by Shirl Henke
On the racing Cigarette, Tess yelled at Sam as she pulled back, “I can’t dare get closer or the Tiara could smash us to paste.”
“One of them has to win—quick,” Sam said, watching as Alexi struggled with Kit for the gun. And it was looking like it was going to be Kit. Apparently Renkov had been injured gravely when Kit shot him. Now Kit smashed her fist into the bloody mass of Alexi’s shirt and he crumpled with a scream of pain, dropping his gun. Sam could imagine what the woman was yelling at him by the ugly smirk on her face.
Steele followed through by pulling a gun from her belt and shooting him a second time. Then she seized the wheel.
Caring nothing for the playboy, all Sam could think of was the man locked below the deck. Please be alive, Matt!
As soon as Kit regained control of the Tiara, Tess slid alongside it and Sam, poised at the edge, sprung across the scant yard separating the boats. She barely made the jump, clawing desperately for the steel railing as the Cigarette left her behind. The small boat lunged forward to provide the hoped-for distraction.
Tess pulled a dozen yards ahead in a wide arc, then shot across the Tiara’s bow, leaving a fierce wake that rocked the yacht. Kit looked back as Sam scrabbled over the edge onto the lower deck but she couldn’t let go of the wheel to aim and fire her weapon. The Cigarette circled and came at the Tiara again. The second pass bought Sam enough time to reach cover where Kit couldn’t see her without leaving the steering station. As long as Tess kept her busy making passes and creating fierce wakes, Steele wouldn’t dare go after Sam.
But Sam had to keep Kit from shooting at Tess, who was an open target directly in front of her each time she cut across. The wildly pitching yacht and swift cuts of the Cigarette would provide quite a challenge, even for a good marks-man—but Sam had no idea what other hidden talents Kit Steele possessed and wasn’t going to risk Tess’s life to find out. She waited until the next wake, when Kit was occupied with regaining control of the yacht, then made a mad dash up the stairs and tackled her.
They hit the bridge and rolled past Alexi’s body, wrestling over the Ruger that Kit had pulled from her belt when she heard Sam behind her. The Tiara bounced and veered sharply in the choppy water, first to port, then starboard, tossing the two women hard against what was left of the steering station.
Sam had a death lock on Kit’s right hand holding the gun, which she fired wildly into the air. She was taller than Sam with the long, strong physique of a woman who worked out regularly at her club. Sam worked out, too, but not in the kind of high-toned gym she was sure Kit frequented. Sam’s skills as a black belt in judo were augmented by growing up the smallest kid in her class in the hard proving grounds of south Boston. She’d never let her brothers fight her battles for her, even when they got big enough to do it.
Instead, her uncle Dec taught her to fight…dirty. “To make up for what we lack in height, doncha know, colleen,” he used to tell her.
Sam pinned Kit’s gun hand against the captain’s chair while avoiding the other woman’s clawing nails aimed for her eyes and a knee to her pubic bone. Kit, too, had learned a few tricks on the mean streets of Manchester. Then, remembering the bulging satchel containing her loot, the Englishwoman grabbed it with her left hand and tried to swing it at Sam’s head.
Sam ducked and the blow bounced painfully off her shoulder, sending a flutter of Mafia loot flying across the deck. Her legs were shorter but that gave her leverage to bend her knee just high enough to kick the tall woman’s kneecap, eliciting an oath of pain. In that instant Sam shifted her hold on Kit’s gun hand, catching her thumb and applying pressure to bend it backward until Kit was forced to release the weapon.
It slid across the wildly pitching deck.
Below, Matt was knocked away from the door twice as the Tiara raced out of control. He resorted to crawling on all fours with the ring of keys he’d spied concealed inside the glass control cabinet on the steps. He’d never have found them if the wildly pitching yacht hadn’t knocked them from their hiding place and hurled them against the glass. Having no idea which key might work on the locked door, he desperately tried one, then another as shots rang out and the thumping noises of a desperate fight continued overhead.
Sam needed him! He had to get out of here and save her. Then one of the keys slipped in the lock and turned. The cabin door popped open. Directly in front of him, he could see Alexi Renkov crawling toward Kit’s Beretta, which had just tumbled down the steps from the flybridge. Without thinking about his bloody side, Matt leaped through the doorway and landed on Renkov, who was, by the looks of it, injured far worse than he.
He flattened Alexi like roadkill, then slid across the deck toward the gun, but the wildly careening yacht sent it flying out of his reach. Doggedly, he crawled to the stairs, determined to save Sam.
On the flybridge, Sam rolled on top of Kit, delivering a chop to her jaw and pinning her to the deck. Steele still struggled but Sam grabbed a fistful of red hair and slammed Kit’s head against the deck until she passed out. Sam held on to the chair, struggling to stand up as the yacht rolled onward, out of control. But when she pulled herself into the chair, she looked down at what appeared as confusing to her as an airplane cockpit’s control panel.
“What the hell do I do now?” she yelled at Tess, who was approaching on the Cigarette once again.
But it was obvious the other woman couldn’t hear her over the noise of the engines. Nor could Tess get close enough to jump aboard. Whatever happened, Sam would have to handle it herself—and quickly. The yacht was headed directly for land and clusters of big yachts moored on the marinas surrounding the Coral Gables Waterway. She hadn’t come this far to have Matt die in a boat crash because she couldn’t stop the stupid yacht!
Sam swallowed hard. “How tough can this be after driving an eighteen-wheeler?” she asked to reassure herself as she took the helm. She began to turn the wheel while downshifting on the lever that appeared to control speed. It was a lot more complicated than it looked, but by the time Tess drew near again, she’d slowed the Tiara to a crawl and reversed the course in a more or less straight line headed away from land.
“I may be able to help you,” Matt said as his head appeared at the top of the stairs behind her.
He was a mess with bruises covering his body and his clothes torn and reddened by his own blood, but he looked as handsome as a GQ model to her at that moment. She let go of the wheel and jumped over to help him up the last couple of steps.
“You’ve been shot! Are you okay? Dumb question, of course you’re not,” she said as she examined him to see how deep the wound was.
“I’ll be a lot less okay if we run into that Azimut,” he said between gasps of pain.
Sam turned instantly and seized the wheel again. “Yeah, sorry,” she said, trying to straighten her course again.
“This isn’t exactly a sailboat but the principles are the same,” he replied, ejecting her from the seat as he plunked gratefully into it and took over. “We have to stay in the channels or we’ll run ag—”
At that instant the yacht hit a sandbar hidden beneath the water, jarring every fitting on the much-abused boat. “Good, now we’re stopped,” Sam said with relief.
“Not exactly the way I’d of chosen, but I guess you’re right,” Matt said with a goofy grin, obscenely pleased that she was alive and unhurt except for some nasty scratches and a few chunks of hair pulled out. He cut the engines.
Alexi was down for the count, but Kit stirred. Seeing her move, Sam jumped over and scooped up the Ruger before the Englishwoman could reach it. “That’s a no-no, Ms. Steele, or whatever the hell your real name is.” She leveled the weapon on Kit, who lay stretched across the steering station, glaring at her victorious enemy.
“I doubt it’s Steele, but the conceit of having it tattooed on her hip bone tipped us to her involvement.”
“Huh?” Sam said.
“Pull down her shorts on the right side and take a gander,” he suggested.
Sam yanked the shorts down with gusto, revealing the infinity tattoo.
As she looked at it, he explained. “Steve figured it out when he was doing his chemistry lesson.”
“Is he safe?” Tess asked as she climbed up the stairs after running her Cigarette aground beside the yacht.
Matt nodded, grinning. “He’s fine and so are your sister and the girls. Some family you have, Tess.” He described the rescue of Jenny and her dragons, then went on to explain how Steve had contacted him. “He called the cops who by now have Mikhail in custody. The old man was dumb enough to bring Steve to his house in Aventura.
“Your son figured out that it wasn’t a man he’d seen with Nancy but a woman. He had no idea at the time of the encounter because all he could see was her hip with that infinity sign and some letters below it. The tip-off came when he was doing his schoolwork at Grandpa’s place. He recognized the periodic table of elements’ symbols for iron and carbon. Fe and C.”
“Iron and carbon make steel,” Tess said. “And he’s met Kit several times at Mikhail’s house. She was always very charming to him.”
“Check this out.” Matt pulled the list Kit and Alexi had fought over from the control panel where she’d stashed it and handed it to Sam.
“The fibbies will turn handsprings over this,” Sam breathed as she skimmed over the information.
“The CIA won’t be too thrilled. Kit and Alexi already sold the info to Pribluda but they were planning a couple more sales. One to Putin’s government so they could plug the holes in the dike for escaping Russian billionaires. Another to the Company, giving them the same info they already furnished Pribluda about stolen nukes he and his daddy had located inside the former USSR. Oh, that satchel and the documents spread across the deck here are probably worth quite a few mil. Negotiable securities if I don’t miss my guess,” Matt added with a grin.
“Wanna split it and make a run for Bimini?” Sam asked, only half-teasing as she looked at the size of the sack.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re aground…and I do believe the Coast Guard is coming to the rescue even as we speak.” Matt grinned at her and Tess as two cutters approached them from opposite angles.
“Rats, foiled again,” Sam said with a sigh.
Tess chuckled a bit, then looked down at her husband. “Will he live?” she asked, not sounding as if she particularly cared.
“If he could take all the battering his ladylove here gave him, I expect he’ll make it to stand trial with his daddy,” Sam replied.
“Hey, I was the one who flattened him while you were busy beating up on poor Ms. Steele.”
“Poor, my ass, she’s twice my size, you big lummox—and you’re twice the size of Alexi.”
“Now, children, don’t quarrel,” Tess said with a grin.
Matt and Sam barely spared her a glance as the cutter pulled up behind them and a Coast Guard officer asked if he was Matt Granger. He identified himself, Sam and Kit Steele, then added, “And the guy down for the count is Alexi Renkov, alive and in person.”
“Would you please drop your weapon, Ms. Ballanger?” the young Coast Guard officer asked her as he climbed to the flybridge. “We have instructions from a Miami-Dade homicide detective—”
“God help me!” Sam tossed him the gun. “Sergeant William Patowski will have my guts for garters if this busts loose.” She looked at Granger, knowing what he was going to say.
“Oh, it’s gonna bust loose—count on it. In a special edition of the Herald.” He was grinning from ear to ear. “Pulitzer, here I come.”
He rubbed his hands in glee. Sam just massaged her aching temples with her fingertips while the military men loaded Alexi Renkov on a stretcher and cuffed Kit Steele for her ride to the brig on Terminal Isle.
“There’ll be one hell of a fight over jurisdiction,” Matt said with relish.
Sam only sighed and started thinking about how she was going to explain to Pat about the local television station copter that was approaching. Garters, hell. He’d use her whole body for chum!
Chapter 22
“For dragons, they really aren’t bad kids,” Matt said as he sat on the gurney in the Cedars Medical Center, watching Tiff and Mellie hug their cousin Steve. The girls’ shouts of glee drowned out the tearful reunion of Tess and Jenny.
“Good, I’m so glad you found them.” Sam had heard the story of the unconventional rescue and the part Jenny and her girls played in the dangerous drama. “How the hell did you figure out where to look?”
“After trying a bunch of places on the list Kit so thoughtfully provided and striking out, I reversed order and tried going bottom up.”
“So you suspected her from the get-go?” Sam’s tone was decidedly dubious.
“Not exactly,” he admitted, shrugging. Then he winced in pain as the raw slash across his midsection oozed more blood onto the fresh pressure bandage the medics had placed on it. “But after so many strikeouts up north, it made sense to move directly south. Besides, I was more familiar with the South Beach area.”
“You go to strip clubs?” Sam hated the accusatory sound of the question the moment she uttered it.
Matt gave her a wide grin and waggled his eyebrows à la Magnum, P.I. “Only when I’m doing research for a story.” At her skeptical snort, he protested, “Hey, where do you think I dug up the lead that led me to San Diego and that ‘coconut commune’ as my aunt so quaintly called it.”
The mention of Aunt Claudia made her wince. “She’ll be arriving in a couple of hours. Private jet. Said she’ll see you in your private room, which she’s already arranged with the hospital staff…then…”
“You’ve been summoned for an audience in her suite at the Biltmore.” He knew the drill. The old bat would make sure he was safe, then get down to brass tacks with Sam. Lord, he’d love to see that interview but knew Claudia wouldn’t permit it. Besides, he had his own plans.
“You should be lying down,” Sam said, noticing how pale he looked. “You lost a lot of blood. Maybe you need a transfusion or something.” She’d had to fight like crazy to get him to come to the E.R, even though his clothes looked like he’d just spent a day in a slaughterhouse.
“Anybody tries to put me in a hospital room will be the one needing the transfusion, not me.”
“Tell that to your aunt.”
“She isn’t here yet.” He started to climb down from the gurney.
“Are you crazy? You’re covered with blood—your own blood!” Sam practically screeched at him.
That was enough to bring an earnest young nurse wearing pink scrubs and a sun-damaged perm skittering across the busy floor toward him. “Sir, you can’t move.”
“Looks like I can,” he replied as Sam tried to stop him.
“Get somebody here, real quick. He’s been waiting for nearly an hour,” Sam said in her toughest south Boston accent.
The kid bobbed her head and called out to a weary man slouching down the hall, “Oh, Dr. Dyer, sir, we have a problem here.”
Dyer, an unfortunate name for a physician, had a face with more wrinkles than a folded accordion and shoulders that looked as if he’d been holding up the weight of the world for too many years to count. He took a cursory look at Granger’s bloodstained clothes and said, “Put him in number three. It’s empty…or at least I hope it is.”
Sam stood forlornly watching as they wheeled their protesting patient into the examination area. Tess and Steve walked over to her. “He’ll be okay,” she said to Sam.
“My father was shot twice and he’s going to live,” Steve reassured her. “And Mr. Granger won’t have to go to jail.”
“I’m sorry about your dad, Steve,” Sam said solemnly.
He shrugged bony preteen shoulders, already broadening, hinting at the fine physique he would grow into. “So am I, but I have my mom and Aunt Jenny and Tiff and Mellie.”
Wanting to divert the sad conversation, Sam asked, “Where did they go?”
“When Tiff
asked one of the orderlies if she could borrow his stethoscope and then Mom caught Mellie riffling through packs of hypodermic needles, we figured an E.R. was too full of temptations,” Steve replied with a grin.
“And sharp instruments,” Tess added. “Jenny took them to that hotel you got me in the Gables. After the authorities have taken our statements, I think we’ll probably all sleep for a week. We can’t leave the area until everything is settled but once it is, I think we’ll be moving back to San Diego to make a fresh start.”
“California’s way cool,” Steve said, squeezing his mother’s arm reassuringly. “And Uncle Hugo just got out of the hospital. He’s waiting for us.”
Somehow Sam knew they’d be all right once the dust settled and the shadow of the Renkovs was permanently removed from their lives.
Claudia Witherspoon was past ninety but didn’t look a day over seventy—not that she’d even admit to being so much as Medicare age. She breezed into the medical center on a cloud of hundred-dollar-an-ounce French perfume, flicking cigarette ashes from a long holder as the automatic doors whooshed open. Two aides approached her, pointing to the large No Smoking signs plastered everywhere.
“Very tiresome,” she rasped. Like a queen humoring her pet peregrines, she wafted the platinum holder toward one glowering orderly, allowing him to remove the custom-rolled tobacco from it, leaving the disposal of the offending cigarette to the uniformed attendants while she strode to the information desk on Via Spiga heels.
Her hair was silver, smoothly coiffed in a French twist with a few discreet diamonds winking from the platinum comb that held it in perfect place. Everything about Claudia Witherspoon was perfect, from her tailored Bill Blass red suit with pearl buttons down the front to the pearl studs in her ears. Her posture was erect and she was decidedly tall for a woman of her generation.
Sam saw her from across the room and knew immediately who she must be. “Stand your ground,” she muttered as the storm trooper manning the desk immediately caved and ushered her into treatment room three to see Matt. They hadn’t permitted Sam to go with him. “Well, she is a blood relative,” she reminded herself.
