The Girl on the Yacht (25 page)

Alone inside the darkened main salon, John felt the boat move under his feet. He knew the cause of the swaying.
Someone’s on the boat
. He grabbed the golf club he had placed near the door and raised it to a position that would give him a full swing.
What am I doing?
That SEAL will jam this thing down my throat. I wish I had the gun. Where’s Marin? She’s taking too long to walk Bailey––she should have been back by now. I hope it’s her.
He backed against the wall near the closed door.

It opened, and the curtain moved slightly to the side. He took the club back.

“
Grrrrrrr
.” Bailey stuck her nose through the slit into the dark room.

John jumped with fear.

“What are you doing with the lights off?” Marin asked after she came through the door.

He dropped the club in relief.

“Just practicing my swing.”

She stared at him, obviously trying to imagine the picture.

Maybe she won’t notice my knees shaking
, John hoped.

Cameron came through the door behind Marin.

“I don’t like you two staying here.” She stared at Marin. “We’re going to talk about it.”

“I’m good.” Marin turned back to John.

John bent over and picked up the pitching wedge. “I’d feel a lot better if I had a gun––especially when you go out.” He set the golf club in the corner and followed the women down the corridor.

“You probably would have shot one of us.” Marin shook her head.

John suddenly felt the urgency that Cameron had conveyed.

“Has something happened?” He focused on the investigator. “You seem anxious.”

“He built another bomb,” Cameron said.

“Mare, we need to leave. We can’t fight a bomb. He’s not going to screw it up this time. Let Cameron do her job––without us. She’ll find him––and that will be that.”

“If I hide out, he takes off, she doesn’t find him, and I’m always living in fear. You think you’re afraid now––imagine living like that day after day until he shows up. I can’t do it. I take a stand and try to take advantage of his timing.” Marin grabbed John’s arm and pulled him to her. “You should go. You’re not part of this, and it would kill me to know that something happened to you . . . because of me.”

He looked into her eyes. “You didn’t do this––the guy’s a psycho. Let’s just go away. I’ll get an army of bodyguards to keep us safe.”

“I’m for that option. You two go and get lost. My people will get him when he comes here for you,” Cameron said.

“I don’t want you here, John. You’d just be in the way,” Marin demanded.

“If you’re staying, then I’m staying.”

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“Because I love you.” John couldn’t believe he said it. They had only been back together a few days, and those dormant feelings had resurfaced in the first minutes he had set eyes on her. The feelings shouted––they pulsed in every beat of his heart.

“Then do what I say and get out of here.” Marin’s voice had no emotion.

John saw the whisper of a tear.

“You love me, too. I know it,” he said. “If you want me to leave, then you’re coming with me. I’m not leaving without you, even if that means my life’s over.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Okay, you two.” Cameron stared at them. “We’re getting nowhere fast. Let’s get it solved, so we can plan the next twenty-four hours. If he plants that underwater bomb on your boat, you won’t have any chance. How do we take that option away from the jerk so we can get to him face to face?”

Marin nodded. “He’ll probably go after my boat. That could be his mistake. We’ll be on John’s.”

John had heard only one part of Cameron’s statement––
underwater bomb
. “So that’s why the Harbor Patrol has been working the marina.” John threw open the salon curtain and stared out at the pilot of a patrol boat cruising by.

Cameron pursed her lips. “Best guess, he might be here in the next hour. He’s probably on his way.”

“Where’s he coming from?” Marin asked.

“From the house on the other side of the harbor.”

“The peninsula? That’s only two or three miles away,” Marin said.

Cameron nodded.

“Your deputies should be able to spot him when he enters the water around here.” Marin paced, and Bailey got out of her way.

“We think he’s making his way here underwater,” Cameron added.

“I don’t think so,” John said.

Cameron’s radio blared.

“West, we found a diver––my guys are bringing him to the patrol boat,” the sergeant said.

Cameron hurried to the door with Marin close behind.

The radio came on again.

“He’s a boat bottom cleaner––just working late. Sorry,” came back over the radio.

John hadn’t moved from the dining room chair.

Cameron turned back and stared at him with a quizzical expression.

“What did you mean––you don’t think he’s coming?”

John shook his head. “He’s not swimming that distance in the harbor underwater.”

“He’s a SEAL––that’s what they do.” Cameron looked skeptical of John’s statement.

“I looked up the tide tables just a few days ago. We’re having a huge tidal swing.” He pointed out the window at the dock piling. “You can see how high the water is.”

“What do you mean?” Cameron was perplexed.

“You can touch the the top of the piling. It’s only six feet out of the water. Normally, it’s more like twelve or thirteen––way over our heads.” Marin nodded.

“The tide’s against him if he’s trying it. That amount of water going out of the harbor with the tide––underwater—it’d be like swimming the Niagara River near the falls––not impossible, but not probable, either.”

“This guy’s really intelligent. He knows it would completely exhaust him— if he made it here. He’s not doing that.” Marin looked out the window.

“If you were Michael, how would you get here?” Cameron asked.

“There are a lot of places he could enter the water near the marina and be fairly close.” John pointed out the window at the jut of land a hundred yards away. “He could park behind those trees and slip in right there, or over there, or over there.” He shook his head while his index finger located more spots. “The current is too swift in the middle of the channel. My guess—he’ll stay on this side and not try to cross it.”

“I’ll have my people check on it.”

“What about after dark?” he asked. “Are the police divers going to be underwater around my boat?” he asked with an incredulous thought of divers freezing in the pitch black of night under his boat.

“They’ll keep an eye out from some of the nearby boats.”

“They won’t see him if he comes in below.” John shook his head, his mind racing with the situation.

“They’ll see his light and bubbles. That’s what the sergeant told me,” Cameron said.

“We have to do better than that.” He indicated that the women follow him down the stairs to the corridor outside his computer room. He entered and booted up his computer. “Watch this.” He tapped a few keys, and the three monitors on the far wall came to life. The screens had views of the rear deck, forward deck, and the engine room.

“We shouldn’t need that one.” He tapped a few keys, and the engine room disappeared. He toggled another key and three new scenes came on to the screen.

Marin and Cameron strained to see the blurry images.

He brought them into focus. They were looking at the underside of John’s boat. He took the joystick on the counter and panned in and out while the view moved from side to side. “I put these cameras into the hull a couple of months ago when I had the boat out of the water. I thought it would be cool to watch the fish, or to video my dives in clear water.” He angled the cameras straight down into the murky water.

“Do you have lights for tonight?” Marin asked.

“The only underwater lights are out the back of the boat by the swim step.”

“Maybe we could just shine some lights from the dock?” Cameron suggested.

“They wouldn’t be strong enough. They’d just light up this end of the dock—we wouldn’t see anything down there.” He pointed to the screen.

“So, we need some lights underwater,” Cameron said.

“I have an idea.” John picked up his phone and searched his contacts.

“Who are you calling?”

“A surfing buddy.”

Cameron looked at him curiously.

“He’s an oil rig diver off Huntington––those guys use high intensity lights all the time.” His phone connected and answered after the second ring.

“This is Steve,” the heavy voice on the other end answered.

“Hey dude, it’s John Hunter.”

“How’s it hanging, man? Haven’t seen you in a while––the waves at the point have been rad with the big storms down in the South Pacific. What’s keepin’ you off the board?”

“Been a little busy.”

“You want to go tomorrow––we can meet for breakfast at The Galley?”

“Can’t do it. I have some issues with my boat. Maybe next week if all goes well.”

“Your boat can wait––unless it’s sinkin’.” Steve laughed.

John went silent.

“It’s not sinking––is it?” Steve asked.

“No, but. . . .” John stopped. “Hey, Steve, I need some big time underwater lights for the next few days, and I figured you’d know where I can buy them locally––like in the next hour.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s a long story, but some guy might try to,” he hesitated, “mess up my boat.”

“Damn, John, what did you do to him?”

He thought fast. “My girlfriend pissed him off.”

Steve laughed again. “I’ll tell you what. I’ve got some heavies in my warehouse near the power plant. How about I run by there, pick them up, and bring them over. That way I can help you set them up. Do you have two twenty-volt connections in your dock station?”

“I have two stations with four connections each.”

“Perfect, where are you docked?”

“Blue Water Marina, E-dock. I’m on the end––the Ocean Alexander.”

“Ocean Alexander, huh? Nice. Is it your dad’s boat?”

“It’s mine.”

“Cool. I’ll see you in thirty minutes.” Steve disconnected.

John turned to the women. “We’ll have lights.”

John left the women in the salon, went out on the back deck, and pulled on his wetsuit. It was going to be cold in the water, especially with the sun almost down. They assumed that the killer would come for Marin on her boat, but to be safe, they would be on John’s boat, and they wanted to be able to see underneath his craft at night.

He looked over the side of his yacht and watched Steve unloading the dock cart of what looked like long, wound cords with oversized flashlights on one end. John stared at the lenses that were five inches in diameter.

“I thought you were bringing heavy lights,” John said.

“These are it––they put out seven thousand lumens each. All LED now. Ten years ago, a high intensity light for diving the rigs was the size of a trash can––now look at ‘em.” He held one out. “Super lightweight, too.”

“Can’t we just drop them down to the bottom? Then, I won’t have to go into the cold water.” John zipped up the front of the suit.

“Dude—these babies cost ten grand apiece. You need to secure them to the dock.”

“Tell me there’s no chance of me getting electrocuted.” John started to laugh at the thought. “That’d piss off Marin––she’s hoping I come face-to-face with that killer.”

“What do you mean, ‘killer’?” Steve stopped what he was doing and stared at his friend. “What’s going on here, man?”

John thought fast. “That’s the guy’s nickname––killer something.”

“With a nickname like that, are you sure you want to mess with him? Why don’t you just call the cops and get them on his ass?”

“We’re good––just need these lights. Maybe they’ll scare him off before he does something I’d regret.”

“Well, buddy, get in, and I’ll hand them down to you.”

John slipped into the water. The sensation of sixty-two degree liquid enveloping his body took his breath away until his internal core began to acclimate within the wetsuit. His bare fingers numbed, and the exposed parts of his face felt the full effect of the cold.

Steve handed John the first light and said, “Oh, yeah, don’t touch anything but that plastic handle on the top. You know––zzzzzzzz.” He made the sound of electricity flowing.

John’s expression turned wide-eyed inside his diving mask while he treaded water.

Steve laughed and held up the unconnected wire. “Got ya. No worries, man. These babies are double insulated and have ground fault interrupters like you wouldn’t believe. Just the same, I won’t attach them to your box until you get out of the water. Make sure they point where you want the light.”

Over the next forty minutes of daylight turning to darkness, John clamped the lights to the dock––each pointing to a different section of the hull. About every five minutes or so, he thought he saw something or someone moving in the black soup below his feet or just out of his range of vision in the murky, cold water. Every time, he’d flinch and jerk the cable topside or he would drop the light. Steve would start laughing again and ask the same annoying question.

“You seein’ sharks down there, John?”

After the fifth or sixth time, John finally answered.

“Monsters––I think.” At least he was hoping it wasn’t
the
Monster. What he wouldn’t give to have one of those lights hooked up so he could see just a few more feet. Finishing the task, he climbed the ladder on the swim step.

Steve plugged each of the six lights into the power supply boxes. When it was completed, he flipped the switches, and the water illuminated like an underwater stage ready to film a new sequel of an underwater film.

“Man, that’s bright.” John stared into the water, and a good-sized mackerel darted across the lit field chased by a three-foot-long barracuda.

“That dude’s history. Cudas are ferocious hunters.” Steve nodded his approval of the lighting system. “Nice job for a rookie.”

“I really appreciate you lending me the lights. Come on board and have a beer.”

“Rain check––I’ve got something sweet working tonight,” Steve twisted his arm to see his watch, “in ten minutes. Gotta go.”

“Thanks, man, you may have saved my life.”

Steve glanced back at John, but kept stepping toward the ramp. “I’ll catch you on the waves, man. Let me know when to pick up the lights.” With that, Steve broke out in a full run up the dock.

John peeled the wetsuit off, pulled the deck shower nozzle from its compartment, and turned it to a refreshing hot. While he rinsed the salt from his body, he scanned the marina with eagle-like precision. The oversized towel dried him quickly, and he tossed it on the deck, climbed back aboard, and headed into the salon.

“That didn’t take long,” Marin said.

Without answering, John hurried past the two women and shot down the stairs to his computer room. He flipped on the cameras and admired his work. On the screens, he could see every inch of the underwater hull with such clarity that he could make out the types of barnacles attached, and yet when he pointed the camera away from the boat, the image five feet away faded into a dark, scary abyss. He slipped into the master stateroom and put on dry clothes in a hurry and headed back up the stairs.

“Well, what’s the plan for tonight?” John asked the two women seated on the sofa.

Cameron’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out, connected, and tapped the screen.

“You’re on speakerphone,” Cameron said. “I want to keep Marin and John up-to-date on what’s happening. What do you have?”

Sergeant Little Horse went right into his report. “The address on the notepad was a storage locker in Costa Mesa. Linda Rains was in there––dead. Blunt force to her head––looked like his fist did the damage.”

“No.” The word floated from Marin softly.

“That wasn’t all of it. There were enough explosives in a safe to blow up a couple of city blocks. Cam, why do you think he left us that note?”

“He’s probably planning to disappear when he’s done, and in some perverted way, he wanted the police to dispose of the explosives and find the girl.”

“You guys should all get out of there,” Little Horse said.

“That’s not happening,” Marin blurted out.

“You’re going to need some backup. I’m coming over.”

“No,” Cameron said. “You go home to that new baby of yours. We got it here.”

“You think I’m letting you do this alone?”

“William, get your ass home,” Cameron ordered and clicked off. She got up and walked over to the galley counter, took a glass out of the cabinet, and filled it with water from the tap. She was deep in thought. Her phone rang again, and she pulled it out and set it on the counter after answering on speakerphone. “Purdy, what’s up?”

“He’s got a boat,” the novice detective said.

Cameron came to attention. “What?”

“During the canvas, one of the neighbors mentioned that the girl’s father kept his boat on the dock behind the townhouse. It wasn’t there. So I called him to see if he had it somewhere else. He didn’t. I sent the info to the harbor patrol about five minutes ago. They’re a little shorthanded with their patrol boats over with you at the marina, but they’re going to send out the fireboats to look for it.”

“Nice catch. Let’s get the Newport Beach PD to go to each marina and check them for the . . . what kind of boat are we looking for?”

“It’s a 42-foot Regal––all black––name on the back is
Dark Wind
.”

“Black––
Dark Wind––
had to be. He could slip in during the night, and we might not see him.” Cameron shook her head at the bad luck. “Have the PD check it––especially the marinas close to here.” She clicked off.

Marin glanced over at John.

“May I ask again, what’s the plan?” John looked from Marin to the investigator.

Cameron’s radio came alive.

“There’s a man walking on the dock toward the boat,” an officer said. “He doesn’t look big enough to be our guy.”

“Let him come to us,” Cameron whispered into the radio.

John felt the sudden movement. “Someone’s on the boat,” he whispered.

The two women had their guns out and held up, ready to shoot.

“He’s on the boat,” the officer said on Cameron’s radio.