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

by Wayne Stinnett

  Spinning her around, Jesse shoved the woman roughly, nearly causing her to trip on the step up to the cockpit.

  “Get up on the bow and secure the anchor,” Jesse ordered, forcing the woman into the fighting chair and strapping her in,

  Tony stepped up onto the side deck, muttering, “Do this, do that. Yeah, you’re a real tough guy.”

  “Just get the anchor!” Jesse shouted, as he started up the ladder to the fly bridge.

  On the bow, Tony waited as Jesse started the engines, and activated the windlass. It only took a few minutes for it to haul the rode aboard. The rattling of the chain as it dropped into the anchor locker seemed out of place. When the anchor seated in the pulpit, Tony secured it with the safety chain, then started toward the stern as the boat began to idle slowly toward the south.

  The woman turned her head toward him as Tony jumped down to the cockpit. “You killed the wrong person.”

  “Just shut up,” Tony said, as he leaned in close. “Did you enjoy the sunrise this morning? I hope so. It was the last one you’re gonna see.”

  She started to say something, but Tony raised his hand, as if to backhand her. She cringed toward the far side of the seat. Tony laughed, then went up the steps to the bridge.

  Sitting in the second seat, Tony leaned over. “It’s working,” he said softly, as Jesse nudged the throttles forward. “I made like I was gonna hit her and she cringed.”

  “Good,” was Jesse’s only reply.

  Though he’d never struck a woman, and believed the same to be true of the man sitting next to him, Jesse’s simple reply still left an unsettling feeling. Tony had known Jesse for a few years now and knew him to be steadfast in his belief of what was right and wrong. To him, the woman down below was a common criminal, nothing more. Scaring her with physical violence didn’t bother him in the least. But Tony knew he’d never follow through with it.

  Once the boat cleared the breakwater, the bottom dropped away quickly. Jesse pushed the throttles about halfway forward and the big twin diesels rumbled as the bow lifted.

  The crossing over to Cat Island only took thirty minutes. Jesse slowed as they neared the shoreline, then reached up and turned on the infrared camera mounted on the roof.

  “See if you can spot the pier,” he said, bringing the boat down to idle speed. “Should be just at the north end of town.”

  Tony used the camera controls to pan the beach, as he watched the monitor. “There it is. Just a few degrees north of this heading.”

  Leaning over, Jesse whispered, “I have an idea. Take her down to my cabin, make sure she can’t move or get up. There’s a couple of belts in the top drawer; tie her legs. Before you come back up, call me on the intercom and ask if I need anything. Then leave the intercom open.”

  Grinning broadly, Tony rose from his seat. “You’re devious, man.”

  The woman was still strapped to the chair. For really large gamefish, a fisherman wore a harness which attached to the reel for added leverage. Jesse had simply looped the harness through the chair’s back slats and buckled it around her. With her hands behind her back, she couldn’t release the simple catch.

  Unbuckling the harness, Tony took the woman by her arm and pulled her to the salon hatch.

  “I was wondering when you’d want me,” she said as Tony opened the hatch and pushed her inside. Upon seeing Finn, lying on the deck by the settee, she jumped back, apparently afraid of the big yellow dog.

  “Shut up,” Tony growled. “I don’t want you. I want you dead. Luckily for you, Stretch won’t let me do that yet. Otherwise, I’d just put two in your brain and feed you to the fish.”

  Taking both her shoulders, he pushed her forward and down the companionway to Jesse’s forward stateroom. Inside, he easily lifted her onto the big centerline bed. He went to the chest of drawers and opened the top one. There he found a web belt with an adjustable clasp. He looped it around the woman’s ankles several times and drew it tight, cinching the buckle.

  “What’s your name?” Tony asked.

  “Does it matter?” she replied, staring at him with a vacant look in her eyes.

  “Not to me,” he said, pointing upward. “He wants to know. I can put a bullet in your brain whether I know your name or not.”

  “The man you shot wasn’t Rene Cook.”

  Tony grinned as he looked down at the woman. “I never said his first name. Gotcha.”

  “My boyfriend stole his money and passport,” she said. “That’s all. That’s how I know the guy’s name”

  “Yeah, I heard that one before. What’s your name?”

  “Leilani,” she replied. “And the man you killed was Brent, my boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend, huh? Yeah, you seem real broke up about that.”

  Without waiting for a response, Tony stabbed the intercom button, opening the channel to the whole boat. “Hey, Stretch. She’s secure. You need anything up there?”

  “Yeah,” a scratchy voice replied from the speaker. “Bring me a bottle of water.”

  “I’m telling you,” Leilani said, “we’re not who you think we are.”

  Tony used the distraction to his advantage, whirling to face the woman and leaving the intercom on. “Too bad for you,” he said menacingly. “I was told that Cook would be in the company of an Hispanic woman, and here you are. With the money that Cook stole and the gun that he used to kill my boss’s partner.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Leilani said. “I’m not Hispanic. I was born on the island of Tahiti and kidnapped when I was ten. I was held captive by a couple of pedophiles in Boston until I killed them.”

  Tony was moved by her declaration, if it was true. He was also somewhat impressed that a woman so small could kill anything, but he didn’t let it show. “Whatever,” he said. “You all look alike to me.”

  With that, he turned and went out the door, closing it behind him. Before returning to the bridge, he took three bottles of water from the reefer.

  “Here ya go,” Tony called up to the bridge from the cockpit.

  Jesse rose from the helm and reached down to take the bottles. “The pilot’s coming down the dock,” he said, more for the benefit of the prisoner. “Go to the starboard side and fend us off that post beyond the end of the pier, while I turn the boat around.”

  “Her name’s Gabby,” Tony said, giving Jesse a thumbs-up. “Gabby Fleming. And the girl laying on your bunk is Leilani. She didn’t give a last name.”

  Nodding, Jesse turned back to the helm, as the big boat idled toward the pier in the darkness. When Tony reached the starboard rail, just forward of the salon, he heard the pitch of the engines change, as Jesse shifted them to reverse and brought the boat to a stop.

  Through the darkness, Tony saw a figure approaching on the dock. He could tell by the long, confident stride that it was Charity. Thinking back to the first time he’d met the woman, he remembered being quite enamored. She’d been all business back then, and pretty much gave him the cold shoulder, along with most of the other guys on the team.

  Pivoting the boat so the stern was toward shore, Jesse slowly backed toward a spot ten feet off the pier but right alongside the post, which was meant to tie off a much narrower boat between it and the dock. When the Revenge was in position, he bumped the transmissions to forward, bringing it to a stop.

  Tony had a fender ready to drop between the widest part of the hull and the post, as Jesse maneuvered the stern sideways toward the pier. The fender wasn’t necessary. With the boat at an angle to the pier, Charity stepped over the gap and dropped down to the cockpit deck. Putting the fender in its keeper, Tony hurried aft to bring Charity up to speed on things.

  Stepping down beside her, Tony held a finger to his lips, and motioned Charity over to the stern. “The com’s open in the cabin,” he whispered. “Disinformation.”

  Charity nodded, opened the ha
tch, and placed her bags just inside the salon. Then the two of them climbed the ladder to the fly bridge.

  “Where do you wanna dump the body?” Tony asked, taking the second seat, while Charity moved toward the port bench.

  “You already killed her?” Charity asked, following Tony’s lead.

  They’d used disinformation many times working for Homeland Security. It was especially effective if the person believed they were getting the information covertly.

  “Not yet,” Jesse said. “I’m not satisfied that she was in on the murder.”

  “I’m just transportation,” Charity said. “But if it were me, I don’t think I’d let someone I’d just kidnapped go free, whether she was part of it or not. Definitely not after killing the man she was with.”

  Jesse slowly advanced the throttles. “We’ll go offshore a little way, anchor up, and find out.”

  Sitting at a corner table with Yvette and Rayna, Clive watched the young man at the bar. He had his back to them, talking to another man.

  “How much were you able to find out?” he asked his wife, glancing at his watch. It was past midnight and there were few patrons in the bar.

  Yvette tapped on her tablet’s screen. “Quite a bit,” she replied, opening a dossier she’d compiled after Rayna got the man’s name and where he was from. “His name is Bruce Wheeler. Twenty-four, born in Jacksonville, Florida. His parents were both killed in a car wreck in ninety-five; he was nine at the time. No family, no adoption possibilities, so he went into the foster care system, where he lived with four families. He started getting in trouble with the law at age thirteen and was convicted of armed robbery when he was sixteen. That landed him in juvenile detention until he was an adult. Then he promptly went back to his old ways and wound up doing a year in prison in Raiford, Florida.”

  “He might be worthy,” Clive said. “Depends on whether he can fit in or not.” He looked at Rayna. “Did he come on to you, or the other way around?”

  “He’s not gay, if that’s what you mean.”

  Clive smiled. “Exactly the answer I was hoping for.”

  He nodded to Yvette and she put her tablet in a bag, tucking it next to Clive. “Don’t wait up, lover.”

  “Oh, you know I’m going to,” he said with a lecherous grin.

  Yvette reached into the plunging neckline of her blouse, alternately adjusting her bra cups to show more cleavage. Then she stood and tugged her skirt up slightly higher. She smiled at Clive, then turned and walked slowly and seductively toward the bar, three-inch heels clicking on the hardwood floor. Clive knew the show was for his benefit, since her prey had his back to her.

  “Watch carefully, Rayna,” Clive said. “Yvette is mistress of many things, as you well know, not the least of which is making a man feel as if he’s the aggressor, when in fact, she is the lioness on the hunt.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Rayna said, somewhat sheepishly.

  “How can a man allow his wife to be with other men?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” the younger woman said. “I mean, I know she’s working. But it doesn’t bother you? Not even a little?”

  “Why would it?” Clive replied. “Neither of us has any feelings for the other, aside from physical. Always remember that. A sociopath is incapable of love, though they can play the part quite convincingly. You are a true sociopath, Rayna. Embrace it. Throw off the rules society has tried to force on you since the day you were born.”

  “So she’s going to make him think that she’s fallen for him?”

  “Before this night is over, your young Mister Wheeler will totally believe that he has found his soul mate in an older woman. And by this time tomorrow, he will be broken and putty in her hands. I give him until Tuesday, before he will either come willingly into the fold, or be dead.”

  Clive glanced at his watch again. He’d been expecting a call from his Miami associate. As if on cue, his phone’s screen came to life on the table in front of him, displaying an incoming call.

  Clive snatched up the phone and stabbed the Accept button. “I was expecting your call an hour ago.”

  “Sorry,” the voice on the other end said. “There was a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Clive asked, thinking the man was going to try shaking him down for more money.

  “Someone beat us to it.”

  “Someone—” he nearly shouted, then lowered his voice. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Another boat intercepted your package,” the man said. “You didn’t double-book the contract, did you?”

  “Double— Now wait just a moment. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Just what I said. Another boat got to your package first. And there was a helicopter helping them. Both civilian, as far as I could tell. When we got to the boat, they’d already bugged out, the boat going south, and the chopper headed east.”

  “And the people on the boat?”

  “There was only one man aboard, but he wasn’t in any condition to say what happened, if you get my drift.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Young guy,” the man said. “Dark hair, tall, tan and fit, like he worked out at a gym all the time, all the good it did him.”

  “Brent…” Clive muttered. “What about the girl?”

  “Nobody else on board. And nothing worth hanging onto anywhere on the boat.”

  “Bloody hell,” Clive cursed. “What did you do with the boat?”

  “Strapped the guy in and ventilated the bottom. It’s under two hundred feet of water now. And I’m out time and fuel with nothing to show for it.”

  How could this have happened? Clive thought.

  “I’ll take care of you, Joe,” Clive said. “I always do, don’t I?”

  The man mumbled something, but Clive ended the call.

  “What happened?” Rayna asked, watching Yvette casually flirting with the two men at the bar.

  Clive stared at a spot on the far wall, trying to understand what he’d been told. “Brent’s dead,” he finally said, “but not by my direction.”

  “And the little whore?”

  Clive looked at her sternly and saw her cringe under his gaze. “Be careful of your words, Rayna. You are all my little whores. And I’ll do with any of you as I please.”

  The younger woman looked down, picking at her nails. It was a nervous habit Clive had noticed before, whenever she tried to organize her thoughts before speaking.

  “Say what’s on your mind,” he ordered.

  “Leilani was your favorite,” Rayne blurted out, then looked down at her nails again. “We all knew it. She bragged about being with you.”

  “And you’d like to take her place?” Clive asked.

  When she looked up at him, Clive could see it in her eyes. She’d been by far the hardest one to break and still had a stubborn side. Breaking the recruits was Yvette’s job, and she did it well. Clive knew that they all feared him and what he was capable of, but feared her even more. Still, over the years, each of the new female recruits had come to him of their own accord. Now Rayna, with her curvy, wasp-waisted, hard body, was practically begging to get into his bed.

  “You’ll have to say it,” Clive said. “But make no mistake, once you cross this line, you will cater willingly to my every whim. And I do like to play rough.”

  She stared straight into his eyes. “I want it rough. I want you to make me pay for all the things I’ve done.”

  A lewd grin came to his features, as a waiter approached the table.

  “We’ll be closing this bar soon, Mister Pence,” the young Hispanic man said. “There is another on the port side, directly opposite, that opened just a few minutes ago.”

  Clive’s eyes went quickly to the waiter’s name tag. “Thank you, Eduardo. Please close us out and add twenty percent for yourself.”

&nb
sp; “Thank you, sir,” he replied and turned back to the bar.

  “They will be leaving soon,” Clive said, nodding toward Yvette with the two men. “Watch how she separates the two. Our young man will be beaming with pride, and the other will be dismissed in such a manner that he will never want to see my dear Yvette again.”

  The second man had changed seats, so that Yvette was between the two men. Under the bar, her hands worked skillfully in both men’s laps. Rayna slid closer and put her own hand on Clive, kneading him through his pants.

  “It looks to me like she might take them both,” Rayna whispered in his ear, as Yvette leaned toward the other man. “What’s she telling him?”

  Clive stretched his legs, enjoying Rayna’s ministrations. “Quite simply that he’s not man enough to satisfy her,” he replied.

  The second man rose suddenly. Even from across the room, Clive could see the color rise in his face. Yvette turned and smiled at Wheeler, then leaned close and whispered something to him as well. Wheeler smiled back, oblivious to the fact that the other man had left.

  “Pretty obvious what she said to Bruce,” Rayna said.

  Yvette rose and took Wheeler by his hand, leading him toward the table where Clive and Rayna sat. Clive glanced over at Rayna as she continued to rub him through his pants. Her eyes were locked on Yvette’s.

  “Young Mister Wheeler has no idea what he’s in for,” Clive said as the couple approached.

  Yvette was pulling him, almost like an errant child, save for the lascivious expression on the younger man’s face. She had such a succulent stride, there was no way the young man could resist. As they passed, Yvette smiled and winked at Rayna, then pursed her lips at Clive.

  “Is she taking him back to your suite?” Rayna asked.

  “We have two,” Clive said, standing and taking her hand. “Just in case something like this happens.”

  Rayna rose and took his arm as they followed Yvette and Bruce out the door into the night air. “So we’re going to the other one?”