On the lower deck, Melanie spotted a couple of crew members attempting to launch lifeboats. But the captain—if memory served, his name was Yolo Bowers—where was he?
A scream from behind them made her swivel in alarm. Atop a rise, she made out the dapper figure of Cha Cha hopping up and down and shrieking into the wind. “My ship! My ship! What have they done to my ship?”
Bone Crusher and the Swamp Fox, who flanked him, each seized one arm and urged him down the slope. Melanie could almost have felt sorry for the man if he hadn’t been such a crook.
“What should we do, Mr. Smothers?” asked Chet.
“We need to get the passengers and crew to land.” Hal studied the yawning wreckage. “Some of them may be trapped or injured, or in shock. How deep is the water here, do you suppose?”
The other gangsters made tepid protests about allowing noncriminals onto the island, but Drop Dead was not present to protect his domain. Also, as Hal pointed out, the only alternative would be worse: to summon the Coast Guard, which would no doubt do something as unsporting as putting Paraiso de Los Falsarios on its charts.
Despite the grumblings of the others and the hysterical cries of Cha Cha, Hal and Chet managed to determine that the water was no more than hip deep where the ship had stuck. Nevertheless, the waves were rough and could be dangerous for very young or old passengers, or those susceptible to shock.
By shouts and gestures, the two men on shore coordinated the rescue with the crew, who shepherded the passengers into the half-dozen accessible lifeboats and lowered these one at a time. Accompanying crew members rowed the boats to the surf line.
There were about a hundred well-heeled guests, Melanie estimated, although these sodden, frightened people didn’t look well-heeled at the moment. The assorted staff, including two who identified themselves as the chef and a beautician, appeared almost as distraught.
Lightning jagged through the clouds, intensifying the dying ship’s air of menace. One woman screamed repeatedly until brought ashore and wrapped in a blanket, and several children were crying.
Although the Jolly Roger might overturn at any moment and crush him, Hal waded into the water to assist the passengers from the lifeboats. He appeared to give no thought to his own safety as he carried a baby for its mother.
Melanie could scarcely tear herself away from the valiant image of Hal Smothers braving the churning sea. It gave her a fluttery sensation in her stomach.
How could she part with the most exciting man she’d ever met? But somewhere on this ship lurked another woman, with whom he had a prior entanglement And the contract he had offered Melanie was nothing short of insulting.
As the seagoers staggered ashore, she guided them up the hill toward the dining room. This seemed like the best place to establish a shelter.
She still didn’t see Rita. Had the woman been injured? Or had she already escaped with the guests’ valuables?
Grimly, Melanie focused on getting the passengers settled and, with the aid of Pixie LaBelle and the tattooed cooks, heating soup and boiling water for tea. The McAllisters rounded up blankets for the shivering shipwreckees, while the wizened limo driver, Luigi, applied Band-Aids to the wounds of the female passengers.
A second wave of guests arrived a few minutes later. Two men supported the staggering figure of a whitejacketed man in a captain’s hat, while two of the women were assisting an equally rubber-legged, uniformed redhead whose name pin proclaimed her to be Helen Malatesta, M.D., the ship’s doctor.
Captain Yolo Bowers had a chiseled face that looked as if it might have fallen off Mount Rushmore. With his high forehead and vein-free nose, he did not strike Melanie as the type to sail three sheets to the wind, and yet here he was, bellowing “Avast, me hearties!” and getting his feet tangled up as he tried to stand unaided.
“Drunk,” sneered a short, thin man who resembled newspaper photographs Melanie had seen of the wealthy Gerard Germaine.
“Something was wrong with the wine,” interjected his tall, large-boned wife, Bitsy. “Noreen Pushkoshky says she had just one glass at the captain’s table, and she’s in the same state.”
Her husband’s indignation died. “Well, if Noreen says it, it must be true.”
So someone had spiked the captain’s wine, Melanie mused. She could guess who had wanted him out of the way, and why.
But had crashing onto the rocks been Rita Samovar’s intention? And had Hal approved a plan that endangered so many people?
EVEN THE SWAMP FOX could not have started a fire in the middle of this storm, Hal thought as he assisted another boatload of damp cruisers to shore. He was pleased to note that key crew members remained at their posts until every passenger departed. It was a tribute to ship discipline.
Yet their captain had already been hauled up the hill, sloshed to the gills. And his first officer, a baby-faced man with an air of perpetual surprise, was being dragged to shore warbling “Row Row Row Your Boat,” and forgetting the words. How could the ship’s leaders have become so inebriated?
“Excuse me, are you in charge here?” asked a young woman. Since Cha Cha had retreated inland to sulk, Hal nodded. “I left my diamond necklace in the safe. Someone should bring it out before the ship sinks!”
“I hope it is insured,” he said.
“Well, yes,” she admitted. “But it has sentimental value. My third husband gave it to me.”
Hal could understand such feelings. “I will do my best”
However, the passengers deserved priority. It took another fifteen minutes for Hal to locate the ship’s purser and ask him to liberate the contents of the safe.
“I’m not going in there alone!” the man protested over the ship’s ominous creaking. “I could be trapped. And if anything gets lost, people will blame me.”
Standing amid the waves, with water sluicing into his face from above, Hal gazed blearily around. He had made a promise to the young lady, yet he could not leave his post to accompany the purser.
“You!” he shouted toward shore.
Two figures turned toward him, their unlovely faces barely discernible in the murk. Bone Crusher and the Swamp Fox had been keeping their distance from the teetering vessel, but had at least helped by pointing new arrivals toward the resort compound.
Under normal circumstances, Hal would be loath to entrust jewelry to either of these crooks. However, the two men were continually jockeying for Grampa’s favor, and therefore unlikely to cooperate with each other, even in a profit-making endeavor. Furthermore, the presence of the purser should help to ensure propriety.
“If you gentlemen would be so kind, the purser would appreciate your help in retrieving valuables,” shouted Hal.
Two scarred and pitted faces mirrored astonishment, and then shook negatively.
“Get over here!” Hal yelled. “Now!”
He knew they had nothing to fear from him. Thighdeep in water, lashed by the storm, he had no means of restraining either of them. Furthermore, each was quite as lethal as he was; more so, in fact.
But Hal had learned long ago that a vicious reputation was a more effective weapon than any handgun, or possibly even than an AK-47, unless it was also affixed with a folding bayonet. In any case, when he put a gruff edge on the word Now! the two heads changed direction and nodded stiffly.
The grumpy gangsters joined him in midwater to get the details of their assignment Then toward the ship slogged the unlikely trio, with the purser leading the way.
The passengers had all gotten off and the crew members were now disembarking. Hal directed them toward the dining room, secure in the knowledge that if anyone could feed and warm so many lost souls, it would be Melanie.
Even in the wind, rain and roiling surf, his body warmed at the memory of what had transpired between them. He did not know if what he felt was love, but it produced a most satisfactory glow.
Where had he gone wrong in making his offer? Her objections, it seemed to him, had centered on the presumed mercenary natu
re of the contract, and on the having of children.
When it came to financial arrangements, Hal was prepared to be flexible. But not about children.
A short time ago, when he held that baby in his arms, he had marveled at the strength of the life force in its tiny, wriggling person. A whole human being was encapsulated there, a whole lifetime of mangled phrases and good-night kisses and…
“What have we here?” demanded a clarion female voice with a fake British accent. “I do believe it’s the Iceman himself! Hullo, Hal.”
As Rita Samovar threw her arms around him, her oversize purse banged Hal in the hip. In her soaked mink coat, she smelled steamy and feral.
“I am glad to see that you have survived the catastrophe,” he replied.
She swished backward a step and gestured dismissively with one hand. “I find it quite stimulating, really. So, have you done as I asked?”
Hal could not immediately grasp to what she was referring. He was too busy wondering, as he studied Rita’s thick smudged makeup and self-satisfied expression, how he could ever have taken this woman seriously. Also, he suddenly felt certain that sending three-year-olds to boarding school was not at all customary.
“As you asked?” he repeated.
She glared at him. “About Melanie Mulcahy!”
A foreboding fell over Hal, greater than any concern regarding the ship. If Melanie were to learn that he had brought her to this island at Rita’s request, any hope of resuming their closeness would be lost
“She did not crash your voyage, did she?” he replied by way of skirting the issue.
“No.”
“It was not she who disrupted your cruise?” he demanded.
“Certainly not!”
“Then you should be satisfied.”
With a massive groan, the ship pitched toward them. Horrified, Hal remembered that he had sent three men inside to retrieve belongings.
Vaguely, he became aware of Rita fleeing toward shore. Then, to his tremendous relief, he saw the purser and the two gangsters waddling toward him beneath the overhang of the ship.
At any moment, the vessel might decide to get on with the job of overturning. Hal reached for the purser’s hand and pulled the man to safety, with the gangsters sloshing behind.
Barely had they scrabbled onto the rocks when, with a massive rumble, the Jolly Roger rolled onto its side. The impact sent a miniature tsunami lashing the shore, and, from some distance inland, aroused a distraught and heartwrenching wail from the unseen throat of Sammy “Cha Cha” Adams.
“What a shame,” chirped Rita. “All those people lost their belongings.”
“Not entirely.” Hal turned to the purser. “Was your mission accomplished?”
“Well, we got there,” came the reply between chattering teeth.
“Got where?” said Rita.
“To the safe,” snapped the Swamp Fox. “Only, somebody beat us to it”
WHAT A LOT of spoiled children, Melanie reflected as she supervised the serving of soup to the passengers. She’d never heard so much whining in her life.
The soup didn’t please them; neither did the hard chairs or the damp air. And, although their motive had presumably been charitable, they made sure to complain about the high cost of their tickets.
Well, she thought grimly, tonight there would be no cabin service, no chocolates on their pillows and no midnight buffet with pastry puffs and fruit tarts. They should be grateful for dry land, threadbare blankets and Pixie’s two-story crocheted scarf, which a family of four had wound around themselves.
The passengers finally piped down as exhaustion and reality set in. They were no longer on a pleasure trip, but they were alive.
Melanie inventoried their conditions and found nothing more troublesome than a few sprains and scrapes. The worst injury on the island appeared to be her own lump, and it had shrunk to a vague unevenness of the scalp.
That was a good thing, since there would be no immediate rescue. For reasons that might be related to power fluctuations, the resort’s radio had ceased to function. Luigi the chauffeur, who doubled as handyman, swore he had done his unsuccessful best to fix it.
Once the soup was served, Chet departed to check on his grandfather and Drop Dead. Quiet fell over the dining hall.
The sound of rain slanting against the roof was interrupted only by the first officer and the captain, who had progressed to singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” in rounds. The occasional “Oompah-pah” was supplied by Dr. Malatesta.
In one corner, the Germaines attended Noreen Pushkoshky, who kept trying to jump onto a table and strip off her clothes. Although middle-aged, the society matron retained a striking figure and, in Melanie’s opinion, demonstrated considerable professionalism in unrolling her stockings and winking at the crowd.
It was the general opinion, she gathered, that someone had spiked the wine at the captain’s table, but so far no one but Melanie suspected who it might be. She wondered when Rita would turn up.
And where was Hal? She hoped he was all right, and then she decided it would be better if he drowned. No, it would be best if Rita drowned, and Hal…and Hal…
Melanie pictured him again, steadfast amid the chaos of the shipwreck. He didn’t act like a criminal who had set up a dangerous situation in order to fill his own pockets. Besides, why should Hal covet a few baubles, when he owned the most profitable casino in Las Vegas?
Maybe he wasn’t in league with Rita. But if not, why had he chosen this island on which to instigate Melanie’s recuperation?
Sternly, she forced herself into the kitchen to check on the cooks, who at her suggestion were arranging canned fruit salad in little bowls. With ruthless honesty, she admitted that she was looking for an excuse to clear Hal of evildoing because she wanted to lure him back into the bedroom.
She wanted to press her nose to his shoulder and inhale essence of gangster. She yearned for his powerful grip as he swooped her onto the bed, and the rapid thrusts as he claimed her. Her nipples tightened and her core sizzled just thinking about him.
Melanie distracted herself by bustling into the pantry and assessing the supplies, which were ample. When she checked, she found the freezer well stocked, too.
The one thing that puzzled her was the absence of a back door from the kitchen. “How do they take the trash out?” she asked Pixie.
The elderly lady pointed to a chute. “Down the hatch.”
“Doesn’t it violate some kind of code—scratch that.” There would, of course, be no health inspectors in a crook’s haven. “It seems kind of claustrophobic.”
“There used to be a door,” said Pixie. “Until Drop Dead caught the cooks sneaking sides of beef out to their chums in a motorboat. The previous cooks.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be honor among thieves?” Melanie murmured.
“Everyone was shocked,” agreed the old woman. “Can you imagine being so crooked you aren’t even allowed onto Paraiso de Los Falsarios? Sometimes I wonder what the world is coming to.”
A stir from the front room drew Melanie’s attention. Having earned her way through college as a waitress, she expertly lined her arms with little bowls of fruit salad before shouldering open the swinging door.
A new group of arrivals dripped puddles onto the worn linoleum. Her attention riveted on the broad-shouldered Hal. His eyes shone a burnished brown, and, even in his drenched state, he towered, larger than life, over the dining room.
Then she noticed the woman beside him.
Margarita Samovar might have been a little wren of a woman if not for the miracle of plastic surgery. According to Melanie’s research, the woman’s face had been sculpted from nose to cheekbones to chin, her fat suctioned and her tush lifted.
In addition to surgical improvements, she wore heavy makeup and high-heeled boots beneath her long fur coat. And no one over thirty-five had hair that shade of coal black unless it was dyed or false.
Where Hal was firm and well-defined, Rita appear
ed blurry, like a shape-shifter who couldn’t quite make up her mind. But that did not seem to bother her companion, who had looped one arm around her waist
Melanie’s stomach twisted as she busied herself distributing the fruit bowls. It didn’t make her feel any better to discover that her suppositions about Hal’s friendship with Rita were true.
From behind Hal stepped a man in a muddy white uniform, whose bar pin identified him as Purser Ignacio Grenoble. “Someone’s robbed the safe!” he cried. “It wasn’t me. I have two witnesses!”
Bone Crusher clasped his hands overhead and brandished them like a victorious boxer. The Swamp Fox merely nodded to indicate he, too, could testify to the purser’s innocence.
“What do you mean, robbed it?” demanded a young woman seated at a table. “Where’s my diamond necklace?”
“Someone must have stolen it!” boomed Mr. Germaine as his wife frantically rebuttoned the blouse that Noreen Pushkoshky was attempting to shed. “One of those three, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The gangsters’ mouths dropped open. “Us?” gasped Bone Crusher.
“Steal from a charity cruise?” said the Swamp Fox. “We would not stoop to such a thing. And if we did, we would at least have replaced the jewels with respectable imitations.”
Drawing himself up, the purser glared daggers at Mr. Germaine. Finally the short man relented. “I could be mistaken. But we need to get out of here. Has anyone called the Coast Guard? Where are we, anyway?”
Luigi glared, and one of the ex-cons went into a coughing fit Pixie made a choking noise.
“A private island,” said Hal.
“I didn’t know there were any private islands around here,” murmured Bitsy.
“That,” said Hal, “is what we mean by private. I am sure you can understand that some people prefer to avoid crowds.”
Several of the passengers nodded. “When people think you have money, they can be so pushy,” said the young woman who had lost her necklace.
“Being prominent is stressful,” agreed Mr. Germaine. “But how do we get home?”
“The normal mode of transportation to the mainland is by ferry,” Hal said. “However, the radio with which to summon it is not working at the present time.”
Kidnapped / I Got You Babe Page 9
