Deep Blue (24 page)

Joe waited for their approach, then fell in behind them, protecting their backs as they started to make the brief ascent. She saw him pull his dive knife out of the sheath at his waist as two more sharks began moving in.

Hope and Conn broke the surface of the water at about the same time and started swimming toward the platform. Michael was already there, pulling himself up to safety.

“We need help down here!” the boy shouted, and Pete and Andy came on the run. Ron and Wally bolted out of the galley and all of them rushed toward the diving platform. Andy hoisted Hope out of the water, while Wally and Ron hauled Conn out, and Pete reached for Joe.

Hope jerked off her mask and Ron helped her with her tanks while Joe began to carefully help Conn shed his gear, using his dive knife on Conn’s wetsuit, splitting it open and making it easier to peel him out of it. Blood poured out of the wound in his side, mixing with the water on his skin, forming pink rivulets that soaked into his swimsuit and ran down his legs.

“We’ve got to get him to a hospital,” Hope said, trembling. Her insides were tied in knots and a huge lump clogged her throat. “He needs a doctor. There’s no way to know how badly he’s injured until we can get him some medical care.”

“King’s the next best thing to a doc,” Joe said. “Pete’s gone to get him.”

Hope turned back to Conn. “You need to lie down,” she gently insisted, easing him down on his back on the platform, his hand still pressed over the wound to help stop the flow of blood. “The less you move, the better.”

“We need to fly him back,” Joe said. “I hope to hell the plane’s on the island.”

“I’ll find out.” Andy took off for the radio in the chart room.

“What the hell happened down there?” Joe asked Conn, relieved to see King thundering along the deck with towels beneath a thick arm and the first-aid kit in hand. Professor Marlin flapped along in his wake, worry lining his wrinkled face.

“Spear gun. My fault. Should have been more careful. I figured they were lookie-loos. I thought if I scared them a little, they’d leave and wouldn’t come back.”

“Any idea what they were doing down there?”

“Thieves, I guess. Two of them. I think they must have found something. That’s probably why they shot me. They didn’t want to give it back.”

Hope looked down at Conn’s pale face and her heart squeezed so hard she could barely breathe. Conn was injured. She didn’t know how badly. Her chest was aching, her mouth dry as cotton. She wanted to cry, but didn’t dare. For Conn’s sake, she had to be strong.

“The treasure’s been all over the news,” Ron Keegan said. “They’re saying the find might be bigger than the
Atocha.
They’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. That much money’s bound to bring every scum ball in a thousand miles out from under his rock.”

King arrived just then and knelt at Conn’s side. “Gimme some room, boys.”

“Ron, you and Wally go back up and see when Chalko’s gonna be here with that boat,” Joe said.

They nodded and hurried toward the ladder, giving King room to work. Gently, the big man moved Conn’s hand away from the wound and began to carefully examine the jagged tear in his flesh. “Looks like de spear went straight through. Don’t look like it hit anything important, but you’re bleedin’ pretty bad.”

He took a syringe out of the first-aid kit and shot some kind of painkiller into Conn’s arm. A shot of antibiotics followed. “You feel better in no time. Try not to move.”

Professor Marlin hovered nearby, careful to stay out of the way but obviously as worried as Hope was. As the drugs pumped through Conn’s veins, King cleaned the wound as best he could, then took heavy gauze pads out of the first-aid kit, stuffed them into the jagged opening, then pressed pads against both the entry and exit wounds in Conn’s side. He bound the bandage in place with wide strips of gauze, followed by adhesive tape.

“That should hold till we can get you to de hospital.”

Conn’s eyes slid closed and Hope reached out and took hold of his hand. It felt icy cold, colder even than her own.

“King’s taking good care of you,” she said, her voice rough with fear. “You’re going to be all right.”

His eyes cracked open and the edge of his mouth faintly curved. “You got that right, baby. You don’t think a little fishing spear is going to…keep me away from you?”

Her throat closed up. She managed a wobbly smile, but her eyes filled with tears. She tightened her hold on his hand and blinked to keep from crying.

Overhead they heard the
whop whop whop
of a chopper. One of the television helicopters, cameras undoubtedly rolling. Apparently they had heard Andy’s call for help. When Andy came out to tell them the chopper had come to airlift Conn to the hospital, Hope whispered a little prayer of thanks.

There was no time to change her clothes. One of the guys handed Joe a lightweight jacket and he draped the oversized garment over her shoulders, covering up her swimsuit. She heard the thud of a pair of flip-flops being tossed down on the deck. Joe helped her put them on as the pontooned helo settled in the water beside the boat and Pete brought the Boston Whaler around to ferry Conn over to the aircraft.

Though he never made a sound, Hope could see the pain etched into his face at the effort it took to climb into the Whaler. The brief, bumpy ride leached the rest of the color from his face as the Whaler transported him across the bouncy waves to the chopper, but finally he was settled inside.

Hope climbed in beside him, gripped his hand, and the chopper lifted away.

One of the reporters she recognized from their morning at The Villas knelt next to Conn.

“How you doin’, Reese? You hangin’ in there?”

Conn opened his eyes and looked up at him. “I don’t have much choice.”

“You know you owe us one for this.” He gave Conn a toothy smile. “How about an exclusive?”

Hope had never disliked reporters until that very moment.

As the helo swept into the air, Joe made his way up to the bridge to speak to Captain Bob. “After what just happened, there’s no way we can just leave this place unguarded, even if we’re back by tomorrow night. I’m gonna call Markham, see if he’ll anchor the Sea Ray out here with a couple of security guys until we get back from Jamaica.”

“Good idea.” The captain lifted his bill cap and raked a hand through his thatch of silver hair. “In fact, I think Conn may have made that call before he went diving.”

Joe nodded, thinking that sounded like his friend. Conn liked to be prepared for whatever might come up. He probably figured leaving the place without security wasn’t a good idea.

Heading down to the chart room, Joe phoned Pleasure Island to make sure Conn had made the necessary arrangements and got through to Eddie Markham. Briefly he explained what had happened to Conn and that there was undoubtedly more trouble ahead.

“How bad is he hurt?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“I’ll call the hospital, see what I can find out. In regard to the Sea Ray, I’d planned to send Chalko out with a couple of men. They aren’t divers, but I’ll make sure they’re in uniform. Maybe seeing them will serve as a deterrent.”

“Thanks, Mr. Markham.”

“No problem. By the way, I heard you got married. Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Unfortunately, we haven’t had time for much of a honeymoon.”

“First chance you get, bring your wife out to the island. The two of you can have a couple of days at The Villas on me…sort of a wedding present.”

Joe grinned into the cell phone. “Thanks, Mr. Markham. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

“In the meantime, just phone Chalko and let him know what time the
Conquest
plans to leave.”

“Will do.” Joe hung up, ending the call. If he wasn’t so worried about Conn, he’d be moon-walking. Two days with Glory in one of Markham’s luxury villas. He could imagine a hundred different ways he’d make love to her. But until he knew his best friend was out of danger, the honeymoon would have to wait.

Needing a little hand-holding himself, Joe called Glory on her cell phone to tell her what had happened.

“Oh, my God! Is Conn going to be all right?”

“King thinks so, but we won’t know for sure until the doctors get a look at him.”

“I can’t believe someone shot him with a spear! I’m driving down to the hospital. I can be there in a couple of hours. Hope must be worried sick.”

Joe felt a sweep of relief. He’d hated to send Hope off alone, but there was only so much room in the chopper. “That’d be great, honey. She could probably use a friend right now.”

“I just know how I’d feel if you were the one who got hurt.” Glory signed off, anxious to get on the road to Kingston, and Joe felt an unexpected tightening in his chest. He might not have known Glory long but he knew everything about the kind of person she was. Kind, generous, loving. Joe was absolutely sure about that.

“Do you think they are at the hospital yet?” Michael asked, walking up to where Joe stood in the chart room. The boy’s gaze slid off in the direction the chopper had flown, and Joe could tell how worried he was.

“It won’t take them long to get there. I’m sure Hope will call as soon as she knows something.” Joe reached over and squeezed the kid’s shoulder. “Conn’s dealt with a lot worse than a little spear in the side. Ask him to show you the scar in his leg sometime.”

“I saw it when we were diving. How did it happen?”

“Slug from an old Russian carbine. We’d just hit the beach. Chance encounter with a group of tangos who weren’t supposed to be there. Conn took out five of them before he passed out.”

“That is so cool!”

“So you see, a little fishing spear ain’t no big deal.” Joe settled an arm around Michael’s shoulders. “In the meantime, while we’re waiting for that call, why don’t we go down to the galley and see what your old man’s got to eat?”

Michael managed a halfhearted smile. “I guess I could eat something.”

The kid could eat anytime, anyplace. Still, Joe could see nothing he said was going to ease the boy’s worry. As they reached the galley, he discovered neither one of them was in the mood to eat.

Hope sat anxiously in the waiting room at Douglas Memorial Hospital in Kingston. The room was sparsely furnished, just a beige vinyl sofa and a couple of matching chairs, a plain walnut table with a small brass lamp on top, and a table in front of the sofa stacked with dog-eared magazines.

A chrome-legged table against the wall held a stainless steel coffee urn, a bowl of crusty sugar, and a small pitcher of cream that was beginning to curdle. Hope had filled a small Sytrofoam cup but only taken a few absent sips before it went cold.

Sitting in one of the vinyl chairs, she clutched the jacket Joe had given her tighter around her shoulders, wishing she’d had time to change. At least the swimsuit had dried, so she was no longer cold in the air-conditioned room.

For the first time in her life, she wished she smoked.

She sighed as she paced the floor in the small, spartan waiting room. Only one other person sat in the room, a tall, thin black man in a loose-fitting flowered shirt whose wife had been rushed to the hospital with appendicitis. They had spoken briefly, then both lapsed back into silence.

Every time a nurse appeared in the hall, her gaze swung in that direction and the knot in her stomach tightened. She thought about getting another cup of coffee but her hands had started shaking and she was afraid she would spill it.

Then the door to the waiting room opened and Glory Ramirez swept in, tall, blond, and, for the first time, looking less that perfect.

“Hope! I came as soon as I could! I’ve been so worried! How’s Conn? Are you all right?”

The barrage of questions threw her for a moment, but she heard concern in the younger woman’s voice and felt an unexpected comfort in her presence.

“I’m all right. I haven’t heard anything yet. The nurses said it would probably be a while.”

Glory surprised her by pulling her into a hug. “I came to wait with you. I can only imagine how awful I’d feel if something happened to Joe.”

Hope felt a thickening in her throat. Knowing Glory had been one of Conn’s lovers, She hadn’t wanted to like her. Now she discovered it was going to be very hard not to. “Thank you for coming.”

They sat down on the vinyl couch and Glory took hold of her hand. “He’s going to be okay, you know. I mean, Conn was a Navy SEAL. Those guys are really tough.”

Hope felt the ghost of a smile. “I saw him in a fight once. He took on three men all at once and didn’t even break a sweat.”

Glory laughed and some of the tension Hope had been feeling began to ease. Glory was right. Conn was tough. He was going to be all right.

They sat there in silence for a while, both of them trying not to worry. Then the door of the waiting room swung open and a white-coated doctor walked in. Fear tightened her chest and all of Hope’s optimism drained away.

“Is he…is he going to be all right?”

“You are Mrs. Reese?”

“Well, I’m—”

“Yes, she is,” Glory cut in, flashing her a look that warned her to keep quiet.

“Then I will take you to see him.” The doctor, East Indian, black-haired, black-eyed, with the smoothest dark skin she’d ever seen, seemed to realize he hadn’t answered her question. He smiled. “There is no need for you to worry. He is going to be just fine.”

Relief hit her so hard, that for a moment she felt dizzy. Thank God Glory stepped forward and settled an arm around her shoulders.

“You heard what the doctor said—Conn’s going to be fine. Go on, now. I’m sure he’ll be anxious to see you.”

Hope just nodded. Following the doctor down the hall, she walked past him into one of the hospital rooms and stood at the foot of Conn’s bed. For a moment, he didn’t realize she was there.

He was propped against the pillows, his hair mussed and his face deathly pale. “I need my clothes,” he was grumbling to the nurse beside his bed. Hope could hear the slur of drugs in his voice. Hanging from a stand above his head, a pouch of blood dripped fluid into a length of plastic tube that fed intravenously into his arm. “You’ve patched me up…now I’m outta here.”

Hope took a steadying breath and walked toward him. “You aren’t going anywhere, hotshot. You’re staying in this bed until the doctor says you’re well enough to leave.”

The hardness in his features softened. “Hello…sweetheart.” He reached out and caught her hand, brought it to his lips. “I told you…I’d be fine.”

The nurse slipped quietly away and Hope stood there looking down at him, her heart twisting with a mixture of relief and something she refused to name.

“How are you feeling? Are you in pain?”

Conn gave her a lopsided grin. “I’m pretty well…drugged up at the moment.”

The doctor stepped in from behind her. “He was very lucky. Nothing vital was injured. Mostly he lost a lot of blood.” Conn still looked pale beneath his dark tan, but she thought that he did look better than when he’d arrived.

“I won’t be…diving for a while,” Conn said, each word thick and soft, “but the docs did a great job…stitching me up. If you hadn’t come storming in here like the…wrath of God, I’d be out of here…by now.”

Hope reached down and touched his cheek. “You’re staying until they say you can leave, and that’s final.”

One of Conn’s dark eyebrows went up. “You the one…giving orders now?”

She smiled, resisting the urge to touch him again. “I am today. And if you know what’s good for you, you’d better obey them.”

Conn’s lips curved but his eyes were beginning to close.

“I will give you a moment alone with him,” the doctor said in his heavily accented English, “then you will have to leave.”

The doctor left the room and Hope sat down in the chair next to Conn’s bed. She thought that he was asleep, but he opened his eyes and looked at her. “Thanks for coming…with me.”

Hope swallowed. Wild horses couldn’t have kept her out of that helicopter. It bothered her to think how worried she had been, how terrified for Conn. She didn’t want to feel those kinds of emotions for a man. Until today, she wasn’t even sure she could.

She managed to muster a smile. “Glory’s here, too. It was really nice of her to come all the way down to wait with me.”

“She’s a good girl. Maybe Joe was right to…marry her.”

“She loves him, Conn. You can see it every time she says his name.”

Conn’s intense blue eyes searched her face. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t.

He sighed into the quiet. “All right…I’ll stay tonight. But I’m gone…first thing in the morning.”

“I guess that’s as good as I’m going to get.”

He gave her a sleepy smile that made something tighten in her chest.

“The boat’s on its way to Port Antonio,” she told him. “Maybe Glory will stay in town with me tonight and all three of us can drive back to the boat in the morning.”

The nurse came in just then. “Sorry, time for you to leave, Mrs. Reese.”

Hope’s gaze sliced to Conn and she flushed. “They wouldn’t let me in unless they thought I was your wife.”

He smiled at her softly. “It’s all right. I kind of like…the sound of it.”

Hope ignored the little tremor of unease that slid down her spine. She reached over and combed her fingers through his hair, leaned down and very softly kissed his lips. “Get some rest. I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

She started to back away but Conn caught her hand and tugged her toward him for a last soft kiss.

“Stay out of trouble, Sinclair,” he whispered against her ear as she drew away. “I’ll see you…in the morning.”

Hope looked down at him, saw that his eyes had drifted closed. She remembered the soul-shaking emotions she had felt when she had seen him hurt and bleeding and thought that her troubles had only just begun.

Hope rented a room at a small motel called the Wanderer’s Inn not far from the hospital, an inexpensive place with rooms that faced the parking lot. Glory had insisted on staying the night with her in Kingston, though Hope knew she would rather have driven back to Port Antonio to wait for Joe, no matter how late the boat got in.

The motel had a souvenir shop off the lobby. The shop was closed, but the desk clerk opened up for her. Hope bought a pair of cheap khaki shorts and an orange tee shirt with JAMAICA printed in bold letters across the front to wear over her bathing suit, the best she could do for now.

As soon as they got to the room, she phoned the
Conquest
to let the guys on the boat know that Conn would be all right and that he was being released in the morning.

She didn’t miss the relief in Joe’s voice—or the eagerness when she told him she was handing the phone to Glory.

The two talked longer than they should have, considering the cost of a satellite call, but Hope figured Brad could afford it. Glory hung up, wearing a dreamy smile and chattering sweetly about Joe, and they left to get something to eat. When they got back to the motel, Hope called the hospital to check on Conn’s condition one last time. The nurse said he was doing fine and sleeping soundly.

Fatigued clear to the bone, Hope crawled into bed and fell almost instantly into an exhausted slumber nearly as deep as Conn’s.

Both women woke up early, Hope anxious to see Conn, Glory eager to get on the road back to Joe. Hope showered and dressed first. Desperate for a cup of coffee, she grabbed her purse and headed out the door for the pastry shop she had seen down the block when they checked in.

“I’ll bring you a cup of coffee and something to eat,” she called to Glory through the bathroom door. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

She wound up buying two pastries for each of them, a croissant and something that was gooey and raspberry-filled. As worried as she’d been about Conn last night, she hadn’t had much of an appetite. This morning she was ravenously hungry.

She was on her way back to the room, crossing the parking lot, walking along the corridor that led to room 101, when she noticed a man rapidly approaching behind her. A second man, shorter and olive-skinned, raced up to join him. An instant later, she was shoved up against the wall, her back slamming into the batten-board siding, a thick hand wrapped around her throat.

She knew Kingston could be a dangerous place. She tried to rein in her fear, tried to calm her racing heart, noticed for the first time the tattoo of a spider on the back of the darker man’s hand.

“We’ve got a little message for you, Hope,” the other man said, the sound of her name sending a shock wave through her. “It’s from your friend, Jimmy Deitz.” He was American, she realized, with fair skin and blond hair shaved to the scalp. He was holding something in his hand. He held it up in front of her face and the long, shiny blade of a knife snapped out.

“You remember Deitz, don’t you? Short guy, built like a tank? Paid to stick his nose into other people’s business?”

Her stomach contracted. She thought of what had happened to Buddy Newton. Dear God, what had they done to Jimmy? “You must be mistaken. I don’t…I don’t know anyone by that name.”

The darker man pinning her against the wall, the one with the tattoo rumbled a laugh. “You don’t, huh? Well, from now on, he don’t know you, either. He’s done working for you or anyone else.”

“That’s right,” Shaved-head chimed in. “Jimmy’s retired. At least till his broken legs grow back together.”

Her head spun and the bile rose in her throat. She tried to take a calming breath but it was impossible with the hand clamped around her throat. “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re done with your little investigation,” the blond man went on. “You and Jimmy both. That’s the message. You’re not writing any more articles for any friggin’ paper. You’re not meddlin’ where you don’t belong. You’re stayin’ out of other people’s business or you’re gonna end up dead. This is your last warning. You got it?”

The hand around her throat tightened, began to squeeze. The bag of pastries, still clutched in her nerveless fingers, dropped to the ground, the two cups of coffee inside the bag landing with a thud and tipping over on the sidewalk.

Hope tried to pull the encroaching hand away, tried to claw herself free. The knife flashed just inches from her face.

“You got it?” the blond man repeated.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Dark circles began to spin in front of her eyes. She tried to kick out but no longer had the strength.

The tattooed man squeezed harder, shook her till she thought her neck would snap. “You got it, bitch?”

She tried to swallow, couldn’t, then frantically nodded. An instant before she passed out, he let her go and she collapsed down the wall, clutching her bruised and aching throat, desperately trying to breathe.

“Meddle again and you die,” Shaved-head warned.

“Tell anyone this happened and you die,” the tattooed man said. Leaving her slumped against the wall gasping for air, the two men trotted off down the corridor and disappeared around the corner of the building.

For several long moments she just sat there trembling. Then she finally mustered the strength to slide up the wall and back on her feet. Her purse still dangled from the strap slung over her shoulder. The donuts were forgotten as she swayed along the corridor down to the room and hammered on the door, too shaken to dig out her key.

“Glory…it’s me.”

The door swung open an instant later. “Did you forget your—ohmygod!” Glory eased her into the room and closed the door behind them. She guided Hope over to the bed and urged her down on the mattress. “God, what happened?”

Hope’s trembling fingers moved toward her throat. For the first time she noticed the rip in the neck of her tee shirt and the splinters in the fabric that were scratching her back. Her throat still ached and she was shaking all over.

She swallowed, making her throat hurt. “It’s a long story. A problem I had back home finally caught up with me.” She went on to explain what had happened in the corridor and why, briefly telling Glory about Hartley House, the article she had written for the
Village Independent,
her ongoing investigation, and that the men had come here to warn her not to interfere again.

“How did they know you were here?”

“I don’t know. The attack on Conn has been all over the news. The news crew was filming as Conn and I got into the helicopter. I’m sure that reporter mentioned the hospital they took him to. Or maybe they’ve been watching me from one of those boats.”