What Lies Beneath: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 10)

by Scott Cook

  “You’re gonna tell me everything I want to know, homey, or I’m gonna drag you to the bottom until you drown and let the gators have what’s left, you fuckin’ hear me?” I hissed into his ear.

  As expected, he tried to squirm free, writhing and kicking in the attempt. I simply bent forward and forced his head under and held it there for a few seconds until his struggles seemed to turn from desperation to panic. I let him up again.

  “Stop fighting me or I’ll keep you down there,” I hissed, tightening my hold.

  “Who… the fuck…” he gasped when I moved my hand and levered my forearm around his neck.

  “Jarvis,” I said. “Now who sent you, what did you come for and what’s the plan?”

  “You kill Stank?”

  “I’ll ask the fuckin’ questions, asshole. Answer me,” This last I emphasized by cranking down with my arm and gagging him.

  “He… was my cousin, you mothuh— “

  We went down again. After twenty seconds, his thrashing and bucking made it hard to maintain my grip and keep him submerged. I let him break free, coming to the surface to take a breath. Then I yanked him down again by his ankles and used his weight to keep me on the bottom and walk back to the dock. When we were right next to it, I allowed both of us to surface.

  “You mothuhfuckuh!” Stick bellowed. “I’m gonna— “

  This time, I wrapped my legs around one of the dock piles and hauled him back under in the middle of his outburst. Instead of taking a breath, he’d wasted time expending it, a decision he immediately began to regret.

  With my legs wrapped around the slimy piling, I got Stick into another headlock and held him under. Again he began to squirm and make little whining noises in his throat as his oxygen-starved brain began to fly into full panic mode. I waited twenty seconds, probably as much air as he had left… and then counted another five.

  Finally I straightened and let us both come to the surface. I held Stick as he gasped and wheezed and began to blubber. His fright and near death having broken his bravado.

  “Talk,” I said harshly into his ear. “Now.”

  “Okay… okay…” Stick sobbed.

  “You believe I’ll kill you now?” I inquired.

  “Yeah man… yeah…”

  I felt something hard against my belly and reached down to feel a pistol jammed into Stick’s waistband. I yanked it out and shoved it into my jeans pocket, “Then talk to me, Stick.”

  “Okay I will… just let me out of the water, man…” He pleaded.

  I had his gun, so why not?

  I began to shove him toward the shoreline. When the depth was only waist deep, I let him go and shoved him toward the spot where the dock and the shoreline came together.

  “John, you can come out now,” I called out.

  “You sure?” He called back from the mangroves. I was glad to hear that he hadn’t run away.

  “Yeah, come on out.”

  I pulled out Stick’s gun and stuck it in his back just as he reached the sand, “Far enough, now tell me a story, Stick. And it better be a damned good one. I just went for a swim in cold-ass water and I’m in a bad fuckin’ mood, capisce?”

  27

  Twice the chicks, three times the excitement and 400% more awesomeness

  Lisa’s Journal Entry 9

  Unclench your bumb-bumbs, let go that breath and begin using your entire seat again… Lisa G. and her faithful sidekick are back! So strap in cuz’ dis bout to get real, yo!

  Okay, okay… guess I should get serious.

  I was a little surprised when Sharon followed the markers from the middle of Chokoloskee Bay and headed toward Chokoloskee Island. She mentioned that we might stop at Rick’s house, but I guess I thought we were headed directly into the winding depths of the Ten Thousand Islands. I mentioned this to her.

  “I want to take a gander at his house, too,” Sharon said as she slowed us down but still kept us on plane. “Just a few minutes… there’s something I want to check out.”

  “Aren’t you worried about it getting dark?” I asked.

  “Should only take five minutes.”

  “Yeah, how many times have you told Juan that lie?”

  We laughed.

  As you might expect, there are quite a few flats and shoals in Chokoloskee Bay and around the Island, too. There are some deep-water channels, of course, but Sharon chose to ignore some of these in favor of a few shortcuts she said she knew. I swear, even in the late afternoon light, I could clearly see small sea creatures on the bottom looking up at us from less than a foot deep with amazement and disbelief in their sea-creaturey eyes as we skimmed past. Sharon noticed me white-knuckling the console handle and patted my arm.

  “Relax, chica, I know what I’m doing.”

  “Again… how many times have you snowed Juan with that line?”

  She slowed as we got close to the south end of the island. We moved past small patches of mangroves, a trailer park and finally ended up at what I guessed was the end of a short street. A small house sat on a small lot with a small dock poking out thirty feet into the mirror-like water, its glassy surface reflecting the robin’s egg blue and gold of the sky an hour before sunset.

  “Grab the bow line, would ya’?” Sharon asked as she eased up alongside the dock.

  We tied up and she shut down the burbling four-stroke. The quiet and serenity of the scene wrapped itself around me like a warm blanket. It wasn’t silent by any means. Birds chirped all around us, some close and some far off in the little mangrove islets that surrounded Chokoloskee. Every few seconds a mullet would leap from the water and come down again with a slap. Here and their insects chittered and the sounds of people talking, distant music and an occasional dog barking completed the mosaic of sunset in Southwest Florida.

  “Nice,” I mused, standing on the dock and gazing around with a smile. “I bet this is a great place to sit on your back porch and have a drink at sunset.”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful,” Sharon said with a wan smile playing on her lovely face. “I’ve spent many a day and night here… not nearly enough over the past few years, though. I need to change that, assuming that we find him that is…”

  I wrapped an arm around her waist, “We will, Sharon. We will, or Scott will… or we all will together. Think about all the advantages we have. Aside from just us, we’ve got local law enforcement, we’ve got Congresswoman Davies, we’ve got ICE… hell, if push comes to shove we’ve got a lot more resources from Scott’s network.”

  “That’s true,” Sharon said, her sudden gloom lifting a little. “You really think so?”

  I scoffed, “Come on! There’s like… no way we lose this one.”

  “Thanks, babe,” Sharon said, squeezing me back. “Okay, let’s stop all this fuckin’ Lifetime network bullshit and get on the stick. Daylight’s awastin’.”

  “Wow… just wow…”

  Sharon led me up to the back deck. It was about fifteen by ten and was screened in. Had to be a good thing in the summertime when the dusk mosquitos were probably brutal. She unlocked the back door and we listened intently for a few seconds before going inside.

  The house was small, only two bedrooms, one bath and with a small front living room and small galley-style kitchen. Maybe eight or nine hundred square feet. Looking out into the front, I saw a car port off to one side over the driveway and a small patchy front lawn with only a pair of chest-high Hibiscus bushes in the center. The street was short with only eight other houses on it before it joined the main road of the island, I guessed.

  “Come check this out,” Sharon said, climbing a set of small, steep teak stairs along the back wall of the living room that I hadn’t noticed when I’d gone to the front window. I looked up and saw that the living room had a sixteen-foot-high ceiling and that a railing stretched from one side to the other.

  “Whoa, I didn’t even notice the loft at first!” I said, following her up. “Pretty cool.”

  “Real cool,” Sharon said as she
pointed to the west side of the house where a large set of windows looked out past the curve of the land and onto the water, now ablaze in the light of the setting sun. The loft was small, with a couple of rocking chairs by the window and a pull-out sofa along the back wall.

  “Very peaceful here,” I mused. “So what are we looking for? And by we, I mean you. I probably wouldn’t recognize a clue if it jumped out and latched onto a nipple.”

  Sharon grinned, “I just want to check and see if something is… undisturbed.”

  “If you mean your mind… we might as well go now,” I tittered.

  “You’re a funny kid,” Sharon quipped. “Remind me to chuckle on my next day off.”

  In the center of the rear wall, between the sofa and a bookcase, an old radiator unit stuck out from the wall. Sharon bent down in front of it, reached behind one of the pipes and I heard a click. Then she stood up and swung the entire unit, which was about two feet wide and tall and eight inches deep away from the drywall to reveal a small alcove.

  “What the… another secret safe?” I asked.

  Sharon smirked at me, “Lisa… we’re in South Florida. How cold do you think it gets here? Plus this house has central heating and air. Besides that… exactly where did you see a furnace?”

  “Goddammit…” I grumped. “Should have thought of that.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” Sharon said, reaching out and patting my hand. Most people are influenced by their environment. You see a bridge so you think you have to cross it. You see a door, so you think you should go through it, that sort of thing. You see a radiator and just assume that it’s real. That’s the kind of thing Uncle Rick was counting on when he put this here.”

  I sighed, “Yeah, but I’m a world-famous private detective. I should’ve figured that out for myself. Bet Scott would’ve…”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Sharon reassured me. “It’s not healthy to compare yourself to him, Lisa. He’s been an investigator for like fourteen years or so. Patrolman, detective and private eye. You’re just starting out, give yourself a break. Besides, we both know Scott is an abnormal wierdo anyway… always readin’ books and what not.”

  I giggled, “Yeah, wasting his valuable time researching topics of interest, honing his mental and physical skills and y’know… thinkin’ and such.”

  Sharon scoffed, “Weird ass… okay, let’s take a gander…”

  She crawled halfway into the small space which seemed to hold a variety of items. A couple of bags, a few boxes and one bank-style metal deposit box, which she pulled out and set in front of her on the floor. The box had a small built-in combination lock on the lid.

  “What’s in there?” I asked, crouching down beside Sharon.

  She worked the combination and popped the lid open, “Some personal papers, letters, that sort of thing… hmm… it’s not in here…”

  “What’s not in there?”

  Sharon rifled through the papers and envelopes. She did it several times, her frown deepening after every failure to find whatever it was she was looking for. Finally she sat back on her haunches and swore under her breath.

  “What?”

  She sighed, “There was a nameplate… a plaque, really. A nice, varnished wood plaque about six inches by eight. There was a brass nameplate on it that read Lady Lucy and the year 1946 etched beneath the nameplate.”

  “Off William’s shrimp boat?”

  Sharon nodded.

  “Wait… I thought that the boat sank with William aboard…” I said, in bewilderment. “So how could Rick have some kind of dedication plaque off the vessel?”

  Sharon met my gaze, “I’m not sure. Uncle Rick never told me why he had it, just that it was off the Lady Lucy. Said it was the only real memento he had of his dad’s fishing business… I guess Bill took it off the boat and left it ashore before he died.”

  I frowned, “Hmm… doesn’t that seem strange? But okay… why were you looking for it?”

  “Uncle Rick and I had some things worked out from long ago,” Sharon explained. “Should he ever die or disappear, I was to go to the office and come here and get certain items. The chart to his fishing cabin and the plaque.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure…” Sharon said, her brows knitting together in frustration. “Just that I should get them and keep them safe. And that I should go to the fishing cabin. He said I’d be able to figure it out.”

  “Mysterious.”

  “Yeah, a real puzzler,” Sharon cranked. “I just wish he’d been more specific… less cryptic. I feel lost here. He’s missing and I’m supposed to help find him and I’m supposed to gather his clues… but at the moment I feel lost!”

  “Anything else you need from here?” I asked.

  She shook her head and began to put the lock box back into the secret hidey-hole. She set the fake radiator back in place and got to her feet.

  “Then let’s go to that cabin,” I suggested. “It’s only five now, there’s still ninety minutes of light left before full dark. That enough time to get there and back in the skiff?”

  Sharon looked into my eyes. Hers seemed sad and weary for a moment and then they seemed to sparkle as she smiled, “Yeah, it’s only a twenty or thirty-minute ride! Fuck it let’s go!”

  I followed her down the stairs and out onto the back deck. Off to our right, we heard the sound of an outboard motor revving up as a small boat accelerated onto plane.

  “Somebody’s out for a sunset cruise,” I mused as we walked out on the dock and got in the boat.

  “Yeah, or some night fishing,” Sharon said absently as she inserted the key and turned it.

  Nothing happened. I was just untying the bow line when I heard her swear. I turned around to see her at the wheel, turning the ignition key again and again.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Not sure… she’s not starting.”

  “Fuel?”

  “No, there’s nothing happening,” Sharon grumbled. “It’s like the battery is dead or something.”

  I joined her at the console where she opened the access panel to the battery switch. It was still set to all. She changed the positions, having me turn the key on one and on two. Still nothing.

  “There’s no way it’s dead,” Sharon stated. “Rick keeps them charged up and the motor’s alternator provides power when underway, including to the battery charger…”

  She went around the console and lifted a hatch to a storage area under the forward casting deck. She rummaged for a second and then stopped.

  “Fuckin’ cock! Motherhfuckin’ cock!” Sharon shouted and slammed the hatch cover down.

  I waited.

  She stepped aft and looked west toward the low hanging sun and swore again.

  “What?” I finally inquired.

  “The battery cables have been cut!” Sharon barked, balling her fists. “And I bet you any money that it was whoever the fuck is in that boat out there!”

  We stared out toward the bay where the small boat that we’d heard earlier was crossing the ribbon of sunshine on the water and headed south. The implications of this struck me immediately.

  “Somebody was watching us or this house,” I said.

  Sharon whirled on me, “Yeah… had to be. They waited until we went inside and cut the battery cable to prevent us from… where’s the chart?”

  My tummy lurched as I looked at the console. The rolled-up chart we’d gotten from Rick’s office was gone. Sharon and I looked at each other and almost in unison, we pulled out our guns.

  “I don’t like this shit, Lis,” Sharon growled. “I don’t like people spying on us and waiting until our backs are turned to do shit…”

  “I hear you,” I said. “You think they know we had the chart? Think they waited for us to go into the office and then followed us here?”

  “I don’t fuckin’ know…” Sharon snapped, pounding the stainless wheel with her fist. “Doesn’t much matter. They got the chart that shows the way to the fishing cab
in and they effectively fucked us up the ass! Son of a bitch!”

  I felt her frustration. So far in this case, ever since the very first day, it seemed like we were all behind in the race. Every time we turned a corner, a bad guy was there or just got away. Every time we seemed to make progress, something else happened to throw a monkey wrench into things.

  “Can we fix it?” I asked.

  Sharon threw up her hands, “I don’t know… fuck, and I’m no mechanic. The cable was cut clean through. Probably needs a new one. Even if we could, by the time it’s done, it’ll be too dark. We gotta face facts, Lis… we lost this round.”

  I sighed, knowing she was right, “Okay, fine… then let’s do something about it. Let’s get back to your car and then figure out our next move. I think we need to hook up with Scott and compare notes and figure this out. Get our ducks in a row.”

  Sharon’s breath exploded out in what sounded like resigned anger, “Yeah… probably right. We’re not gonna do any good standing around here with our thumbs up our asses. I wonder if we can get an Uber out here?”

  I chuckled as we walked back up the dock and around to the front of the house. A man was walking a Cocker spaniel past the driveway just as we came out. He looked over at us in surprise when we appeared from the side of the house.“Evenin’,” He said in a voice that seemed too high for his build. Although not much taller than Sharon or me, he was wide in the chest and in the face. He was maybe thirty-ish with curly brown hair that matched his eyes. “You friends of Rick’s?”

  “You?” Sharon asked.

  The man smiled, “Sure, we’re neighbors. Don’t mean to be nosey, miss… but seein’ a couple of strangers coming outta Rick’s back yard kind of makes me think I should at least inquire, y’know?”

  “Being a good neighbor,” I stated and displayed what I hoped was a dazzling smile.

  “I’m his niece,” Sharon said, sounding friendly but I thought I detected a little terseness in her tone, too.

  The man’s eyes went wide and even his dog perked up. The little brown and white Spaniel sat on the edge of the grass and stared up at us with her head cocked to one side.