Force of Nature

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Ric sat down on the deck.

  Jules sat, too, holding out his hand for the phone.

  “I thought we were going to do it,” Ric said as Jules dialed. “I thought…Robin was still alive, and…I thought…” He shook his head.

  “I thought we had a chance, too,” Jules agreed. There were tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. Yeah, Yash,” he said into the phone. “It’s me. I’m here with Ric. I’m somewhere off Sarasota on…” He paused. “You what?”

  The change in his voice made Ric look up.

  “He called when?” Jules pushed himself to his feet. “Backup’s already on its way,” he told Ric, repeating information he was getting from Yashi. “There are ten helicopters—six of them military—heading in our direction, ETA twenty minutes. They were called in about four minutes ago by Robin. You were right, he didn’t drown—holy shit. Yeah, yeah, Yash…” He held out a hand to help Ric up, then led the way to the bridge, speaking again to Ric. “He wants us to try to send out a radio signal—an SOS—from the bridge, so they can get an exact…Yash, listen. Tell the pilots there’s a big column of smoke. A fishing boat just exploded and…We’re right there. They can’t miss us.”

  Ric followed him up the stairs to the yacht’s control room. There was a huge steering wheel, right in front of floor to ceiling windows. He went over to it.

  “Steer toward the wreckage,” Jules ordered him.

  It didn’t budge. “The wheel’s locked,” Ric reported.

  “Yashi,” Jules said into Junior’s phone. “I need info on how to get this thing out of autopilot and how to slow it down. ASAP.” He looked at Ric, hope back in his eyes. “They were alive four minutes ago.”

  “Four minutes ago,” Ric pointed out, “was before that blast.”

  “Shit,” Robin said. “They’re heading toward us.”

  Robin had told Annie that Junior’s yacht seemed to be on a course that would pass the wreckage. But now, apparently, they’d turned.

  The salt water had finally stopped stinging Annie’s multitude of cuts and scrapes as she and Robin clung to a floating bench cushion he’d grabbed on his way off the boat. Well, Robin clung—both to the cushion and to Annie. Her ability to cling to anything was limited by her injured wrist.

  “Leave me here,” Annie told Robin.

  “What?” he said. “No way.”

  “Please,” she said. “You’re a strong enough swimmer—you can make it to shore.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said. “You’re hurt.”

  “You have to,” she said. “If Junior finds us, Ric and Jules will die. I don’t want them to die.”

  “Help is coming,” Robin promised her. “We just have to hang on a little bit longer.”

  Yashi was the man.

  He’d helped Jules and Ric gain control of the yacht’s steering system, and shut down the engines.

  Of course a ship didn’t have brakes, so they still moved forward. But they were slowing rapidly as they circled the wreckage.

  Jules stood at the railing next to Ric. They were using binoculars to search the water for survivors. It was so damn choppy, and there were bits of things floating all over the surface of the water and…

  Wait a sec…

  “One o’clock,” Jules told Ric. “That’s definitely someone out there, isn’t it?”

  Ric shook his head. “I can’t tell.”

  Whatever it was, they were moving closer to it and…

  “I’m going in,” Jules decided. He kicked off his sneakers and went over the rail with a splash. He swam underwater as far as he could, telling himself not to hope too hard.

  But it was too late—hope had kicked in. Mere minutes ago, Robin had called for help. God couldn’t be so cruel to have let him survive these past few hellish hours only to kill him four ridiculous minutes before Jules and Ric kicked Junior’s ass.

  But then Jules got close enough to see that the thing he’d spotted was a body—but it had been torn almost in half by the blast. It was floating facedown and…

  God!

  It was Foley. And not only had someone done some serious damage to his right eye, but he also had a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Jules treaded water for a moment, trying to catch his breath and calm his pounding heart.

  Was finding Foley like this a good thing or a bad? He didn’t know. But God, he wanted Robin and Annie to be alive. Please God, please…

  Jules quickly swam back to the yacht, to the rope that Ric had tied to the railing for him.

  He’d only climbed halfway up the side, when Ric said, “Whoa. Whoa, wait. I see something.”

  “Where?” Jules asked, turning to look, sweeping his hair back from his face.

  “See that red thing?” Ric asked, pointing to a big piece of something red bobbing on the waves. “Right behind that, like they’re trying to hide.”

  Jules dove back into the water.

  “Shit,” Robin said again. Annie had been right. Junior was sending his men into the water to look for them. The sun was too bright for him to see Junior at the railing. It created a glare off the white hull of the huge ship, blinding him. Still, he’d caught a double flash that could only have come from binoculars.

  And then he saw a splash as someone went into the water.

  “Go,” Annie said. “Please, Robin, they don’t know you’re alive.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he said for, like, the four thousandth time. But he did pull Foley’s gun from where he’d tucked it in the back pocket of Annie’s jeans.

  “What are you doing?” she said just as someone surfaced about three feet away from them.

  Robin had no idea if this type of gun could fire after being immersed in water, but he held it as if it did. “Back off!” he shouted, about to pull the trigger to see what would happen when…

  “Jules?” Annie said.

  Jules.

  “Oh my God,” Jules said as he treaded water. “That would’ve really sucked.”

  Robin let his hand drop into the water with a splash. Holy, holy shit, he’d almost shot Jules.

  “I can’t believe you’re both all right. Are you all right?” Jules asked. The expression on his face as he looked into Robin’s eyes was one Robin would remember for the rest of his life. It was as if Jules had been granted a reprieve from an eternity in hell. Robin could relate, because he was feeling the exact same thing.

  He nodded. He was all right. Because Jules was alive…

  Jules took immediate charge, gently prying the gun from Robin’s fingers even as he turned, his full attention on Annie, who looked as though she’d been hit by a truck.

  “How badly are you hurt?” he asked her, holding on to their float as he stashed the weapon at the small of his back.

  “Where’s Ric?” was her urgent response.

  “Ric’s fine,” Jules told her.

  “Then where is he?” she asked.

  “Broken wrist seems to be the worst of it, although she may have some internal injuries,” Robin answered for her.

  Jules met his eyes and nodded before turning back to Annie. “Ric’s fine,” he repeated, trying to reassure her.

  “Are you…Did you…escape…?” Robin asked.

  “We have control of the yacht,” Jules told him as he moved closer to Robin now, looking at the welt he knew he had on his forehead. “Ric and me. Junior’s in custody. Are you sure you’re not hurt?” He touched Robin, just a hand on the side of his head, as if he needed solid proof that he was really there, and really in one piece.

  Robin was holding on to Annie, but if he could have, he would’ve put both arms around Jules. And never let go, ever again.

  Instead, he just grabbed Jules’s arm and squeezed. “I’m fine. Now,” he added. “Now that you’re here, I’m…” There were no words. Fine didn’t even begin to cut it.

  “Me, too.” Jules’s response was heartfelt. “When we saw the fishing boat blow…”

  “That was my fault,” Annie admitted.


  “Yeah,” Robin said. He mimicked that old TV commercial, saying in a heavy Southern accent, “But ah helped.”

  It made Jules laugh. But he was in FBI mode, so he didn’t hold Robin’s gaze for more than a few short seconds. “Help me get Annie to the yacht.”

  But Annie had another agenda. “Jules, I’m sorry to be such a pain in the ass, but will you please define fine? I mean, if Ric’s so fine, where is he?”

  Jules chose his words carefully as together he and Robin kicked to move the float—this time toward the yacht instead of away from it. “Someone had to stay with the ship, and, well…We just thought…Okay, this is going to sound bad, or at least worse than it is, but we both thought he should stay out of the water out of…well, fear that he might, um, attract…sharks?”

  Sharks. Robin hadn’t even thought about sharks. They didn’t need Ric in the water to attract them—old dead Foley could do that well enough on his own. He kicked harder, moving them faster.

  Meanwhile, Annie’s eyes had narrowed. “So he’s fine, but he’s…bleeding?”

  “Um, a little?” Jules normally wasn’t such a terrible liar, but wow, that was pathetic, and he knew it, too. “He was shot,” he finally admitted.

  “Shot,” Annie repeated.

  But Jules was saved from having to give details because they’d reached the side of the ship. Ric had dangled a number of ropes over the side, but it was still going to be tricky getting Annie all the way up there, to that deck.

  “Ric?” she shouted, looking up at the hulking side of the vessel.

  “Annie!” he shouted back.

  “Stay up there, Alvarado.” Jules joined the shouting. “We’ll bring her to you.”

  “She’s hurt worse than she’s letting on,” Robin told Jules quietly as Annie shouted, “Are you all right?” to Ric.

  “I know,” Jules said. “Junior played it over the ship’s intercom. They were trying to give us proof of life, and she wouldn’t do it. She finally screamed and…”

  “I’m fine,” Ric shouted back to Annie. “Are you all right?”

  “See?” Jules told her as they looped the rope under her arms. “Told you he’s fine.”

  “I am now,” she called to Ric, echoing Robin’s words. Just moving her arm had to hurt like a bitch on fire, but she didn’t complain. She did look at Jules, though. “I thought Robin was dead,” she said. “Did you hear me say that, too?”

  “Oh yes,” Jules said.

  Jesus. Robin looked at him. “So you thought…”

  “Yeah.” Jules touched him again, his hand warm and solid on the back of Robin’s neck. “I was having a really bad day for a while there.” He turned to Annie. “Sweetie, try to hold your wrist securely against yourself,” he told her, “to keep from jarring it as we pull you up.”

  “It’s going to hurt,” Annie said. “I know. That’s okay, let’s just do it. I’m ready.”

  She was. And Robin knew she would’ve endured anything. She would have walked through fire to get up onto that deck where Ric was waiting—Ric, who’d been shot. He could still see Annie’s worry for Ric in her eyes, despite all of Jules’s reassurances.

  Yeah, she was ready for anything.

  Jules was giving her a nod and his best you’re in good hands smile. “Okay.” He looked at Robin. “Get upon deck and help Ric with the ropes. I’ll help Annie.”

  “For the record,” Robin told him, “I’m ready, too.”

  Jules didn’t know what he was talking about. Or maybe he did, and he just didn’t believe it. “Just…go help Ric,” he said.

  So Robin climbed the rope.

  “Choppers ETA five minutes,” Ric reported as he tried to untie the rope that was beneath Annie’s arms. He had to delegate the task to Jules, because Annie was far too interested in checking out Ric’s injuries. “We’ve got paramedics coming.”

  “You said he was shot,” she accused Jules, “not that he was shot twice.”

  “Shot’s also the plural,” Jules defended himself.

  “I’m okay,” Ric tried to reassure her. She, however, was in serious pain. “Oh, Annie,” he said. She was going to have one hell of a black eye. And her lip…

  But she ignored it completely and kissed him.

  And that was it for him. Game over. Ric just sat there on the deck with Annie in his arms.

  Robin came out from the galley with some ice wrapped in a dish towel. But he put it down within Ric’s reach, and as Jules had done, he silently and quickly faded away.

  It was funny, really.

  Ric would’ve thought a couple of gay guys wouldn’t be so freaked out by the sight of a grown man crying like a baby.

  “I’m so sorry,” Annie whispered through her own tears, “that I screamed. I knew you were listening and I tried not to—”

  “I’m sorry,” Ric said, “that I couldn’t keep Foley from hurting you.”

  “It’s okay now,” she murmured. “Everything’s okay.” But then she lifted her head, misery in her eyes. “Oh, God, everything’s not okay. Ric, Martell was…They killed him.”

  “No,” Ric told her. “He’s all right.”

  She didn’t believe him.

  “He’s in the hospital,” he said, wiping his face in the crook of his arm. “He’s already out of surgery. Yashi told me. He made quite a scene in the ER, but…He’s going to be fine.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she said, relief in her eyes.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m doing a lot of that right now. Thanking God.” He touched her poor, bruised face, and yeah, there came the waterworks again.

  “Jules told me…Did you really shoot yourself?”

  Ric nodded, laughing now, too.

  She was looking at him as if he’d gone mad. “You’re always telling me that’s not funny, but that’s really not funny.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It kind of was. See, I wanted Junior to think I’d killed myself, so there had to be blood. But I didn’t want to hit anything vital and…I also had to fall back and not move and…dead people generally don’t scream shit, shit, shit, because it hurts, you know? But, Christ, it really hurt.”

  Now she was laughing, too, but more with horror than with humor. “God, Ric…”

  He kissed her again. Gently. Careful of her battered mouth. “I wanted to live,” he told her. “It was an imperative.”

  And that got her tears going again. Between the pair of them, they were just never going to stop. “God, I love you,” she told him. “I should have told you—”

  “It’s okay.” He cut her off. “I know. I knew. I love hearing you say it, but…Annie, I knew.”

  She kissed him.

  And he knew that she knew that he loved her, too.

  “That’s when Annie lit the fuse,” Robin told Jules as they stood on the deck of Junior’s yacht, waiting for the fleet of helicopters to arrive. “She was ready to die to save Ric. You, too, but really…Ric.”

  Robin was leaning both elbows on the railing. Dressed only in his boxers, he was quite the sight, with all that smooth, tan skin and his tousled blond hair. Jules just stood there, next to him, drinking him in.

  Jules still couldn’t believe that his cover had been blown thanks to cell phone video footage taken of him both in Robin’s room and last year, during that hostage goatfuck. Next time he went undercover, he’d have to change his hair and eye color—maybe even grow a beard.

  “She loves him,” Robin continued. “And she’s lucky, because he loves her, too. Most people don’t find that. You know. That kind of…equal adoration.”

  No kidding. Jules stood there, lost for a moment in Robin’s eyes. But then Robin looked away.

  Something was definitely up. Robin was acting oddly. “I, um, saw Foley’s body,” Jules said. “Are you…okay?”

  Robin nodded vigorously. “Yes, I am. My big regret is that I can’t kill him again and make it hurt even more this time.” He turned to look at Jules. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Jule
s said, even though he couldn’t keep himself from shaking his head no. He was both the most okay and the furthest from okay that he’d ever been in his life. “I’m just…still really…” God help him, he needed…Robin. He needed to hold on to him for about a week, just to convince himself that this wasn’t some dream that he would wake up from, to find he really was dead and forever gone.

  But Robin had turned away again, staring down into the water.

  Enough was enough. “What aren’t you telling me?” Jules asked. “Did Foley…hurt you, or—”

  “No,” Robin said. “Jesus, no.”

  “Then, are you, like, breaking up with me?” Jules asked.

  That got him eye contact, at least. And some of the despair was displaced by a glimmer of hope. “Are we together?”

  “Damn straight,” Jules said. “Well, you know what I mean.”

  And that got him a smile, although it faded much too fast.

  Jules touched him, his shoulder, his arm. “Talk to me.”

  Robin closed his eyes. “God, I want to kiss you.”

  Jules looked at his watch. “In about three minutes, we’re going to be surrounded by helicopters, so, since I really want to kiss you, too—”

  “See, here’s the thing,” Robin said. “If I kiss you, you’ll know that I had a drink—” He stopped himself. “Yeah, right. A drink? Try a bottle. I was starting to detox, Jules, and God, I was sick.” He was so upset, he was on the verge of tears. “I was pretending it was the flu, but Annie…She, like, wiped my face in the truth. She told me I was going through withdrawal. She said I need to detox in the hospital or I could die—because I’m…” He choked the words out. “…an alcoholic.”

  Robin looked so miserable. He was so distressed, so ashamed.

  Yet all Jules could think was…Alleluia.

  “I’m so sorry,” Robin said. “I broke my promise to you.”

  “Sweetie, God, come here.” Jules reached for him, and this time, instead of turning away, Robin grabbed hold of Jules so tightly, it took his breath away.

  Dear Lord, what Robin and Annie must’ve gone through. Jules suspected the story that Robin had told him was the Cliff’s Notes version.