The Daredevils' Club ARTIFACT

by Kevin J. Anderson

  If he came to see him.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Thus far, Frik had called several times, but he had not yet made an appearance. Peta was hardly impressed by his lack of compassion and admitted to herself yet one more time that the Oilstar chief was not among her favorite people.

  Two days later, by which time McKendry’s condition had been stabilized, Frikkie showed up at the hospital. He was not a pretty sight. His one eye hadn’t yet fully healed from the explosion that had killed Paul Trujold, and his hand looked as if it had a long way to go before it was good for more than gross manipulation. His visit was short, their conversation brief and more about Simon than Terris; in neither case were his emotions involved.

  “Simon’s in San Gabriel. He hasn’t gone down—in the water—again yet. The weather’s not been conducive. Too much rain, too many currents stirring things around.”

  “You shouldn’t let him—”

  “Let him? May I remind you again that he’s an adult. What he chooses to do is own business.”

  There was obviously no point in arguing with the man. None at all. “I’d like to see him,” Peta said. “I think I’ll head out to San Gabriel for a day or two. I could use the rest.”

  “What about McKendry?”

  “Terris is a long way from full recovery, but he’s doing well. Barring unforeseen complications, the hospital can manage fine without me. When they think he’s ready, they’ll send him on to rehab. He won’t need me for that, either. If they have to reach me, they can call me in San Gabriel.”

  Something in Frik’s expression told her this was the last thing he wanted her to do. For whatever reason, Simon’s dive was of enormous importance to him. Well, that was just too bad, she thought. It was not only a man who had to do what a man had to do.

  Leaving Frik at McKendry’s bedside, she went outside for a smoke. It was the last American cigarette she had brought from New York. From now on, it was back to the local 555s, which were milder and cheaper anyway. I’ll give up again soon, she told herself, lighting up. After having given them up for three years, she had fallen into old habit the night Arthur was killed.

  “Got another one?” Saaliim asked.

  Peta jumped. “Didn’t know you were here, and no, this is my last one.”

  She handed it to him and they shared it the way they would have shared a joint.

  “I’d like to go to San Gabriel this afternoon.” She waved away the end of the smoke. “Think you can take me there?”

  He drew on the butt, then crunched it underfoot. “I have to take Mr. Frik to the Assegai,” he said. “After that we maybe go to the site. Mr. Frik say maybe Mr. Brousseau come dive today. Maybe not.” He looked up at the sky. “Maybe later it storm.”

  “Could be.” Eighty-four degrees. Humid. Sultry. Not a cloud to be seen. A tourist would have laughed, she thought. “Is Manny on island?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good.” Peta glanced at the Hummer beyond them in the physician’s parking lot, unsurprised that Frik would feel it his right to park there. “I’ll get my things and make arrangements with the charge nurse. Don’t leave without me.”

  When she was ready to leave the hospital, Saaliim was half asleep behind the wheel of the car. Frik paced impatiently back and forth next to it.

  “One more minute and we’d have been out of here,” he said.

  Peta didn’t answer; in fact she said little en route to Frikkie’s dock, and only waved a passing good-bye as Saaliim turned the Hummer around.

  To her delight, the first person Peta saw at the dock was Manny Sheppard, inevitable Carib in hand. He was clearly happy to see her.

  “Hey, beautiful. What’s up?”

  She hugged him. “You first, Manny. What’s up with you? Which way you headed?”

  “Which way you want me to head?”

  “I need to get to San Gabriel.”

  He motioned toward his small steel-hulled freighter. “Come. I’ll take you there. I got a load of supplies headed for Grenada. San Gabby’s a quick stop on the way.”

  She had known Manny since childhood, as well as anyone could ever know him. He was the sort of person with whom you could never quite tell what was real and what he was making up on the spot. He’d been running boats up and down the Caribbean since he left the OECS Security Forces. What was in the boats he sailed around was always an open question, though no customs officials had ever found any evidence to back up their suspicions.

  “So what you want in San Gabby?”

  “I’m looking for Simon Brousseau.” She felt a sudden stab of anxiety. “He hasn’t gone diving today, has he?”

  “Not so far as I know. Simon be probably resting up in San Gabriel, making the lovely ladies happy,” he said.

  Peta had no idea how many lovely ladies might be hiding in the small fishing village close to the drill site, nor did she care. If the choice was diving or diddling, sex was certainly the less life-threatening option for Simon.

  They sailed through a seascape dotted with rock outcroppings and headed toward the Dragon’s Mouth—the narrow channel separating Trinidad from the Venezuelan mainland. San Gabriel was actually a small island off the coast of the Chaguara Peninsula, the northern spit of land pointing from Trinidad toward the body of South America. It was one of a half dozen towns that made most of their living from not-so-rich Americans and Europeans who wanted to experience diving and sport fishing, but couldn’t afford the big resorts and charters.

  As many times as Peta had made the journey through the Dragon’s Mouth by sea before, she was still taken by its jagged beauty. Distracted, wanting some escape from the endless worries about Simon and Terris that ran through her mind, at first she only half-listened to what Manny was saying.

  “… So Paul Trujold, he … You listening to me, Peta?”

  “I’m sorry, Manny. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “But you need to hear this.”

  Manny repeated what he had been saying. When he had finished telling her about Paul Trujold, about the real purpose for Simon’s dive—to retrieve a piece of the artifact that was wedged in an underwater cave—she thought of the pendant that Arthur had given her and started to put the facts together. If there was any real basis for what Manny had told her, she could come to only one possible conclusion.

  “My God, Manny. Are you sure? Because if you are, chances are Frik is responsible for Arthur’s death.”

  “How so?”

  “Arthur had a piece of the artifact. He always kept it on him. Frik could have seen it and put out a contract—”

  “Yes, but you told me you saw the piece with Arthur’s body.”

  “I did. It was covered with blood and—”

  “So you say maybe the killer—”

  “Missed it. Yes. It’s possible, what with the police and so many people.” She stopped. “God Manny. If it’s true and I don’t get to Simon—”

  Manny pointed at a speedboat. “That’s one of Frik’s boats, the one Simon’s been using.” He maneuvered between a small fishing boat and the power boat tied up to the village’s makeshift pier. When he was up against the dock, he asked, “Want me to stay here with you?”

  “I can handle things.”

  Without arguing, Manny tossed her duffel and medical bag onto the wooden dock, helped her out of the boat, and blew her a kiss. She watched him reverse into the channel, and waved him onward. Turning to face whatever awaited her in the village of San Gabriel, she trekked to the top of a minor incline.

  In the only bar in town, which was also its only hotel of sorts, Peta met the owner—a handsome, charming Venezuelan who introduced himself as Eduardo Blaine and kissed her hand with far too much enthusiasm and spittle for a rank stranger.

  “I am a friend of your Mr. Van Alman. He called to tell me you were on your way and told me to take care of you.” He held onto her hand for more than a moment too long. “I am proud to welcome you to my establis
hment. Your room is ready for you. It has a spectacular view.”

  “If I could have that back.” Peta withdrew her hand. She would like to have said that Frik was far from being her friend, but instead she asked after Simon.

  “He is in his room,” Blaine said.

  “Please tell him I wish to see him. I’ll wait at the bar.”

  “He, um, he is—how shall I say it—not quite alone.” Blaine winked blatantly, as if at a co-conspirator. “He did not wish to be disturbed.”

  Peta chose not to argue. “I’m told he will be going out early tomorrow morning. I must see him before then.”

  “If you will do me the honor of dining with me, I will promise to wake you before he leaves.”

  And then we arm wrestle, Peta thought wryly. “Dinner sounds fine,” she said. “But first I’d like to take a shower.”

  “Allow me to show you to your room.” Blaine picked up her duffel.

  “How many rooms do you have?”

  “Four.”

  “In that case”—she took her duffel from him—“the key will do.”

  “I will bring the key to you in the bar,” he said. “It is in the office. Please order what you wish, compliments of Eduardo Blaine.”

  Peta barely kept herself from laughing out loud. She went over to the bar, which proved not to be in Blaine’s office, seated herself on a stool and ordered and received a Carib and a pack of 555s. The pretty young barmaid in a floral dress and bare feet looked as if she was Blaine’s daughter.

  For some reason, the thought of the Venezuelan having a daughter intrigued her. With a mixture of amusement and guilt, she realized that she was feeling horny about the man. His Antonio Banderas looks and overly florid South American manners were not usually the sorts of things that attracted her. She remembered the sight of Arthur splattered across the bathroom at Danny’s and her guilt won out.

  Deciding that this would be a good time to check on McKendry, Peta retrieved her cell phone from her handbag and dialed the hospital. She could hear a faint voice at the other end, but static on the line made it impossible to converse.

  “Is there a telephone around here? I’ll use a credit card.” Peta lit her first 555 in three years, savored the familiar flavor, made herself the same old promise.

  The girl took an old-fashioned rotary dial phone from under the counter and pushed it shyly toward Peta who lifted the receiver.

  “… care of her.” Frik’s voice.

  “That won’t be a chore.” Blaine. “She is most beautiful.”

  Peta covered the mouthpiece with her hand and blessed the inefficiencies of a telephone system which so consistently crossed wires that the idea of privacy was a joke. Even if the two men had heard background noises, they would take no notice of them.

  “I have given you my word that I will take care of her,” the Venezuelan continued.

  “You do that, Mr. Blaine,” Frik said. “Or I will be forced to take care of you.”

  As the line went dead, Peta softly replaced the receiver in its cradle.

  Two possibilities raced through her mind: either Frik wanted her protected, or Frik wanted her eliminated. All she had to do was make sure that she stayed alive until she could figure out which one it was.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The night air was humid and still. The only thing moving in the room was Peta. She stirred, vaguely awake. From somewhere she heard voices.

  She turned over, kicking off the clinging sheet. The voices kept up a steady racket and she realized they must be coming up from the street below her window. She wished she had earplugs. Somehow she needed to get back to sleep; get some rest. God only knew what tomorrow would bring.

  The voices outside weren’t all that was keeping her awake, though. Since Arthur’s death, Peta had sublimated any thoughts of men; none could ever take his place. When her mentor and lover had been alive, she’d had a healthy libido and often found herself aroused by some passing man’s firm ass, or long fingers, or broad shoulders. Now those feelings brought only guilt.

  She also considered herself pretty immune to charm, especially when she knew intellectually that it was a con. But Blaine’s eyes, his ready smile, his—for lack of a better word—charisma, had burned a neat little picture in her mind. It made her squirm with competing emotions of desire and embarrassment.

  She turned onto the other side.

  Sleep, dammit, she thought. Stop thinking.

  The unseen strangers below her window laughed as a bottle shattered.

  She flipped onto her stomach, tucked her head more firmly into the pillow, and stretched out on the sagging mattress. The air was close, the voices echoing eerily. Not very patiently she waited for sleep to return …

  A grinding noise broke through the fog in her brain. A buzzing. Can’t they stop with that racket? she thought sleepily.

  She rolled over and opened her eyes. It was morning, bright morning; the type of brilliant sunlight that said dawn had passed hours ago. While her eyes adjusted, her mind identified the sound she’d been hearing: an inboard motor.

  She swung her legs off the bed and rushed to the window, trying her best to ignore the rough, splintery feel of the wood floor. Pushing aside the sheer curtain, she looked out to see a boat emblazoned with the Oilstar logo moving at top speed toward the mouth of the harbor, out to the open sea. Simon’s boat.

  “Shit.” As Peta stepped away from the window, a splinter penetrated the soft skin of her arch. On her other foot, she hopped to one of the chairs and yanked out the splinter. She grabbed her jeans from the other chair and pulled them on. The fading watery growl of the engine reminded her that with every passing second Simon moved further out to sea and, she thought, to a dive that was likely to kill him.

  Hurrying, she picked up her T-shirt from the floor. An inch-long roach tumbled out of it; another resident of this fleabag hotel having his early-morning sleep disturbed.

  She was tempted to step on it, bare feet or no. After all, she thought wryly, she was paying to have the room to herself. Instead she pulled on the T-shirt without checking for any more residents, and looked around the floor for her sandals.

  As she put them on she wondered why Blaine hadn’t kept his promise to awaken her.

  She remembered her thoughts during the evening. What the hell was wrong with her? Trust wasn’t something she gave out that often—now the right pairing of eyes and smile and she acted like a lovesick lamb.

  She opened her door and almost tripped over someone who lay snoring, slumped over only a few feet from her room. It was as if he had fallen asleep on guard duty, she thought. Frikkie’s words echoed in her head: Take care of her, or—

  Another roach to squash, she thought. When she had time. Right now what she had to do was catch up with Simon. For that, she’d need a boat. Diving gear.

  She charged downstairs to the front desk where a sleepy-eyed Trini woman in a simple dress stretched to its size limits looked at her as though she was crazy.

  “Eduardo Blaine. Which is his room?”

  The woman looked confused.

  “Señor Blaine?” Peta repeated.

  “Ah, sí.” The woman nodded and pointed with her thumb along the hallway beside the stairs. “Room two. End of the hall on the left.” She smiled conspiratorially, as if she thought Peta was going to sneak into Blaine’s room and give him an early-morning quickie.

  “Gracias,” Peta called out as she ran down the hallway to the door marked with a gold-plated number 2 hung at a drunken angle. Banging loudly, she yelled, “Blaine? You there? Blaine, wake up!”

  She stood there, waiting, the time slipping away. Simon’s boat was now well out of the bay for sure, bouncing over the water.

  The bolt clicked open.

  “You said you’d wake me. You said that you’d be up, and wake me before Simon could leave.”

  Blaine—in white jockeys, no shirt, and looking more asleep than awake—held the door open wide and backed up to let her in. He raised
his left arm as if to check a watch that wasn’t there.

  “What time is—God, my alarm. I must have … Maybe Simon hasn’t left—”

  “I just saw his boat heading out of the harbor. Thanks for the help.”

  “Okay, okay! Relax. Let me get dressed. I got a boat. We’ll catch him.”

  “He’s already got close to ten minutes on us.”

  Blaine smiled, but the charm that had worked so well the night before had lost its appeal. “No problem, I have a very fast boat.”

  “Hope it works better than your alarm clock.”

  He grinned boyishly. Peta guarded herself against any impulse to forgive him.

  “Okay, wait in the lobby. I’ll get dressed and be out in a minute.”

  “Please hurry.”

  As she waited, feeling each second tick by, she thought through the possibilities. Could Blaine’s boat beat Simon’s? If not, what would happen if she had to dive after him? It had been a while since she had done a tech dive. Mixed gases—nitrogen, oxygen, helium. She knew it was not something to rush into. Rushing could get you killed.

  “Let’s go,” Blaine said, running out of the hotel. She followed him to the town’s small wooden dock. At the last boat in the line, he stopped. “Jump in.”

  Peta stared. “This is fast?”

  The boat looked like a fisherman’s trawler, built for steadiness, perhaps, but surely not for speed. It did, however, have everything in it she would need for the dive, like the several pairs of tri-mix tanks which lay amid the more usual tourist dive gear.

  “Don’t knock my boat.” Blaine untied the stern line. “Unless you want to swim after Simon.”

  “That might be faster.”

  “Just start her up,” he said, running to untie the bow line. “Hit the silver button.”

  Peta pushed the button and the inboard started with a substantial roar that immediately garnered her respect.

  Blaine finished untying the lines and, jumping onto the deck, clambered back to the wheel. “Okay,” he said. “Now hold on.”

  He opened the throttle and the squat boat reared up like Trigger at the end of a Lone Ranger movie. Peta flew back into her seat and tasted salty spray on her face.