“Who didn’t?” Jil exhaled softly, her shoulders slumping forward as she brought her face closer to the screen. “I wish I could be there with you tonight.”
Jess smiled through the tears. “I know. And I wish you were here too.”
When they hung up, Jil tossed and turned in the bed. The homesickness was one element contributing to her insomnia, but so was this case. She knew who was sabotaging the aquarium, who had killed Tasha, so why did it still feel unfinished? Why did it matter what he needed the money for? Who cared?
But it felt important, like a big corner piece of the puzzle.
She got up and paced through the kitchen. After a few moments, she heard the sound of footsteps coming through the hall.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” Rebecca said.
Jil turned around. “No. Too much on my mind.”
“Same.”
Rebecca put her arm around Jil and hugged her.
“Sorry I got you into this.”
Jil pulled away and smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s my job.”
“I didn’t know you then.”
“No.”
“I wish I had.”
Jil smiled.
Rebecca looked down. “I wish you didn’t have someone waiting for you at home.”
Jil took her hand back gently.
“In another lifetime,” she said, “this might have worked out.”
Rebecca nodded. “But not this one.”
“We have our problems, but…”
“But?”
“She’s my person.”
Rebecca smiled. “I understand. We all need our person.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Rebecca left early the next morning, promising to come back at lunch to get Jil.
“I have more than enough paperwork to keep me busy. Some things are still bugging me, and I’ll feel better once I get the file organized.”
Leonard had tried to kill the whales, but had he also killed Tasha? That was the leap that she was trying to make in her mind. She was missing something—what was it?
Something about the encounter with Baz at the dock kept bothering her. Baz, son of the gendarme. Baz, the boyfriend, banging a guy at the sea aquarium. Baz, passing packages at the taxi stand. The guy was trouble, but he hadn’t been around the night of Tasha’s death.
At least not on camera.
When she came in from a jog on the beach, Ramone sat at the table drinking a large coffee. Emi sat on the bench next to him, having a slushie.
“Hey. Hi, kid.”
He grinned at her. “I’m riding with Dad today.”
“I see that.”
“Boss is snowed under. She sent me to get you.”
“Have they found him yet?”
“No. But she found some footage you might find interesting.”
The trip to the aquarium took less than ten minutes, but Jil felt her adrenaline pumping. Ramone parked the car and they both jumped out.
“Dude!”
Ramone turned around. Max was coming up the walk, frowning.
“Hello,” Jil said.
Max nodded. “I need a word with you.”
“Sure,” Jil said.
Ramone ducked his head and moved to pass them, his hand on Emi’s shoulder. “Now remember I said you stick right with me all day. No disappearing. No going near the whales.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“Ramone?” Max said.
He turned around.
“Can you head down to the lagoon?”
“Why? What’s up?”
“It’s Koko. She’s swimming slow. I can’t get close enough to her to figure out what’s wrong.”
Ramone turned toward the dock. “Meet me there when you’re done.”
Jil pulled him into an alcove beside the indoor displays. “Tell me one thing.”
He looked at her, frowning. “Okay. What?”
“You and Baz.”
He looked down, his cheeks pink.
“How long had it been going on?”
“Not long,” Max said. His voice was strained. “I didn’t even know Baz was bi until one night we’d had a bit too much to drink. You know…”
“So he was cheating on Tasha with you?”
“Not really. Tasha knew he was into both.”
Jil frowned. “So you never had a big fight about it?”
“And ended up shoving her into a whale tank? No.”
Max moved to go around her.
“One more thing.”
He looked up. “What?”
“Was Baz into drugs?”
Max shrugged. “Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know. He got high sometimes, but I kinda wondered…”
“How he could afford his lifestyle?”
Max nodded.
“Are you guys seeing each other now?”
“Not really. He just wants to put this all behind him, you know? His mom’s breathing down his neck. And if he were into drugs—I’m not saying he is—but with Carole around? Believe me, you want to avoid her.”
Jil understood what he meant. She’d never exactly warmed to the captain.
Her brain was working out this puzzle. Somehow it fit, and somehow it just added an extra layer of questions.
Jil hurried down the hall to the office.
“Rebecca?”
She wasn’t there.
She ducked out and down the other direction toward the observatory.
“Hey, what’s up?” Tait asked.
“I’m looking for Rebecca.”
“Oh. I saw her go down to the shark fences a few minutes ago. But the underwater ship’s open so maybe she’s down there.”
“What’s going on?”
“Beats me. They’ve been trying to fix a leak for the past week. Or she could be in that bathroom, or napping somewhere. Really, I have no idea.”
Jil laughed. “Thanks.”
Rebecca wasn’t with the sharks in the outdoor holding tank that surrounded the sunken ship, but the gangplank to the ship was open, as was the hatch that led to the lower observatory. Jil walked down the gangplank and onto the deck.
“Rebecca?”
She hopped over the safety rung and down the ladder to the semi-lit lower deck. Outside, Michelangelo, the four-hundred-pound grouper, swam around, inches from the window.
Ugly looking thing.
“Rebecca?”
Above her, the hatch slammed shut, and she whipped her head up, her heart thudding painfully.
“Hello?”
No answer.
“Hello?”
She climbed back up the ladder and tried to push the hatch open, but it was shut hard.
Banging on it with her fist, she yelled for help. No one answered. She climbed back down and took out her cell phone. No bars. Of course not, in a tin can below the water. She climbed back up to the top, nearest the hatch. One bar began to flicker.
Then, down below, something started ringing. She looked around. What the hell was that noise?
An old-fashioned phone, like something in a prison visitation booth, hung on the wall. She climbed down the ladder and picked it up.
“Hello?”
“I guess you couldn’t have made it easy on everyone and just drowned in the ocean.”
She recognized Leonard’s voice.
Where was he calling from?
“Why can’t you just go away and mind your own business?” he said.
“Like let you pop off people who catch you doing naughty things? Gee, I don’t know, let’s call it a civic duty?”
“Yeah, well, you’ve failed. The plan is going ahead. So just stay down there and die this time.”
A surge of anger flooded her body. “Fuck you, Leonard. Let me out of here. Do you really want to add another murder to your list of crimes?”
“I haven’t murdered anyone. The whale killed that girl, not me.”
“Fake news. You bashed her over the head with a hose and chucked her in the tank.”
“Y
ou can never prove that.”
“I can. And I will.”
“Not if you’re dead.”
Jil held the phone with one hand and climbed back up the ladder with the other. One bar started to flicker again. Maybe not enough for a phone call, but what about a text message?
If she could keep him talking, distract him, maybe she could get help.
“If I die, you’re going to have a lot of questions to answer.”
“Not if nobody knows it was me. I’ve managed to get this far without being seen. Now all I have to do is see that you don’t live to tell about it.”
“That’s not going to solve your money problems though, is it, genius?”
Silence.
She’d got him.
“I’d take money advice from you, possibly, if you were actually an accountant. But you’re a shitty PI.”
“Oh yeah? I think I’ve got you pretty well figured out. Here’s what I think. Tell me if I’m close.”
“I don’t care what you know. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the glass windows on this thing are ancient, you’re stuck down there, and I’m about to make sure the sea gets in.”
Jil swallowed down her fear and thumbed in a message. Trapped in the sunken ship. Help now. She sent it to Rebecca and waited while the blue bar inched its way across the top of the screen.
“Actually, I think it matters to you a lot. Because you think you’re pretty smart, but actually, you’re an idiot. And when I get out of here, everyone is going to know exactly what a giant idiot you are. How you got yourself into gambling trouble and decided to solve that problem by committing a bunch of crimes. Embezzlement, fraud, and a drug ring come to mind.”
“Everyone gambles a little. Why do you think we have so many casinos?”
“Yeah, but not everybody loses thousands, do they? Not everyone mortgages their property. So you can’t pay. You really can’t pay. And soon you can’t even get back to the casinos to earn back your money because you have nothing to gamble with. And the guys are closing in.”
“So what? So you’ve dug into my personal life. Congratulations. So I’m not great with my own money. Name me someone who is.”
Jess, Jil thought automatically.
“Yeah, I got into a bit of debt. Sue me.”
“They don’t just sue you though, do they? They don’t fuck around with legalities like that, right? They’d just chop off your remaining leg. Or club you. Or beat you. I mean, take your pick. That must’ve been scary, Leonard. Were you pissing yourself?”
“Fuck off.”
“You were. I know you were. So how did you get yourself more time?”
“Who says I did?”
“I say. What did you agree to do? I have an idea, but I want to hear you say it.”
The blue bar hit the right side. Gone.
“I’m not saying anything. Actually, I’m leaving. I just wanted to say good-bye.”
A red circle appeared next to the message. Message not sent. Fuck.
Jil looked down. The spider web was spreading.
“This time, nobody will be able to blame me. You really have a death wish, don’t you? Jumping off boats. Going down into dark holes by yourself. You’d think you’d learn.”
Jil took a deep breath to calm her heart from thudding.
“You know what I think, Leonard? I think that this sea aquarium is really a perfect spot for a lot of things. Besides what it’s used for, I mean.”
He hesitated and she knew she was onto something. All she had to do was keep on talking.
“It’s on the open water. Boats pass in and out of it all the time. Nobody thinks twice about a motorboat circling around and around here. Quick out to the buoy and back again. You know what that sounds like to me?”
“What, smart-ass?”
“A drug-smuggling opportunity.”
Even as she said it, she knew she was right.
“Half a backpack of cocaine strapped to a boundary buoy. A boat passing by, taking it to another site. Bing, bang, boom.”
“Great. Well, now you know. Too bad you’re not going to be able to tell anyone.”
She kept talking, not knowing if he was even still there. “So you decide to take some out of the accounts. Only you’re not such a great embezzler and Rebecca starts to see that something’s off. So you confess that you’re trying something new. Trying to secure a good deal. The sea aquarium is struggling. She’s happy to have a whale. You take a bit more than it actually costs. Two hundred thousand more, to be exact. And use the excess to pay off your debts.
“Only now you owe the facility two hundred thousand dollars. And you’ve gotta reconcile this before year end. So, how are you going to get the money, Leonard? What are you going to do?”
“I could have won it back,” Leonard said.
Relief flooded her. She was still buying time. Maybe someone would see him and come running.
“Yeah, but that’ll take weeks. So meanwhile, what do you do? You take up the not-so-patient guys on their offer. Smuggle in some drugs. Perfect locale. Now all you’ve gotta do is to kill the whale. Get your insurance. Get the drug lords off your back and get out of Dodge. So what went wrong, Leonard? How did Tasha get in your way? She found out your plan. You were trying to kill the whale and she knew.”
“She should have minded her own business. I didn’t kill her. It was an accident. She snuck up on me. It was Baz’s fault she was even there. She walked in on us talking and she figured it out.”
Baz? Baz had been there the whole time?
“So, what? You bludgeoned her?”
“She shouldn’t have been there!”
“Then shoved her in the tank?”
“She would have died anyway. Her head was so banged up. It’s Baz’s fault. He should have made her stay in the car. None of this would have happened. They could have had their stupid date and she would still be alive.”
“Head injuries bleed a lot, Leonard. She might not have been dead. You’re the one who put her in the tank. She drowned.”
The line went dead.
Jil slowly put her phone down in the cradle and turned around. A strange thumping noise was coming from the side of the ship.
She crept through the center observatory to the large observation window.
Whomp.
Around the pillar. Until she was face-to-face with the dense, murky underwater world outside.
A flash of gray hurtled toward the window.
Whomp.
And collided with the glass.
She stood and stared in disbelief as a shark, twice the length of her body, rammed itself against the glass. Glass that was starting to fracture.
An icy feeling spread from her head all the way to her body as she stood, rooted, watching the animal blaze out of the depths and collide with the glass. The web grew wider. Beads of water began forming along the edges.
He was one of the foremost shark trainers in the Caribbean.
Could that have included teaching a shark to ram glass?
Or a whale?
I have to get out of here.
Chapter Twenty-seven
From above deck, she heard muffled shouting. A few thumps sounded above her head, then a splash outside the porthole.
A blur thrashed by: khaki shorts, a navy top. Hairy arms and legs churning. A shoe fell to the bottom of the ocean floor, dropping from the top of the window and sinking below the ship.
“Ramone?”
His face appeared. Eyes wide. He scrambled for the surface.
Jil ran to the window and peered out, looking left and right for the shark. Why was Ramone in the water? What the hell was he doing?
Ramone surfaced then swam back down, putting his hand to the window.
A flash of gray caught Jil’s eye. She gestured wildly for Ramone to surface.
“Get out! Get out!”
He swam back up.
The phone rang. Jil ignored it, her eyes glued to the porthole. But she didn’t s
ee Ramone any more. The phone kept ringing. She ran to pick it up.
“Any more of your friends come looking for you, they’ll get the same greeting.”
Oh God. Leonard had thrown Ramone in the water. So where was Emi?
She ran back to the porthole and looked out. No sign of the kid, but Ramone was still there. She caught sight of him swimming past the window again.
Ramone swam hard, trying to find a place to get out of the gated outdoor tank. In his panic, he missed the ladder.
The shark swam by. Jil watched, horrified, as it circled Ramone. He couldn’t get out of the tank. He was going to be eaten.
“Get on the boat! Get on the boat!”
She ran around the underwater ship, trying to think. In her mind’s eye, she could picture the orientation of the ship—the aft section fully sunk, the fore section rising at an angle out of the water.
She stumbled fore, a bit of an uphill climb, until she found a porthole that was just above water level. Was it big enough to squeeze through? For her maybe. Probably not Ramone. Where the hell was Emi?
A red sign caught her eye.
Fire hose. Fire extinguisher.
Where there was a fire hose, there was usually an axe.
She took off her shoe and smashed the glass case, then reached inside.
Yes. There was an axe. She grabbed it in two hands. It was heavier than she expected.
She also took the fire extinguisher.
The ship was old and brittle. The same problems that made it leak and creak would hopefully make it easier for her to get the hell out. That’s what she was counting on, anyway. Her first few swings of the axe went a bit wild. Far off target. But one landed a punch right next to the porthole, and when she pulled the axe out, she saw daylight.
Using the blade to chop and, finally, the end of the axe, she busted through the porthole, dense glass shattering all around her. With her shoe, she cleared out the remaining shards that still clung to the inside of the hole.
She put her head out. “Ramone!”
No answer.
The water to her left was oozing a red stream toward her.
She shouted again. “Ramone!”
“Help! Oh God, help!” he screamed.
She ran back to the case and grabbed the fire hose, then reached through the porthole and tossed the metal end upward onto the deck, trying to lodge it tight. The first time, it came back down and almost hit her on the head. The second time, she heard it clank. When she pulled it, it stayed. She shoved the other end of the hose out the porthole and into the water, then she followed, wiggling her hips to squeeze them through the opening. Shards of glass ripped through her shorts, but she gritted her teeth and forced her way through. For a second, she held onto the inside of the porthole, terrified. The axe would be useless, but the fire extinguisher…
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