Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

by Unknown

  “Here they come.”

  Phoebe looked up from where she was sitting on the carpeted floor of the largest bedroom cabin, fanning the plastic cover of an uninspired-looking DVD movie called Jerri on Top in an attempt to dry off the cell phone thoroughly enough so that it would work when the battery went back in.

  In her search for a handheld battery-powered fan, she’d gone through the living room cabinets and had come up with a full collection of DVD porn, two decks of cards, a pack of unused crayons, a well-stocked but unplugged wine fridge filled with a variety of high-priced reds, a bottle of Windex, some Christmas-tree scented candles, a battery-powered lantern that actually worked, a pair of scissors, and—alleluia—an unopened box of Goldfish crackers.

  But there was no drinking water on board, and it was only recently that Phoebe had reluctantly opened a rather lovely pinot noir to accompany the crackers and offset the Sahara-desert-mouth she’d acquired during their extensive saltwater swim. There were no glasses, so she was drinking directly from the bottle, but taking tiny little sips.

  Trapped, alone, on a luxurious yacht with a nearly naked former Navy SEAL that she’d recently kissed, and a dozen bottles of wine. What could possibly go wrong?

  Ian, of course, refrained when she offered him some. He’d stayed up in the main cabin, keeping watch. But now he’d come below with this warning.

  “It’s a relatively small skiff. Three men aboard. We can assume they’re all armed. They’ve been out there for a while, but now they’re heading to our part of the harbor.”

  She scrambled to her feet. “What do we do?”

  “Shhh.” He held out both hands, but he had her Glock in one of them, so it really wasn’t all that comforting a gesture. “We need to stay quiet and be still. Don’t rock the boat—literally. I don’t know if anyone on Davio’s crew is nautically inclined, but if they are, that’s what they’ll be looking for. Unusual movement coming from a boat that should be empty. Along with water on the deck. Which I’ve taken care of, so we’re good there.” He looked up at one of the window covers she’d opened so that the wan moonlight could come in. “It’s too late to close the blinds. We’ll need to stay down, out of sight of the portholes, in case they board.”

  “Do you really think they’ll board?” she asked, trying to keep her voice low even as she pointed toward the bathroom—the head. There were no portholes in there. It had a pocket door that they could close most of the way, too. She picked up the wine, the crackers, and the cell phone and led the way inside.

  “Murphy’s Law says they will,” Ian told her as he quietly slid the door halfway closed, making it even darker in there. “So that’s what I’m preparing for. With a little luck, though, they’ll just cruise on by. We should sit—stay low to the deck—because their wake will toss us a bit. I don’t want any thumps or bumps. You want?” He held out her Glock, grip first.

  Phoebe was familiar with Murphy’s Law. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. It applied in the courtroom, too. What she wasn’t familiar with was a person with a Y chromosome voluntarily giving her back her weapon during a time of crisis. Oddly enough, it made her feel okay about him holding on to it. She was a good shot, but she wasn’t a former SEAL. Plus, she’d never actually fired it at anything other than a paper target.

  “You keep it,” she said as she sat down on the floor, but then narrowed her eyes at his shadowy form. “You knew I’d say that, didn’t you? If you offered to give it back?”

  “You want it, just say the word,” he countered as he sat, too—and arranged his makeshift loincloth. “It’s yours.” He set the handgun down on the floor between them.

  She didn’t pick it up. “So what’s our plan, if they do board?”

  “Stay quiet,” he said. “Hope they don’t have the ability to pick the lock into the cabin.”

  Out in the bay, the Dellarosa search party had moved close enough for Phoebe to hear the buzz of what had to be a skiff with a small outboard motor. That was a good thing, because it meant they were looking, not listening.

  Still, she had to ask, “And if they do? Pick the lock and come into the cabin?”

  “How’s that phone coming?” Ian answered her question with a question. “Almost dry?”

  Oooh-kay. So he didn’t have a plan, other than to pray the phone was dry enough to work so that they could call for help. Which brought them right back to where they’d been before they’d jumped off the balcony of her condo.

  “Do you think they know what I look like?” Phoebe asked as she held out the two pieces of cell phone.

  He took them from her as that buzz from the skiff got louder. And louder. “They’ve probably seen a picture of you, yeah. Probably whatever was on the law firm’s website.”

  Phoebe nodded. Then they had no real idea of what she looked like. “That picture’s awful.” She’d sat for that photo in her most expensive power suit, blouse buttoned to her neck, glasses on her face, and it had come out horrifically, like a school portrait gone comically bad. Her hair had been up, and in the photo it had looked flat and odd—the perspective making it look as if she wore it short. And the boxy cut of the jacket had instantly added twenty pounds. “It makes me look prim and earnest and weirdly frumpy.” It didn’t look anything like her. God, at least she hoped not.

  Meanwhile, Ian was hefting the heavy cell phone battery in his hand as if considering the option of using it to hurl at the thugs, but now he looked up at her, his eyes gleaming a little in the dimness. “So what are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking this means that maybe they won’t recognize me. So now we have a plan if they board. I’ll pretend they’ve woken me up, that I was sleeping on the boat because … I don’t know, something classic and pathetic, like—”

  He interrupted. “Yeah, no, I don’t like that. Maybe? Plus, you face-to-face, talking to them? Nuh-uh.”

  She kept going anyway. “Like, I just found out my husband was cheating. I’m mad and I’m drunk”—she gestured toward the wine bottle—“and now I think the son of a bitch has sent thugs out to try to contain or handle me.”

  “As soon you interact with them, they’ll use the opportunity to come on board and search the boat. At which point they’ll find me. Unless …” He paused for a moment, peering out of the bathroom at the ceiling of the cabin, where a small square hatch led up to the foredeck.

  Phoebe pressed on. “I’ll scream and make like I’m calling nine-one-one. They won’t know that the phone doesn’t work. Strangers on my yacht, yada yada. Eek, eek, help help, noise, noise, noise—they run away.”

  Ian shook his head. “Yeah, no. I still don’t like it.” He examined the two parts of the cell phone in the thin stream of moonlight coming in through the cracked open door. “While I appreciate your creativity, and while I’m also sure you have top-notch acting skills—”

  Phoebe laughed at the condescending disingenuousness of his tone. She raised her voice a little to be heard over the skiff’s motor. “I’m a criminal lawyer. Believe me, I can act. Besides, what’s your plan? Activate the magic and all-powerful cell phone and … what? Call for help? Remind me again why we didn’t do that before we jumped into the canal.”

  “The cell phone’s to call for medical assistance,” he said as he snapped the battery into place. “After I overpower whoever’s on that boat, while you stay safely hidden.” He glanced up at her. “I’m still working out the details of how I get that done, but the ending’s a given.”

  His self-confidence crossed the line into authoritative. In fact, he oozed such command and certainty it teetered on arrogance, which was something that Phoebe usually didn’t find very appealing. But combined with those eyes and that physique—and okay, face it, the whole loincloth look helped enormously—he was outstandingly attractive.

  But wishing something would happen wouldn’t make it so. Even if you were a former Navy SEAL badass.

  Three against two were not good odds for anyone, forget about the fact that th
e pair of them had a single weapon to share. With a limited amount of ammunition.

  The outboard motor came closer and closer. Louder and louder. In just a few seconds, whoever was on that skiff would go past. And the sound would fade, and the danger would be over, and she and Ian would both smile and even laugh, and she’d take a larger-than-normal sip from that bottle of wine with a hand that she’d pretend wasn’t shaking.…

  As the buzz became a roar, Ian broke their eye contact, looked down at the phone, pushed the power button and …

  Nothing happened.

  Nothing with the phone, that is.

  Outside the yacht, the roar of that motor suddenly sputtered and went out.

  Ian carefully put the phone down and reached for the Glock as from out on the water, a voice carried: “Just let it drift for a minute, so we can listen.”

  Phoebe met Ian’s gaze, nodding slightly at his unspoken message. Be silent.

  Another voice from outside: “This is a waste of time. They’re long gone.”

  “Mr. D said the guy’s been in Northport for almost a year. You really think he can swim miles, weighed down by some super-sized bitch?”

  She widened her eyes at Ian, hoping he’d read the look as a See? They don’t know what I look like, rather than a less meaningful and more egotistical Hey, those mofos just called me fat!

  His response was to again offer her the grip of the Glock, and it was hard to tell if he’d misunderstood her facial expression, or if he was merely making some kind of twisted Navy-SEAL-gone-bad version of a joke. Like, Yes, you now have my permission to kill them.

  It was then the first voice said, “Okay, let’s go. There’s no one out here.”

  Whereupon two things happened near-simultaneously. The cell phone—the miraculous, powerful back-from-the-dead cell phone—started to ring. Shrilly. Loudly.

  And the outboard motor started with a sputtering cough.

  Phoebe reacted instinctively, slapping her hand down over the phone, and feeling—and finding—the button along the side that would silence it.

  Only then did she look up to find Ian vigorously shaking his head. No!

  She realized why he was sending her that vehement message almost immediately. Because an unanswered phone ringing aboard an anchored yacht was just that—an unanswered phone that someone had left behind on an otherwise empty boat. But a phone whose ring was interrupted meant that the boat was not uninhabited after all.

  She had blown it.

  The men on the skiff were about to leave, and she’d gone and blown it.

  “Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Time slowed way down, and fractions of seconds clicked by as Phoebe crouched there in the darkness next to Ian, waiting to see if that snippet of ringtone had been drowned out by the outboard motor that was now at full roar.

  Please motor away. Please motor away. Please …

  The motor coughed, then sputtered, then fizzled out.

  “It came from this one,” one of those voices said, much closer now.

  And Phoebe felt something solid—the skiff—bump the side of their hiding place.

  “Looks like we have to use your Plan B,” Ian asked, thrusting the Glock into her hands. “Do it, but don’t get shot, and for the love of God, don’t shoot me. I’ll be coming out of the water. And don’t call nine-one-one unless you have to. Got it? Good.”

  He kissed her. It was just a slap of his lips against hers, so quick that it barely counted as a real kiss.

  With that, he vanished out into the cabin and up, yes, through that almost impossibly small hatch.

  Phoebe set down the handgun, tore off her trash bag shirt-slash-dress, and grabbed Ian’s T-shirt from where she’d hung it over the towel rack on the wall. She pulled it over her head—it was cold and still wet, and it clung to her skin, but she forced it down to the tops of her thighs. She stuck the cell phone between her shoulder and ear, and grabbed the Glock with her right hand and the nearly full bottle of wine with her left. She dumped most of it out in the sink, as she said, loudly enough to be heard by the men in the skiff, “I’m being unreasonable? I am? You were fucking my best friend, you arrogant prick—excuse me, no, wait, my former best friend! So, no, I’m not telling you where I am!”

  She took one last fortifying slug from the now nearly empty bottle before she went out of the bathroom, out of the cabin, and up the stairs to the galley, shouting, “Yeah, well, I’m setting my phone on silent, bastard! You’ll hear from my lawyer in the morning, and we are going to bleed you dry. Just go to hell—and take that lying bitch Tiffany with you!”

  * * *

  The so-called safe house where the email from Francine had directed them to go was a large step up from the lowlife pay-per-hour motel that Sheldon had been expecting.

  Berto had been able to pull his car back beyond the house, out of view of the street, which was useful.

  The back door had been locked, but that hadn’t slowed them down.

  “Have you been here before?” Berto asked as they went through a kitchen and into a living room that was jammed full of slightly musty-smelling furniture.

  This house was a vacation rental—had to be. Still, it was nicer than some of Shelly and Aaron’s rendezvous locations, back when they were both still in the military.

  “No,” Shel answered his half brother honestly. “But this is where Francine said to wait for further contact.”

  That seemed to satisfy Berto—who didn’t spot the carefully, professionally hidden ultra-high-tech surveillance cameras and mics that were strategically positioned around the place. There was even a camera in the bathroom where Sheldon took a leak and gingerly washed his grime-streaked face.

  He had a lump on his head from the blow Berto had delivered out in the street—the pain from that was down to a dull ache. He also must’ve landed on his face when he was tossed into the trunk. He had a scrape on his cheek, and his lip was swollen. He’d cut the inside of his mouth with his own teeth—that was going to make eating a bitch for the next week or so.

  It could have been far worse.

  And it could still get worse. He was well aware of that.

  It was highly likely that Berto was only playing the part of the hero, only pretending he wasn’t a threat.

  But Shel knew better. He certainly knew that his half brother was carrying concealed. He could see the bump of a shoulder holster beneath the older man’s left arm.

  And although it seemed jarringly incongruous with the quiet, seemingly sensitive boy who’d been his and Francie’s protector when they were kids, he knew that Berto had—at least once, and probably far more often in the many years since then—killed a man.

  It had happened as a result of the sex tape—for a long time, everything messed up in Shel’s life could be traced back to that stupid prank or outing attempt or whatever it had been, perpetrated by some of his fellow students at Brentwood Academy.

  When the video was sent to Davio, he had a major meltdown.

  Which Francine overrode by cutting her hair, by sending incriminating X-rated selfies to Aaron, and by flat-out admitting the “truth” to her wicked stepfather. That it wasn’t Sheldon in that video—don’t be ridiculous. It was Francie. She’d been seeing hunky Aaron Dunn on the down-low for weeks.…

  Unfortunately, while her “confession” took the heat off Shelly, it submerged Francine in hot water. Because not only did Davio believe her—and beat the crap out of her for bringing such public shame to their family—but Berto did, too.

  Berto—with whom Francie had fallen in love. Berto—who had been planning to run away with her to Europe, as soon as Sheldon graduated from Brentwood. Berto—who loved Francie back, with all his heart and soul …

  But Berto had believed Francine, and had gotten his gun and gone hunting for Aaron.

  He hadn’t killed him, but he’d come close. And in the chaos of the anger and the gun-waving, an innocent bystander—a homeless man—had been killed.

  It
was only after that awful, unfixable mistake that Berto had realized the truth—that it was Shelly with Aaron in that video.

  And Berto—instead of doing the right thing and turning himself in to the police—went to his father for help in covering up his crime. He’d sold his soul to the devil on that night, and had been paying for it ever since.

  Shel dried his face on one of the towels hanging there in the bathroom, then combed his fingers through his disheveled hair. He tried to brush the worst of the dust from his clothes. His shirt and pants were soaked with sweat and dirt from the trunk, and he didn’t want to ruin the furniture. He was also stalling, since sitting around, shooting the shit, and catching up with Berto was around number fifty-seven billion on his want-to-do list.

  He took a deep breath as he looked at himself in the mirror. He may have been battered and sore, but he was still standing.

  And Aaron was out there, somewhere, maybe even watching him right now. Certainly waiting for the right moment to come to his rescue.

  Shelly looked up, directly into the camera that was hidden in a deceptively dusty silk fern on an overly decorated bamboo shelf. “Berto picked up some beer and whiskey on the way over here—he still probably drinks too much. So, I’m gonna try to get him drunk and sneak away,” he whispered. “I know I look like crap, but I promise, I’m okay. Don’t do anything rash. Berto’s armed.”

  He left the bathroom light on as he went back into the living room of this safe house that was, without a doubt, one of the most dangerous places he’d been since his last tour in Afghanistan.

  Ian went over the side and into the water without any of Dellarosa’s men spotting him.

  They were all distracted by Phoebe doing her woman-scorned act at high volume, as she pretended to talk on the phone to her philandering fictional husband. Her hope was that she’d scare the men away, but Ian knew better.

  He silently swam toward the stern of the yacht, where one of the three occupants of the skiff was attempting to board the larger vessel.

  Judging from their uncertainty and low skill level at what should have been a fairly easy nautical act, Ian was pretty sure at least two of the men—a hulking giant, and a more normal-sized man wearing a backward baseball cap—were landlubbers. The third, the yacht boarder—wiry, slight of build, and clearly in charge—was an amateur sailor at best.