Dead Reckoning

by Moore, Sandra K.

  She clutched the wheel instead. “I guess Smitty’s on his knees in the bilge,” she said lightly.

  “Do you care where Smitty is?” McLellan leaned a palm against the console to face her.

  She caught a whiff of his clean scent before the wind snatched it away. Smitty who? She swallowed. “Have you talked to Garza since we left?”

  “My cell died once we got away from Lafayette. I’ll check in when we get close to a big city again.”

  “You can use the satellite phone. It’s old technology and goes on the blink sometimes, but you might get through. I’m going to replace it.”

  “Did you find the one you want in that New Orleans catalog?”

  “Yes.” It’d be a nice chunk of change from the DEA “rent” she had left, but she definitely wanted to get that phone before they headed for Isladonata. Just in case.

  “I’ll dig through my magazines,” he offered, “and see what the reviews say about it.” He shot her a jaunty grin. “I know what you think of my articles but—”

  “You made a believer out of me with the gelcoat trick,” she said with a little laugh. “If you can save me some cash with a good alternative, by all means do so.”

  “Damn fine job you’ve done,” he remarked. He leaned his hip against the console to brace himself against the yacht’s movement. She felt him studying her and met his gaze. This close, in the eerie green instrument lighting, his eyes were nothing resembling remote. His humor had fled, replaced by something—an intensity—she couldn’t name.

  “You’re an amazing woman,” he said abruptly. “Knowing what you want, going after it.”

  “It’s my sister’s life,” she replied quietly.

  McLellan’s rueful smile looked haunted. “Family ties.” He turned his head and Chris saw his noble—there was no other way of putting it—profile, a shadow of stubble making him look rugged rather than polished. “This is personal for me.”

  Chris remembered Smitty’s derisive tone: A bleedin’ heart for one of these guys gets you dead. I don’t care how personal it is. “In what way?”

  He was silent for a long moment. Waves collapsed over each other, pushing and crashing. “My brother got involved with a local drug dealer.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Nineteen. He knew better. He got into selling, hooked up with some dangerous people.” A sharp gust blew his windbreaker’s collar up against his throat. “It was the power, I guess. That’s what he wanted. That and the money.”

  Chris could understand that. Not for herself, but wasn’t that exactly what had enticed Natalie into the trouble she was in now? Jerome and his private jet. Jerome and his ready wad of cash. Jerome and his hundred-thousand-dollar sports car. Jerome and the private London wedding. The Jerome Chris had seen only from a distance and never met.

  “My brother made a series of bad decisions and at the end of the day there was nothing I could do to save him. Antonio and I spent three months trying to track him down. When we found him…” His jaw tightened, then he said, “It’s not easy to watch police divers drag your little brother’s body out of the water, knowing that maybe if you’d said something differently, maybe shown him a different path, he’d be alive and married and playing with his kids right now.”

  Chris said nothing as she automatically scanned the instrument panel, looking for warning signals while she thought about what he’d said. How many times had she lain awake at night since Natalie’s phone call, wondering if she’d said or done something to drive Nat to marry someone like Jerome? Chris knew exactly what McLellan had felt. Might still feel.

  “What happened to him?” she asked softly.

  “He pissed off the wrong man.”

  When McLellan didn’t seem willing to elaborate, she said, “Did you catch him?”

  “No.” He braced one hand on the back of her chair, briefly brushed her shoulder, as Obsession climbed a swell. “Part of me wants to kill the bastard.”

  She said nothing.

  If Natalie ended up dead—and here Chris felt her stomach clutch hard—would she want to look down the Ruger’s sight at Jerome Scintella the way McLellan wanted to look at the man who killed his brother? Her gut went liquid with dread.

  She glanced at him, saw the guilt in his clenched jaw, in the character lines around his eyes. Heard it in his voice as he said, in almost a whisper, “I don’t intend to let your sister suffer the same fate.” He raised a hand as though to touch her, but didn’t. “Or you.”

  She let out a long breath, realizing how easy she found it to relate to this man and how much she wanted to believe what he said about keeping her safe. When he leaned closer, she tried not to think about how good he smelled and how good his arms would feel around her.

  Then he smiled. “You’re strong. Like I was a few years ago. Dedicated. Ambitious. Professional.”

  “You’re not those things now?”

  “I do my job. I go home with a clear conscience, knowing I’ve done the right thing.” His gaze lingered on her mouth, slipped to the open neck of her shirt, then flicked back to her eyes. “But I’m not sure that’s fulfilling anymore.”

  “What could be more fulfilling than chasing bad guys?”

  “It’s not that cut-and-dried.” He exhaled slowly. “I want to do things differently. Not live in such a dark place.”

  They weren’t talking about his DEA work anymore, but Chris wasn’t sure where he was headed. His conversation shifted beneath her feet like the waves beneath Obsession’s hull, and she felt suddenly more at ease with him than she ever had on the open water. More alive.

  “I should try to sleep. I’m laying carpet tomorrow.” He shoved away from the helm console, away from her, then paused. “I haven’t had a day this good in a long time,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

  She smiled a little, pleased and frustrated that she felt pleased. Then she met his gaze and the frustration died. He leaned in and she lifted her chin ever so slightly and then his firm lips were on hers. Her breath stopped. His fingertips lightly touched her chin, then slid along her jaw, and the fleeting thought his lips might follow weakened her knees. The boat rocked up and over a rolling wave; they swayed with the movement, balanced together, in a strengthening kiss that baffled her senses and absolved her of all thought. There was only his scent, the sensuous slide of his lips against hers, his warm breath on her cheek, his arm slipping around her waist. When she opened her eyes, there was his cheekbone, lifted by the dim light into masculine marble.

  Ther be Dragynes here.

  She leaned back to break the kiss but McLellan’s hand held her still for the instant it took to sweep her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. She gasped. He pressed a kiss against the corner of her mouth and lingered. Catching her scent, she realized. The thought excited her darkly.

  “Christina,” he murmured into her ear and her name sounded like music—

  The yacht lurched to starboard, throwing him against the helm console. A crack and boom echoed up from the boat’s hull, then a distinct metallic thunk sounded from the stern. Cursing, Chris yanked the throttles into Neutral. A hot fist of dread clutched her stomach.

  “Dammit,” she muttered. What’d we hit? She flicked the searchlight switch. Its beam laced the water, skimming over churning foam.

  “What the hell was that?” McLellan leaned over the railing to scan the darkness.

  She ignored him, irritated she’d been provoked into carelessness. If her boat had been hulled because McLellan was messing with her, she’d take it out of his hide. If the Coast Guard could reach them in time.

  For a couple of tense minutes she swept the searchlight steadily over the water to the yacht’s port side. Nothing but black waves, cresting white in the strengthening, howling wind. In the far distance, the utter blackness of the shoreline loomed.

  Feet pounded the flybridge steps behind them. “What happened?” Smitty called, buttoning his cutoff shorts as he joined them.

  “We hit something I
didn’t see,” she snapped, leveling an angry glance at McLellan. “Man the searchlight,” she told Smitty, then quickly marked their position on the waterproof chart.

  When she turned, Smitty had swung the light to starboard, illuminating only the open gulf as it swept toward them. Then he pivoted to shine on their wake and picked up the angular black crisscrosses of a pipe grid thrusting through the waves.

  “Shit,” Chris muttered.

  “What the hell is it?” McLellan asked.

  Smitty whistled. “Oil rig debris. That’ll take a bite out.”

  “Oil companies don’t have to clean that up?”

  Smitty shook his head as he played the light over the pipes, rusted and jagged with weather. “They do, but this could have broken loose in the last hurricane.”

  “I think it hit a prop,” Chris said. “Maybe a rudder.”

  “Dammit.”

  An amber light flashed on the console. It was the aft bilge pump, in the lowest part of the boat. She counted while the light shone and the pump ran, a good five seconds. If Obsession was taking on water, it wasn’t much. Yet.

  Chris killed the engines, heard the sudden absence of exhaust roar. “We’re far enough offshore we can drift for a few minutes. I’m going to go down and have a look around. You guys prep the inflatable in case we need it. The spare gas can for the inflatable’s outboard is in the lazarette.”

  “The lazarette’s the one place on this tub I haven’t been yet,” Smitty said, grabbing hold of the railing as a wave shoved the yacht’s nose to port.

  Chris watched the bilge pump light flicker on again. “The hatch is in the aft deck floor, toward the very back of the boat. The gas can’s within reach.”

  “Gotcha.” He looked at McLellan. “You get it while I keep watch up here.”

  “Right.”

  Chris made her way toward the starboard engine room, trailing one hand on the lower passageway’s gutted wall to help keep her balance as the yacht began to pitch side to side. Without the engines running and in gear, the yacht lacked the ability to point her nose into the waves. For a few minutes at least, they’d be at the mercy of the on-coming storm. The tossing had already knocked Smitty’s broom from the passageway corner where he’d parked it so that it lay across the floor. She kicked it out of the way and swung the port engine room door open.

  The thick odor of hot metal hijacked her breath. Hortense, mute now but radiating heat and faint exhaust fumes, hunched in the room’s center. Chris’s first thought was that the hull had been punctured, but the bilge pump hadn’t run fast enough and only one amber light out of five had shown. That meant the water wasn’t rising fast enough to suggest a hull breach.

  No, she bet the rig pipes had struck a propeller, which was the lowest part of the boat. If that was the case, the stuffing box—the point where the prop shaft came through the hull—was leaking more than it should. All stuffing boxes were designed to leak anyway because the prop shaft had to turn in order to make the propeller turn. It was only a few drips a minute, nothing that would overwhelm even a single bilge pump. But if the shaft had been knocked out of alignment with the engine, the stuffing box might have been damaged and the water might now be flowing in at a dangerous rate.

  Chris grabbed a flashlight and a wrench from the tool chest, stuck the wrench into her back pocket. A misaligned prop shaft could do irreparable harm to an engine. If an engine shaft had been knocked out of alignment, Obsession would have to limp into New Orleans on the remaining engine, losing them a day on their schedule.

  I don’t have time for this, Chris reminded her Creator as she yanked open the hatch that led aft, toward the stern and the stuffing boxes. She wriggled down the catwalk, played the flashlight beam over quickly rising bilge water. A subtle whirring reassured her; the closest midships bilge pump was sucking water from the hold and spewing it outside. The pump shut off automatically when the water level dropped below the trigger point.

  She finally reached the stuffing boxes, both out of reach from the catwalk. The yacht heaved up and over another wave, throwing her off balance. Helluva time for the waves to pick up some chop. Give me a break, she prayed irreverently. Just a few minutes of calm, okay? The boat dropped a sickening foot before slamming into the trough and ramming her against a bulkhead.

  Fine. I’ll handle it on my own.

  She braced herself and aimed the flashlight’s beam at the distant starboard stuffing box. A single drop winked in the light, then another. It looked good. Water slapped and beat the fiberglass hull, but underneath the hollow-sounding booms and whacks, she could hear the flat crack of water on water. She shifted the flashlight from one hand to the other, then shone the beam on the port stuffing box.

  A cascade spewed from the box like a faucet left half-open.

  There you are. Chris glanced at the water level in the bilge. A little high, but when the pump kicked back on, it’d drop again.

  She thought about the general problem for a moment. She wouldn’t be able to tell if the prop shaft was still aligned until she started the engines again. And while she believed the bilge pumps could keep up with the incoming flow, she didn’t like taking that chance. The flashlight beam dipped toward the hull. The roiling, oily water had risen past its normal point, nothing but clean crosshatch fiberglass above it.

  Chris held her breath and tried to hear past the riotous clap of water on the hull. No whirring. She shimmied back to the bilge pump that had been running a moment before and lifted the float switch to prompt the pump to run. Nothing happened. She cursed, wriggled back to the stuffing box. Even with four pumps still good, she didn’t like leaving this veritable water faucet running full bore.

  She fished the wrench out of her back pocket and reached far out from the catwalk for the stuffing box’s packing gland. She’d have to tighten that gland nut to slow the incoming flow. Even stretched full out, she was a good foot from the nut. The prop shaft, a solid steel pipe about two inches thick, gleamed greasily and blocked the only area where she could get to the stuffing box.

  “Nobody told me when I inherited this boat I needed to be two feet tall with arms six feet long,” she muttered.

  She held her breath and snaked under the prop shaft, grazing her back and side on it. Too damn close. The hot oil smell was almost overwhelming. Concentrate. She angled her body so her feet braced against the catwalk and her shoulders rested on the hull. With a resigned sigh, she lowered her butt into the cold bilge water. She propped the flashlight between her shoulder and ear like a phone to aim it at the packing gland. A wave hit, banged her shoulder and threw her upper arm against the prop shaft.

  Note to self: Take up yoga.

  Turning her shoulders slightly, she could reach the packing gland nut and work the wrench. Just great if you didn’t mind pressing your cheek to a greasy prop shaft that was still hot from spinning at a few thousand RPMs. Or dropping your ass down into an oily bilge.

  Chris fought to get the wrench into place while the gulf waves hammered Obsession’s hull. A couple of wrench turns was all she needed, just enough to slow the water flow without stopping it completely. She got the first turn okay.

  Just one more and I’m outta here.

  She heard the distinct click of Hortense’s starter, then the engine roared. Shit. Her upper arm was jerked toward the prop shaft. Chris instinctively threw herself backward, away from the spinning shaft. Her head banged the hull. The flashlight splashed into the bilge. Her torn sleeve, caught around the shaft, spun wildly before being slung away. The flashlight’s beam, green and watery, winked out.

  Oh God.

  In the distance, light glinted on pipes and edged the wooden catwalk. Near her, total blackness and hot, humming metal. In her mind’s eye, she saw her ponytail whipping around the shaft like thread on a spool, dragging her into the steel bar. It would crush her skull like a Christmas pecan.

  No one knew she was this far down in the hold.

  She could yell, but they’d never hear her
over the noisy Detroits. And she hadn’t had silencers put on the exhaust system yet so the aft exhaust pipes’ rumble would muffle her screams.

  The yacht lurched. She braced harder against the hull. Trying not to move forward, trying not to feel the hot air blowing off the spinning prop shaft two inches from her nose, she felt around in the bilge for the flashlight. The smooth cylinder filled her hand like a lifeline.

  Smitty better remember his Morse code. Careful not to raise the dead flashlight too high, she tapped on the hull: three quick taps, three taps with a second between them, three quick taps.

  Nothing.

  She tried again, then again. Still nothing. Was the bilge water rising? She stopped tapping to reach her shaking hand under the packing gland. After a moment’s cautious searching, she found it. Water gushed through the gland onto her palm. Were none of the bilge pumps running? Catching back a sob, she tried the SOS code again, striking the hull harder. A single lock of hair escaped from her ponytail and slid down her neck.

  Please, no, she prayed. It was so damned dark. So hot and dark.

  Bilge water licked up, soaking her shirt midriff. Yes, the water was definitely gaining on her. She molded her back more firmly to the hull as the yacht rolled up and over another wave. Get a grip, she told herself between sobs. You’re not dead yet. If all else fails, you can stay right here until they figure out they need to stop the engines.

  Right. Until the water rises so high you drown.

  Chris took a deep breath, then froze as a wave of nausea rolled over her. Exhaust fumes seeped into the tight crawl space, filling it.

  “Can you cut me some slack here?” she yelled, then instantly regretted it when the dizziness hit.

  If I stay here, I’ll die.

  She couldn’t go over the prop shaft, but maybe she could go under it. She gingerly ran her hands along the fiberglass as far as she could reach, feeling for the exact shape of the hull. There was just room to slide her body down into the water, along the bottom of the boat, and out the other side. She carefully wet her hair, plastered it to her head. Just in case.