Final Sail (26 page)

M
ira had lied. Louise hadn’t left the yacht on a Miami-based fishing charter.

Helen staggered out of her steaming bathroom with the thousand dollars still clutched in her hand. She sat on her bunk, stunned.

Why did Mira lie? What did it mean?

Was Louise washed overboard? What was she doing out on deck? And why didn’t Mira report her missing?

A wave of sickness flooded through Helen. Louise was dead. There was no way she could have survived that violent sea. And Mira had kept silent. Louise’s death must have been Mira’s fault somehow. Either Louise fell overboard—or she was pushed.

The head stew didn’t want to admit her responsibility.

It was two forty-eight in the morning. Helen didn’t want to wake the captain at this hour. He couldn’t save Louise now. This news could wait another three hours.

Louise is dead. She’s dead. Dead.

Helen couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d seen the wild water from the safety of the yacht. She’d felt it slam the ship. Poor little
Louise, lost in the ferocious waves. She could see her hopeless struggle as the ship sailed away.

The second stew’s death added to Helen’s sense of failure. Louise was dead and Helen had failed to find the smuggler. Now she’d have to work another week on the yacht. Life aboard the
Earl
had lost its charm. It was dreary and deadly.

Helen needed sleep. She put a pillow over her head, but couldn’t smother the pictures flashing through her mind. She saw Louise disappearing in the crashing waves. She felt the stew’s hopeless struggle. Despair seemed to seep into the cabin like damp.

Helen must have dozed off sometime after four in the morning. When she checked her alarm clock again, it was four thirty-two. She’d have to get up in less than an hour. The clock’s digital numbers gave the room a faint green glow. She couldn’t escape emeralds even in her bunk.

Her restless dreams were lit by the dull green glint of fake emeralds and the green fire of Max’s ring. The smuggler’s pinkie ring was real. She’d seen that same green sparkle since the dinner with Max.

Beth? The boat owner had worn a savage emerald necklace and her poodle had an extravagant emerald collar and leash. Pepper wore an emerald-and-diamond choker with her film-goddess dress. All those stones had had that authentic blaze, like spring leaves igniting.

But those emeralds didn’t nag at Helen. There were other jewels. She could see them in her mind. They were just as sparkling, but the gowns weren’t as glamorous.

Gowns! That was it!

The rubbishy gowns that Mira brought on board, covered with jewels. Helen had thought they were fake. Now she wasn’t sure. Mira had stowed them in the smuggler’s hiding spot, the bosun’s locker.

Helen leaped out of bed, threw on her uniform, grabbed the emergency flashlight and slipped it in her pocket. She tiptoed out of her cabin. In the passage she heard a symphony of snores: The crew
was still asleep. Helen climbed the ladder to the bosun’s locker and turned the hatch wheel.

She was in. It was still dark outside and the space was a metal cave. She shone the flashlight around the locker, picking out shammy mops, yacht brushes and buffing tools. Mira’s waterproof duffel melted into the shadows behind the plastic buckets.

Helen dragged the bag out, plopped it down on a gray plastic storage bin and unzipped it. Out tumbled grimy satin, worn velvet and tired chiffon studded with glass rubies, plastic sapphires and cheap rhinestones. Except—what was that?

The belt on a sea green gown flashed in the light. This was different from the dull glitter on Suzanne’s green T-shirt. Emerald-cut stones blazed like green bonfires. Each stone was nearly an inch long. There were twenty.

Helen had found the emeralds.

Mira was smuggling jewels. Helen pieced together their conversations and indicted the head stew in her mind:

Mira said she was investing in her boyfriend’s theater company. Helen knew Mira wasn’t using her savings as a stew. Those wouldn’t finance a high school play. Mira wanted to be a real angel and shower the theater with the proceeds from smuggled emeralds.

Mira said she and her boyfriend were flying to New York the day the
Earl
docked in Lauderdale. So Kevin could try out for a New York production? Maybe. To sell smuggled stones? Helen thought that might be the real reason. Max said smugglers took the stones to brokers in Miami or Manhattan. The stew was smart to choose New York. That put more than a thousand miles between Mira and her fence.

Helen started shoving the dresses back in the duffel, then stopped. She remembered Mira folding the dresses neatly in the crew mess. Helen pulled them back out and forced herself to slow down and carefully pack the bulky dresses. She put the gown with the emerald belt on the bottom.

Helen saw only one reason for Mira’s silence about the missing Louise: She knew Mira was the smuggler. That emerald belt and the tackle box full of cut stones would give Mira at least a million dollars. Once she had the money, Helen bet, she’d never come back to the yacht.

Louise’s death would be one more mystery at sea.

Helen wanted to shout in triumph. She’d found the smuggler. Once she told the captain, she was free. Wait till Phil found out. She wouldn’t even mind his “I told you so” brag. She was an equal partner in Coronado Investigations.

She zipped the duffel closed and dropped it back behind the buckets. She didn’t need the flashlight now. Daylight poured into the bosun’s locker. The sky was a glorious pink, like the inside of a conch shell.

As she climbed back down the ladder, Helen heard the crew preparing for the day—showers, soft conversations, doors sliding shut. She was relieved she’d reached her cabin without seeing anyone.

She checked the clock. Helen had twenty minutes to dress. She could see the captain if she skipped breakfast. She was so amped on adrenaline she didn’t need coffee. She washed, brushed her hair, then ran upstairs.

Captain Josiah Swingle and Carl the wallet smuggler were on the bridge. Now the lanky first mate with the no-color hair didn’t look shrewd to Helen. She thought he seemed shifty.

Josiah was annoyingly alert early in the morning. Helen wondered what made some people natural commanders. Josiah wasn’t the tallest man on the yacht—Carl topped him by several inches. He wasn’t the strongest. Young Sam would win that title.

But he had enough authority to put them all in their place.

Helen burst through the door and said, “Captain, I need to talk to you about my contract.” That was their prearranged signal that Helen had found something.

“Would you excuse us, Carl?” the captain said.

The first mate nodded and stepped outside on the deck.

Josiah checked to make sure Carl wasn’t listening at the door, then said, “You found the smuggler?”

“Two smugglers,” Helen said. “And I have bad news about Louise.”

“Start with the emerald smuggler,” Josiah said.

“It’s Mira,” Helen said. “She’s got twenty big stones on board hidden in a duffel bag in the bosun’s locker.”

Helen watched the captain’s face. Josiah showed no surprise. He showed no emotion at all.

“Mira,” he repeated.

“She was one of your three suspects,” Helen said.

“Right,” the captain said.

“I think she’s smuggling to help her boyfriend’s theater company.”

“I don’t care why she’s doing it,” Josiah said. At last, his anger ignited. “If the Coast Guard finds those emeralds, my reputation is ruined and my boat is padlocked to the dock. It will take years to sort out the mess. I’m confiscating those emeralds and turning her in.”

“You could do that, Captain,” Helen said. “But if I may make a suggestion, Mira is planning to fly to New York at three o’clock, after we dock at the marina. How many times have you been boarded by the Coast Guard?”

“None,” he said.

“Then why not risk one more trip and let her leave the yacht with the emeralds? When we get back to Lauderdale, Phil will make an anonymous tip and her suitcase will be searched before she boards the plane to New York. That way the
Earl
won’t be directly involved in her takedown.”

“I like that,” Josiah said. He smiled and Helen almost felt sorry for Mira.

“Now, tell me about Louise,” he said.

“I’m afraid she’s dead,” Helen said. “I found this—a thousand
dollars’ cash—hidden in the toilet paper holder in our cabin.” She handed the tightly folded bills to the captain.

“I also found her seizure medicine in a tampon box in the medicine cabinet. I left it there.”

“Why do you think she’s dead?” Josiah asked.

“Louise left her medicine behind,” Helen said.

“She could have enough pills in her purse to get home,” Josiah said.

“She didn’t take her thousand dollars,” Helen said. “She couldn’t have paid for her passage back in cash, like Mira said.”

“Helen, there are other ways a pretty young woman can pay for her passage,” Josiah said.

Now Helen felt naive and foolish. “You know Louise, Captain. Do you really think she’d get on a boat full of men she didn’t know and hook her way back to Miami?”

“No,” Josiah said. “But maybe they weren’t strangers. Crews party together when they’re in port. Louise or her boyfriend could know the charter captain or a crew member. She could have agreed to pay them when she got back to Florida. She could have come back for this money—or asked one of our crew to get it for her.”

Helen wasn’t convinced. “I still think Mira is a liar as well as a smuggler,” she said.

“Why would Mira lie?” Josiah said.

“Because Louise discovered she was smuggling emeralds,” Helen said. “Mira threw the second stew overboard in those high waves. Louise is dead and Mira killed her.”

“Mira isn’t violent,” Josiah said. “I know that.”

“Really? You didn’t know she was a smuggler,” Helen said.

Josiah didn’t react. Helen wondered if he was angry.

“If Louise suspected the head stew was smuggling, she would have come to me,” he said.

“Would she?” Helen said. “Louise is what—twenty-one?”

“Twenty-three,” Josiah said.

“You think a twenty-three-year-old toilet scrubber would have the nerve to approach you and accuse her superior of smuggling?” Helen asked. “I’m eighteen years older than Louise, and I’d think twice about accusing Mira, except I’ve seen the proof.”

“Proof, Helen,” Josiah said. “That’s what you’re missing. You have no proof Mira killed Louise. We don’t even know that Louise is dead. She could be drinking in a bar with her boyfriend right now.”

“If she is, I’ll take it all back,” Helen said. “But I’m worried about her. I know she isn’t your problem anymore. The Bahamian official said so.”

“No, she is,” Josiah said. “My ship, my crew, my responsibility. I need to know she’s safely back in the States. I’ll check with the Bahamian authorities and see if they’ve located the
Aces High
. I promise I’ll tell you, one way or the other.”

“A deal,” Helen said.

He was the captain. On this ship his word was law. But Helen knew Louise was dead.

CHAPTER 31

S
ilence followed the captain’s promise to find Louise. The waves playfully slapped the yacht’s side and the showy tropical pink sky mocked Helen’s fears.

It seemed impossible that this postcard-pretty sea had been a crazed killer a few nights ago, raising up waterspouts and six-foot waves.

But Helen knew better. The storm had been so rough she couldn’t walk the short secret passage without being thrown against a wall. Even an experienced stew like Louise couldn’t carry a tray without nearly dropping a glass.

Louise was small and wiry. Mira was a sturdy woman. Helen thought she was stronger and more muscular than the second stew.

How had she killed Louise? Knocked her out, then dragged her out on deck and thrown her overboard? Lured her out on deck by asking for help with an unsecured hatch? Told her a piece of deck furniture had come loose from its lashings and she couldn’t reach the boys to put it back?

Any of those excuses would work. And Mira could quickly wipe up the seawater after she opened a door.

Helen hoped Mira had knocked Louise unconscious first. It would be unbelievably cruel to throw her overboard alive. No one would hear Louise’s shouts for help on board the ship. She would see life—and hope—sailing away.