Terrors of the High Seas - DK6 (46 page)

Kerry produced a faint grin.

“Anyhoo…” Charlie shook his head. “Dar’s just like Andy, got that same attitude. Reminded me of him real strong there for a minute. I know she’s right, a little, but sometimes you just ain’t got no choices in life except the bad ones.”

Kerry tipped her head back and looked up at the sky. “I know,” she said. “I’ve made some of them.”

Charlie studied her. “You ain’t old enough to make that case, lady,” he told her bluntly. “Come back here in twenty years and we’ll talk.”

Kerry merely smiled. “Dar has a very strong sense of right and wrong, and you’re right— she got that from her father.” She propped her foot up against the railing. “I, on the other hand, only got a sense of wrong from mine. But no matter who was needing what, those guys were pointing guns at us, and let me tell you something, they’re lucky I wasn’t pointing one back.”

Charlie sat up. “Huh?’

“Mm.” Kerry looked steadily at him. “I would have shot them.”

“They never hurt no one,” the ex-sailor said. “No one. Them guns were just for show.”

“I don’t care.” Sea green eyes took on a cool tint. “They were threatening the only thing in the world that matters to me.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “So that’s the way that is.”

Charlie scratched his jaw thoughtfully. He studied Kerry’s profile for a few minutes in silence as the boat rocked gently under both of them, the rigging clanking softly in the warm air. Finally, he half smiled. “Feisty thang, huh?”

Kerry glanced up at him with a wry grin, acknowledging the unlikeliness of it all. “Don’t look it, huh?”

Charlie managed a chuckle. “Get your point, Kerry,” he added, suddenly turning serious. “Think those guys maybe got into something we don’t know about. Wasn’t that serious before.”

Kerry pondered that. Could it possibly tie in to what was going on with them? Was it coincidence the pirates had come after them right after they’d gotten away from DeSalliers? “Could be.”

Hearing footsteps approaching down the dock, Kerry cocked
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her head. She got up and leaned over the side of the stern, spotting a familiar figure moving toward them. “Ah.” She exhaled. “Bob.”

Charlie got up and joined her. “That little asshole.”

“Mm.” Kerry climbed up onto the side deck and jumped to the dock just as Bob trotted up to the boat. “Hi.”

“Oh! Hey!” Bob seemed a little out of breath. “Glad I found you. Listen, the cops are after me. Can I hide out in there for a while?” He glanced behind Kerry and spotted Charlie’s glare. “Oh.

Ah…okay, maybe not.”

Kerry sighed. “C’mon. We need all the help we can get.” She paused. “Even yours.”

“Huh?”

Kerry took hold of his shirt and pulled him after her as she jumped back onto the boat. Left with a choice of following or losing his clothing, Bob joined her. “Our friend DeSalliers has been busier than you think,” Kerry told him.

Bob hid behind Kerry as they moved onto the stern. “Listen, Kerry did explain to you what happened the other night, didn’t she?” he asked Charlie hopefully.

“I know what happened the other night, you pissant,” Charlie told him. “You ran out and left us. C’mon over here and let me pop your damn little…” Charlie limped toward them.

“Uh… uh…” Bob started moving backward.

“Hold it!” Kerry stepped between the two of them and held up her hand. “C’mon, guys, we don’t have time for this.” She raised her voice when Charlie kept coming. “Stop it!”

One, two, three, four
… Kerry counted silently, feeling the boat shift a little under her as something started moving.

The door to the cabin slammed open and Dar bounded out onto the deck, her eyes immediately taking in the situation. She pounced on Charlie, grabbed his shirt, and unceremoniously hauled him backward. “Hey!” she barked. “Cool it!”

“Let go of me!” Charlie yanked against her grip. “I owe that bastard a big right one.”

Dar got in front of him and blocked his way. “I said, cool it.”

She bristled. “We don’t have time for this crap. Like you said at the hospital—you made the choice to trust him. No one forced you.”

Charlie tried to brush by her. “Dar, get out of my way.”

“No.” Dar didn’t budge. “Don’t even think about trying to move me.”

He stopped and stared at her. “You think you’re Andrew? Get your ass out of my way, girl.” He put his hand against Dar’s shoulder and pushed.

Dar didn’t budge. She lifted her hand and closed her fingers around Charlie’s wrist, tightening her grip with sudden explosiveness. “Charlie,” she gazed steadily at him, “this is my 266
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boat, and you’re on it,” she said. “Stop it.” Their eyes locked. “I’m
not
my father,” Dar warned him softly.

Charlie examined the glittering blue eyes, cold as ice, that were fastened on him, then he stepped back. Dar released his arm and he resumed his seat on the stern bench. “When we get off this boat,” he told Dar, “you ain’t stopping me.”

Satisfied with the answer, Dar turned. “All right.” She looked at Bob. “This has gotten a lot more serious. You can stick around, but keep your mouth shut, and if we need you to do something, don’t make me have to explain it in words of less than one syllable.”

Bob took a step backward. “Maybe I should just go hang out somewhere else.”

Kerry turned. “DeSalliers kidnapped our friend Bud and he’s threatening to kill him,” she said. “Sure you want to go out wandering around?”

Bob looked honestly shocked. “No kidding? I didn’t think he…

I mean, yeah, he’s famous for all this salvage crap, but I never thought he’d get as serious as that.”

“Let’s go inside.” Dar opened the door. “Hopefully, he’ll call soon and we’ll know where we stand.”

Kerry led Bob inside, taking a moment to give Dar a wry look and a pat on the side as she passed her. “Would you like some coffee?”

Dar gave a tiny moan in response. She turned and waited for Charlie to get up and limp over, standing back to let him enter. He paused as he came even with her and their eyes met again. After a minute, Charlie shook his head and walked past.

Dar turned and briefly surveyed their surroundings. She scanned the nearby boats, assessing their occupants. Nothing jumped out at her, and of course, DeSalliers’ yacht was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes spotted two policemen, however. One was standing near the beginning of the wooden dock, and the other was walking up and down near the beach.

She heard the sound of engines behind her, and she walked to the other side of the boat and looked out over the water. A racing boat was idling into the marina, big, throaty engines rumbling as it moved past them. There was a man behind the controls, with what Dar could only describe to herself as a babe next to him.

The man looked around and caught Dar’s eye, producing a smile and a wave in her direction. “Nice boat!” he yelled.

“Same to you,” Dar responded with wry civility. She watched the boat move past, making note of the name and the Miami Beach home port under it. The racer pulled into a slip two past theirs and disgorged its occupants onto the dock. The man gave the woman a slap on the butt and pointed up to a nearby restaurant. He turned
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and walked the other way, toward Dar’s boat.

“Figures.” Dar stuck her head inside the door. “Got company.

Ker, watch my phone, will ya?”

Kerry had artfully positioned Bob and Charlie as far away from each other as she could in the living area and was preparing coffee behind the galley. “Aye aye, Cap’n Dar.”

Dar shut the door and walked to the side of the boat to meet their visitor.

“ANYWAY, SINCE YOU’RE a neighbor, I thought I’d pass the word,” the man said with a wry grin. “It was a hell of a weather system, and since it’s headed this way, you might want to check your float plan.”

Dar exhaled. “We had a bad storm here the other day,” she said. “I thought we’d finished with the tropical weather this year.”

The other boater shook his head. He was a relatively good-looking man, of medium height and the type of build that indicated he guilted himself into a gym a few times a week. “Yeah. And you know, I just heard we’re up for an El Nino again this year.

Weather’s been real weird.”

Dar glanced up. “Well, if what they say about global warming is true, better enjoy the islands now,” she said. “We’ll be diving them as reefs some day.” Her hand extended over the water.

“Thanks for the warning, Roger. I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” The man clasped her hand. “Hey, you said your name is Roberts?”

Uh oh
. Dar nodded warily. “Yeah.”

His head tilted and he looked at her. “You’re not any relation to Andrew and Cecilia Roberts, are you? They’re my slip neighbors over at the South Beach Marina.”

Oh
. Dar managed a relieved smile. “Yeah. They’re my parents.”

“Had a feeling.” Roger pointed at her. “You look like Andy.

He’s a trip. Well, good to meet you, Dar. Have a safe trip back, and watch out for that storm.” He lifted a hand and started back down the docks.

“Small world,” Dar murmured in bemusement. “Small, small world.”

“SO THAT’S WHAT happened.” Kerry put the Thermos of coffee on the tray and added some cream and sugar. She picked it up and brought it over to the table. “Whatever it is you’re looking for, Bob—it must really be there.”

Bob exhaled. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too, when the cops came after me. No smoke without cigarettes, right?”

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Kerry looked up with a dubious expression. “Right.” She set down the tray, and then jumped as Dar’s cell phone rang. With a quick glance toward the laptop, she picked it up and opened it.

“Hello?”

“Roberts?”

Kerry considered lying, but discarded the idea. “No,” she answered.

“Put the bitch on the phone right now.”

The door opened and Dar entered. Kerry held up the phone and then directed a rude gesture toward it. Dar’s eyes narrowed as she crossed the deck and took the instrument. “Yeah?”

Kerry dropped to the couch and pulled the laptop over, clicking on the window Dar had running for the cell phone. The program had activated. She noticed Charlie had moved to the edge of his chair, listening intently to Dar’s conversation.

“Write this down, Roberts. If you fuck it up, your little buddy’s toast.”

Dar took a deep breath, willing herself to patience. “Go ahead.”

“I’ll give you two coordinates. You be there at midnight tonight. Bring what you’ve got, plus twenty-five thousand dollars,”

DeSalliers said. “That’s to cover the cost of fixing my boat.”

Considering his demands, Dar pulled her new pocket watch from her shorts pocket and opened it. “Forget it,” she told DeSalliers crisply. “Try again.”

There was a momentary silence. “You’re not really understanding the situation, are you? You don’t tell me what to do, Roberts; you do what I tell you to do.”

“Listen, moron, the bank’s closed,” Dar said. “If you want to recoup the cost of repairs to your hull breach, gimme the bill or rethink your plan.”

“That’s not my problem, Roberts. It’s yours. Bring the cash and the relic, or I’ll chop this piece of shit up and use him for bait.”

The phone went dead; Dar closed it. “Shit.”

Kerry studied the screen. “Looks like he’s out on the water, Dar,” she said. “Nearest coordinates are just west of St. Johns.” She tapped a few more keys. “Jesus, you captured the digitized output?”

“I never do things halfway.” Dar sat down. “We’ve got a problem. He wants twenty-five grand.” She studied the phone. “So now, in addition to a relic I don’t have, I also have to turn over a suitcase of cash I don’t have. This is getting better and better every damn minute.” Her disgust was evident in her expression. “And to top it all off, a damn tropical weather system’s headed this way and it might be developing circulation.”

Kerry frowned. “At this time of year? Dar, it’s December!”

“No kidding.” Dar rubbed her eyes. “All right, let’s see where
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these coordinates are.”

Charlie got up and walked over, leaning on the couch arm to see what Dar was doing. “Weather means trouble,” he commented.

“But not ’til after this damn thing’s over.”

Dar typed in the two coordinates DeSalliers had given her and waited for the program to plot them on a map. The grid drew in, then a sketchy outline of the islands, then a blinking crosshair. It was set in the middle of the water, as she’d expected it to be, in a lonely stretch of water south of the islands.

“No-man’s-land.” Charlie grunted. “’Bout two hours run out there. Not much but a hole in the ocean.”

“So he has to get from here...” Kerry put her fingertip on the place where the cell signal had been tracked from, “…to here. And we have to get from here…” she pointed to where they were in St.

Thomas, “…to here. Much shorter.”

“We could get there first,” Bob commented. “You think they’ll have your friend in the boat with them? I guess they’d have to, huh?”

Dar studied the screen. “If they actually intend on making the swap, yeah.” She heard Charlie suck in a breath. “I figure I need to make him show me he’s got Bud before I agree to anything.”

“You think he’d double-cross… Oh, what a stupid question.”

Kerry rubbed her face with one hand. “Dar, if we don’t really have anything to give him, what are we going to do?” she asked. “You can only bluff him so far.”

Dar folded her hands together and rested her chin against them. “I know that.” Her pale eyes became hooded, the lids becoming mere slits over icy eyes. “If it takes us two hours to get out there, we’ve got until around nine thirty before we have to leave the dock. We’ve got until then to get something to turn over to him that’ll seem real enough to pass.”

“What about the money?” Charlie asked. “Got some people I can call.”

“Not that creep from this morning!” Kerry blurted out. “Christ, I’d rather hock the boat than see his face again.” She reached forward and pulled over the coffee tray, setting up two cups and starting to prepare them.