Beauty & the Beast

by Nancy Holder

  “No,” Vincent said. “I’m closer to the hatch and you need to stay at the helm in case the pod accidently releases. You have to run the boat.”

  “Dr. Keller,” O’Brien said, “it really should be a member of the crew…”

  “Not debating this,” Vincent said as he handed a squirming Archer to Cat. “If I can’t fix it, you can send someone else.”

  “Be careful,” Cat said. “Please…”

  “Piece of cake, Catherine.” He smiled.

  * * *

  Torrential rain pounded Vincent’s face as he opened the rear hatch. It was coming down with such force it was hard to breathe. Groaning softly he pulled himself out of the pod and, gripping a steel handhold, swung the hatch shut and dogged it. He had to admit it was way more comfortable standing in the wind and rain on a heaving ship than hanging upside down inside one like a bat.

  He climbed the cradle and stepped onto the stern deck.

  At least there was plenty of light to work by. He located the pod’s umbilical—a cluster of wires and cables sheathed in thick plastic and held together at intervals with zip-ties. The end of it was hidden by the winch’s housing. It took him a minute or two to figure out how to remove the housing. He couldn’t go beast and just rip it off. Not without jeopardizing his ultimate mission.

  With the housing off, the winch hook, stern bracket, female end of the umbilical, and explosive bolts were all in plain view. The winch hook was not attached—the pod was being held in place solely by the massive bolts. There didn’t seem to be any mechanical reason for the failure to detonate—nothing looked bent or broken. The wire connections to the tops of the explosive bolts appeared to be intact. But appearances could be deceiving.

  Vincent glared at them, wiping the rain from his face. If there was an electrical short, a minute break in the wiring between the umbilical and the bolts, and he re-established the connection, he wasn’t sure what the result would be.

  Had the explosion already been triggered from inside the pod? Had the circuit already been opened? Would reconnection instantly make everything go boom? If that were the case, he’d have no time to reach the boat before it dropped from the cradle. No time as a human, anyway.

  But if he could beast out just as the bolts blew he could blur-jump onto the rear of the pod and ride it down the ramp. He couldn’t warn Catherine and O’Brien and the others what might happen next.

  Vincent took hold of the plastic sheathed cable, standing as far back from the bolts as he could and bracing his feet for the leap. As he lowered his control and let himself start to transform he sensed something behind him. His right arm was already in motion. He couldn’t stop it from giving the umbilical a sharp snap downward.

  Three things happened almost simultaneously.

  The bolts exploded with puffs of gray smoke.

  Someone slammed into his back, driving him to a knee.

  And the pod dropped from the cradle.

  In full beast mode, Vincent gazed down the ramp. A lightning flash revealed a human figure clinging to the rear of the falling pod, legs flailing. Vincent threw back his head and snarled into the wind and rain. Around him, the Sea Majesty seemed to bellow in reply—wounded, abandoned, enraged at her fate.

  * * *

  If a great wave shall fall…

  She saw him fall.

  And then she didn’t see him at all. For a second she couldn’t breathe. The pod started to move away from the cruise ship.

  “Wait, where are you going? What are you doing?” she cried. “He’s in the water!”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Keller, but your husband could not have survived that drop,” O’Brien said.

  “You don’t know my husband. Open the hatch!” Cat yelled. “We’re not leaving without my husband!”

  O’Brien hesitated, then nodded at the crewman closest to the hatch. The man unbuckled his restraints and pushed it open. Wind, rain, and water blasted into the pod.

  Cat shouldered the crewman out of the way and scrambled out onto the short aft deck. A wave crashed over her and swept into the cabin. She was knocked off her feet but she grabbed onto the handhold and held fast.

  “We can’t keep it open much longer,” O’Brien shouted. “We’ll be swamped.”

  “Vincent!” she screamed into the storm. The crewman joined her, scanning the heaving black ocean with the pod searchlight.

  “There,” the crewman said, pointing.

  Beneath the glare of the searchlight, a face-down body rode the cresting swell. The ocean began to carry the body away and she almost dived in after it. As her heartbeat chorused Bethany’s shouts and the dogs’ barks, the crewman reached out with a grappling hook and snagged it. Cat lent an assist and together they drew the body toward the pod.

  Cat didn’t know she’d been holding her breath until the crewman dragged a limp arm onto the platform and lifted the man from the water. She and the crewman flopped him onto his back, and she exhaled, hands flattening on the man’s chest.

  It was Cecilio. He was most certainly dead. And there was something in his jacket pocket. She pulled it out: the candy bag. And in it, the plastic box.

  “Catherine,” Vincent said, as his head broke the surface beside the pod and he extended his arm.

  “Vincent!” she cried.

  When she gave her husband her hand, the box dropped into the water. The pod searchlight glinted off it as it sank, and then it was lost to the ocean.

  And Vincent was found.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Miguel Escalante lay in bed beside his wife Barbara, who was fondling the diamond bracelet he had given her earlier that evening, along with a dozen roses, an abject apology, and his vow never, ever to cheat on her again. She had forgiven him everything. Who wouldn’t, for half a mil in stones?

  The TV was blaring and the ladies on The View were jabbering away. Some two-bit singer named Fidela was describing her harrowing escape from death aboard the Sea Majesty. Miguel wanted to throw his glass of champagne at the plasma screen. Two good operatives dead. The mission a failure. No one in the whole wide world would have placed blame at Miguel’s door—except for Anatoly Vodanyov. Anatoly had threatened reprisals. Miguel had told him to go to hell.

  “That sounds just horrible,” Barbara said, as Fidela talked about her descent into the lifeboat, followed by many terrifying hours on the stormy sea. “What if that had been us?”

  The show cut to some footage labeled HEROES OF THE HOUR! Miguel had seen the clip before and it made him crazy. He narrowed his eyes as the recording showed the cop and her husband climbing out of a rescue chopper that had just landed in Hilo. The cop was carrying a little dog in her arms. No black jacket. A reporter had rushed forward with a mic in her hand. Miguel had memorized Detective Catherine Chandler’s responses to the reporter’s questions. The last one drove him the craziest:

  “No, all our belongings were burned in the fire.” Then Chandler turned and faced the screen and said directly to it, “We took nothing with us when we left the ship.”

  It was obvious she was sending a message: We don’t have it. Leave us alone. He wondered exactly how much she knew.

  She was kind of hot.

  “Do you want to go to Mexico City for a while?” he asked Barbara. “Go shopping?”

  * * *

  At JT’s place, Tess and JT held each other tightly. Both were nearly on the verge of tears.

  “You can buy mouse ears for dogs. Who knew?” JT ground out as Tess’s brother Jamie displayed the tiny monogrammed hat for them. Between the two iconic black circles sat a miniature silver plastic crown atop a trailing rectangle of white lace. On the back was embroidered Princess Mochi in delicate gold thread. There was a strap to hold it under the most delicate of chihuahua chins.

  “Look, Mochi, this is for you,” Jamie told Princess Mochi. He held the hat out toward her.

  “Grrr, grrr, grrr,” Mochi replied, jaws snapping, teeth flashing. She pawed at the air, struggling to get at it. JT sigh
ed. It was time to hand her over to Jamie.

  Before she peed on him and Tess.

  “So she was no trouble,” Jamie said, accepting PM from JT and holding her, also at arm’s length. She flailed and growled. When he tried to place the hat on her round head, she yipped uncontrollably. JT gave it five minutes. Then she’d chew it up or throw up on it.

  “No trouble at all,” Tess said.

  JT’s eyes widened at the LOST DOG – REWARD flyer sitting on his desk and positioned his body between it and Jamie. All was well that ended well: Julia’s theft of Mochi had alerted her mom to just how badly she wanted a dog. They had gone to their local rescue shelter and were now proud owners of not one, but two chihuahua mixes—little sisters the shelter had not wanted to separate. Julia had renamed them Kaylee and Zoe, after two characters on Firefly. Julia told Tess and JT they could come visit any time they wanted.

  Tomorrow was Tess’s day off. It was only a five-hour drive.

  “Connie will call you about dinner,” Jamie said. “We’ll fill you in on the trip then. You can’t even believe how many pictures we took.”

  “Wow, can’t wait,” Tess said, and JT knew she was sincere. The sooner they agreed to sit through three hundred shots of Mickey, Minnie, and the Vargas clan, the sooner they would be reunited—if only briefly—with their little cutie.

  “Thanks again, sis.” Jamie kissed her on the cheek and shook hands with JT. He managed to leash Mochi without losing a finger, and then they were out the door.

  “It’s so hard to let go,” JT murmured, and a tear slid down Tess’s cheek. “Hey, big day, though. Happy day.” He kissed the tear away. “Go get ’em, Wonder Woman.”

  She smiled bravely. “Roger that.”

  * * *

  One of the downsides of becoming precinct captain was a decrease in action and an increase in paperwork. Captains assigned cases and rotations, attended meetings, and gave press conferences.

  Except for today.

  Tess felt like the quarterback coming in off the field as she stood with the group of FBI and Homeland Security agents at the bottom of the jetway. An air marshal was leading Anatoly Vodanyov down the stairs at JFK. The mayor smiled at Tess. Even the never-cheerful Chief Ward managed to look pleased. Svetlana Barishnova had flipped on Tess’s watch, and had already provided the people with so much damning evidence that Vodanyov could be put away for life on three continents.

  “I know your name. I set colleagues after you,” Vodanyov said as he passed Tess.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tess said. “That’s what they all say.”

  The press conference was heady and so was the standing ovation when she got back to the precinct house. One of the secretaries had run out and gotten a huge cake and there would be drinking at Rosie’s after shift. It was a good day to be one of New York’s finest.

  But it became an even better day when she shut the door to her office, sat down to bask, and got a buzz on her intercom:

  A certain “Robert” was on the line. No last name, just Robert. The caller had said that “Captain Vargas will know who I am, yo.” She did a little seated tap dance on the floor with her nicely stretched out new black pumps. It was the street kid she had tried to give her card to.

  She picked up and said, “May I help you?”

  “You said you could,” Robert shot back.

  * * *

  “It was so kind of you to meet with us,” Mrs. Suresh told Heather in their suite at the Ritz-Carlton. Despite the ravages of grief, she and Mr. Suresh were both very attractive people. Heather could see where Ravi had gotten his good looks.

  Her throat tightened. She didn’t want to be here, drinking tea and lying.

  “Yes, well now you know. He died trying to protect me,” she said. “He died instantly. He didn’t suffer.”

  They were so grateful to hear that. Since Ilya was dead and Svetlana was being granted immunity in return for her testimony, no one would ever hear a different story.

  “Good children are a blessing. Oh, Ravi, my angel,” Mrs. Suresh murmured, touching Heather’s cheek. Then she and her husband rose. It was time for them to go to the airport, to escort their son’s body home to India.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Had it really been only two weeks since they had nearly died aboard the Sea Majesty? It must be true, because Cat and Vincent had still not used up their vacation days. Forrest Daugherty had put them up in the presidential suite at the Four Seasons in Manhattan and he was arranging them a fall vacation with him and Bethany in Tuscany. His security people were about to bust his ex-wife’s mobbed-up boyfriend and he was overjoyed.

  Now they were home, sweet, sweet home, which had been professionally cleaned and redecorated—also courtesy of Mr. Daugherty. They had not quite come to terms with the fact that Ravi Suresh had been killed in their living room, but since they hadn’t been there, or ever directly seen the aftermath, it was easier to keep it in the abstract. Heather had more issues, but nevertheless, she had insisted on meeting Vincent and Cat at the apartment when they returned from the Four Seasons just ten minutes before.

  “It’s really not very safe to walk up a fire escape with a blindfold on,” Cat said as Heather tied a scarf over her eyes and placed Cat’s right hand on the handrail. Heather took her other hand.

  “Just the last few steps,” Heather insisted, “so you can’t see the surprise.”

  “We’ve had a lot of surprises lately,” Vincent said. Also blindfolded, he was close behind Cat and Heather on the stairs. Tess was guiding him up.

  Cat and Heather reached the roof; Cat heard her sister take a deep breath and let it slowly out. Was she thinking of Ravi Suresh?

  Languid Hawaiian slack-key guitar music began to play through speakers and for a moment, Cat was back on the Sea Majesty. The violence of their last hours aboard washed over her like a tsunami. The long flight home, the reunion with her sister, Tess, and JT… so much had happened.

  But we made it through. Together.

  Then as her blindfold was removed, she laughed and clapped her hands in delight. The rooftop had been transformed into an island paradise. Half a dozen potted palms were strung with strings of lights shaped like surfboards and ukuleles. Six folding chairs and a large oval table were covered with Hawaiian fabrics in a rainbow of hues. A paper honeycomb pineapple sat in the center of the table surrounded by a rainbow of plastic cocktail glasses garnished with colored tiki picks. Six places were set with red plastic tableware, hula girl-themed paper party plates, and matching napkins.

  “Aloha,” Heather said, draping a fragrant lei of purple plumeria blossoms over Cat’s head and kissing her on the cheek.

  “Aloha,” Tess said, placing a rope of knotted leaves around Vincent’s neck, then hesitating a moment before brushing her lips against his cheek. She herself wore a crown of white ginger.

  “Aloha,” JT said from behind a portable bamboo bar. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat, and a brown grass skirt over a pair of jeans. He pressed a button on Cat’s kitchen blender and it whirred to life. “Mai tai? Blue Hawaiian? One of each?”

  “What is all this?” Cat cried.

  “You never got to see Hawaii, so we’re bringing Hawaii to you,” Heather said. She and Tess were wrapping cellophane grass skirts over their pants, Heather in purple, Tess in red. Also draped in a grass skirt—hers was pink—Svetlana trotted up the fire escape carrying a large platter of miniature egg rolls and sushi.

  “Aloha,” she said. It was clear she did not include herself among these old friends, but that she was making an effort to join in the celebration. “There is much food coming.”

  As Svetlana came onto the roof, Tess went back down the stairs. “I’m getting the teriyaki chicken and the pasta salad,” she announced.

  “We have coconut cream pie and chocolate-covered macadamia nuts for dessert,” Heather added. Her face was shining, and Cat was seized with another sharp, hard fear, just as when she had heard the Hawaiian music. She had al
most lost her sister. Heather had almost died. Bad things did happen to people she loved, and loved deeply. There was no safety in this world.

  Standing at the bar as JT poured frothy drinks into two of the plastic glasses and garnished them with maraschino cherries, Vincent caught Cat’s eye and held it. She could see strength in his firm jaw, courage in his steady gaze. And the love. So much love.

  Calm began to seep into her anxiety. Warmth diminished the chill that had swept up her spine. Tonight he would lie down beside her and hold her. In the morning, he would be the first thing she saw. His body, the first thing she touched. And whatever that day brought, he would be there to take it on with her.

  Every morning that she woke up beside Vincent, she would re-learn the most important lesson there was: that love really did conquer all.

  We are always, always better together.

  Vincent carried the drinks to her and held one out. She took it and they tapped the rims together, then sipped. Vincent peered through his lashes at her; she slid her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. Rest. Here she could rest. She sighed contentedly and listened to his heartbeat, the most wonderful sound she had ever heard.

  Below them, on the streets, a siren wailed and horns honked. The gritty city was grinding through another day. Men like Anatoly Vodanyov were wreaking havoc. And tomorrow she would wade back into it and do what she could to protect the innocent and make the world a little more just. But for now, she was here.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he murmured.

  “You are my paradise.” She nestled her head under his chin.

  “That’s what I was thinking, too.”

  They swayed as one under the neon moon in a glittering sea of asphalt, Beauty and her Beast.