“Hook commissioned the theft of the thirteen shadows. They’re beyond priceless. I was two steps behind him when he had his men load his collection of antiquities, including the Lost Boys, into a van in Manhattan. It was passed from courier to courier. They made half a dozen switches, and then the van vanished. Until we found it at Joseph’s goat farm. Hook sent it to his brother who had no idea what he was holding for the Pirate of Wall Street.
“He doesn’t want to sell the Lost Boys. This is just Hook’s way of saying to the world – one more time – screw you. He orchestrated the mysterious disappearance of one of the most valuable antiquities in the world. He did it for the thrill of getting away with it.”
“Where’s the thirteenth boy?”
“Missing. Hook hired a very clever antiquities thief to steal the collection from the museum. She took a gratuity for herself. A little going away present. She kept the thirteenth shadow.”
“How are you going to get the Lost Boys out of here?”
“I’m going to load them on the chopper. We’re going to fly out.”
“Does Jaxbee know?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell her last minute. I don’t completely trust her.”
“What about the rest of Hook’s treasure?”
“It’s still in the van. Your lover, Peter Payne, is the contact to fence it to shady private collectors like Hook. The black-market for antiquities is a multi-billion dollar business.”
“Who would buy the stuff if it can’t be sold? That makes no sense.”
Roger finished rewrapping the last of the shadows and placed it in the suitcase. “Terrorists raise cash by stealing history and selling it to buyers like Charlie Hook. Wealthy collectors lust after these stolen artifacts and keep them in secret vaults. They are never seen again.”
I shivered. “Are you a good guy or a bad guy?”
He smiled. “I am so bad.” He batted those killer eyelashes. “I’ve got dummy Dale convinced I’m the brains behind Hook’s antiquities operation.”
I shook my head in disgust. “You’re a world-class impersonator. You had me convinced you were SEC. Hook thinks you’re a doctor, and Dale believes you’re Goldfinger. Nice work.”
Roger did the eyelash thing again. “By the condition of my room, we don’t have much time. Hook knows the boys are missing. He’ll slaughter us all in order to get them back.”
I touched his cheek and made serious eye contact, “Please stop calling Peter Payne my lover. He’s not.”
The archeologist, SEC investigator, and would-be squeeze grabbed my shoulders and pushed me down, pinning me to his bed next to the germy suitcase containing the ancient shadows. He gave me a kiss I could feel in my shoes. It was good, great… but not enough.
I struggled with him. “I don’t kiss liars!”
I smacked him across the face. I know it hurt him because it sure stung my hand. I pulled free. Roger leaped after me hanging onto the tail of my shirt.
The door of the suite burst open. Wham! Kit slid into us like a baseball player running for home. He was breathless. “Wendy – Roger, while you two are canoodling, we have disasters about to come together in a perfect storm.”
“You’re being melodramatic. A perfect storm would be a welcomed respite.”
My nail tech buddy rolled his eyes heavenward, “We have a pirate on a string dangling from the ship. The crewmen are arming themselves. Hook is taking Jaxbee with him to Nevis. The poor kid can barely walk.”
“Is that Croc on that rope?” Roger asked.
Kit nodded.
“The hedgies can’t board. The swim platform is up and locked,” Roger said.
“You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man,” I said.
He flashed a smile. “Body Heat. Kathleen Turner to William Hurt.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Croc and four of his not-so-merry men barged into the suite. Roger flipped a sheet over the suitcase containing the Lost Boys. Then Kit, Roger, and I squared off with the leader of the pack.
“Wendy this is your last chance to come with me. It can be like old times.”
Hands on my hips, I stepped up to his face. “Old times sucked. How did you get up here? I know you don’t have any special anti-cloaking device. You can barely use your iPhone.”
Croc took a squeaky step toward me. “I’m here to take Hook’s treasure. I know he found it.”
I wanted to thump him on the head. “He’ll kill you, you moron.”
“Not if I kill him first!” He did a little hip gyration.
“You had trouble killing a spider in our garage.”
“That was a big spider.”
Kit stepped between us. “Stop bickering.”
Croc sucker punched him in the gut. Kit keeled over, recovering as my ex-husband grabbed me and pulled me aside. He smelled like a tire store in his rubberized suit. “I’ve already killed.” Croc’s eyes were twin barrels of insanity. “I shot Henry,” he hissed.
He pulled me closer. “I do have a secret device, it’s the on/off switch. Henry was working for me when he shut off the cloaking device. A simple trick, but it worked. N’est-ce pas?” He smiled revealing the gap in his front teeth. “I knocked him off so he couldn’t expose me.”
Desperate, I looked around for an escape.
“Don’t concern yourself looking for help, my dear,” Croc said in a loud, theatrical voice. My men have trashed all the communications systems, including the helicopter radio… for real.”
Shoving me into Roger, Croc said, “You three stay here. Once we have the treasure, I’ll be back for you.”
It’s one thing to find out your ex-husband is a wacko and another to discover he’s capable of murder. I’d never been this close to a killer before.
As Croc stepped through the hatch, a huge black hand reached out from the corridor and lifted him off his feet. Roscoe grunted as a fistful of crewmen tackled the four hedgies in one swift scoop. The scuffle was short lived. “Put those boys in the safe room. Kill ‘em if they come out,” the Haitian said. “I’m throwing out the trash.”
Plow! Roscoe slammed Croc to the deck.
“Darling?…” Croc called to me. At least I think he was addressing me.
“Murderer…” I said as I stepped over his flailing legs.
Roscoe bounced him down the corridor and out of sight.
Turning to me, Roger asked, “Are you still holding that thought about the sixteen billion dollars? ‘Cause I am. I have a plan to stop Hook’s money from being transferred around the globe. It will never be recovered if the wire transfers go out from the Island Insta Bank. But my plan depends on you.”
I looked at him as if he were speaking gibberish. “You said you didn’t care about the money… just the shadows. Now you’re interested? And… why is it up to me? How’d I become a player? I don’t know anything about wire transfers. You’re the money guy.”
His expression was sincere as he said, “Fate has handed us the keys to right a major wrong. The thought of sixteen billion dollars sitting in offshore accounts when it could be returned to Hook’s victims… AND we have the power to do it…”
“What do you mean we? I’ve never wired money in my life. I wouldn’t know how to start or stop the process.”
He grabbed my shoulders. “I’ve got to control Dale. If I leave you with him on the Predator, he’s liable to kill you, Kit, and Jaxbee, if he thinks the antiquity buyers aren’t on their way to the yacht with tons of bucks. If I head off to the Nevisland bank to stop the wire transfer, Hook will kill us all. It’s a lose/lose unless I stay here and play out my role. You take the tender, get to Nevisland, and stop the wire before Hook gets there. You have one hour.”
I felt as if I had question marks for eyeballs.
Roger planted a quick kiss on my cheek. “Kit and I will keep the crew occupied.”
My nail tech did a double take. “We will?”
“I’ll be back for you.” I stroked his cheek.
“Yo
u don’t need to promise,” Kit said.
“Dale and the crew will stick with the treasure to be sure of a payoff,” Roger said. “Let’s get topside and convince them to hold the ship until the black market antiquity buyers get here from Nevisland.” He gave me the eyebrow thing, which I took to mean that there were no financial dudes on their way to the Predator.
Kit looked from me to Roger and back. “I’d rather be giving Mike Tyson a facial than holding the crew at bay armed only with a lie.”
My last views of Darlin’s Dudes were of Roger in a head-to-head conversation with Dale on the bridge, and Kit stealthily carrying the suitcase containing the Lost Boys to the chopper.
Chapter Forty-Nine
I found the tender Nibs in its cradle in the submarine launch at the stern. Pushing the switch, I dropped the boat into the sea. It took me a good ten minutes to figure out what I was doing. There was a key in the ignition. Stay calm, I cautioned myself. You’ve seen them operate this thing before. Direction and speed must be controlled by the stick near the dashboard or maybe the wheel did the direction thingie. Nuts. Everything else was gauges and dials. How hard could it be? I’d found the winch toggle switch on the Mermaid.
I turned at the sound of a bark. Tinkerbelle took a flying leap from the platform into the Nibs. “Not now, you silly dog. You can’t come.” I grabbed her and stumbling, I plopped her onto the Water Sports platform. “Stay!”
The motor was idling; I untied the rope and the boat slipped quietly from the Predator. I heard a yelp. Tinkerbelle cowered between my feet. Darn dog. Too late to return her to the platform. “Stay still, you stubborn thing. ”
As I sped around the stern of the yacht, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Linked to the swim platform was the hedgies’ Zodiac and inside it were Hook and Croc bound in thick ropes and sitting facing each other. Roscoe jumped in the boat, started the motor, and pushed off.
Watching the revenge-driven Haitian, I didn’t pay attention to the tender. It went into a spin. When I regained control of the boat, I could see the Zodiac further out and Roscoe forcing something into Hook’s mouth. He was resisting but the big Haitian won out. It had to be the polonium. Roscoe had fed it to Hook. His plan was complete.
The Zodiac fell into the current and pulled away from the yacht. Hook’s UpUGo standing erect in his jogging pants caught the wind. It was the strangest mini-sail afloat. Roscoe dropped from the boat and starting swimming back to the Predator.
“Daddy!” Jaxbee screamed as she plunged into the roiling waters and started swimming to the Zodiac. She couldn’t know what was in her father’s mouth. Slow death by radiation poisoning.
With powerful strokes, Roscoe swam to intercept Jaxbee. He grabbed for her but she fought him. He reached again, this time clutching her in a swimmer’s rescue hold. She looked like a child in his locked arm as he swam to the yacht. She had stopped struggling. I prayed he hadn’t accidentally strangled her.
Torn between helping with this saga or getting to Nevisland to stop the money from being wired, I watched in horror as all of a sudden the giant manta ray exploded from the sea and leaped into the air. It was as if the animal had been lying in wait for Roscoe. The creature was twenty-five feet across and must have weighed as much as a small elephant. It didn’t take a nautical engineer to see its trajectory would have it come down directly on Roscoe and Jaxbee. Tinkerbelle whimpered and hid behind my shaking legs. I grabbed the wheel and held tight.
“A devil fish!” someone cried from the Predator.
Roscoe reacted in the split seconds it took to register on my mind. He threw the semi-conscious girl onto the swim platform as easily as if she were a football sailing over goal posts.
She hit the deck with a loud crunch. The sea monster came down on the Haitian pulling him under.
Fear rendered me useless. I fought to control the boat as it bounced on the waves created by the ray. The creature surfaced jamming one of its horns in the Predator’s anchor chain. The ray pushed forward lodging itself further into the link. It flapped and struggled but the chain held fast. The crew would never be able to pull up the anchor. The Predator and the giant manta ray were pinned in place.
Roscoe was gone.
Chapter Fifty
I felt as if I’d swallowed a boom box. The thumping of my heart was so loud I was sure my ribs were breaking. As I raced off to Nevis Island, I could see Kit and Roger at Jaxbee’s side. It looked like she’d taken a bad hit. If she was hurt, who would fly the chopper off the Predator? Who would save Kit, Roger, and the Lost Boys? A little voice inside me answered… Wendy Darlin.
Still shaking, I approached Nevis beach. There was a crumbling dock near what could pass for a marina. I pulled the key from the ignition and dug around for my lucky one-hundred dollar bill. The money was wedged in the bottom of my right shoe. Tinkerbelle thought we were playing a great new game. She nipped at my shoe, pulling it out of my hand and running to the far end of the tender.
“Nice Tinkie,” I said as she did her “catch me if you can” routine.
I sat down in the boat and pretended to ignore her. I could feel the steam coming out of my ears. I could see why I preferred cats.
“Yap!” She fell for the trick, nuzzling me and dropping my shoe.
My jaws hurt from clenching. The paper bill was soggy, but when unfolded, it was clearly a c-note. I waved it at the dock boy.
“Do you know where Island Insta Bank is?”
He came closer, his eyes fixed on the money. “Never heard of it.”
“Who would know about it?”
“Try asking at the resort. Just follow the beach.”
“This is yours if you watch my boat till I get back.”
“Sure lady,” His raspy voice sounded as if he’d been inhaling saltwater.
Our lives depended on the little boat not disappearing while I somehow stopped the wire transfer of sixteen billion dollars. Piece of cake.
Heading in the direction he pointed, I passed small hills brimming with palm trees, strange cacti, and birds. Hammocks swung in the breeze, teasing me with an offering of relaxation. A few weeks ago I had a normal life selling real estate in Miami. Since then, I’d been conscripted, ate squirrel, and was stalked by murderers.
Tinkerbelle was having a fine time chasing tiny sandpipers and barking after seagulls. If it had wings and a beak, that dog was out to get it.
With all I had on my mind, I couldn’t get past the fact that Peter was here on this island… somewhere. My Peter.
As I ran along the beach, my memory was working on pulling only the best of recollections of Peter. There weren’t many. When you fall in love at seventeen and end the relationship at eighteen… it’s slim pickings. Peter was the standard by which I had judged all the men I had met in my life. Was I right?
I felt a tingle in a place I had forgotten existed. Settle down I told myself, recalling Roger’s words. Hook and Peter Payne might be working together. I fought with the idea until it gave up and dropped from my mind.
Chapter Fifty-One
It was after one o’clock when I ran toward the plantation resort. I had forty-five minutes before the Island Insta Bank wired Hook’s swindled money around the world. My breath came in short painful gulps. I twisted my knee as I ran on the slippery sand. Each step sent shockwaves up my left leg.
I spotted a large tree off to the right. It looked just like the logo on the business card I found in Hook’s suite… a huge oak with limbs heavy on one side and sparse on the other. Stopping cold in my steps, I made a decision. Time was of the essence. I changed directions and headed for the tree. As I dashed up the hill, Tinkerbelle ran under my legs tripping me more than once.
Beneath the tree sat a small bright green house with pink trim. A tiny brass plaque next to the door read – Island Insta Bank International ~ Pirate Financial Services. The slogan beneath it read We can take it off your hands. This was the little bank Roger had described. Bingo!
I picked up Tinkerbelle, adjuste
d her under my arm, and pushed open the door expecting to be met with automatic weapons and gangster-bankers. Instead, a heavy-set native woman sat at a battered desk with a sign that read, Marie Jean Luc, Compliance Officer. She was wearing a peasant blouse and large hoop earrings. Two chickens squatted in her lap, their heads just clearing the wooden surface. A third was pecking at the gold ring in her left ear.
The dog’s heart kicked into a drum beat. Birds! Wings! Beaks! Tink squiggled in my grip, digging her toenails into my side and barking in a high-pitched howl. She broke free and raced after the birds.
The lap-chickens beat on the woman with their wings, driving Tinkerbelle further into a frenzy. The third bird jumped and managed to wedge its head through the woman’s hoop earring. She shrieked pushing the birds into hen-hell.
Leaping from the desk with the weight of chicken number three caught and suspended from her ear, Marie Jean Luc, Compliance Officer of Island Insta Bank grabbed the chicken by the tushie to support its weight and ran from the office screaming for help.
I checked my watch. It was ten minutes to two. If I didn’t come up with a plan before she tranquilized her fowl, Hook’s billions would be wired to nameless accounts around the globe. Only that crook knew where the funds would end up, and he was on a polonium picnic with a no-return ticket.
My challenge was to destroy Ms. Jean Luc’s lines of communication. I ran to the wall behind her desk and yanked all the wires and cords. I’m no techie, and I wasn’t proud of my primitive technique. I figured at the least the cords served her Internet.
The computer tower sat there grinning at me, daring me to figure how to eliminate it. I tore the wires from the back and then scanned the room for a disposal. Nothing. I opened the back door. The big oak tree sat there just asking for it. I took the computer tower covered with dust and chicken feathers and ran to the tree. There was a hollow at the top. I dropped it into the hole not wanting to completely trash the records it contained. It fell with a scratchy crash. The FBI could retrieve the info from the hard drive. I’d tell them where to find it… if I survived.
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