Green-Eyed Monster (18 page)

Ginette watched the echo-sounder as the depth fell away beneath them.

“Let’s drop sail now and motor slowly onto that sand bank.”

“You want to run aground?” BJ looked dismayed. Ginette watched the motor cruiser close in. They had maybe ten minutes if they were lucky.

“Aye, Skipper, I do. We’re out of time, out of sea room, and out of luck. Let’s jam her here.” Despite the lightness of delivery, her steady gaze was crystal clear and deadly serious. “At least this way they only get to cart us away. They’ll have to leave
Monster
behind. And maybe Vic and Mickey can reclaim her.” BJ shrugged and watched mystified as Ginette took the longest halyard that ran all the way from the masthead and tied it discreetly to the port grab rail. Ginette had a definite plan. Her last movements had been as precise as they were confusing.

“Remember to keep them port side of us,” Ginette said as BJ  spun the wheel and brought
Green Eyed Monster
to a shuddering halt, the deep keel driving hard into the soft sands underneath.

BJ cut the engine and waited to be boarded. Carefully, Ginette readjusted the line of plastic fuel cans just below the starboard waterline. She had loosened a few caps, and small traces of gas seeped out in rainbows on the water. With a wild wave toward the circling black powerboat, she turned back in time to see the pirate vessel arrive on the port side.

Ping! Out of time
.

❖

“Having some trouble, Bar Jack?” a voice crowed from the motor cruiser as it slid alongside. “Lost your bearings and run aground?”

“Morning, Carmelo. Why are you hounding me today?” BJ  flung back casually, her arm draped over the wheel as three of the visitors leapt onboard. She hated this guy, Rudy’s nastiest, and luckily, his densest henchman. Carmelo advanced with a leer, leaving his crew to tie up alongside.

“I’m hounding you because you’re one two-faced bitch.” His smile suddenly turned cold. “And Rudy’s gonna gut you when I drag your sorry ass back. Family or no.” He next turned to Ginette. “You must be the fancy fuck I gotta cut the fingers off till you remember all your account details.

Rudy says to tell you he’s missing his pretty lady boss.” Ginette gave a sickly smile at the idiot’s mistake. Another one who didn’t know who the hell he was chasing. What was it about Victoria? It wasn’t as if she had a forgettable face. How perverse she should finally cop for her ex’s torture.
Ah well, proof karma really does suck.
Leveling her best millionairess sneer at the second rate henchman she drawled, “Well, if you cut of my fingers, how can I write you a check?”

“On board now.” He thumbed over his shoulder to his boat and waiting men, “Both of you. God, this piece of crap stinks of fuel. You musta ruptured a fuel line, asshole.” He pushed BJ hard ahead of him and grabbed Ginette tightly by her upper arm.

“Think you’re clever running aground, BJ? Think these flash vacation fuckers gonna come running over to help? That they might take you off this tub and somewhere safe?” He smiled.

“Hard luck, these cunts don’t give a damn. They’re too busy enjoying themselves to even look at you.”

“Well, that lady over there is waving,” Ginette said pointing at the little black powerboat that could easily dart across the sandbar with its shallow hull. She waved back. “Oh look, she’s even going to summon help. How kind of her.” Carmelo squinted in surprise at the vessel she was pointing at. His eyes widened at Victoria in her red bikini waving back at them. They widened even more as he saw her lift the flare gun.

And they nearly fell out of his head as she pointed it, not at the sky, but straight at the wooden hull of the
Green Eyed Monster
.

“Fuck! Everyone off, everyone off. Now!” But it was too late. The flare popped and shot forward in a crazed stream of smoke, hitting the fuel-soaked hull point-blank.

With a crackling roar, flames erupted, glazing across the white hull in a swirling liquid dance. Even the sea alongside leapt with a short-lived wave of fire as billowing red smoke enveloped everything. As each semisubmerged fuel canister ignited in turn, small booms and flashes rode up into the air through a festival of red flare smoke. It was a display that got the attention of every living thing in that sector—man, fish, or fowl.

There was no way an incident like this would go unnoticed and unreported. It was clear that Carmelo had to get away before the authorities came looking. He leveled his gun at BJ for a clean shot before he ran, only to find empty swirling smoke. Cursing, he latched on to Ginette’s wrist, dragging her to his vessel, where the crew were desperately trying to get free of the burning sloop.

Ginette knew it was the last thing any sailor wanted, fire at sea, but to be actually attached to a burning vessel was tantamount to suicide. They had to get away, and fast.

Ginette resisted as much as she could, but not so much as to get a split lip, and allowed herself to be manhandled aboard. As they passed the port grab rail, she un-slipped the halyard knot she had tied earlier. Keeping a tight hold on the length of line, she led it onto the motor cruiser. Her sleight of hand went unnoticed in the pandemonium.

Carmelo roughly shoved her down on the deck. “Sit, bitch, and shut up. One twitch and I swear I’ll blow your fucking ugly head off,” he barked before running to the pilot’s deck to scream at his helmsman. Ginette smiled quietly as she quickly looped the sloop’s halyard hard to a stern cleat of the motor cruiser, tying both vessels together.

Let’s see you outrun Monster now.
Dusting her hands with a satisfied grin, sharks or no, Ginette calmly stood up and jumped overboard into a smoke-red sea.

❖

“Here, give me your hand. Give me your hand.” Victoria reached out for BJ and hauled her closer to the powerboat. With a grunt, BJ gained leverage and easily pulled herself up and over with minimal effort.

“That bitch of a girlfriend of yours kicked me overboard.  She planted her foot in the middle of my chest, and slammed me seven feet up and into the water.” BJ spluttered, “Is she into martial arts or something, because I can call quits on the damn gun.”Victoria smiled. “She’s my bitch of an
ex
-girlfriend. My current bitch of a girlfriend is just about to destroy your family business. Watch and learn how corporate piracy works.” BJ and Victoria stood side by side in the wildly swaying little boat. They watched the mad scramble to abandon the burning sloop. BJ anxiously scanned the mayhem, trying to locate Ginette.

Victoria too stood tense with worry.

“I can’t see her through the damned smoke,” BJ growled, and asked, “Is that a halyard line running from
Monster
’s mast top to Carmelo’s boat?”

“I sincerely hope so.”

A splash and angry shouts alerted them to Ginette’s escape.

Victoria spun the wheel to go collect her. Even as they moved forward, an unholy creaking scream rent the air as
Green Eyed Monster
shifted off the sandbar. She was now effectively being towed sideways by the high-powered pirate vessel, dragged mercilessly at a perilous tilt by the halyard rope attached to her mast top.

“Shit,” shouted BJ, “they’re pulling it down on top of themselves. Ginette’s in the water. It’ll land on her.” She dove in the water, breaking into a punishing crawl, heading directly to a floundering Ginette, who had surfaced several yards away.

Green Eyed Monster
had a very tall mast. The working lines or halyards that ran up and down it were much, much longer. As Carmelo’s boat powered away, the line attached from
Monster’s
mast top to his stern cleat snatched tight, slowing his vessel so abruptly, it stalled his engine. The powerful surge of the almighty tug managed to jar the sloop’s long keel loose from the small groove it had made for itself in the soft sandbar. Victoria watched the sickening sway as it slowly swooned sideways.

All the groaning vessel could do was tilt toward the force hauling it. Had it been afloat in deeper water it would have drifted sideways, but perched on the semisolidity of a sandbank gave her keel a pivot point, and that allowed her to simply fall over onto the vessel dragging her down by her mast top. It was a harrowing ballet, but Victoria had to drag her eyes away and hunt through the waves and drifting red smoke for Ginette, and now BJ, who was in this melee, too.

❖

BJ cleaved through the waves until her head bobbed up behind Ginette’s. She wrapped an arm around her chest and began to drag her away from the ensuing carnage.

“No, no, no!” Ginette screamed, splashing hysterically, nearly pulling them both under with her kicking and flaying.

“It’s me, babe, it’s me. Calm down. I got you.” BJ soothed her, her strong backstroke pulling them both toward Victoria and the waiting powerboat.

“Oh, thank God, I thought you were a shark.” Ginette twisted around and floated across BJ’s belly, her tearstained face breaking into a huge smile. “I thought my karma had come to collect.”

“Maybe it has.” BJ smiled back.

They paddled backward together, grinning stupidly at one another, lost in their own floating world until a voice above them said rather snidely, “Ahem, sorry to burst the love bubble, but is there any chance you two might climb onboard so we can get the hell out of here?”

All three sat at a safe distance and watched the terror of the men on Carmelo’s deck as
Green Eyed Monster
slowly crept closer and closer to the hull of the motor cruiser. Sparks and flaming tatters of canvas were drifting across from the beleaguered vessel, along with blinding smoke. The rainfall of sparks had begun to singe and smolder on various fiberglass surfaces, the modern hull an even more flammable material. From the nearby island, high-powered rescue craft were already streaking toward the conflagration. Every boat in the vicinity had a camera leveled at the spectacle. It was cinematic in its high drama.

Ginette sighed happily. “Look at my beautiful creation. This must be how Shakespeare felt.”

Finally, a crewman found the line that bound them to the burning hulk and hacked it away. Above, on the upper pilot deck, a practically apoplectic Carmelo was screaming at his helm to  “Get the fuck outta here!”

But it was too late.
Green Eyed Monster
had passed the point of no return. She keeled right over to lie at ninety degrees, her beam resting on the sandbar. The surrounding waters hissed and steamed as they quenched most of the fire on her hull and deck.

Freed at last from her blazing thirty-eight-foot anchor, the power craft shot forward for a speedy escape.

“Ooh, watch this,” Victoria said. With a sickening thump and a grinding wrench, the expensive motor cruiser came to an immediate stop, as if it had hit an invisible brick wall.

“What the hell happened?” BJ asked.

Victoria smiled. “Current bitch of a girlfriend has been underwater winding a length of chain around their propeller while they were sitting stalled. Their engine has just jumped a piston, and these guys are going nowhere awful fast.”

A large splash behind them heralded the return of the diver.

Hauled quickly back onboard, Mickey stood and shivered in Victoria’s arms as they all stood watching
Monster
lying on her side, smoking and sizzling as the last of the flames died out along her beautiful teak planking. Victoria cradled Mickey gently, realizing the shaking was mild shock at the death throes of her beloved boat.

“Oh.” Mickey managed a small sad sigh. Victoria held her tighter, knowing her dreams were being slowly destroyed.

BJ wiped the steam from her bathroom mirror. Finally, it had been her turn for the shower. Forever the perfect host, she had surrendered up her guest room, her bathroom, and copious amounts of hot water to her bedraggled comrades. Ginette had elbowed her way to the top of the waiting list claiming smoke inhalation, seawater in her hair, and uncharacteristic heroism as absolute musts for her to go first.

Victoria and Mickey had gone next under the guise that showering together would speed up the whole process. They took over an hour and left BJ’s bathroom looking like SeaWorld after the dolphin show. But her guests were squeaky clean, with very smug smiles when they finally made their steam-filled exit.

Now a relaxed and well-scrubbed BJ strolled down the hall of her small bungalow to her bedroom, towel wound around her waist, briskly rubbing her damp locks. She smiled contentedly.

Overall, it had been a good day. She had seen Carmelo and his amigos hauled away as a rescue quickly became an arrest. The narcotics found on his boat putting him in cuffs. BJ smiled at the memory. What a chump! He was so intent on coming after her and the rich American, in his greed Carmelo hadn’t even bothered to offload Rudy’s cargo.

Never before had BJ been so happy
not
to be mixed up with her uncle’s other businesses. This kidnapping fiasco had been the exception to the rule, a deal accepted when she was flat broke and desperate. She knew she was very lucky to have gotten away as easily as she had. These women could have turned on her.

Instead, she had the curious feeling she’d made friends through adversity.

She passed through the lounge where Victoria and Mickey bent over her computer talking babel, as far as she was concerned, about the mysteries of high finance and international money laundering. But her guests seemed content, and BJ smiled. Soon she would be a half millionaire. What a day. She was alive, Carmelo was arrested, and she was rich! She sniffed the air appreciatively. And apparently her new “wife” was cooking in her kitchen. Again, what a day.

Mickey nodded absently to her host as she wandered by seminaked.

“I’m glad BJ let us collapse here tonight. I need some serious rest before facing Rudy the reptile tomorrow.” Victoria looked up, her attention immediately drawn from the columns of figures on the screen before her to the striking body passing through. She silently watched BJ with considerable appreciation.

“Yeah, so much better than a hotel,” she murmured absently.

“Hey.” Mickey nudged with her shoulder. “Stop drooling.”

“I can drool all I want. I’m a single woman. I’ll wear a bib round my neck if I need to.” Victoria sniffed. “It’s none of your business.”