Devil Dead

by Linda Ladd

  “Who the hell do you work for?” Black said, beginning to sound a tad impatient himself. “What do you want with us?”

  “Jonas Quinn sent us here. He wants to talk to you.”

  Claire shifted her eyes just slightly and gauged Black’s reaction. At the name, he appeared to relax, and visibly, too. She did not.

  Black said, “Jonas is here in Tahiti?”

  They both pronounced the man’s name as Yonas, with a Y. Who did that? Eastern Europeans, maybe? But apparently, and most likely, this Jonas was one of Black’s secret pals/ex-military buddies. Well, good deal, Black knows the bad guys. Couldn’t hurt in an armed standoff. Maybe they wouldn’t be getting blood all over the pier after all. That kind of cleanup would probably blow to hell Black’s super big security deposit, Claire thought. “Who the hell is Jonas Quinn?” she said, not particularly patient, either, especially when three guns were still ratcheted and deeply involved in the discussion.

  “He’s an old friend of Jacques’s,” Black told her, not taking his eyes off the men.

  Oh, God, so this had something to do with Jacques? But of course, it did. Jacques Montenegro was Black’s older brother, a brother who just happened to be a Mafioso way down yonder in New Orleans. Nobody but Claire and a select few knew about their kinship. That’s the way Black wanted it, of course, because he wasn’t involved with the underworld and never had been. Any inkling of such involvement would ruin his life and thriving career. So mum it was. Nevertheless, Jacques was still a criminal of sorts, and Claire did not like Black’s close association with him, but maybe it wasn’t so bad at the moment, with two of his thug friends holding them at gunpoint.

  “Put the gun down, Claire. I know Jonas. He’s okay. He’s not going to hurt us.”

  “Sorry, but those two guns pointed at us make me think maybe you might be mistaken about that.”

  “We’ll go with you,” Black told their ersatz and rather rude guests. “Put down the guns, or Jonas won’t be happy.”

  Claire frowned. Au contraire, Black. She wasn’t gonna be happy, either. “Sorry, but I’m not going anywhere with these guys. Guess it’s their big loaded weapons that give me pause.”

  The two Mr. Clean impersonators considered Black some more, and then looked at her weapon, then at each other, and then finally they lowered and sheathed their guns.

  Claire let out a relieved breath. “Okay, that’s better. But don’t think I’m lowering my weapon until you leave this pier with both of us nice and safe, and still in one piece.”

  “I know Jonas, Claire,” Black repeated calmly, now looking at her. “He’s okay. He means us no harm.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. Hey, I know, I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “She’s a cop,” Black said to the twin Aussie henchmen, as if that explained her miff. “She won’t shoot you unless you make a move on us.”

  They didn’t look convinced. They didn’t look like they liked her much. And vice versa, to be sure. Black and his less-than-savory friends. Claire was gonna have a serious sit-down with him.

  “Are you sure about this, Black? You know, stepping down into this boat with two armed gunmen and letting them take us to God knows where. Something about that seems less than cautious. Maybe we could invite this Jonas guy here for dinner instead. You know, arm ourselves and then feed him a nice dinner with our guns beaded on his forehead.”

  Black walked over to Claire and spoke softly next to her ear. “It’s okay, I swear. I know him very well. He’s like family to me. We’ll be safe enough. I’m just curious what he wants and how the hell he even knew we were out here. This isn’t like him at all.”

  Yeah, well, curiosity killed the cat—and lots of people, too. That was her motto. “Okay, if you say so. But I’m telling you right now. I’m not giving up my weapon. Don’t even think about it. I don’t trust these two guys. That one called me a bitch.”

  Stupid One, and his also armed friend, Stupid Two, just stood there, no longer trying to act tough. Apparently, they had been trained not to shoot friends of their employer, just point guns at them and threaten them with death. They climbed back into the boat and waited without saying a word, guns back in their holsters, their expressions pretty much indicating REM sleep.

  “Come on, let’s get dressed,” Black said. He took hold of Claire’s arm and led her back down the planked pier to the covered cabana. There, they quickly pulled on their matching loose white gauze island shirts and drawstring linen pants and stepped into island sandals, outfits they’d been wearing daily over their swimsuits during their peaceful sojourn on the island. At least, it used to be peaceful.

  “You are absolutely certain about this, Black? I don’t mind telling you that I don’t like any of it. Not one little bit. Your old bosom buddy or not.”

  “Let’s just look at it as another adventure out here in the middle of the Pacific.”

  “Yeah, right. An adventure I can do without.”

  “Come on, you’ll love Jonas. He’s known for his charm.”

  “Who the hell is he?”

  “He used to be an Australian arms dealer. I think he’s gone legit since he was deported from the U.S.”

  “Oh, my God, are you kiddin’ me? And we’re gonna go out there on his turf, just like that? I’m a law enforcement officer if you’ll recall.”

  “Well, not anymore. You already made that decision, didn’t you?”

  That brought Claire up short. She realized then that being a P.I. was going to take some getting used to. Not being able to flash a badge and threaten to run people in, for instance. No badge, no cuffs, no incarceration. Well, maybe the cuffs. Even so, that was gonna crimp her style, big time. Well, crap. She already had misgivings, and it hadn’t even been half an hour.

  “What about Jules Verne? You want to leave our poor little poodle out here alone to fend for himself?”

  “He’s by himself when we go sailing. Besides that, he’ll follow Edward to the kitchen when he gets here.”

  “Maybe we should take him, just in case.”

  “Let’s go. Don’t worry. You’re gonna like Jonas. If he’s on the boat, he’ll probably have his wife and daughter aboard. He’s a great family man. Loves them both dearly.”

  Jeez, Claire thought. What did she and Black have to do? Fly to the dark side of the moon to keep the bad guys from finding them? But she trusted Black implicitly, so she walked alongside him down the length of the planked pier and stepped down into the bobbing boat. Still, she kept the Glock in her right hand and hanging loosely down beside her thigh, ready to go if need be. The guy who had called her a bitch fired up the motor and off they went to God only knew where. Probably a black pirate ship flying a flag decorated with skull and crossbones. Claire sat down in a side seat and kept her gun in her lap but pointing in the direction of the driver’s back. Just to be on the safe side of course. Maybe Black was hunky dory with the situation now and thought this Jonas guy was just as sweet as iced sugar cookies, but Claire was not so sure. Go figure, but deadly mobsters and armed intruders who called her a bitch highly annoyed her.

  Chapter Two

  Jonas Quinn’s yacht loomed up about five miles offshore. It was quite the sight to behold, too, Aristotle Onassis–ish, in fact, or something Prince William and Kate and Baby Georgie might ride about upon. And to think that Claire thought Black’s motor yacht was fancy. Of course, it had been specially refitted to ply the waters of Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri where she kept her major abode and far from sandy beaches and thus no seafaring voyages on the agenda, so there you go.

  Quinn’s vessel did happen to be black, just as Claire had predicted. It was also sleek and sophisticated and huge, gleaming with black-tinted windows and the smell of beaucoup Australian kinda dollars. As they came closer, she saw the name of the boat fashioned in large silver letters that flashed blindingly in the fiery glow of the setting sun. ABIGAIL ANDREA. Okay, that sounded downright homey and family oriented, but she didn’t fall for that ruse,
not one bit. Abigail and Andrea might be the names of Jonas’s pet contract killers, for instance. Their twin gun-toting chauffeurs of the moment, for instance.

  Claire frowned in a very dark and unhappy way, still not liking anything about the forced trip off the island, including Black’s friendship with the bad guy or being taken anywhere by armed assailants/hoods/obnoxious jerks who called her names. Any other time and in her own jurisdiction, she would pull her badge and cart them all off to jail, but it appeared those days were over or soon would be. Okay, so now it had only been about thirty minutes from said major decision, and she was already having second thoughts about tossing her badge over her shoulder and making a run for it. Black would not be pleased.

  “You don’t look so thrilled, sweetheart,” Black said softly, probably afraid he’d hurt the two thugs’ feelings if he said it out loud. He was nice to criminal types that way.

  “You are just so damn intuitive.”

  “Listen, it’s okay, I’m telling you. We’ll just see what Jonas wants and then we’ll be free to go back to the island. He’s okay, I swear. I know him really well.”

  “Okay to you, maybe. I don’t know him, but don’t expect me to like him. Not after this.”

  “You’ll change your mind once you meet him. Just be civil and give him a fighting chance.”

  “Right.”

  The guy steering the speedy cruiser slowed considerably and demonstrated a bit of expertise while guiding the launch up alongside the gleaming, pristine oceangoing craft. His partner sprang into action and secured them to the boarding platform. Above them, several armed men in equally snow-white sailorman attire watched with impassive, and yes, ugly, criminal-like, beady eyes. Claire sure did hope that Black was a good judge of character, and they really would make it back to their private Shangri-la beach, and both in one piece. As for her, she wasn’t at all sure that was going to happen. Then again, she wasn’t used to hanging out with mobsters, Australian-style or otherwise.

  Mr. Blond and Not Handsome climbed the ladder first, and Claire gestured for Black and the other bad guy to precede her. She preferred to protect her back, especially when hanging around armed men and especially at times like the present. Once up on the deck, everything was super shiny stainless steel and gleaming dark teak and a thousand miles of glistening black window glass. A lot like the Maltese Falcon a.k.a. Black’s boat back at the lake. Beautiful, and richly appointed, this yacht had obviously cost Quinn mucho buckets of dirty money, all of which was probably attained in a myriad of unlawful endeavors.

  They were escorted down the deck and past a hot tub made of transparent glass, which was probably a bit iffy for privacy and wouldn’t do at all for Black and her and what they liked to do in that kind of warm and bubbly water. Next up was a fully equipped exercise room to sweat in and a library lined with around three million beautifully bound books to get smart in, and then they passed through a door with a porthole that led into a very cool and dim interior hallway with plush burgundy carpet embellished with small white starbursts and cream-colored, wainscoted walls. The boat was bigger than it looked, and it looked very big. Suddenly their two assailants melted away down another dim hallway and disappeared, leaving them alone and glad of it. Probably banished deep into the darkest depths of the hull until called upon again to kill/kidnap somebody.

  “It’s this way,” Black told her.

  “Are you telling me that you’ve been aboard this boat before?”

  “Yes, a few times. They’ll be waiting in the grand salon.”

  Well, ooh la la, and give me a break, Claire thought. About thirty feet down the adjacent hallway, they found some tall and mirrored French doors, which revealed their windblown, sunburned, and unappealing appearances. Black looked better than she did, which was pretty much par for the course. He opened both doors and revealed a rather gasp-inducing, House Beautiful kinda living space. One gigantic, eight-thousand-crystal-teardrop, six-pronged chandelier hung from the ceiling and set just the right kind of I’m-rich-and-entitled-and-I-know-it-extremely-well-so-there mood. On the other hand, Claire bet that kind of hanging light fixture was hell to pay during hurricane winds. The stupid tinkling alone would drive even the most robust Mafioso nutty.

  A tiny little man stood before a large round plate glass window with his hands clasped behind his back, and an even tinier little woman sat on a luxurious soft cream brocade couch with lots of soft fringe on lots of soft pillows. She was so petite that her feet didn’t touch the floor. For one second, Claire looked for the yellow brick road. Not that they were munchkin tiny, but they were almost there. Claire would say the man was no more than five feet three or four inches tall. Yeah, and at five feet nine, she already felt like an Amazon warrior woman of yore who could and would throw the guy over her shoulder and cart him home for dinner.

  The man heard them enter and turned quickly. He was wearing an expensive snow-white silk shirt and black silk pants and black boat shoes without socks. He wore a neat white goatee and mustache and was balding slightly with a crown of white hair, yeah, sort of an aged Friar Tuck/Kenny Rogers kinda look. He wore one diamond stud in his left ear, a big sparkling one, too. When he saw Black, he beat a path over to him, hand extended, grinning as if he had finally found his best friend, the one who had been lost for decades in the high Himalayas. They hugged and slapped each other’s backs and made nice, and Claire thought she’d like to slap them both, too. Could barely control the urge, actually. Armed escorts were just such a no-no with her.

  “Nicky, good God, it’s great to see you, man. I am just so glad you agreed to come out here.”

  “One usually does agree to come out here when prodded by threats and a couple of gun barrels,” Claire felt the need to mention, although she was not the one being spoken to. Just so he would know that she wasn’t thrilled with the parameters of his invitation.

  The guy, Mr. Jonas with a Y, she guessed, turned quickly to her. A mighty look of chagrin overtook his deeply tanned, seafaring face. “What? Surely, you are not saying that my men treated you with some sort of disrespect?”

  “Don’t know about you, but guns thrust in my face don’t equate with respect,” she said.

  Black turned to her and did his polite thing some more. “Jonas, this is Claire Morgan, my fiancée. We’re to be married in the summer. July. Around the Fourth.”

  Well, now, it looked like Black had the date down pat, all right. Claire hoped that wasn’t meant as an invitation, what with Jonas being banned from stepping foot on American soil and all that bother.

  “Yes, the famous detective. I have heard of you, of course,” the former gunrunner said to her. “This is truly a great pleasure, my dear.”

  Claire thought of a few rather nasty things she could throw back at that, but he did appear to be Black’s friend and was being pretty damn polite thus far, for a dastardly exiled criminal, so she bit her tongue. It was hard to refrain from immediately grilling the hell outta the little guy, but she didn’t utter a single question. For Black’s benefit of course. She glanced at the woman on the couch, who was now up on her feet. She was very slight of build, probably less than five feet, four ten or eleven, something like that, maybe ninety pounds at the most, yep, she looked like a little ten-year-old. Kinda pretty, though, with dark hair shot with gray and combed into a neat chignon and huge pearl earrings that cost her husband plenty. That is, if Claire was any judge of pearls, and of course, she wasn’t. She once had a white blouse with pearl buttons, one given to her by a well-meaning fellow police officer, but Claire had hated it at first sight and dropped it off at Goodwill the first chance she got.

  Mrs. Mobster had olive skin and was well dressed in a tan linen pantsuit and matching sandals with little glistening white crystals on the straps. To match the chandelier, no doubt. To Claire’s surprise, the woman stared right up at her for a mere moment, and then her face crumpled into a look of absolute, and yes, blatant, despair. Then she burst into a rash of loud groans and weeping, and h
ightailed it out of the room as if the hounds of hell were chasing her. Well now. That was a trifle odd. Maybe she wasn’t expecting anyone, and really, really needed forewarning when casually dressed visitors with mussed hair came aboard. Maybe she just couldn’t hack rumpled female detectives.

  “Abigail, dear one, wait, wait, please, don’t do this,” Jonas called after his itty-bitty wife, very worried, indeed, but his pleas did not stop the little lady’s headlong and tearful and panicked flight. “Oh, my goodness, Nicky, you’ll have to excuse us, I guess. Ms. Morgan, I’m so sorry. I do hope you’ll stay aboard for dinner. Please do, please.”

  Black answered quickly, and for both of them. “Of course, Jonas, we’d love to. I hope Abigail isn’t ill? Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “No, no. She’s just very distraught. Please make yourself comfortable. We’ll be back shortly, and then I’ll ring for dinner to be served.”

  Claire and Black said nothing as he scurried out of the room in pursuit of his noticeably hysterical wife. Then Claire looked at her Fourth of July fiancé. “Are you kiddin’ me, Black? What is this?”

  “Look, I had nothing to do with any of it. How the hell was I supposed to know he’d send for us?”

  “Send for us? That’s what you call that? I’d call it abduction at gunpoint, but I like to be specific and truthful. And what’s with the wife comin’ apart at the seams like that?”

  “You know what I mean. And I don’t know what is bothering Abigail. Are you hungry? Jonas’s chef is topnotch.”

  A rather un-deft change of subject, that, to be sure. “Oh, my God, this is unbelievable. I can’t believe you. Sometimes you really just take the cake.”

  “Let’s sit down and relax. I’m telling you something has to be terribly wrong for Abigail to rush off like that. She’s a wonderful lady. Always such a gracious hostess. I hate to think what has happened, but I suspect that whatever it is, it’s the reason we’re out here. We’ll find out soon enough. You’ll like her, I know you will. You’ll like both of them once you get to know them.”