Lovely, Dark, and Deep (The Collectors)

by Susannah Sandlin

  Shane looked toward shore. Harley had piloted them pretty far out to avoid the shelf of shallows along the coastline in the central part of the state. “You look in the envelope?”

  “No sir.” Chris answered with enough vehemence to convince Shane he was telling the truth. “The guy with the money said not to, and he didn’t sound like a guy I wanted to mess with.”

  “What did he sound like?” Gillian asked.

  Shane turned to see her stepping from the passageway and did a double take at the pistol tucked in the band of her jeans. It wasn’t his, which meant she’d brought her own. Interesting.

  Still no sign of Jagger, but Shane figured he had joined Harley in the pilothouse.

  Now that they’d unburdened themselves of the envelope, the couriers were willing to share what they knew. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much. “The guy had a deep voice. He sounded kinda like John Wayne in one of them old western movies,” Chris said.

  “Tex.” Gillian’s voice was flat. “Did he threaten you?”

  “No ma’am, but he sounded…” He scratched beneath the edge of the bandana. “Serious. Like he was threatening without actually threatening, you know? I just want to get back to the marina and get the rest of the cash that’s supposed to be waiting for us. We gotta be back by nine thirty.”

  Yet they weren’t leaving. Shane walked to the envelope, leaned over, and picked it up. Definitely papers. “What else are you supposed to do to let our friend Tex know you left the papers?”

  Chris and Gary exchanged looks. “We need a picture of one of you with the envelope, to prove we delivered it,” Gary said. “We don’t get the money without it. Just a cell phone shot.”

  “Take it then.” Shane held up the envelope in his left hand, pointed the middle finger of his right hand toward heaven, and gave Chris a shit-eating grin until the phone’s camera clicked and the flash left him seeing blue dots. “Where are you supposed to send this shot?”

  “To an email address.”

  Shane’s pulse sped up as Gary took Chris’s phone, punched a few buttons, and waited. Maybe Tex had finally screwed up. “And before you ask, it’s going to one of those free email addresses, to ‘CharlieBurke’—all one word.”

  An itch stole across Shane’s shoulder blades. If that sonofabitch Tex had actually brought Charlie into this…“You guys better get going then,” he said. “And this man who called you is bad news. If he offers you another job, turn him down.”

  Not that Tex would take “no” for an answer if he found another need for the hapless Chris and Gary.

  The small white vessel, a serviceable little fishing boat about twenty-five feet long, looped wide around The Evangeline and made its way toward shore. The guys actually waved as they pulled away. Shane didn’t feel inclined to wave back.

  He handed the envelope to Gillian. “You and Jagger meet me back in the salon to see what our friend Tex sent us. I’m gonna ask if Harley can get us into a riverfront marina in Fort Myers. We’ll anchor there overnight.”

  Gillian had opened the envelope and pulled back the top flap, pulling out a sheaf of papers. “Too dark to see what it is.” She looked up at Shane. “Do we really have time to stop for the night? Can’t you guys take shifts?”

  Shane shook his head. “We could run straight through if we were going all the way down to the Keys to cross from the Gulf into the Atlantic, but it’s faster to cut across the middle of Florida through Lake Okeechobee. The crossing needs to be done in daylight. In the long run, it’ll save us at least a day or two, or maybe more.”

  In retrospect, he wondered if he shouldn’t have rented a truck and towed The Evangeline at least as far as Charlie’s, but every state had its own limit as to how big a vessel one could pull. This might not be faster, but it would be simpler and less likely to run into complications unless there were problems filing his navigation plans in the morning.

  After working with Harley to find a marina and making the arrangements to refuel overnight, Shane walked back to the salon. Gillian and Jagger sat hunched over the table, sorting papers into three stacks.

  “What’ve we got?” Shane pulled a soda out of the fridge and sat opposite them.

  “Clear sailing to Nova Scotia.” Jagger handed one stack of papers to Shane. “Those are navigation plans filed with the Coast Guard and with Canadian Customs, clearing our arrival with a three-day window. Already stamped and approved.”

  Frowning, Shane flipped through the papers. “Everything looks like it’s in order. But who filed them?”

  Jagger broke into a halfhearted version of “Sympathy for the Devil.”

  “You did.” Gillian said, her voice sarcastic. “Don’t you remember?”

  Sure enough, each of the forms had been issued in his name, with “Signature on File” on the bottom line. “Who has the kind of pull to do something like this?” He looked at the papers again, more slowly, holding each page up to the light to see if he could see signs of a fake. The documents were watermarked; the seals embossed. “Harley was guessing someone highly placed in intelligence or the military or politics. This makes me think he’s right about the big boss being one of those.”

  “Or all three.” Jagger pushed the other stacks of paper across the table at him. “Take a look at those next. I’m going to take Harley some dinner and then spell him for a while before we get to Fort Myers.”

  Shane looked up. “Yeah, one of us needs to be awake and alert whether we’re docked or not. Take it until about 2:00 a.m., and I’ll pick it up until we get started through the lake.”

  “Sounds good.” Jagger packed sandwiches from the fridge into a bag and headed down the passageway. He wasn’t singing. Bad sign.

  “I can take a shift too,” Gillian said. “Use me for the times we don’t need navigation. I can stand watch as well as the next person.”

  Shane began looking through the second stack of papers. “Tell me about the gun.”

  Gillian laughed. “Saw that, did you? I’ve taken it everywhere with me since all this mess started. I use it when I go on gator calls, and it’s not just for looks. I know how to shoot.”

  Shane’s exposure to alligators was limited to zoos. Every once in a while he’d hear about one locally, but Cedar Key was three miles out into the Gulf. “You shoot the gators?”

  “No!” Gillian looked horrified. “If they’re adults, I catch them, load them in my truck, and eventually relocate them to a gator sanctuary. If they’re small, I take them into the wild and release them.”

  Shane tried to imagine her wrestling an alligator into the back of her pickup and couldn’t quite do it. “Where does the gun come in?”

  “That’s for the humans.” Gillian smiled. “People are more dangerous than alligators. A lot more dangerous.” She pointed to the papers Shane had been flipping through. “What is all that? It’s gibberish to me.”

  “Somebody’s been busy.” Shane turned the sheets around so she’d see them right side up. “Currents and water hazards along the Atlantic coast for this month, all the way from South Florida to Newfoundland. The others show times of high and low tides. Frequencies to monitor on the radio to get the latest conditions. Stuff we’ll need to make this trip, in other words.”

  Gillian shook her head. “They want to make sure we don’t waste time. The thing that I keep asking myself is, if these guys have so much pull and so many resources, why don’t they just do some investigating themselves and hire divers in Nova Scotia to do their dive? It would be faster.”

  Shane leaned back, sliding the charts away and pulling the final stack of papers toward him. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. It’s like…” He wasn’t sure how to describe it. “It feels as if it’s almost a game for them, to see how much they can push us. To play god, and see how far their power extends. Because you’re right. If all they want is the Knights Templars’ cross, there are a lot more efficient ways to get it.”

  Which meant the person pulling the strings enjoyed the process as much
as the procurement. He not only liked winning—who didn’t?—but liked the journey.

  “We need to try and figure out who this guy is.” Shane propped his elbows on the table. “While we’re in Wilmington getting the provisions and retrofits, can you do more online research for us?”

  “I don’t have to wait; I brought my computer with me. Do you have an Internet connection?” She glanced out at the deck, but everything beyond it was black. “I guess not, out here.”

  Shane laughed. “No, only at the marina in Cedar Key. If we hang closer to shore, we can usually pick up free signals near more populated areas. Otherwise, you might have to go to a coffee shop or library in Wilmington.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be in Wilmington all that long.” Gillian tapped a finger on the third stack of papers, the ones Shane hadn’t yet examined. “Tex has been busier than you realize.”

  “What?” He picked up the papers that had been secured with a paper clip with a blank sheet on top. Beneath was a copy of a provisions order, setting up The Evangeline for the rest of the month, including prepaid fuel stops. The supplies were scheduled to be delivered to the boat in three days’ time, to a slip number in the marina nearest Charlie’s house.

  He got that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades again. “No matter what we do, Tex seems to be a step ahead. I don’t like him nosing around where Charlie lives. I don’t like him even knowing Charlie exists.”

  Gillian’s laugh was harsh. “If there’s one thing to be said for old Tex, it’s that his research into his victims is very thorough. I mean, he knew you were a tec diver. He knew about your financial situation—he told me you were on the verge of losing everything. Why wouldn’t he know about your uncle as well?”

  Embarrassment mingled with worry. “It’s one thing for him to know I’m a total fuckup. Another to track down an uncle I haven’t talked to in ten years.”

  “But you love your uncle,” Gillian said. “I can see it on your face; you’re worried. Which is just the thing Tex preys on. He knows my niece is special to me, that threatening a child was something I’d respond to, and that’s where he put the screws.”

  “Well, I want to keep Charlie out of it. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t even called him. And why would—” Shane was about to ask why threatening a child would be something Gillian might respond to more than anything else, but he’d seen the second sheet in the stack. A work order at Cape Fear Boatyard, also for three days’ time, for emergency retrofitting of The Evangeline. The name on the work order was followed by a familiar phone number—Charlie Burke’s.

  Shane had hoped to keep Charlie out of this cluster in the making, but he was too late.

  CHAPTER 15

  Shane’s face had done a full lap around the color wheel, from a deep red when he’d gotten embarrassed about his finances to now, blanched white with fear for his uncle. Gillian recognized the signs of a freak-out; the same emotions had fueled her when she’d made that call to Gretchen’s. Even though she’d had to lie to her sister, she’d felt better after hearing her voice.

  “Call your uncle.” Gillian reached out and covered one of Shane’s hands with hers and squeezed. “Chances are, Tex did all this stuff without even talking to Charlie and he’s clueless about it. As long as we do what they want, he’ll never have to get involved.”

  She had to believe that in order to keep going. She had to believe that Gretchen had bought the story about the stalker and was being watchful—never guessing the true danger.

  If there was danger. Gillian had moments when she wondered if Tex and whoever pulled his strings just enjoyed playing with people’s lives. To see how high they could make someone jump, but without the intention of ever following through with their threats. But how could one take a chance?

  Those moments of doubt had become less frequent since Harley’s bar had been destroyed. Still, there was a part of her that prayed Tex would walk away if she and Shane failed. Another part of her feared their failure would bring more ruin, if not death, to someone they loved.

  And Shane clearly loved his uncle.

  He pulled out his phone and sat looking at it.

  “It’ll make you feel better,” Gillian said.

  “We’re too far out to get a signal. I can try him when we dock in Fort Myers.” Shane not only looked worried, but the skin below his eyes had darkened with exhaustion.

  “Stewing over these papers won’t help anything. If you’re going to take watch at two, why don’t you try to get a few hours’ sleep? I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

  Gillian thought he’d argue with her, but Shane nodded and pushed back from the table. “Harley’s got his stuff in the small room off the starboard passageway—it’s noisy because it’s next to the engine room, but it’s got two bunks in it. We’ll take turns using the bed in the master suite. Since we’re working in shifts, it should even out.”

  Gillian followed him down the portside passage and cut across the width of the boat to the master bedroom. “I’ll get my stuff out of here or at least shove it in the corner out of the way. Let me take Tank out first; he’s a good boy, but every dog’s gotta pee.”

  Shane hefted her bag into the corner and gave Tank a raised eyebrow. “No problem.”

  Gillian had put Tank’s stuff in what she’d deemed the ship’s least-used corner, an empty cedar-lined room off the back of the galley whose function she couldn’t guess. She’d put his bed in one corner, stainless steel water and food bowls in another, and spread out some plastic-lined pads behind the door in case he had business to do during the night.

  Now, she slipped the dog into his full harness to increase her control over him. She’d never walked him aboard a boat in open water, much less at night. He pulled her the length of the deck a couple of times but didn’t try to get near the rail.

  Brilliant stars littered the inky black sky, and while Gillian didn’t have enough sailing experience to gauge their speed, The Evangeline seemed to be moving at a fast clip. The rocking motion of the boat was less pronounced out here than it had been in the salon, the movement more gentle. She still had to brace her legs to keep her balance but thought she’d get the hang of it and maybe even enjoy it in a day or two. She already savored the fresh cool tang of the sea air blowing on her face.

  After a few minutes of walking, she took Tank back to the cedar room. “Stay.” She pointed a finger at him, then at his bed. He slinked over, turned a few times, and flopped down, giving her an accusatory look.

  “I know you don’t like it, but get over it. Who knows—I might come back in here and sleep with you. I’m not sure how all this bed-sharing business is going to work.”

  She left the door cracked in case he got scared and needed to find her, then walked back down the passageway to get her contact lens and makeup bags and move them to Tank’s room. Then she’d know where they were, no matter where she was sleeping.

  She knocked softly and slipped into the master suite, hoping Shane had already nodded off. Somebody on this boat needed to be well rested. She sure wasn’t. Harley couldn’t possibly be, and she doubted Jagger was either. They were going to be one ragged bunch of treasure hunters by the time they reached Canada if things didn’t change.

  But Shane wasn’t asleep. He’d taken off his shirt and shoes and lay on his back, green eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. The bedside lamp was still on.

  “Can’t sleep? I just wanted to get some of my stuff and put it in that cedar room off the galley—what’s that for, anyway?”

  “Stay and talk to me a while. I’m too wired to sleep.” He slid over a little and patted the bed. “I’ve never really been sure what to do with that room. The guy I bought the boat from called it a locker room, but it’s basically a little cedar-lined box.”

  Gillian sat next to him, too aware of all that tanned skin over muscle within easy touching distance. As if to prove how easy, Shane reached out a hand and wrapped long, strong fingers around her arm and squeezed. “Stay
here with me. I promise not to turn into a horndog. I just don’t want to be inside my own head right now.”

  They were adults, after all, in control of their hormones. Gillian would be thirty next month, and she knew from Tex’s dossier that Shane was thirty-three. They weren’t horny teenagers who couldn’t be around the opposite sex without getting naked.

  She stretched out next to him and closed her eyes, breathing in the scent she now knew came from his shampoo and shower gel, absorbing the warmth radiating from his skin.

  Turning on her side to face him, she propped up on one elbow. “What happened between you and Charlie? Only if you want to talk about it. If not, we can talk about, I don’t know, alligators or life on Cedar Key.”

  He laughed and stretched out his left arm, gathering her toward him so that her head rested on his shoulder. “I don’t know about gators, but I have a feeling you could talk about them a long time. A discussion of life in Cedar Key would be a short story. It’s a simple place, which is why I like it.”

  “I understand—it’s why I like living out near the reserve, too.” It was isolated. Quiet. It carried no reminders of painful times. Had Shane’s time with Charlie been painful?

  “Did you grow up in North Carolina?”

  Shane didn’t answer for at least a minute, so Gillian let it go, enjoying the silk of his skin under her cheek, the light sprinkling of blond hair on his chest to which her fingertips had automatically gravitated.

  “I was born just outside Wilmington, but my father walked out on us when I was just a couple of years old. I don’t even remember him, except from pictures. I look a lot like him.” Shane’s voice was distant, his gaze fixed on the ceiling but was probably seeing scenes from a long time ago.

  “So your mom raised you alone?”