sand, I found Al’s foot waiting there for me.

  He kicked me hard in the face, causing me to see stars and to rear back in pain. Now, my nose was bleeding just as much as Al’s, which was a similarity I wasn’t interested in sharing.

  “Good,” I muttered, looking up as he scrambled to his feet in an attempt to flee. “Now, I can add Assaulting an Officer to the list of charges I’m going to lock your ass up for.”

  Looking back for just a moment, I saw that there was a pretty large scuffle behind me. All hell had broken loose when we broke up the deal, and criminals scattered to the four winds. Luckily, we had enough officers on hand to bring them in. Of course that didn’t mean any of it would happen without a fight. Luckily for myself and the good people of Naples, it seemed like the boys in blue had the fight under control, even if I had just heard shots fired. Turning back around, I saw my own personal piece of this struggle was still ahead of me.

  Al Davidson might have been mid-level in terms of the drug trade, but all of the intel we had told me he was on the way up. He had connections, which meant he had information. I had little doubt that, swimming somewhere in that man’s head, were enough names and dates to put a lot of very powerful and bad people away for a very long time. I just had to extract them, and to do that, I needed to bring him down first.

  Scrambling to my feet, I rushed toward the man. He was a couple of hundred feet ahead of me at this point, trudging through the sand on his way toward a beachside bar. I knew that was where he was headed. There was nowhere else for the man to run. In this building, he would find a bit of cover, and if he was lucky, a way to lose me.

  What he wouldn’t find, very likely, was people. We were in that stretch between the black of night and the first light of the morning that saw most people tucked safely into their beds. Places like this, especially a bar, wouldn’t be open. So, at least, I didn’t need to worry about that. Still, I needed to get to him before he made it into the place. It would just be easier that way.

  While I was pretty sure he was unarmed, nothing good could come from him getting out of my direct line of sight.

  I bridged the gap between us as quickly as I could. For all his success here, Al Davidson had grown up in Nebraska. While it was a gorgeous state, it was as landlocked as possible, and farm boys might know about a lot of things, but moving through sand isn’t one of them.

  Lunging at the man, I hit him hard in the back with my elbow. The blow, plus the force at which I was moving, was enough to send him stumbling forward and onto the steps.

  I grappled for my gun, but before I could pull it from it’s holster, Al Davidson had turned around. Pushing himself off the steps, he swung at me with what I quickly saw was a knife. I darted away, but he was too close and there wasn’t enough time. The man swung for my face, for my eyes. Lifting my hand, I caught the blade’s movement with my left arm. Wincing in pain, I felt a wound open up and blood begin to pour warm from it.

  Swallowing hard, I pressed forward. The common thing to do, when receiving an injury like that, would be to pull away. I couldn’t afford to do that, though. If Al got me on the ropes, he’d just keep coming. He knew there was a gun on my hip. He’d never let me get it out. I needed to catch him a bit off guard. I needed move quickly, concisely, and with direction.

  My shoulder slammed into the man’s chest. He was smaller than me. So, I wasn’t surprised when I pushed him backward and into the door of the bar. What did surprise me was how the door gave way. It crumpled inward, swinging open and depositing us on the floor.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Al drop the weapon. It clanged against the floor just before we did.

  Using the arm that hadn’t just been cut to pieces, I punched the man hard in the face, sending his head hitting hard against the plywood floor.

  Standing quickly, I pulled out my gun and held it toward the laying man. “You,” I said breathlessly, picking up where I left off. “Have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be-”

  Suddenly, I felt the weight of some stares on me. My head jerking up, I saw that I was surrounded by people. They were all in jackets and a few of them were huddled around what looked to be surveillance equipment.

  Of course, none of that was what grabbed my attention. The thing that my eyes moved toward was the woman walking toward me. I recognized the eyes. I recognized the smirk. I recognized it all.

  Natasha Rayne strode toward me, smiling and biting her lower lip. She looked down at the man on the floor and then back up at me.

  “Hey there, Stormy,” she said, nodding at me. “It’s been awhile.”

  Chapter 2

  I sat in the interrogation room, my arms folded and my leg bouncing under the table like it did when I was nervous. I had just seen a woman I never thought I would again, a woman I wasn’t sure I ever would have wanted to see again. The first time I saw Natasha Rayne, it ended with me attempting to propose to her only to find out that she had been playing me the entire time. The last time I saw her, she
had been working with the feds, having decided that working on the side of the angels was better than a lengthy prison sentence. I had to assume that was what was going on here today, but if that was the case, this was even bigger than I thought.

  “You okay?” Boomer Anderson, my best friend in the world as well as the Collier County Chief of Police asked as he stepped into the room. “I know you bandaged that arm up, but I’m thinking it might need stitches.”

  “You might be right,” I answered, looking down at the white wrapping around my forearm. “But the second I set foot in the hospital, Rebecca’s going to find out about it. She’s still got a lot of friends there, and I’d prefer to let her sleep a little later for once.”

  “She’s been busy this week,” Boomer said, nodding as he spoke about my wife, the former surgeon turned medical examiner. “I still think she’d want to know what’s going on with you.”

  “And she will,” I answered. “I just kind of have to figure out what’s happening myself.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Natasha Rayne, Boom?” The feds are involved in this?”

  “Looks like it,” he answered, sitting down across from me and pushing a cup of coffee my way. “I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s going on, but they’re here now. Apparently, Al Davidson is being brought up on federal charges. They’ve been watching him for months now.”

  “That makes two of us,” I muttered, taking a sip of the coffee and finding it to be a little cold for my liking. “That information would have come in handy before I sank hundreds of man hours into this investigation.”

  “And before you guys put your life on the line busting up a drug deal that they were watching anyway,” Boomer agreed. “But you know how this goes. They don’t have to tell us what they’re doing.”

  “I’m aware,” I responded, taking a deep breath and setting my coffee down. “Want to tell me what I’m doing here?”

  “Other than your report on the incident?” Boomer asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “You know me,” I replied, shaking my head. “That was done ten minutes after I got here. Besides, I bet most of it will be redacted. There’s something else, and I bet I know who it concerns.”

  “Dil,” Boomer started. “You’re too good sometimes. Your girlfriend wants to see you.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” I answered, an image of Natasha’s face fluttering through my mind. “Truth be told, she was never my girlfriend. Not really.”

  Realizing what Natasha had done to me and moving past it was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. It wasn’t because of the way I’d felt about her. While I was ready and willing to hand over my grandmother’s engagement ring to Natasha, it had never actually been her who I was in love with. I was in love with a fake, with a composite of a person, someone who had been designed to make me love them. I didn’t know the real Natasha, and you can’t love someone you don’t know.

  No, the thing that screwed with me, the thing that kept me up for nights for years after everything was the fact that I had been played. I was a detective, and a damn good one. I prided myself on being on top of things, and in that moment, I wasn’t. This woman, this beautiful, intoxicating woman, had dulled all my senses. She had wrapped me up, spit me out, and made me love every second of it. She was like tequila in human form.

  And now she was back.

  “Be that as it may, she asked to speak to you,” Boomer said.

  “And you were just going to leave me in here to do it?” I asked. “Without giving me a say in the matter? I thought you were on my side.”

  “I’m always on your side, and this is your say in the matter,” Boomer answered quickly. “She just told me she wanted to see you. She’s waiting for me to see you first, to give her the go-ahead, but I can’t hold you here and I won’t ask you to see somebody if you’re dead set against it.” He nodded. “Still, she doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who takes ‘no’ as an answer, especially on the first go ‘round.” He leaned back in his seat. “Now, I wouldn’t tell you what to do, but it seems to me that talking to this woman-even if you don’t like her- is better than her showing up at your doorstep with the feds in tow.” he shrugged. “Less questions for the wife and all that.”

  “Rebecca knows about her,” I answered. “Still, you might have a point. I can’t imagine she’d take too kindly to the idea of my ex showing up on our doorstep unannounced.”

  “She already has to deal with that when it comes to Charlotte,” Boomer said, chuckling and standing up. “Maybe it’s not that big of a deal. Maybe she just wants to shoot the breeze and see how you’re doing. It could be as simple as that.”

  “Not with her,” I answered, running a hand through my hair. “With Natasha Rayne, it’s never that simple.” I motioned toward the door. “Send her in. Let’s see what fresh hell this woman is going to bring into my life this time.”

  Chapter 3

  A few minutes later, Natasha Rayne waltzed into the room where I had been sitting. Now that I had been given a second to breathe and I wasn’t freaking out about everything that was going on, I could really take the woman in. Her hair was shorter than the last time I saw her, and she was a touch thinner than I remembered. Still, she held the same troublesome look, the same hint of danger in her eyes. Her lips stretched into a smile as she saw me.

  “Hey Stormy. How are you?” she asked, slinking to the chair across from me. Though she traced the top of it with her fingers, she actually sat on the table, looking down at me as she continued. “You know, I’m probably not supposed to say this, but I was hoping I’d get to see you.”

  I glared up at her unblinkingly, my jaw tight as I thought about what to say to this woman, to a woman I wasn’t even really sure was still alive. I mean, sure, I was sent my grandmother’s ring after she disappeared in Vero Beach, but that could have been sent before. For all I knew, Natasha Rayne was in the ocean, riddled with bullet holes and lost forever. Lord knows she hadn’t sent word that she was okay.

  Setting all of that aside, I decided to just answer with the standard, “Is that right? Why would that be, Nat?”

  The woman blinked at me, obviously expecting me to say something a bit more combative. “I figured it would be obvious, Stormy,” she said. “I missed you.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” I said, standing so that I could look down at her now. “Seeing as how you never even sent word to let me know you were alive.”

  “Honestly, I thought you might have been better off not knowing,” she answered. “At least, that way, you could move on.” She bit her lower lip again. “I heard you made good use of my ring.”

  “It was my grandmother’s ring,” I shot back. “You stole it.”

  “Don’t be so touchy,” Natasha said. “I gave it back when you needed it. How’s the married life working out for DIllon Storm?”

  I looked at her for a moment, a long moment. It wasn’t that the question struck me as strange. If anything, it was more mundane than I’d expected from a woman like Nat. It was just that I hadn’t really taken the time to consider it. My life with Rebecca had been good. It had actually been damn good. Sure, we had our problems. In fact, in the past few months, we had been presented with a big problem. I was sure we could work our way through it, though.

  “I’m fine, Nat,” I answered quickly, batting the other thoughts away. “My life is just fine.”

  “Good,” she answered, running a hand through her light hair. “I’d hate to think I had ruined you for all other women.” A smile drug across her features.

  “You know,” I said, battling the smile that threatened to sprout up on my face as well. “Something tells me you wouldn’t hate that nearly as much as you let on.”

  “You know me too well, Stormy,” she answered.

  “I know you well enough to know that you’re not here for nothing,” I answered. “And I know you didn’t come here to shoot the breeze. So, how about you and I forget about pleasantries? We both know they were never o
ur style anyway.”

  “No they weren’t,” she answered, her eyes roving up and down me. “We had a much more physical way of dealing with our encounters.”

  “That’s enough, Nat,” I said, beating down the blush that wanted to creep up into my face and keeping the memories she touched on out of the forefront of my mind. “You have business here, and I’m guessing at least part of that business is with me.”

  “Smart man,” she answered. “You always were a sharp one.” She stood, and though Natasha was shorter than me, the intention was clear. Neither of us was looking down at the other one anymore. We were on equal footing, perhaps for the first time in our entire relationship. “It’s about Al Davidson.”

  “The piece of trash I hand delivered to you?” I asked, arching my eyebrows. “Yeah. Given the way you seemed to be observing him back on the beach, I kind of figured that.”

  “Then you should have also figured that a sting operation that could be taken care of by the local PD wasn’t our agenda. We had bigger plans for Al Davidson, and thanks to you, those plans aren’t feasible anymore.”

  “You want me to apologize for doing my job well?” I asked, shaking my head. “Not gonna happen. That bastard was pumping drugs into these streets, in my streets, for months now. I’m not going to bow down and say sorry for putting an end to that.”