Finding Harmony (Katie & Annalise Book 3) (18 page)

As we neared Collin, Bill eased off the throttle.

“Can you pull me up alongside Collin? I want to hand him a Gatorade. It’s likely he’ll be the first person to get to Nick.”

If it’s Nick
.

It had to be, because I’d already seen the life raft from my dream, and if the life raft was here, he was here.

“Sure,” Bill said, and maneuvered closer.

I held up the Gatorade and stretched my arm over the water. Collin nodded and took it from me. He jammed it inside the front of his life vest.

From this vantage point and without binoculars, I still couldn’t tell whether we were approaching a rock or my husband. The adrenaline in my system was making me dizzy, but I braced myself on the gunwale and kept watching.

“I don’t know how much closer I can get,” Bill shouted to Collin over the noise of our idling motor. “But I’ll keep working at it. I’ll have to troll now.”

Collin gave a thumbs-up and resumed his paddling, each stroke followed rapidly by another that sent the kayak surging toward the rocks. Bill raised the engine until the blades barely broke the water’s surface. He set the engine to troll and we puttered forward.

I closed my eyes and whispered. The time had come to ask for help, to jump the emergency-room line.

Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, forever. Amen.

Thy will be done. My throat swelled.

We watched, floating close enough to see Collin clearly, but we were useless to him. He reached the base of the rocks and searched for a handhold for what seemed like hours. When it looked like he had found one, he tossed his paddle onto the rock above him and hauled himself up hand over hand. The line for the kayak was tied around his waist but slack. Finally, he was high enough to plant a foot on the rock. He pushed himself up, moved one hand upwards, planted the other foot, pushed up, moved the other hand up. Again. The kayak lifted off the water. Again. Again. Now the skinny watercraft was vertical, and with one more pull/push, Collin climbed over the edge and was on the rock. He lifted the kayak hand over hand until he could rest it on the rock beside him.

I could never have done what I just watched my brother do. I wondered if even Bill or Kurt could have made that ascent pulling the water-laden boat. I imagined Nick doing it without the boat, after a plane crash and God knows how long floating in a life raft. I swallowed.

And then Collin disappeared from our view. We floated. Neither Bill nor I said a word.

No Collin.

And then he reappeared.

He gave us a giant “O” over his head, like a scuba diver. The symbol for “OK.”

“That looks like good news to me,” Bill said.

“Yeah?” I answered, but I didn’t take my eyes away from Collin until he disappeared again. “You think so?”

Bill reached for my hand and held it with one of his, then patted it with his other. “I do.”

And I started crying. My eyes poured out enough tears to fill that little boat. Bill leaned over with a clumsy hug, and I scrubbed the tears away.
Thank you God, thank you, oh thank you.
Bill stood up and made a giant “O” for Kurt to see as well, and the Whaler pitched. He half-fell, half-hopped down and held onto both sides. We both laughed, relief making the rocking boat funnier than it was.

Collin was taking forever. Water lapped at the hull and the sun baked our heads. I sucked in the salt air and could just make out the pungent scent of the rocks stained white by the birds that were watching us from above.

Bill broke the silence. “I wonder why that helicopter never came back? Good thing we didn’t count on them.”

I looked at Bill and nodded. I had given up on help when they left hours ago. So much for the Coast Guard. Nick told me I had to be the one to find him, and I was. I looked past Bill at
Kate
in the distance and saw something disturbing.

A boat was approaching her, winding through the same reefs she had wound through, but moving faster than she had. A smaller boat, low-slung and sleek.

“Bill,” I said.

I didn’t have to point or say another word. Bill’s face registered what he read on mine, and he turned to see what had set me back. He squinted and put his hand over his eyes.

“Can you tell what it is?” I asked. “I mean, it’s a boat, but, you know . . .”

“Not yet. I’m sure it’s nothing, though,” he said.

I wasn’t so sure it was nothing, but we couldn’t do anything about it now. Well, I could do one thing. I stood up and waved for Kurt’s attention, then used my biggest pointing gestures to direct his attention to the boat. Whether Kurt saw me, I did not know.

Bill grabbed my leg. “Katie, look,” he said.

I’d started the boat tilting back and forth again, so I sat down carefully and spun around on my seat. When I turned my head back toward Monito, my heart filled my throat and blood pounded hot in my ears. Collin was standing on the rock shelf supporting a very limp Nick on his arm. But Nick was upright. Nick was alive and standing right in front of me on Monito.

“That tough son of a bitch,” Bill said. “He crashes a plane in the middle of the ocean, paddles to an island, climbs a sheer rock face, and survives on nothing but air for days out here.” Bill slapped me a high five. There were tears in his eyes.

“How in the world is Collin going to get him down from there?” I asked.

“Piece of cake for a badass like Collin,” Bill said.

I thought it looked impossible. While I gaped, Collin put the life vest on Nick and pulled the straps tight. Nick’s body jerked like a rag doll with each tug. Still supporting Nick with one arm, Collin lowered the kayak to the water.

And then he pushed my husband off the rocks and into the sea below, jumping in after him.

“What is he doing?” I screamed.

“It’s going to be OK,” Bill said. He patted my shoulder. “I’d have done the same thing. Nick has on a life vest. Collin’s right there with him.”

As scared as it made me, Bill was right. Already Collin had shoved Nick across the kayak. We watched as Collin tried several times to get himself in but failed. Each time he slipped off the side, my stomach plunged. Finally, he gave up and swam, pulling the kayak behind him by its line. The bulky swimmer and boat moved an inch at a time toward us with Nick’s feet trailing like anchors behind it. Collin was strong, but he was not a trained swimmer.

While Collin struggled, I didn’t take my eyes off Nick. Bill did, though.

“Looks like that boat is pulled up to the
Kate,
” he said.

I whipped my head toward
Kate.
The black boat was beside her. The distorted sound of Puerto Rican music moved over the surf and wind. Kurt was leaning down, talking to the boat’s occupants. My glance registered three of them, and I was relieved to see Collin still towing Nick when I turned back around.

“What’s going on?” I asked Bill.

“I can’t tell,” he said.

Nick and Collin kept moving closer.

“They’re pointing something at Kurt,” Bill said, and his voice rose.

No, please no.
“What is it?” I listened for a gunshot.

“It’s,” Bill hesitated. “It looks like—oh, Katie, it was a camera. They took a picture. And Kurt just waved to them. They’re leaving. Yeah, it looks like they’re headed to the cut back to Mona.”

I leaned over the side of the Whaler and vomited. I felt better.

And then the kayak bumped the Whaler. Collin grabbed the side of our boat, gasping for air, and Nick raised his hand an inch or two.

His voice was a fraction of its normal volume, but scratchy as always and recognizably him. “Where’s my wife?” he said.

“I’m right here, baby, I’m right here,” I said. I leaned over the side of the Whaler as far as I dared. I wanted to touch that man more than I wanted to breathe.

“What took you so long?” he said, and I knew without a doubt that he was fine. Weak, but sense of humor intact. My Nick.

Bill and Collin had lined up the kayak with the Whaler. My hands found Nick’s face. Warmth flooded my body.

“Someone forgot to tell me where he was going four days ago. A mere oversight, I’m sure,” I said. I laughed. The time to discuss that, and many other things, would come later. Now, the joy pulsing from my heart almost blasted the top of my head skyward.

With Collin and Bill’s help, Nick crawled into the boat and collapsed against me.

Nick rolled his head back until he could see my face. “There you are. My Katie.”

I pressed my lips against his cracked red forehead and whispered into his hairline. “I love you. I love you, Nick. Let’s go home.”

Thy will be done.

Nick took thimble-sized sips of Gatorade as I cut his clothes off him.

“Do I need an audience for this?” he rasped, referring to Collin and Kurt. Bill was back in the captain’s perch, rocketing us toward Rincón, Puerto Rico.

“Sorry, brother-in-law, but as much trouble as we’ve been through to find you, you’re stuck with all of us,” Collin said.

Kurt nodded, because that’s what Kurt did. But he was smiling, ear to ear.

I said, “Shhh, Nick. Save your energy. We’re going to take you rock climbing later.” This earned me a laugh, which turned into a dry cough. More Gatorade.

“I never want to climb another rock in my life. I don’t even want to look at a rock. And I sure never want to use one as a pillow again,” he said.

I removed his pocket watch from its clasp on his belt loop. “I think we’re going to have to get this fixed again,” I said. I popped open the face and salt water trickled out and onto the bed. The pictures of Taylor, the girls, and me were barely recognizable. I started to pry them out.

“Don’t,” Nick said. He shook his head. “I want to keep them, just like that.”

I smiled at him and shut the watch, then put it in my own pocket for safekeeping. I tossed pieces of his stiff clothing into the trashcan. I wanted to put him in the shower but decided in favor of a damp washcloth for now. This filth had to come off in layers. I worked as gently as I could.

“Ow,” Nick said. “Sunburn.”

I let up. The man deserved a short reprieve. I pulled the zebra-striped sheet over him, then I put my face over his and looked into his eyes. He mustered an exhausted smile. I touched his cheek with my fingertips and kissed his red nose, beautiful but still slightly dirty. His eyes closed.

As Nick faded, I turned to Kurt. “Why didn’t the choppers ever come back?”

He shook his head. “They radioed that they found Haitian refugees on Desecheo. They said they’d resume our search when they finished that rescue.”

Nick’s eyes popped open. He raised his head from the pillow and propped himself on one elbow. “Are you talking about the Coast Guard? Are you in contact with them?”

“Yup,” Kurt said.

“Whatever you do, please, don’t tell them or anyone you’ve found me yet.”

“What?” Kurt asked.

“What!” I echoed.

“I have so much to tell you. Long story short, the bad guys think I’m dead. We need to keep it that way for now.”

Kurt’s brows shot up, but after a minute of reflection he said, “Let me see what I can do without making a media announcement. I think it’s a serious offense to waste the Coast Guard’s resources, son. Just help me understand enough that I can explain the situation to my contact.”

Nick nodded and slumped back on his pillow, his eyes closing again. He had a coughing attack and I helped him take another drink. We all moved closer to hear him.

“I have to start at the beginning. Elena texted me after we interviewed her. Said she needed to talk to me. I told her I was going to the Ag Fair with my family. She said a guy would meet me there, and he did. He said she feared for her life and needed someone to fly her to DR. That if I took her, she would tell me the whole Eddy story when we got there, that she knew everything.” He lifted just his fingers off the bed, making tiny quotes when he said, “knew everything.”

I knew it. I knew he’d lied to me about the man at the Ag Fair
.
I felt the first hot flush in my cheeks.

Relax, girl.

“I agreed,” Nick continued. “We set a time for the next morning. So I snuck off St. Marcos and took Elena and her mother to Punta Cana, but first they asked me to stop in San Juan and pick up that same guy I met at the Ag Fair. His name is Jorge Gomez, and he is, or was, a Petro-Mex employee on St. Marcos, too.” He stopped for more Gatorade. His sips were getting bigger and he seemed to grow stronger with every swallow. Or maybe it was his story that was energizing him.

“And a few hours later, some goons poured rum in your gas tanks,” Kurt said.

“That’s what it was, huh? I knew it was no damn coincidence that my engines failed. Man, I’ll bet they picked up my trail in San Juan. It was a mistake to tell the tower there I was bound for Punta Cana. Bastards.”

Nick wiped his chapped lips with his hand. I had smeared Carmex on them and was itching to do it again, but I restrained myself and let him go on.

“So Elena kept her word and told me the story. Gomez and Elena were lovers. They met when Elena moved to St. Marcos to marry Eddy. She said that when Eddy died, she had no idea if it was suicide or not. But she told people it had to be murder, because she didn’t want people to find out about her with Gomez and say Eddy killed himself because of their affair. Then she got a visit from a guy who made her change her story. She said he was local muscle, a mafioso type.”

I helped him drink again. His lips bled this time, so I put the Carmex on anyway, and he tolerated it.

“The guy told her he would kill her unless she said Eddy committed suicide. She was terrified. Her old boyfriend in Mexico is a tough guy with the Chihuahua cartel, so, thinking he could help her, she called him. Wrong move. It turned out that her mafioso visitor was with the Chihuahua cartel, too, and the old boyfriend knew all about what was happening. In fact, he was part of it. He laughed at her, told her that the cartel had gone to Eddy and demanded he help them, or they’d kill Elena. So Eddy did.” Nick stopped to rest. His sips had turned into long gulps.

“Nice people,” I said.

“Scary people,” Nick said.

“What did the cartel want Eddy to do for them?” Collin asked.

“They made Eddy help them with the plans for a terrorist attack on the St. Marcos refinery. Remember that article I showed you, Katie? They’re feuding over payola for a pipeline in Mexico, so the Chihuahuas wanted to shut down Petro-Mex’s pipeline here, so to speak. The harbor.”

“Why Eddy?” I asked.

“He had access to the information they needed. Eddy worked in Terminal Operations, the part of the refinery that moves crude off and products like gasoline onto the ships. His group also took care of the tank farm, that giant storage facility they have.”

Now the printouts of maps and shipping schedules Nick had left in our office made sense.

“So Eddy was helping terrorists,” I said. And the cartel murdered their informant outside my home. Yuck. Too close.

“Emphasis on ‘was.’ The ex-boyfriend told Elena that Eddy had found out about her sleeping with Gomez. Eddy refused to cooperate with the cartel anymore. He told them to kill her if they wanted to. They killed him instead.”

“Why did Jiménez show up at Elena’s house and insist Eddy was murdered? Is Jiménez a local stooge for the cartel, too?” I asked.

“Actually, no. You’ll get a kick out of this, I think. Jiménez was paying Mexican women to marry the refinery employees. He paid Elena to come marry Eddy. No one else at Petro-Mex knows, and he was trying to keep it a secret. Elena said Jiménez was afraid she would tell us, or that we’d find something about it on Eddy’s computer,” Nick said.

I couldn’t close my mouth. “What? But why?” Tutein was right. Petro-Mex had given Elena to Eddy as a retention bonus.

“Jiménez is the human resources guy. He had a terrible problem with employee turnover. The refinery employees couldn’t keep their women from Mexico and the states on the island. The women hated St. Marcos—they were far from their families, they couldn’t get jobs, they didn’t like living next to the refinery. When the women left, the men left. So, to get the men to stay, Jiménez needed women who would stay. Women that were paid not to leave.”

Wow. Just wow. “Is that even legal?”

“Not if the women were from the U.S. But even if he wasn’t breaking any laws, Jiménez wanted to keep it a secret so he wouldn’t look bad.”

Made sense. “By the way, Ramirez fired us. Or you, rather. Because Elena begged him to call off the investigation.”

“Figures,” Nick said.

“So wrap it up for me: why don’t you want the Coast Guard to let anyone know you’re alive?” Kurt asked.

“For more reasons than the cartel thinks I’m dead, and I think they sent people to kill me?” Nick asked. His voice rose.

“There’s no ‘think’ to it, babe. They definitely tried to kill you,” I said. “And they followed us and killed one of the witnesses we talked to.”

“What?” Nick said. “Are they still following us? Don’t underestimate their reach.”

Collin said, “They found us in San Juan, but we shook them. No sign of them since, and I’ve been vigilant. I know them well from New Mexico drug operations.”

“They think you flew toward Mexico,” I added. And then I remembered the boat. “Kurt, what was the deal with the boat that pulled up to
Kate
earlier?”

“Tourists. Drunk,” Kurt said.

Maybe. “What did you tell them?”

“I told them I was a charter captain, and that my clients were scuba diving at Monito. They took a picture of themselves with
Kate
in the background, and then said they were going to check out Mona.”

I hoped that was all they were going to do.

“We’ve really got to be careful.” Nick shook his head. “There’s just a little more to the story, and then I’m going to pass out. Gomez and Elena were scared to death after she talked to the cartel ex-boyfriend. So the two of them ransacked Eddy’s stuff. And they learned that the cartel was very close, is very close, to attacking the refinery. They found the plans. So I want to work with Petro-Mex and the authorities to stop the cartel, and not end up dead.”

Mere hours after we had scooped his limp body off a rock, Nick was preparing to go to battle.

“Yup. I see,” Kurt said. “Do you know how they plan to attack?”

“Through the harbor. They plan to destroy the harbor and blow up the tank fields. To cripple the pipeline out of St. Marcos,” Nick replied.

Kurt finally seemed to have heard what he needed. He was on his feet now, headed for the satellite phone.

“One more thing,” Nick called after him. “Their plan is to stage a diversion, an emergency that seems legitimate, to draw the attention of all the refinery’s personnel and resources away from their attack zone.”

Kurt nodded and then disappeared from view. Nick fell back onto his pillow. If it were possible for a sunburned olive-skinned man to be deathly pale, he was. Time to intervene.

I held up my scissors. “I need to finish cutting you out of your clothes, put you in a shower, and then slather aloe vera over your whole body. Scat, Collin.”

“Yeah, this is not something I want to see.” He leaned down and squeezed Nick’s shoulder. “Good to have you back with us, Nick.”

Nick put his hand on Collin’s. “Thank you, Collin. Thank all of you for coming for me.”

“Katie’s the one that found you, but you’re welcome,” Collin said, and he followed Kurt out.

“So you’re the one who figured out where I was?” Nick asked.

I nodded. “I had lot of help, though. And I had dreams. Dreams where you talked to me and gave me clues. Annalise even gave me clues.” I picked up my blue spiral notebook from the bedside table and handed it to him.

His eyes softened. He rubbed his palm against the cover of the notebook, and then flipped its pages, nodding his approval. “Did you dream about a rubber dinghy full of presents?”

I moved my face down to his, nose barely touching nose. “I did. And I dreamed about the
Wild Irish Kate
, and much more. Were you really there?”

His nose rubbed up and down against mine as he nodded. “I guess I was. I dreamed about you, too, that I was talking to you, but I didn’t realize until just now that, well, they were more than dreams. But nothing surprises me anymore.”

“Nor me.”

He studied my face. “You are gorgeous, you know.” His eyes swept my body. “And really thin.”

In only days, I’d lost the rest of the baby fat. I remembered what Kurt told me, that Nick was worried about my weight. My husband and I were going to have a very unpleasant conversation when he was strong enough to live through my temper. About a lot more than my weight. About his subterfuge, his outright dishonesty. About cutting me out of the Petro-Mex case. I snuffed the wick as my temper flared. For now, I would just enjoy having him back alive.

“And you are a sight for sore eyes,” I replied.

Nick puckered, hinting. I leaned in and kissed him.

He winced. “Hurts so good,” he said.

I wiped his blood from my lips and smiled at him.

“How are the kids?” he asked.

A long story that would wait. “Great,” I said. I left off “I hope.”

“Good. I miss them so much. I want to call everyone myself soon.” Kurt had called Julie already, as soon as we found Nick. “Um, Katie, I need a favor.”

Uh oh
.
“Maybe,” I said.

“After I ask for the favor, I want you to tell me all about what has happened since I left.”

“That part sounds fine,” I said. “Just keep drinking.”

Nick took a sip. He folded his lips in and inhaled, then said in a headmaster voice, “I want to go straight back to St. Marcos. I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

I glared at him.

“Seriously, I’m fine,” he said. “So I’m a little hungry and thirsty. I floated in a life raft for a day. I got a little dinged up on some rocks.”

“You were in a plane crash, too!”

“It was really more like a rough landing, that’s all.”

“And you don’t have any clothes,” I said. I knew this was a weak argument, but it was all I had left.

“I can wear some of Dad’s.”

“Nick,” I started to protest.

“Katie, I know you’ll take care of me, and I just want to get back to St. Marcos, quickly and quietly. More people are going to die if we don’t stop the cartel. And then all we’ve been through will be meaningless. Let’s finish this. Let’s do some good.”

I thought of the young busboy, dead because he had helped me. Of the man I’d never known who died outside my driveway. I sighed. The long-suffering sigh of a woman who knows her husband well and is certain she has no prayer of winning the argument.

He didn’t even need to wait for a yes to know my answer.