Dangerous Depths (33 page)

He was falling right toward me. I lay on my
back, raised my weapon, and fired. My last shot. Dead center. He
landed beside me and didn’t move again.

The night was typically Caribbean, filled
with the chatter of crickets and tree frogs, the sea breeze
perfumed with blossoms. The moon drew shadows in the sand, nine
human figures outlined across the expanse of beach.

We were watching hatchlings, a hundred or
more, struggling out of their nest. O’Brien, Tilda and Calvin,
Daisy and Rebecca, Tom and Liam, Jillian, and me. It was the nest
that Elyse and I had watched the turtle lay her eggs in—less than
two months ago.

***

After Freeman’s arrest, the election for
chief minister had been just an exercise. Freeman’s name had
remained on the ballot, but a man in jail wasn’t likely to win much
support. Bertram Abernathy was elected by a landslide. Betty had
written her story. Headlines in the
Island News
had filled
the paper for weeks. Betty had agreed to the “anonymous source”
concept, and I’d given her every sordid detail about Freeman and
Reidman.

Freeman had spilled it all after the fiasco
at the Baths and his arrest, laying all the blame on Alex Reidman.
It became clear why Elyse had been a threat. She’d been out near
Flower taking water samples and snorkeling that Sunday afternoon
when she’d discovered the pellets in the turtle grass. She’d
collected some of them, then swum into shore where she’d discovered
a dead hawksbill washed up on the sand. She took a tissue sample
and arranged to meet with LaPlante.

Unfortunately she mentioned her discovery to
Reidman that night when he’d gone to the
Caribbe
. After he
dropped the pills in her tea, he’d ransacked the boat without
finding the samples. He would have realized she’d left them in her
office. Before he’d stepped off the
Caribbe
and trampled all
over Daisy’s sand castle, he’d rigged the stove and left Elyse to
die.

The morning that I’d been in Elyse’s office,
Reidman had come in to find the samples. When he found me there,
he’d had to wait for another opportunity. He’d locked the door when
we left, and then complained to Dunn about my trespassing. Then
he’d come back later, broken in, torn the place apart, and found
the samples in the freezer. He’d been careless though, letting a
few pellets scatter. He’d been standing right there in the hospital
when Dr. Hall said Elyse would recover. He wasn’t about to let that
happen. I’d been a fool not to see it all from the beginning. I
knew that part of it was that I didn’t think that Elyse could have
misjudged Reidman so badly herself.

Sylvia had known all along about her
husband’s plan to get rid of the turtles and had been against it.
But she was no match for him. He’d told her to jump and she did,
until he tried to kill her. Now she was looking forward to
testifying against him. She was one angry woman. The bullet wound
to her side was healing but she’d not be forgetting the moment that
her husband had given Reidman the okay to shoot her.

Sylvia had announced that she was turning the
properties that ASR Associates had acquired, including Flower, into
a nature preserve. With Freeman in jail and Alex Reidman dead,
she’d ended up as chief stockholder. The lesser investors and
stockholders that Reidman had solicited in the States had gone
along with her when they’d been threatened with exposure—attempts
to fix an election, threats to endangered species. She’d already
arranged for the removal of the poison from the island and the
cleanup of the bay. Tom and Liam had spent weeks out there on
damage control.

I was sorry about Edmund Carr. He’d been a
good dive partner and I’d trusted him. Carr had gotten involved
because of his position at the bank. Not only had he been helping
with the purchase of property but he was also filtering money from
Reidman into Freeman’s campaign account using names of fictitious
donors. One thing led to another, and suddenly he was with Reidman
on the
Lila B
crushing Billings’s head with a crowbar.

He’d have figured it was worth it. Once
Freeman was elected, all three stood to make huge profits and God
knows what their future plans in the islands would have been. But
Carr had always been expendable. He should have known that.

Freeman was denying involvement. His lawyer
was arguing that Reidman, along with Carr, had killed Billings and
engineered everything from the poisoning of the turtles to the
acquisition of the properties, and then had shot Carr and Sylvia.
But it would never hold up. Sylvia would testify against him, and
the crowbar with blood and hair embedded in it had been found on
Freeman’s boat. There was plenty on him even though he had never
gotten his hands bloody. After all, he’d tried to kill a police
officer out at the Baths, not to mention being an accessory to
murder.

After Elyse’s funeral, O’Brien and I had
talked. We had taken a walk down to the waterfront, out to the
little point past the SeaSail marina, and found an old cargo ship’s
anchor that had been embedded in the rocks for years. We sat on the
iron hook, encrusted in rust and barnacles. Neither one of us had
said a word since we’d left the cemetery. I really didn’t know what
to say. Finally, I started.

“I don’t want to lose you, O’Brien. You know
I’m crazy about you.”

“So you say, but we’ve been kind of stuck in
this relationship. You know I want more than a couple days a week.
I want full time.”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know. Can’t you
give me some time and space?” I pleaded.

“I’ve been giving you that. It’s been over a
year. And I don’t really want to simply live together. I want to
marry you, Hannah.”

“Jeez, O’Brien.”

“Look, Hannah. I’m forty-five years old.
Every once in a while I think I’d like to have a kid, teach him to
sail before I can’t raise a mainsail any longer. I’d like to do
that with you.”

“O’Brien, a kid?” I’d given up that idea when
Jake had died. I’d come to terms with it long before I’d met
O’Brien. And a kid at thirty-seven? Jeez. Some women did it, but I
didn’t think I could be one of them. I was way too scared of
failing and way too worried about what I would have to give up.

“What about my job?” I asked him, because all
the other stuff was too hard to talk about.

“You know, one of these days, that
determination of yours to fix what might not be fixable is going to
get you killed. Quit the job, Hannah, before that happens.”

“I’m not ready to do that, O’Brien. You’re
asking me to plunge into a whole new life, one that I’m not at all
sure I’ll be good at.”

“You won’t know until you try it. I thought
you were a risk taker,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “there are risks and then
there are risks.”

Finally though I’d agreed to try living with
him. I knew it was all tied to the loss of Elyse, though for the
life of me I didn’t know how, and I was still too brittle, my
emotions too raw, to think it through.

I had told O’Brien I’d give it a couple of
weeks and insisted on keeping the
Sea Bird
just in case. Now
it had already been a month and damned, I was feeling comfortable
with the arrangement.

O’Brien was standing with his arm around me
as we watched the migration of the hatchings to the sea. I fought
the tears, remembering the night Elyse and I huddled on the beach
whispering and watching the turtle build its nest and lay its eggs.
Never in my worst dreams would I have thought that I’d be standing
here now, without Elyse—that she wouldn’t have been a part of our
efforts to protect the turtles on their dangerous trek.

Jillian was standing right beside me. She
looked at me and smiled. Then she ran to help Daisy and Rebecca
scoop a wayward hatching into the foaming waves.

While most of the places in this book are
real, both Hermit Cay and Flower Island are fictitious as are all
characters and events. At this writing, six of the seven marine
turtles in the world are listed as endangered or critically
endangered, and the outlook is increasingly grim. In some regions,
leatherbacks are fast heading for extinction, and the numbers of
green and hawksbill turtles have plummeted. Thanks to those who are
working for stricter laws and better enforcement.

Read on for a preview of
Under
Pressure
,

the fourth book in the

Hannah Sampson Underwater Investigation
series. . . .

It wasn’t hard to get lost in the crowd, go
unnoticed, stay anonymous, especially if you were determined and
experienced, shadows who followed, waiting for the right
opportunity. The Terrence B. Lettsome International Airport in the
British Virgin Islands was exactly the place to do it. Two people,
dressed to blend in with the tourists, tailed their quarry to the
airport and almost accomplished their task at the curb. In the
confusion of luggage being unloaded from taxis and vans, travelers
were focused on one thing—keeping track of belongings and getting
inside. The stalkers made one attempt, but at the last moment a
porter stepped in the way. Without even being aware of it, the
luggage handler grabbed a suitcase from their intended target,
blocking the quick movement of a determined hand. Too late, and
their quarry disappeared through the automatic doors. They
followed, stepping into the chaos of the interior.

The terminal was teeming with people. A few
were BVIslanders—families or business people going to Puerto Rico
or on to the States, Canada, or the UK. Most were tourists just
arriving in the islands to spend a week or two sailing the island
paradise or on their way home, sunburned and wearing island
garb.

Finally they spotted their target at the
ticket counter checking in for Island Air Flight 45 to Puerto Rico.
They tailed their mark to the gate and waited for an opening. It
didn’t come. A couple of uniformed cops were standing around,
shooting the shit and watching the endless flow of handbags and
briefcases move through the electronic scanner. Before there was
another opportunity, their quarry had made it through security and
into the waiting area, where an agent would eventually lead the
passengers across the already hot tarmac to the plane.

One option remained. They went back to the
ticket counter. A couple, late but too involved in fondling each
other to care, stood at the counter when they got there. They
stepped behind them in line. A baggage handler was grabbing
suitcases that were in a pile for the flight and throwing them onto
a cart, unconcerned about what was going into the heap. Behind the
counter, the ticket agent scrambled to issue last-minute tickets,
determined to get the flight out on time. This was it. There
couldn’t be more mistakes. Otherwise, they would pay.

***

Island Air Flight 45 was a fifteen-passenger
turboprop with two pilots. The old Beech 99 was completely
refurbished for luxury, with leather seats and soft overhead
lighting. The flights were too short and the aircraft too small for
any inflight service, but each flight was stocked for creature
comforts with everything from the
Wall Street Journal
and
the
London Times
to goody bags filled with snacks, juices,
and even a small bottle of island rum. The airline was building its
reputation based on all the frills.

On that Saturday morning, Flight 45 carried
ten passengers, nine adults and one child. It took off as scheduled
at 9:32 A.M., lifting off the runway into a cloudless Caribbean sky
and climbing to four hundred feet. It was due to arrive in Puerto
Rico at 10:14. It never made it.

The tower heard the first indications of
trouble at 9:36 when the captain yelled, “Pull up, pull up!” At
9:39, Flight 45 plunged into the sea.

Thanks to Shannon Gore for graciously sharing
her knowledge about marine turtles and to her turtle monitoring
team: Ken Pemberton, Jobe Varlack, Gary Frett, and Dylan Penn of
the BVI Conservation and Fisheries for letting me tag along.
Special thanks to Jessica Maddox, M.D. for her advice about head
injuries and poisoning. All errors are mine.

As always a huge thanks to my agent, Jacky
Sach.

Most important, thanks to my family for their
love and support and especially to my husband, Ron, for seeing me
through another one.

“A terrific writer. The scene with the sharks
inside the aircraft was enough to cause nightmares and using an
underwater heroine is admirable. Well done!”
—Clive Cussler

“
Under Pressure
, the aptly titled
fourth underwater investigation by Kathy Brandt featuring British
Virgin Islands detective Hannah Sampson, is a thrilling adventure
with multiple suspense threads woven through a fast-paced
plot.”
—Mysterious Reviews

“Another underwater investigation with
Detective Hannah Sampson in the Caribbean, racing a hurricane to
find the cause of a plane crash. A thrilling ride by diving pro
Kathy Brandt.”
—MysteryLovers.com

“This is the fourth in this delightful
series, and it does not disappoint. Newcomers to the series will
have no problems diving in at this point. The mystery is compelling
and there’s a nice twist at the end. As always, the author clearly
writes what she knows. The underwater scenes are evocative enough
to make readers feel that they’ve been along for the dive. I’m
looking forward to more from Hannah.”
—The Romance Readers Connection

Kathy is the author of four mysteries in the
Underwater Investigation Series. She is the co-author with her son,
Max Maddox, of the bestselling
Walks On The Margins: A Story of
Bipolar Illness
, which received the Colorado Independent
Publishers Association Award. She is the recipient of the Golden
Quill Award from the Pikes Peak Library Association and the 2012
National Alliance on Mental Illness Award. Kathy has a B.A. in
English and an M.A. in Rhetoric and taught writing at the
University of Colorado for ten years before becoming a full-time
author. She is an avid sailor and scuba diver. She lives in
Colorado. Visit her websites
www.csi-underwater-mysteries.com
and
www.kathybrandtauthor.com
.