by Linda Bond
Great. He gestured for Samantha to come closer.
“Who did you plan to call?” But Zack already knew the answer.
“The authorities,” she whispered. “Someone needs to know what’s going on out here. Especially now that Jenny has died. This is crazy. You almost died twice today.”
She tried to touch his face. He pulled away. He had to make her understand. “The captain already called the Coast Guard.” He swung his arm around George’s shoulder and motioned him to start walking. The crowd that had gathered around them made way.
“Well, I’m calling my detective friend, too,” she said over the chattering of the crowd.
Zack checked around to see if anyone had picked up on that, but it was hard to tell. “You can’t do that,” he said with a ferocity he hoped would stop the conversation for now. Jesus, she was about to blow it big time.
“Why not?” she demanded. “You’re a cop yourself.”
“Can you say that a little louder?” he ground out. “Not sure everyone heard you.”
“So?” She wasn’t even trying to hide their conversation.
“So, there’s something you’re forgetting.” He braced for her reaction.
“What?” She threw up her hands.
“Can we please take this below deck so we’re not causing a scene?” Even talking hurt like hell, let alone walking. What happened to the woman who was cradling his head like he was her dying lover?
“Fine.” She blew past him.
“Oh, boy. She’s pissed,” George said.
“No shit.” With George’s help he struggled down the stairs, his legs weak as boiled noodles, his muscles burning from overuse.
At the bottom of the stairwell, she planted herself in his path. He swallowed and leaned on George for support. They were alone, but wouldn’t be for long. He spit out the truth. “You can’t call the cops because my superiors don’t know I’m here.”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “Well, I think it’s time we told them. We need backup. Robert tried to kill me. If we find solid evidence that Robert killed other vacationers, how do you plan on bringing him to justice, if the Florida Department of Law Enforcement can’t even know you’re here?”
Zack held her gaze. “The Coast Guard could take him into custody. I wouldn’t have to be involved.”
Tears crested her lashes. “I can’t believe this. Jenny just died! You know what I think? I think someone pushed her off this boat because they saw her in my shirt. It was dark out. She’s my size, has my hair color. We’re all in danger here. We need backup.”
“I need you to trust me, Samantha.”
“I can’t trust you to keep us safe if you’re dead.”
“The Coast Guard is on the way to escort us back to land. The game has changed now that Jenny is dead. Please, I’m asking you to wait to make any calls until the Coast Guard arrives. Give me that time to find some proof, because once the Coast Guard takes over, our access to this boat and everyone on board is over.”
He was right, and she knew it. They were getting closer, ruffling the feathers of those involved. She could feel it. “If I wait, we stay together. You do not leave my side Zack Hunter, not once.”
Relief flooded his tired eyes. “Deal.”
“I mean it.” She looked at Zack, and then at George. “We three stay together to stay alive.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Zack sat in the front seat of the rented Ford Focus. He’d parked in the lot of a low-rent strip mall across from the Sailfish Marina in West Palm Beach. It was almost midnight, and his attention was focused on the ramp exiting The Great Escape.
The air hung heavy despite the car’s air-conditioning. By morning, all the X-Force crew and clients would be gone, and with them would go any remaining clues to his uncle’s death.
“How did you manage to get us off the boat before anyone else?” Samantha said from the backseat. They were the first words she’d spoken since they’d disembarked about twenty minutes ago. “Detectives were making everyone pack up their gear and wait topside to be interviewed. They wanted to question each person about Jenny’s death. Why not us?”
“I told the lead detective I was with the FDLE, on vacation, and that I have the bends and have an appointment to get into a hyperbaric chamber at West Palm Memorial. He’s familiar with the bends so he told me to get going.”
Sitting in the driver’s seat, he gripped the wheel, wishing this shit would go down already. He was getting nervous they’d missed their suspect.
George sat next to him in the front passenger seat with his video camera perched on his shoulder and his eye glued to the eyepiece, ready to catch anything interesting.
Samantha wedged her body forward into the space between the two front seats. “I get the professional courtesy thing, but why didn’t they question us?”
She was releasing her nervous energy by bouncing her knee, rocking the back of his seat. Over and over. It was pissing him off. “I told the detective you were documenting my trip, not actually a lie, and the hyperbaric chamber would be part of it. I told him I’d bring you back to him to interview later.” He took a deep breath, pausing before he continued. “And I promised him that if he let us go right now, you’d let him have the video George shot over the past few days.”
Her hand slapped the back of his seat. “You what?”
“Samantha—”
“You can’t promise him that! You’re going to get me in trouble.”
“We’re already in trouble,” George said. “The fucking news director has been blowing up my phone since I got a signal again. And he’s left a ton of messages. We’re fucked, no matter what.”
Thank you, George, for taking some of the damn heat off me by shifting her attention.
Samantha sat back forcefully, the backseat creaking as her body connected with it. “Stan is blowing up my phone, too.”
“Listen, let’s focus on the positive.” Zack had to redirect his team. “We’re off the boat. Robert can’t touch you anymore. You’ve called to check on your mother and she’s fine. We still have a few hours to try and dig something up on Robert. When he exits, we follow him.”
Samantha made a disgruntled sound.
Just as he suspected, not the right answer. He sighed inwardly. She would always be a challenge. He knew that. But he didn’t mind. It seemed…right to have her by his side. “Let’s just focus on the plan.”
God, he would miss her when she left.
“The plan. Right.” George wiggled around in the front seat, probably trying to get the blood moving in parts of his long body that had been still for a while. “I wish to hell those cops would wrap their shit up and let everyone go, so we can get going on this plan. My shoulder is killing me. And I’m seriously hungry.”
“I’ve got a protein bar,” Samantha offered.
“Chocolate?”
“No, blueberry.”
George shifted in his seat. “You know I like chocolate. Who the hell eats blueberry protein bars? Gross.”
She made a clicking sound. Zack couldn’t see her but imagined the roll of her eyes.
“You want it or not?” she said.
Family, Zack thought as he listened to them bicker. They sounded like brother and sister. That kind of intimacy was exactly what he’d longed for since leaving his uncle’s house. And he had found it in the most unlikely of places—on a stakeout, in a shit-smelling car, next to a stinky dumpster in some low-rent strip mall. He smiled.
“Action.” George sat up straighter, banging his head on the car roof. “Ouch!”
Zack tensed, his fingers tightening on the wheel. A few people were now leaving the ship.
Samantha leaned forward again. “We’re too far away to make out who it is.”
Zack squinted. He could make out bodies, but no faces.
“Not a problem,” George said. “The camera can zoom in.”
“Do it.” Zack held one hand on the ignition key, should they need to move quickly
.
“The detective is the first guy,” George responded. “The dude from Texas and his doctor buddy are walking off the boat next. Monica is with them. I see…”
“Who? Don’t even blink, George.” Samantha sounded breathless and pissed. “That snake has a bad habit of slithering away before you can stop him.”
“I’ve got him,” George said. “Robert Fitzpatrick just walked off the boat, and he’s headed toward the parking lot.”
Samantha craned forward. “Follow him with the camera.”
“Yeah, thanks, Sam.” George snorted. “I almost forgot what I was doing here.”
“Sorry, I’m just nervous.”
George adjusted in his seat. “He’s— Oh shit, I lost him.”
“George!” Samantha’s voice squeaked as she smacked the back of George’s seat.
“Come on, man, find him.” Zack’s own tone surprised him. His military training helped him remain calm, even in the most stressful of situations. Once you’d survived being shot at, not much else could raise alarm. But tonight, he wanted—no, he needed—to nail Fitzpatrick with something, even if it was only attempted murder for what he’d done to Samantha.
“I think…no, shit. That’s the doctor.” George let out an explosion of expletives.
“Use the zoom,” Samantha said. “Find him.”
“Yeah, I know how to work a camera. You are getting on my last nerve tonight.”
“Let’s all take a deep breath,” Zack ordered, wanting to keep this train on the right track. They had only seconds before their chance would be lost.
George shifted in his seat, moving the camera to an odd angle in Zack’s direction. “I’ve got him!”
“Thank God,” Samantha whispered the words he was thinking.
“Yeah, he’s getting into a red Impala. Give me a second. Zooming in. License plate is ZKY45O. Florida plates.”
A familiar burn ignited in Zack’s belly. “Yes! We’re back in this, people. Robert is on the move. Let’s see where’s he going and who he might lead us to.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
As Zack drove, the highway lights rolling past splattered harsh white images across his face. His skin was pale and his cheeks drawn.
He looked like he was about to collapse. Sam could relate. She was definitely miserable. They’d been following Fitzpatrick north on Interstate 95 as he maneuvered in and out of traffic for a couple of hours now.
She checked out George. His head rested awkwardly on the headrest, and he held his camera on his lap. His eyes remained partially open, almost like a dead man’s, but the rhythmic breathing from his half-opened mouth told her he was asleep. How he could sleep right now, she could not fathom. Nerves were keeping her wide-awake.
Robert Fitzpatrick continued to dodge slow cars in the fast lane like a man on a mission. She sighed, wishing he’d just get to wherever the hell he was going.
Zack glanced back at her. “You doing okay?”
She glanced up in surprise. They hadn’t spoken much since the trip started. She’d been focused on gathering some info with her smartphone now that they were on land and she had 4G again. She hesitated to answer. He sounded weary, too. Why worry him? “I’m fine. Just a little hungry, that’s all.” The protein bar hadn’t satisfied her cravings, nor had it stopped the rumble in her belly.
“Me, too. Any more snacks up your sleeve?” he asked.
She dug through her big black bag, but her stash was spent. “No, but I have a Flintstone vitamin and two Altoids. Oh, and half a piece of Big Red.”
Zack released a sound that could have been a grunt or laugh. “I’ll take an Altoids. Hey, George snores.”
“Yeah.” She stopped to listen. “Never did learn how to turn that off.” Her gaze flickered back to Zack’s chalky face. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“How long can you wait to get treatment if you have the bends?” His ashen face told her he could pass out at any moment. That fear kept her awake. She should be driving not him. But he’d said no. He was fine.
“I don’t have any symptoms, really. I’m just tired. And even if I do have the bends, I’ve got about 10 days to get into that hyperbaric chamber. No rush. I’m not going to die tonight.”
Funny. “What happened down there while you were diving?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.” His shoulders rolled. “And that really pisses me off. The bastard must have messed with the BCD valve on my vest because the damn thing inflated on its own for no reason. A BCD valve can theoretically malfunction, especially if it’s old, but the vest was nearly new and I checked it thoroughly before I put it on. How he pulled that off, I’ll never know, but one thing I do know.”
She sat forward. “What’s that?”
“I know how the asshole stopped the manual deflate button from working.”
“How?” She held her breath.
“Superglue.”
“Huh?”
“The jerk glued the button in place so it wouldn’t depress when I tried to dump air out of the vest. I could feel the hard edge of the glue when I reinspected the vest after the dive. Think how easy it would be to spread a few drops in all the right places.”
“When I saw him near your gear. Damn. I knew he was up to something.”
“I should have listened.”
That statement should have sent a sense of power surging through her. Instead, relief washed over her with such intensity her heart skipped.
“I pulled the cord to open the dump valve in the back of my vest—the last resort safety device—and the damn cord broke.”
“He superglued that, too?” she asked, gooseflesh creeping up her arms. How could a person be so deviously sinister?
“It’s insulting.”
“Why?”
“How simple his plan was, and how well it worked. I should have—”
“You couldn’t have foreseen a few drops of superglue after you checked your gear.”
He nodded, but his jaw was set in a hard line. “I should have checked again.” He exhaled. “Anyway. You never did tell me what else you found in his bunk while I was diving.”
Just like him to steer the subject off himself. “Well, we’ve both been a little busy.” She cleared her throat. “I found his phone as you know.” She’d filled him in on that earlier. “And his license. When I pulled his ID out, something fell on the floor.”
“A signed confession?”
She laughed. “Could we be so lucky? No, a newspaper article.”
He frowned back at her in the rearview mirror. “About what?”
“It was about a reporter in New York who died in a freak accident.” She shuddered. “It gave me the heebie-jeebies.”
His gaze locked into hers in the mirror. “Another freak accident?”
“Or not.” Her stomach fluttered as she eyed the Impala. The traffic was finally letting up, and it was one of the few cars left on the road this late at night. “Don’t follow too closely. He’ll pick up on us.”
“I’ve trailed a car or two in my career.”
“Right. Sorry,” she mumbled. They were all so tired. “Anyway. The article said this reporter and photographer were covering a story on the Upper East Side three years ago. They had a microwave truck parked on the street, and they’d sent their mast up for the live remote.”
“Like a giant antenna, right?”
“Yeah. It sends the signal with the video and sound to the TV station.”
His forehead pleated. “Let me guess. Struck by lightning?”
“Close. Going up, it hit an electrical wire. Both the reporter, who was getting something from inside the van, and the photographer, who was raising the mast, were electrocuted on the spot.”
“Jesus.”
“Our managers make us take safety classes every so often, but that kind of accident does happen from time to time. Employees get careless. But I can’t help but think…”
“That it could have be
en deliberately set up?”
“It did happen about the same time Robert’s uncle, Scott Fitzpatrick, was appearing in court on charges. And this reporter had exclusive information on where Scott had been hiding his money. I’ve been reading a couple of her old online reports on my smartphone while you’ve been driving. Sounds like a motive for murder, don’t you think? Kill the reporter who exposed you?”
Zack released air in a long, slow whistle and met her gaze in the rearview. “Robert carried that newspaper article around with him for three years?”
“Even weirder, right?” A flurry of movement in front of their car caught their attention. “Hey. What’s happening?” Her pulse kicked up.
The car jerked as Zack floored it. “He’s turning.”
She sat back and held on. “Do you think he knows we’re behind him?”
He ripped the wheel to the right. “Hope to hell not.”
Fitzpatrick took the exit off I-95, but she couldn’t read the sign in the passing streetlights. “I think he turned east, right? If so, he’s heading for the beach.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve lived in Florida all my life. He’s going toward…wait. I see a sign. Port Orange.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach. Turn! Turn!”
He did, so sharply George fell sideways into the door.
“Hey, what the—” George wrenched up in the seat, clutching his TV camera as the car sped around the corner.
The Impala continued east on a two-lane road through a residential neighborhood.
“What the hell is he doing in suburbia-land?” George, now very much awake, peered out the window at the cookie-cutter houses.
Zack glanced his way. “Good question.”
“It’s where normal people live,” Sam said. “Nothing exciting ever happens here. Look. He’s turning.” She pointed.
“I can’t get too close. He’ll see us.”
The streetlights thinned out as they traveled further away from the main drag and down a narrow street.
“What a perfect place to hide,” she muttered.
“If you’re a murderer.” Zack said quietly.
