"That's a great idea, and you get to see your friend sooner, too," he said. "Let's go."
****
As Phillip had predicted, they dropped their anchor just south of the approach channel to Jolly Harbour about thirty minutes before sunset. With the three of them working, it only took a few minutes to bag the headsails and cover the main. With Kayak Spirit shipshape, there was time to enjoy a round of cold beers from the ice chest as they watched the last of the color fade from the western sky.
"boy, the sunset through the ash plume from Montserrat is really something," Paul said. "That's worth the trip, right there."
Phillip and Dani smiled at one another.
"You guys are lucky to live where you see stuff like that every day," Paul said. "Miami's nice, but there's something special about a sunset over the water, you know?"
"There sure is," Phillip said. "You're going to talk yourself into moving down here, if you're not careful, Paul."
"I suppose I could," Paul said, with a faraway look on his face.
"Can I get you guys another beer while I rustle up dinner?" Phillip asked, going below.
"Sure," Paul said.
"Need a hand?" Dani asked. "What are you fixing?"
"Steaks and garlic toast on the grill. You can toss us a salad, if you would. Stuff's all cut up, in the fridge. Just let me get the steaks out and get the bread ready, and the galley's all yours, Dani."
Pleasantly tired from the day's magical sail, their hunger sated, they were all asleep by 8:30.
****
"Damn, it's pretty out here," Mike said. "Look at all those stars."
He was about halfway across the channel between Guadeloupe and Antigua. It was 1 a.m., and the wind had dropped to just a zephyr. There was enough breeze to keep the sails full, but his speed had dropped to a little over one knot. Liz had been gone for about an hour.
"Never get there, at this rate," he said. He started the diesel, and engaged the electronic autopilot, disconnecting the wind vane. He set the autopilot to steer to a preprogrammed GPS waypoint on the southwest tip of Antigua, and trimmed the sails in enough to keep them quiet. "Too bad about the wind. Guess it can't be perfect everyday." He was exhausted, and the droning of the diesel made him even sleepier. He began to nod off. His head jerked up as he woke momentarily. He blinked a few times and looked around. "All alone. Set the guard band on the radar," he said. "In a minute. I'll get it later," he said, yawning, his head dropping to his chest again. He rolled onto his side and settled into a comfortable slumber, dead to the world.
Chapter 35
Phillip brought Kayak Spirit alongside the Customs Dock in Jolly Harbour. He was coasting at a speed of less than a knot, barely making steerageway. Dani and Paul both stepped over the narrow gap onto the dock, each with a line in hand. Dani had a line made fast to a cleat on the bow; Paul had the stern line. They both snubbed the lines on the cleats along the edge of the dock, bringing Kayak Spirit to a gentle halt as her stern drew even with the end of the dock. Dani tied off the bow and walked a few steps back along the side of the boat, reaching over to pick up the midship spring lines. She handed one to Paul, and she took the other one forward. By the time they had fenders rigged to keep Kayak Spirit off the dock, Phillip was up at the office doing the paperwork. He was the first arrival of the day, so there was no waiting. They were back out in the anchorage in a few minutes, assembling the dinghy. They had decided on breakfast ashore in a favorite restaurant on the marina grounds.
As they walked into the restaurant, Phillip heard someone call his name. He spotted the Morrises, menus in hand. He walked over, followed by Paul. Dani had gone to the ladies' room.
"You have a good memory," Phillip said, shaking hands with the man.
"Jim Morris, Phillip. You came by out in the anchorage a week or two ago, remember?"
"Of course, Jim, but I was looking for you by name. I'm surprised you remember mine; that's all," Phillip said.
"It's holdover from my days in sales," Jim said. "Join us. Joann and I just sat down."
"Okay," Phillip said, introducing Paul as they sat down. "I'm going to drag another chair over. Someone else will be…"
"Dani!" Joann said, calling out to be heard over the din of conversation in the crowded little place, interrupting Phillip. "Sorry, Phillip. I just saw her looking for you guys. Guess you found her, huh?"
"Yes," Phillip said, getting up and holding a chair for Dani.
"I guess you decided not to join Mike on Sea Serpent, Dani," Joann said. "Lucky for you, too."
"You don't know the half of it," Dani said. "It's a long story, but why do you say it's lucky for me?"
"You didn't hear?" Joann asked. "It was on the cruisers' VHF net this morning."
"No," Dani said. "What happened?"
"Sea Serpent hit Cade's Reef, down on the southwest corner of the island, sometime last night. Two fishermen found the wreckage about dawn this morning. Not much left. The Antigua Coast Guard figures he was cooking along with the autopilot set. Probably fell asleep. They didn't find any survivors. They said he had cleared out from Guadeloupe yesterday, late in the afternoon. He must have sailed all night. Nobody was on board except Mike, and there's no sign of him. The life raft and the dinghy were both still on board, and you know how that current rips through there. They figure it was running three or four knots in the early morning, so anybody that was aboard would be far out at sea by now."
"What a shame to lose that beautiful old Concordia yawl," Dani said, a cold look in her blue eyes. The Morrises looked at her strangely. They were so focused on her that they didn't see Phillip and Paul share a smile and a wink, as the waitress came to take their orders.
****
Read a preview of Bluewater Vengeance, the next book in the series
Chapter 1
"I want what's owed me, bitch," he hissed, his massive head blocking her vision as his lips sought hers.
Dani's mind raced as Nigel Smythe shoved her into the stone wall. A moment's inattention on her part had allowed him to trap her; he had one massive arm on each side of her, and his big belly was squeezing the breath from her lungs. He reeked of alcohol as he leered down at her.
"Stop this before I make you regret it, Nigel."
"Hah! You're the one who'll regret it."
She felt her temper building, even as she fought to control herself.
"You think I'm going to pay you back for what your own foolishness cost you? Forget it, and get off me before I hurt you."
"Oh, I'm scared, all right, missy. Think your rich old daddy can buy your way out of this, do you? It's not money I want now, and you know it. Now give. I'll be rougher if you make me force you."
She felt time slow down as adrenalin flooded her system. The intervals between his words seemed to stretch to seconds as she took a deep breath, centering herself in her slim, wiry body as she focused her eyes on his chest. She was past the point of control now, operating on pure instinct honed by years of bar fights. As her tormentor shifted his weight to pin her against the wall, freeing his hands to paw at her clothing, she slipped to her left slightly, grabbing his shirt, pulling him with her.
Off balance now, he fell toward her as she jerked her right knee up, making solid contact with his groin. He grunted in pain, even through the anesthesia of alcohol. As he gasped for breath, Dani gripped his styled hair with both hands, ducked her head, and smashed her forehead squarely into his face. She felt the satisfying crunch as his nose shattered. He roared with pain and anger, took a step back, and lunged at her. She ducked slightly, stepped under his right arm, and pivoted, putting her left hand on the back of his head and using his momentum to drive him face-first into the edge of the stone wall against which he had pinned her moments before.
Knowing the risk in stopping too soon, especially when your attacker outweighs you by a hundred pounds, she didn't hesitate. As Smythe rolled over, spitting out broken teeth, and raising his hands, she delivered a perfectly executed kick to th
e point of his chin, breaking his jaw and rendering him unconscious.
"Bastard," she muttered as she caught her breath. "Had it coming for years, I'm sure. Wish your wife could have been here to help." She went through his pockets, looking for the monogrammed linen handkerchief that he always carried. Finding it, she pulled it out and used it to wipe his blood from her face and hands, dropping it to the ground as she turned to walk away.
****
As Dani made her way past the yachts tied stern-to the dock, she willed herself to calm down, striding smartly to work off the adrenalin high that she always got from a good brawl. Approaching Kayak Spirit, she saw that the lights were still on in the main cabin. Phillip and Paul must still be awake. She gathered her thoughts as she climbed aboard.
"It's Dani!" she said, in response to Phillip's soft-spoken challenge, uttered as he felt her weight shift the boat.
"Hi! Come on down. Paul and I just poured a little nightcap. Want something?"
"Sure," she said, climbing down the companionway ladder, her eye on the liter bottle of St. James Reserve on the galley counter. "Neat, with rocks."
"Only way to drink it," Phillip agreed, rummaging for ice in the refrigerator.
"What happened to you?" Paul asked, eyeing her bloodstained T-shirt. "I thought you were going to take a shower."
"Well, I did, but when I came out of the ladies' head, I ran into that jerk from Ramblin' Gal. I never really got a chance to talk to him when I resigned from his crew, so I took the opportunity."
"You okay?" Phillip asked, turning to look at her over his shoulder as he put the lid back on the refrigerator.
"You're all bloody," Paul said.
"Yeah," she agreed. "But it's not mine. He had a nosebleed. High blood pressure, I guess. I got him settled down, though."
"Do we need to get the hell out of Dodge, Dani?" Phillip asked, guessing what had happened. He had known Dani since her childhood, and had taught her to take care of herself when he discovered that she had her father's belligerent temperament.
"Nah, I think it'll be all right. No witnesses. My word against his. That's if his injured pride even lets him go to the cops. He was falling-down drunk. I think he tripped and fell into that retaining wall out near the main entrance. He busted his face up pretty badly. He's probably too concussed to remember what happened, anyway."
Dani went into the forward cabin and closed the door. Rummaging through her duffel bag, she found a fresh T-shirt and put it on. She combed her hair, still damp from her shower, and joined Phillip and Paul in the main saloon. She sat down at the dining table and took a sip of the smooth rum, feeling the tension fall away as she consciously relaxed her shoulders.
"So what's the plan from here?" She glanced from Phillip to Paul, waiting to see who would answer, hoping neither would press her for more information about her encounter with Smythe.
Phillip picked up his drink and took a sip. He set the moisture-beaded glass back in its coaster. "Well, I guess we're done. With Sea Serpent sunk on the reef and no sign of Mike Reilly, there's not much left for us to do here, is there?"
"Not that I can think of," Paul said. "Unless you and Dani have other ideas, I'm booked on an early flight back to Miami in the morning. I'll get back in time to have lunch with Mario and the boys. You know they'll want a report."
"I'm sure my father has filled them in by now," Dani said. "How about you, Phillip?"
"I just got off the phone with Sandrine; she wants me back in Martinique. I'm missing her, too."
"So, is she the one?" Dani asked, a mischievous smile on her elfin face.
"Well, you know, she just might be. I hadn't given it much thought until your father called and asked for my help. Until this little adventure took me away, Sandrine and I were just kind of having a day-to-day thing. Since I've been chasing around the islands the last couple of weeks, we've both realized it's serious."
"About time you settled down, Phillip. You don't want to wait too much longer, or you'll end up a crusty old bachelor for sure," she said.
"What are you going to do now, Dani? Back to Paris to see your folks?" Phillip asked.
"No, I don't think so. It's too hard to get away from them, once they get their hooks into me. I'm not sure I want another crew berth, though."
"Back to investment banking, then?" Phillip asked. "Maybe you could find something in the States, if you want to avoid your mother's clutches."
"No way, Phillip. I tried that. I'm not cut out to be a parasite. Besides, you know how I love the sea. I'm thinking I'll find something else yacht-related, and I'm like you about the islands. There's nowhere else I'd rather live than down here. I need some time to chill out and think my way through this, though."
"Nothing wrong with that. You've been through a lot in the last couple of weeks. I'm probably going to fly back to Martinique and leave Kayak Spirit here for a while, anyway. If you want to boat-sit, you're welcome. She needs a little love from a skilled hand."
Dani's face split into a big grin. "Can I fix her up a bit? Like re-upholster these dismal settees? Put some fresh varnish on the table?"
"Knock yourself out. Treat like she's yours for as long as you want."
"Deal," Dani said, standing to give Phillip a big hug. "I'm beat. 'Night, guys." She went back up to the forward cabin, and Paul and Phillip finished their drinks and crashed on the settees.
****
Dani and Phillip waved as Paul got into the taxi the next morning after breakfast.
"Let's go over to Customs and Immigration and get you on the paperwork as the skipper, Dani," Phillip said, as they walked back toward the docks.
With that accomplished, Phillip stopped in a travel agent's office and booked a flight to Fort de France, departing in the early evening. He and Dani spent the rest of the afternoon talking about Dani's ideas for sprucing up Kayak Spirit. Before either was ready, it was time for him to catch his own taxi.
Dani cooked a quick pasta dinner for herself, drank a glass of red French table wine from a bottle that she found in the bilge, and stretched out on the starboard settee to think, utterly content.
Chapter 2
Liz tore the sheet from her sketchpad and balled it up, throwing it to the floor with her other rejects. Staring through the window of the gallery in frustration, she stood up, rolling her cramped shoulders, gradually working the stiffness from her sore muscles. She could visualize Sea Serpent clearly in her mind's eye, but she couldn't get the proportions down on paper. The graceful sheer line, the spoon bow, and the counter stern -- she could sketch them individually to her satisfaction, but blending them into the beautiful profile of the old yawl was more of a challenge than she had expected.
She walked out onto the porch and let her gaze wander over the harbor as Suzanne finished wrapping a painting for her lone customer. The gallery was a feast or famine business, depending on whether there was a cruise ship in the harbor up at St. John. When a ship was in port, the tour buses would bring crowds of frantic shoppers to the quaint little shopping center at English Harbour. There were stores offering local rums, "native" crafts, many of which were imported from China these days, and expensive upscale clothing. There was a musty-smelling shop with an eclectic collection of books; some were genuine antiques, but many were by present day, Caribbean-based writers.
The cobwebs and moldy stone walls of the 18th-century building that once was a chandlery for the British Navy made it seem as if the shops existed in some time warp, giving the customers the feeling that they were back in the early 1700s. Then, a splash of dazzling color and light broke the spell; there was Suzanne's Art Gallery. On the days without cruise ships, Suzanne would have one or two customers, usually people who had recently bought one of the condominiums in the marina complex and wanted to decorate with island art.
Suzanne had come to Antigua on holiday after she and Liz had finished their university studies, Liz in finance, with a minor in graphic arts, and Suzanne in art history. Suzanne never went back to
Belgium. A holiday romance had blossomed into a marriage to a well-known local artist, and she had found the place where she was meant to be. Liz envied that. Based on her own experience of the past few weeks, life in the islands seemed idyllic. Of course, she hadn't actually tried to live here. She had been on holiday for several weeks, which cast a rosy glow over her experiences, even her most recent adventure, a nearly fatal yachting accident.
She had caught a ride as pick-up crew with a single-handed sailor who was northbound from Guadeloupe, expecting to part company with him in Antigua, where she planned to visit with Suzanne and her husband. The yachtsman had turned out to be an odd character, and she had begun to worry a bit about his strange behavior. He had clearly wanted her to accompany him on his travels beyond Antigua, suggesting an open-ended itinerary that encompassed the entire Caribbean basin. Before their conflicting goals could become a problem, fate had intervened.
She still wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but it appeared that he had fallen asleep on watch with the autopilot steering for the southwestern tip of Antigua. She had sailed through the evening hours, and he had relieved her in the early morning. Exhausted from sailing solo for about six hours, she had left him and gone below. She had been sound asleep when Sea Serpent had struck the unyielding Cade's Reef.
Thrown violently to the cabin sole by the impact, she had taken a severe blow to the head. She regained her senses as the vessel pitched about, breaking up and filling with warm, tropical seawater as the wave action ground the keel against the coral. Semi-conscious, she made her way through the flooded interior into the cockpit, registering that there was no sign of her host.
As the wreckage settled into the water, she managed to hold on to one of the larger sections. With full consciousness returning, she realized that the water in her immediate vicinity was only a little over waist-deep. She quickly discovered that the current was so swift that she couldn't stand without holding on to the firmly grounded wreckage.
Bluewater Killer: A Serial Murder Mystery Set In Florida and the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 1) Page 23
