I needed to shake this gloom before it drained the resources I needed for what lay ahead. Between worrying about this rescue-not-recovery mission and about Tutein threatening my kids, I was redlined. I turned to Collin for a change of subject.
“So who is this Tamara, and what is she to you?”
“She’s with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. I met her when we did some joint ops with them in Santa Fe,” Collin said.
“That’s half an answer,” I said.
“You’re going to make me say it.”
“I am.” I patted his shoulder. “You can do it, Col.”
Collin re-tucked in his already tucked-in shirt. “She’s my fiancée.”
I hadn’t expected that, and despite everything, I chortled. “Fiancée? You’re getting married? I definitely need more information. She’s my freakin’ future sister-in-law.” I twisted his earlobe gently, a trick our father had used to get our attention when we were kids. “Topless dancers in mobile homes across the Southwest are mourning the day already, I’ll bet.”
It was still light enough that I could see Collin smile. “OK, I deserved that. But those days are over. I’m practically a married man already.”
“Good for you.”
“She’s great. You’ll love her. Strong, but not in a dykey way. Hot, of course.”
“That’s a relief, Collin. I was really worried about whether she was dykey or hot.” I snorted. “As if.”
“Oh, shut up.” He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “When we get Nick home, I’ll see if she can come with me to visit you guys. I want you to meet her soon.”
“And I want you to meet my baby girls. We’ll all look forward to it,” I said for my absent husband and me. If I made plans for us, then he had to be all right.
Kate picked up speed as we left the harbor and headed out to sea. True darkness enveloped us. It was like God had dumped a giant well of black ink over a glass dome, cloaking the island under its bell and leaving us outside it. The stars were shining so brightly they reflected off the blackness.
Collin and I sidled along the railing to the aft deck and climbed the stairs to the flying bridge, where Kurt had joined Bill earlier. Bill was reciting the details of the trip to him now like a grunt answering to a superior officer. A grunt with sun-streaked curls, weathered skin, and a wrinkled Jimmy Buffet Key West Camp shirt. Kurt would grill our captain for the entire five-hour trip unless Bill got brave enough to fight him off.
I interrupted to give Bill a breather. “So, did the owner have any problem with you chartering out to us?”
Bill’s blond-tipped brows scrunched together. “The owner? Oh, I didn’t ask him.”
Three voices exclaimed, “What?” at the same time. My lawyer’s mind went straight to which felonies we would be jailed for when the owner found out about our trip. Was this theft, or was there a lesser offense of joyriding in three-million-dollar boats? Maybe even just a trespass if we got really lucky? Holy crap, what if Bill ran her onto a reef tomorrow?
Bill held up his left hand to ward us off while he steered with his right. “He’ll never know. He’s off on some Mediterranean cruise with his newest twenty-five-year-old wife. He told me to take Kate out and keep her running. That’s all I’m doing, and you guys are just along for the ride.” He smiled, showing a chipped tooth. “No problem, mon.”
“So, who do we pay for the charter, you or him?” I asked.
“You don’t pay anybody. Nick’s my friend. Well, you can pay for gas and groceries, but that’s all we need.”
On the surface, his offer was quite generous, but at the rate he consumed rum and cranberry juice, “groceries” might cost more than a charter. Except that rum cost less than milk in the islands. So, no problem, mon.
“You guys should sleep. I’ll wake you when we stop for gas and supplies in Aguadilla. We’ll push off from there after sunrise and then we’ll reach Mona in about three hours,” Bill said.
“I thought we were going to Rincón?” I asked.
“Aguadilla is the launching place to Mona from this direction. Rincón is the shortest route if you’re coming across the island proper or by water from the south,” Bill said. “And Kate’s owner ponied up for the mega engines, so we’ll cruise at twenty knots or better all night. With nice flat seas like these, she’ll just rock you to sleep like a baby.” Bill let go of the helm and laid his cheek against his pressed palms, pantomiming sleep.
Kurt reached over and grabbed the wheel. If he’d been a few seconds slower he would have had to fight Collin and me for it.
Bill didn’t notice. “Katie, you wanna splash a fresh drink in here for me before you leave?”
I stuttered my answer. “I, well, I—”
Collin jumped in. “Whatcha drinking, Captain?” He grabbed the cup from Bill’s hand.
I mouthed “thank you” to him, and he winked. Ever since Collin had almost single-handedly shipped me off to solo-rehab on St. Marcos a few years ago when I couldn’t find my way out of a Bloody Mary haze back in Dallas, I literally hadn’t touched a drink. And I didn’t want to touch one now. I trusted myself, but I didn’t want to push it.
Collin and I clambered back down the stairs. The steps were nearly invisible in the dark and I clung to the handrail. Once I was in the salon, I flipped on the light switch with relief.
I picked up my travel bag and slung it over my shoulder. The last clean clothes I had brought were already on my body. I needed a washing machine soon or I would smell rank. I went in search of one, and to my joy, found a tiny laundry closet. I dumped my clothes in the wash and continued exploring.
The cabin had three bedrooms and two bathrooms—or three staterooms and two heads, in boating lingo—a kitchen/dining area called the galley, and the salon, AKA TV room. Plus the laundry closet. A professional decorator had created a Caribbean masterpiece, colorful but not overdone. I wondered which of the owner’s twenty-five-year-old wives was named Kate. Probably the immediately previous one, given how new the yacht appeared. Kate should anticipate a name change in her near future.
I dropped my bag on the floor of a bedroom featuring paintings of palm trees and a shiny leopard-print bedspread. Surprisingly, the decor worked. The room appeared unoccupied, so I draped my body across the bed, thinking I should really take off my shoes before I fell asleep. I was dreaming before I had a chance to do anything about it.
“You’re on the Kate. I knew you would figure it out.”
It was Nick’s voice. Far away.
“Nick?” I said. I struggled to swim to the surface from the deep end of sleep. I opened my eyes and could just make out his face. Why was he so blurry? I rubbed my eyes.
“It’s me, baby. I’m really tired, so I can only talk to you for a minute or two.”
A hazy film still clouded my view of him. He appeared to be lying on his side with his eyes half closed.
I said, “I’m right here. I’m listening. I love you.”
“I love you, too. And you’ve done so good. Annalise and I have given you all the information you need. She was a big help. She said to tell you she’ll protect the kids.” He lifted his hand as if to stroke my cheek, but I felt nothing. Oh, Nick¸ reach a little further. “I have to sleep now,” he said. His face flickered.
I said, “Don’t go, love. Stay with me.”
“Hurry, Katie. And show Bill the picture. I love you.”
And he was gone, nothing but a black screenshot in my mind.
“Nick? Nick? What do you mean? What picture? What am I missing? Don’t go!” I reached for where he had been, my hands groping desperately and coming up empty.
“Katie, you’re dreaming, wake up,” Collin said, gently shaking my shoulder. “It’s OK. I’m right here.”
I rubbed my eyes. Tears. Again.
“Thank you. Sorry. Was I loud?”
“Not too bad. I was just about to go to sleep in the next bedroom, so I heard you. You almost punched me in the eye when I got close.
Were you having another dream with Nick?”
“Yes. He said he’s tired. He asked us to hurry. Oh, Collin, what if we don’t find him? What if we don’t make it in time?” I sat up and put my head on my brother’s shoulder and let the tears flow. He rocked me back and forth like our mother used to do. No one else could make it all better like my big brother, the one who, no matter how different we seemed on the outside, was my closest match, down to the mitochondria of our DNA and the minute details of our childhoods.
I don’t know how long he held me, but I know my eyes closed again and I slept without dreaming. Bill’s voice over the intercom woke me next as he called out our arrival at Aguadilla. I roused myself from sleep, scared, but determined and ready.
Soon, we would aim the bow of Kate toward Mona—and Nick.
Chapter Twenty-four
Morning. The sun cut gemstones into crystal blue water that sparkled like a necklace around us. Bill had Kate opened up, and she sliced through the water at twenty-one knots, roughly equivalent to twenty-five miles per hour, land speed. Fast and beautiful.
My heart strained toward Mona. Bill said we would see the island long before we reached her. I was sitting on the foredeck alone with my hat tied under my chin and my blue notebook clutched in my right hand. I had updated it and was planning to review it to get myself ready for the day.
I lay back and tucked the notebook under my body. I would read it soon, but right now, I needed to try to sleep again. To forget that I was out of text-cell-Skype range from Julie. Bill had shown us the boat’s satellite phone last night, but Julie didn’t have its number. I couldn’t even pretend no news was good news. I promised myself I would call her later, when we found Nick. Caught in the paralysis of anxiety, I fell into a half-sleep and time passed by like the spray of water on the hull.
Then the engines throttled back and Kate slowed dramatically. I stood up and shielded my eyes. Ahead of us, a gorgeous, multicolored maze of coral reefs was taunting Kate to find her way through. Most beautiful to my eyes, though, was the hump of earth on the other side of the reefs: Mona, tantalizingly close to us. Off to our right and farther in the distance was a smaller island that seemed taller than Mona. Both islands looked bare and forbidding from this vantage point. My gosh, I hoped Bill had laid off the rum. We all needed to stay sharp. We might spot Nick any time now.
The winds were higher and the seas rougher here than they’d been off San Juan the night before. I picked my way carefully around the side of the cabin, holding onto the railing with one hand and the blue bible in the other. The men had assembled on the flying bridge. Kurt stood over Bill’s shoulder at the small table, a large map in front of them. I set my notebook down beside it. Bill was talking him through the reef passage, tracing the path with his finger. Collin had the wheel, although Kate was stopped, or as stopped as a sixty-foot boat could be in moving water and a brisk wind.
“I’ve navigated through here a hundred times to bring people out to scuba dive and see Mona and Monito. It’s marked. See the buoys?” Bill said, and he pointed into the water in front of us.
Kurt grunted. He had turned gruff with Bill. I imagined him at work as a pilot: stoic would come out as taciturn, spare as uncommunicative, and gruff as bad-tempered. I now knew that we got the soft and cuddly Kurt at home.
Collin filled me in. “No sign of any followers. I think we left our goon sitting on his thumbs in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express in Old San Juan.”
“I thought we shook our tail at the airport?” I asked.
Collin grinned at me. “That’s because while you showered, napped, and did your hair, I was out saving the world. The Puerto Rican gent from baggage claim and one other guy had made themselves comfy in the brown chairs with the fire-retardant upholstery by the front door.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.
“I told Kurt when I came back to the room. I guess I just forgot to mention it to you until now.”
Like hell he forgot. I was perturbed, but I tried to get over it. “I can’t believe they’re so persistent.”
“They’re paid to be,” Collin said.
I cast a pensive glance backward but saw nothing but blue water behind us, all the way to the horizon.
Collin nursed a coffee. It smelled good. My eyes must have sent that message, because he said, “Want one, Katie?”
Kiss up. “Sure. I can get it, though.”
“Nah, you just stay there and look pretty as a picture. I need to refill the carafe anyway. Let your big brother take care of you.”
Something tweaked my brain and I sat down on the L-shaped settee in a half-trance. Collin trekked down to the galley for my coffee and Kurt continued to interrogate Bill as prickles crept over my body. I got lost in the sensation that I was forgetting something important.
Collin appeared at the top of the stairs with the carafe and a mug of black coffee. I sipped too fast and it burned my mouth, and I remembered, just like that.
“Shit!” I yelled.
“What’s the matter?” Collin asked.
I scrambled down the stairs and flew through the cabin into my bedroom for the picture—Nick had asked me to show Bill a picture. And the only picture that made sense to show Bill would be the picture from the tackle box, the one that Annalise had led me to after my second or third Nick dream. Because Nick and Annalise pointed me to it, I had brought it. Now if I could just remember where I put it—
Collin said from behind me, “What the heck has gotten into you?”
I ignored him and threw everything out of my bag and pawed through my things. Nothing. I shook each piece of clothing and checked each pocket. Nothing. I felt carefully inside the bottom of the empty bag. Still nothing. I jammed my hands into the bag’s inner zippered pocket. There—I pulled out the water-spotted picture of Nick and Kurt on a fishing boat and sprinted past Collin, who flattened himself against the wall to let me by. I ran back through the boat and up the stairs to the bridge and stuck the picture too close in front of Bill’s face.
“Whoa, whatcha got there?” he said as he warded it off and I panted for breath.
I pulled it back three inches. “Sorry.” Pant. “I need you to see this picture. Right now.” Pant.
“Ohhkaaaaay,” he said. “Kurt, could you take the helm?”
Kurt stepped in gladly. I doubted he would give it back without a fight.
Bill looked at the photo. “That’s nice, Katie. Kurt and Nick. Fishing. Catching, it looks like. Very nice.” He was looking at me with more interest than at the photo, as if I’d thrown a rod in my engine.
“Nick wanted me to show it to you. There has to be something important about it. Does it mean anything to you? Please look at it again.”
Bill tilted his head sideways and lifted one corner of his lips. “When did you talk to Nick?” He did not look at the picture. I contemplated my options: scream at him, sock him in the nose, or aim his face at the picture with my fingers clamped in his hair?
Before I could pick one, Collin, shorter than Bill by at least four inches, leaned around Bill’s shoulder to see the picture. “Can I take a look?”
Bill handed it to him. “Sure. Because I don’t see anything special. Other than a boat not nearly as nice as Kate.” He grinned.
Collin stroked his chin whiskers, his lips fully pursed. “Katie, is this the picture of the boat you told Kurt and me about? I thought you called it the Mona Lisa.”
“I did.”
“Did you see that’s not actually the name?” He turned the picture toward me.
“What do you mean?” Oh God, did I screw this up? I stepped closer so I could see it.
“It’s called the Little Mona Lisa. Little.”
I was close enough to see it now. The boat’s name, in a lovely baroque script, was plainly not Mona Lisa, but Little Mona Lisa.
Bill said, “Hey, that’s cool. Like Monito. That big island in front of us is Mona, and the little one to the right is Monito.”
Out of the mouths of men with childlike minds.
Collin and I stared at each other. Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries started playing in my head.
Kurt spoke first. “Bill, plot me a course over to Monito, will you?”
Bill looked confused. Collin poured another mug of coffee from his carafe and handed it to him. “Change of plans, buddy. Flexibility is the key to air power.”
“What?” Bill asked.
“We need you to take us to Monito,” Collin said. “Stat.”
Bill accepted fate. He grabbed the map and a wax pen and carefully drew a meandering red path through the reefs to Monito. He handed it to Kurt, who took it without a word and began an intent study, grunting and nodding. Also looking up occasionally to ensure he was on course, thank goodness.
Bill turned back to the conundrum of Mona versus Monito. “I thought you believed Nick is on Mona?” Bill asked.
“Yes and no,” Collin said. “We identified a large area for his possible splashdown, and then we relied on the magic of Katie to get us the rest of the way there.” Collin gestured toward me with his coffee cup. “What do you call your skills, Katie?”
I called it my sixth sense, but I thought of it as an inner ear, the kind that heard unspoken things. But how to explain it? I’d never tried to, outside friends and family. Well, Bill counted as friends, now, for sure. I girded myself for his ridicule and gave it my best.
“My sixth sense. I’m a really good communicator. I receive messages from some unusual places. Like from my husband, even when he’s not around, but usually just when something’s wrong. It’s not like Nick sends me mind-messages to get more eggs when I’m at the grocery store.” Bill laughed. “Nick started contacting me in my dreams when he disappeared. He told me he was safe but needed me to come for him. He sent me a visual of a rubber life raft. He reminded me of the Wild Irish Kate, which I believe was his way of telling me to call you for help. He told me not to count on anyone else to find him, that only I could do it. And when we had focused on Mona for our search, he told me to show you this picture. Unfortunately, I’m not always one hundred percent accurate, or I’d have gotten that one earlier.” I raised my hands, palms upward, then dropped my arms. “So here we are. Monito.” I waited for his reaction.
Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) Page 18
