Enduring Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 4)

by Wayne Stinnett

  Even then, they didn’t always fit the mold. It came down to whether they had any empathy toward their victims and little or no conscience about what they were doing.

  Clive tapped lightly on the door. When it opened, Jeff Maple stood there for a moment, then stepped aside to allow entry. Jeff was nearly as tall as Clive’s six-one, but being addicted to weight rooms, he outweighed Clive by an easy fifteen pounds, most of it in his chest and bulging biceps.

  Clive waited for Jeff to close the door and take a seat. “Brent and Leilani have decided to abandon our group.”

  “Any idea what they found on that guy’s boat?” Fiona asked.

  Yvette stepped closer to her protégé and looked down at her. “You met the man. What do you suppose they might have found?”

  The dark-haired woman furrowed her brow for a moment. When Yvette had found her five years earlier, she’d been living on the streets of San Diego, getting by as a street hustler. That was before Yvette had met Clive and started their new enterprise. At the time, Yvette ran a small but very successful stable of some of LA’s finest call girls. Yvette had taken the seventeen-year-old girl in, groomed her, taught her to look and act like a lady, and then tricked her out for a thousand bucks an hour, mostly to the Hollywood elite.

  “He was clean shaven,” Fiona said. “Smelled nice and had recently showered. He wore clean clothes. He didn’t strike me as a typical boat bum, although he was wearing boat shoes. My first guess would have been that he was some sort of professional, maybe a lawyer or doctor.” She looked over at Rayna. “But remember his hands? They were rough and calloused.” She shrugged. “Could have got that way from boating, but I got the feeling that he worked with his hands and had been very successful. Too young to retire, but probably wealthy enough to do it anyway. My bet would be they found a big pile of cash.”

  “Would that be your assessment, Rayna?” Clive asked.

  Rayna Haywood had only been with the group since last summer. Clive had found her in a bar, where she’d propositioned him. He’d gone along, just to see where it led. When they got to his room, she’d slipped something in his drink. He’d deftly switched their drinks, turning the huntress into the prey.

  “Yeah,” Rayna replied. “I’d guess cash, too. He didn’t seem like the drug dealer type.”

  “The boat turned west out of the harbor,” Clive said to Jeff. He knew that Brent and Jeff were friends, constantly picking on Doug. “Where would Brent be going?”

  Jeff looked blankly at the man. “He’s from Florida, she’s from up north somewhere. In a boat? They’d head to Miami.”

  “Why there?” Clive asked, moving closer to the younger man.

  Jeff shrugged. “He’s got friends there, and it’s close. Besides, it’s Miami, man.”

  Retrieving his phone from his pocket, Clive scrolled through his contact list, then stabbed the screen and put the phone to his ear.

  “It’s me,” he said into the phone. “I need some work done.” He paused for a moment, listening. “Yes, later this afternoon. My apologies for the short notice. A very fast boat just left Nassau for Miami. One of those flamboyant racing boats, all gaudily painted. The name on the back is Dripping Wet. There will be three people on board, two men and a woman. They will have something that belongs to me.”

  After listening for a few seconds, Clive said, “No, what they have is valuable, it can’t be lost. You’ll have to stop them some other way.” He paused, listening again. “It matters little to me what you do with the occupants. But you’re right; the woman will bring an excellent price. You’ll see what I mean when you stop them. The usual fee for taking care of the other two? We can split what you get for the girl, and I’ll add ten percent of what you recover, to compensate for the short notice. Do whatever you want with the boat.”

  Clive listened a moment longer, then ended the call without saying anything more. He put his phone back in his pocket and turned to the others. “Brent will be feeding the sharks before the day is over, and Leilani will belong to some rich Arab by Monday.”

  “Sucks for them,” Jeff said, shrugging again.

  “Until we find replacements,” Yvette said, “Clive and I will be going with you. It’s too dangerous with just two men.”

  “I met someone last night,” Rayna said. “Another passenger here on the ship. You should check him out.”

  Clive watched as Yvette turned toward Rayna. The blonde had once been as hard as the Oklahoma dirt she came from, but now she visibly drew back from Yvette’s gaze.

  “What kind of person?” Yvette asked.

  Rayna subconsciously tugged at the hem of her skirt. Clive was delighted at the juxtaposition of the two women. Physically, they were nearly identical: same height, weight, and very nearly the same build. Rayna was younger by a dozen years and might normally have a slight edge in stamina, if it weren’t for the fact that Yvette had once taught aerobics. In a physical contest, they would be almost a dead heat. However, Yvette had a ten-mile lead in mental toughness and had made short work of the younger woman’s aggressive behavior and superior attitude the night she’d tried to drug him. When Rayna had awakened from her drug-induced nap, she’d found herself tied to the bed. Naked and gagged, at the hands of a merciless mistress holding a pair of jumper cables. The other end of the cables already had one of the clamps connected to a car battery.

  “Like us,” Rayna replied. “No family.”

  Moving aimlessly, Charity found her way out of the hospital, rage slowly overtaking the pain of loss. The late afternoon sun on her face felt out of place. Victor was gone, and there was no bringing him back. He’d never feel the sun on his face again, nor could he point out the stars to her and talk to them like they were old friends.

  A car’s horn blared, but Charity ignored it as she walked across the street. She continued walking, the sun on her left cheek, until she reached Bay Street. Crossing it, she turned right toward the marina where Wind Dancer was patiently waiting. Stopping, she looked back, then turned and wandered through the parking lot of a group of warehouses until she found herself at the waterfront. She could see the cruise terminal. No ships were docked there.

  Charity left the warehouses and continued toward the marina, a little over a mile away. She walked in a fog, paying little attention to what was going on around her.

  When she reached the marina, she paused and looked across the street. The masts of Victor’s boat were visible. The sight of his boat sitting on the hard drove home the finality of his death. She would now have to use that document in her wallet. Victor would hate it if his boat were left there, abandoned. She turned and went to the dock where Wind Dancer was tied up.

  Stopping at Dancer’s bow, she stared blankly, almost reverently, at the old boat’s lines. There was a light chop in the bay, and Dancer lunged against her dock lines like she knew exactly what Charity needed: speed, wind, and the taste of the sea. With Victor gone, Wind Dancer was her whole world and meant more to her than anything else.

  Victor had felt the same about his boat. That was why they hadn’t sold one and moved in together. Charity knew what she’d have to do. She would need to find someone that would take care of Salty Dog the way Victor had.

  She stepped aboard, unlocked the hatch, and went down into the salon. The air inside felt hot and heavy. She collapsed at the nav-desk, staring blankly at the chart spread out in front of her.

  Victor had told her that the people who’d attacked him had let it slip that they arrived in Nassau aboard the cruise ship Delta Star, and that there were five of them, three men and two women. Her mind on autopilot, she opened her laptop and searched for the cruise ship.

  Delta Star wasn’t one of the bigger ocean liners that visit the islands carrying thousands of Midwesterners to what they were told would be a tropical paradise. The Star was only six hundred feet, and carried eight hundred passengers. In her mind, Charity i
magined them stacked like so much cord wood.

  The ship’s next port of call was Half Moon Cay and would be there for “a full day of fun and sun”, including a beach blowout dinner party. But the schedule said it should have left Nassau this morning. Charity remembered seeing it at the docks when she arrived in the early afternoon.

  Finding Half Moon on the chart, she guessed it was more than eighty nautical miles away, a full day’s sail for her. Scrolling further down the web page, she found the ship’s statistics and read that the Delta Star had a top speed of eighteen knots. A departure delay would mean they’d be doing every bit of that to make up time. The small ship could easily cover the eighty miles in less than five hours, arriving just after dark.

  There was no way she’d catch the cruise ship, and chasing Chapman’s Cigarette with the man and woman who’d robbed Victor was out of the question. He’d said there were five, and she had no idea if the young couple were even part of the murder.

  Two targets, she though. Neither of which I can catch.

  At least not with Wind Dancer.

  After Charity’s trip to Florida, and learning that her boat and helicopter were hers and hers alone, she’d reunited with Victor on Tortola. They’d decided to cruise the Bahamas for a while, so they’d sailed the short distance to Puerto Rico and retrieved her helicopter. Victor waited there until she moved it to a more central location where they planned to cruise. It was now in a hangar at the San Andros Airport, just thirty-five miles from Nassau. The mechanic there was a young helicopter pilot, and she’d paid him to maintain it and run the turbine once a week.

  She calculated that if the couple on Chapman’s boat were heading back to the States — and that was the direction she heard the go-fast boat going when it left the harbor — they’d arrive there in about three hours. If she could get to Andros Island in less than an hour, she could catch them before they made it to the mainland.

  Get there how? she thought. And do what? Her head fell to the desk in utter despair.

  Just getting a cab to the airport would take half an hour and there was no way she could immediately board a departing flight to Andros that would get her there in time. Dejected, Charity sobbed quietly.

  “Ahoy, Wind Dancer,” a voice called from outside.

  Recognizing the voice, Charity raised her head and, in a flash, she was up the companionway to the cockpit. There on the dock stood none other than Jesse McDermitt.

  “How did you find me?” Charity asked, stepping over to the dock and into the man’s arms.

  It was unlike her to be so emotional, and Jesse must have sensed it. He held her for a moment, then took her shoulders and pushed her away. Charity’s eyes were red and puffy.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Charity fell against him again. Then the choking spasms she’d been holding back came. She shuddered in his embrace, sobbing. Finally, she stepped back and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Victor’s dead,” she said, driving in the final nail by uttering the words aloud for the first time.

  Jesse wrapped her in his arms once more, holding her head against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Charity.”

  She cried again. Not convulsively this time, just a slow stream of tears and the occasional barely audible yelp of pain. When she stepped back again, she looked up at the man’s face. She’d always looked to him as a sort of father figure. Not fatherly, but a trusted man who she could talk to.

  “I can make some coffee,” she offered, remembering Jesse’s penchant for strong brew.

  Jesse’s eyes scanned the immediate area, wary as always. Then they softened as he looked back at her. “My boat’s just down the dock,” he said. “I already have some brewing.”

  They walked together toward the other end of the dock. Charity saw his boat, Gaspar’s Revenge, and realized she’d walked right past it without noticing.

  “How did it happen?” he asked as they reached the stern of his boat and he swung a leg over the low gunwale.

  Charity stepped over and joined him as he unlocked the main hatch. “He was murdered,” she said.

  Jesse paused and looked deeply into her eyes before pushing open the hatch. He was instantly met by his dog, a big goofy-looking yellow lab named Finn. He told the dog to go back inside, and they followed.

  “When did it happen?” he asked, going forward to the little galley.

  “I was up at Hoffman’s Cay,” Charity replied. “Victor had to come here for repairs and was supposed to charter a boat to meet me there this morning. I had to change anchorages yesterday, so I sailed out to meet him. There’s no cell signal there.”

  “A lot of the Bahamas are like that,” Jesse said, passing her a cup of coffee. “I take it that Victor never arrived?”

  She took a tentative sip, and it reminded her of Savannah. “No,” she replied. “The reason we had to move was because we were attacked. We had to kill four men, Jesse.”

  “We?” he said, looking over the rim of his cup. “He did get there? And why did four men have to die?”

  “No,” Charity said, watching Jesse carefully. “On my second day at Hoffman’s, a woman arrived. Someone I’d met briefly a couple of years ago. Savannah Richmond.” Charity could tell everything she needed to know by his reaction. He was looking for her. And he was in love with her. “You’ll never find her in busy ports like this.”

  Jesse sat down hard on a stool. “Wait, you were with Savannah? Where was Victor?”

  “Four men attacked us at Hoffman’s,” she said. “Savannah’s dog took one of them out, she got a second one, and I dropped two more.”

  “Savannah killed someone?” he asked, surprised.

  Looking into his wide eyes a moment, she saw fear. It was strange seeing this reaction from a man she’d always considered fearless. She knew he was afraid for Savannah, but it was still disconcerting.

  “No,” Charity replied. “She knocked one of them out with a heck of a spinning back kick, though. The dog sent one over the cliff into the blue hole, where it looked like he landed head first on the rocks.” She paused again. “After I sent her and her daughter back to their boat, I went back up there and cleaned everything up.”

  Jesse studied her face while he mulled it over. “A man dead, three unconscious, no cops around for hours, and no way to get help.”

  “These were bad people, Jesse,” Charity said. “Very bad. I did the world a favor.”

  “Not judging,” he said. “You were there, and you did what had to be done.”

  “Savannah and I moved south a few miles to another anchorage. She tried to act as if nothing had happened, but I could tell it weighed on her. The next morning, she was gone. That’s when I set sail to intercept Victor. I ended up sailing all the way back here, only to find him in a hospital.”

  For the next few minutes, she explained how Victor had told her what had happened using Morse code, the drugging and the beating by the three men from a cruise ship called Delta Star, and then she told him about the young couple that had apparently robbed Victor’s boat.

  To his credit, Jesse stayed on track, asking pointed questions about when and where things happened, although finding Savannah must have been a high priority. Savannah had mentioned seeing him just a few weeks ago, and Jesse meeting her daughter for the first time. Had he been searching for her since?

  “You never said how you found me,” Charity said.

  Jesse gave her that lopsided grin of his. “I didn’t. I’d just locked up the salon and turned around. You walked right past me.”

  She smiled back, though it felt foreign somehow. “You came here looking for Savannah?”

  The man fidgeted on the stool. “Well, we sort of knew each other a long—”

  “She told me,” Charity interrupted. “It didn’t take long before we realized we knew people in common.”

  “What d
id she tell you?”

  “About your affair, the kidnappings, the hurricane.” She paused. “Then she told me about when she learned she was pregnant. She’d already filed for divorce.”

  “Did she—?”

  “Tell me that Flo was your daughter? No. She doesn’t know. Her husband might be the father. She just doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know. At least that’s what she said.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think she doesn’t want the ex to be the father … and as long as she doesn’t know, she can pretend that you are.”

  Jesse sat there on the stool a moment, then went around the counter and rinsed his mug. “Want more?” he asked.

  “No.” She slid her empty mug toward him.

  “So the possible murderers are on a cruise ship,” he said, washing her mug. “They’re headed southeast, and the thieves, who may or may not have been in on the murder, are on a go-fast boat headed northwest.”

  “And my boat can’t catch either,” she said.

  “Well, the Revenge can easily outrun a cruise ship. How long ago did it leave?”

  “Less than an hour ago. And the thieves left just before that.”

  She could see in his eyes that he was calculating speed and distance. “So this cruise ship has, what? A fifteen-mile head start? The Revenge can catch up to it in less than an hour.”

  “You want to help me?”

  “It’ll take a Cigarette at least three or four hours at cruising speed to reach the mainland,” Jesse said, ignoring the question. “Those guys are all show and will only run wide-open if there’s an audience around. Once out in open water, he’ll cruise at thirty or forty knots to save gas. We can probably catch them, too. But not both.”

  “My Huey’s at San Andros Airport,” Charity said.

  “Really?”

  “If I could get there fast, I could catch the Cigarette boat.”

  “Andros is only forty miles west,” he said, his mind again working out the logistics in his head. “I can get you there in an hour and have someone waiting to take you straight to the airport. You still have that sat-phone I gave you.”