Wildfire (37 page)

"Yes, exactly like that," she murmured. She started to bring her hand farther up Bloom's loose-fitting bathing suit, but then hesitated as she sensed a shift in the wind. Glancing up at the telltales, she quickly made a slight adjustment to the steering wheel and then returned her full attention to the task at hand.

The powerful sailing craft responded immediately, heeling over to an angle of maximum efficiency as the flexible mast and tautened sails sent the computer-designed hull slicing though the moderate chops in a hiss of fine salt spray.

Incredible, Bloom thought as he allowed himself to be overwhelmed by the combined sensations of wind-driven speed and slow, unhurried sex.

Absolutely incredible.

She was a Freedom 45 with 990 square feet of sail, less than five feet of draft, an easily accessible back-porch swim platform, a carbon-fiber mast that rose sixty-three feet off the water, and a huge, teak-lined main salon that bordered on the sybaritic. Equipped with an electric winch, oversized gears, and every modern navigation device known to man, the
Sea Amber
was the perfect boat for an experienced sailor with time on his hands, memories to escape, and money to burn.

Which had turned out to be a perfect description for an incredibly wealthy and yet—at the time—fearfully angry and despondent industrialist named Alfred Bloom.

Responding to the encouragement of his fellow ICER Committee members, who had good reason to be deeply concerned about his emotional stability, Bloom had begun to spend his weekends prowling yacht dealerships. A skillful deep-water sailor from his childhood days on Martha's Vineyard, he had been infatuated immediately with the graceful yet visibly powerful lines of the
Sea Amber.
She needed a complete refit on top and a lot of work below deck, but the dealer had been amiable. They negotiated a price of $350,000 in cash, with extended sea trials included in the package. So when all of the committee members finally agreed to an offshore meeting, Bloom decided that the Bahamas would be just the place to put his new forty-five-foot toy through her paces.

He had planned on taking her out alone on that first day, hoping—somehow—to lose himself in a battle of winds and currents and high seas until the image of Lisa Abercombie no longer appeared in his memories.

But Anne-Marie, the blue-eyed, dark-haired skipper who single-handedly delivered the expensively renovated sailboat to his private dock that next Saturday morning, and stood there waiting for him in a pair of loose white coveralls, had caused him to make a radical change in his plans.

She had walked him through all the minor adjustments to the topside gear, and then took him down into the main salon, pointing out the luxurious amenities, the upgraded navigation station, and the easy accesses to the engine, battery, and generator compartments.

Then, after making sure that Bloom was completely familiar with all the various accessories that one might expect to find on a $350,000 racing yacht, she had led him into the master stateroom.

There, standing in front of the queen-sized berth, Anne-Marie had stepped out of the loose coveralls to reveal a surprisingly full, visibly muscular, and incredibly enticing body that wasn't the least bit concealed beneath her thin, blue, single-piece bathing suit.

Staring straight into his eyes without the slightest trace of a smile, she had quietly asked if he had reconsidered his decision to take the
Sea Amber
out on her shakedown cruise by himself.

That had been three days ago, and during that time he had almost managed to forget about Lisa Abercombie and ICER.

Almost, but not quite.

Taking turns at the wheel and winches, Bloom and his new companion had spent the entire morning and the better part of the afternoon off the western shore of Cat's Island, exploring the outer limits of his new boat. Secured to the center cockpit by nylon safety lines, and braced against sudden yawls and pitches, they had tacked the wing-keeled craft into the surging winds time after time, deliberately heeling her out well past the recommended angles as they sought the worst that the Caribbean waters could provide.

And when their arms and shoulders began to tire, they simply sat shoulder to shoulder in the center cockpit and extended the sloop-rigged boat out on long reaches under the deep blue sky. All the while kissing, caressing, smiling, whispering, and gazing fondly at each other as the blazing sun and the shifting breezes and the splashing whitecaps scorched and cooled and soaked the fabric of their light windbreakers.

It had been a magnificent day. One that they both agreed they would remember and savor for the rest of their lives. But the hours of exertion and exposure had begun to take their inevitable toll even before they had allowed themselves to be caught up in their latest sensual diversion.

The wind shifted again, and they were forced to break away from their increasingly heated and impatient caressing.

"I think I'm going to die if I don't get something to drink," Anne-Marie said in a shaky voice as she gave him one last, lingering kiss before she relinquished control of the forty-two-inch steering wheel. "Want me to get you something?"

Bloom nodded gratefully as he made an adjustment of the main winch with the foot pedal. "Anything, just as long as it's warm and alcoholic."

She hesitated at the top of the companionway and looked back, the muscles of her full hips and buttocks flexed enticingly beneath the glistening fabric of her thin bathing suit.

"A couple of Navy Grogs, my way? Or maybe I could interest you in something a little warmer?" Beneath the dark sunglasses, her suntanned face dimpled into a mischievous smile.

"The grog sounds wonderful, and yes, you could." He smiled. "But—"

"Yes?"

"One of us would have to steer, and I honestly don't think I'd have the strength to do both," he replied with a look of sincere regret on his sun-and-wind-burned face.

She stared out across the glistening water for a few moments, seemingly lost in thought.

"About how far do you think we are from Old Blight?" she finally asked.

He noted their compass heading, glanced at his watch, thought about the distances for a moment, and then made a couple of quick mental calculations.

"I'd say maybe a couple of hours if we really worked at it."

"I'll tell you what," she said in a slow, sultry voice. "Why don't I get us something to drink first. Then we can both work at it, and the first one who sets the anchor gets to choose?"

"Chose what?" he asked, although he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"Everything," she replied as she pulled the windbreaker over her head, offering him a tantalizing view of the superbly conditioned and barely concealed torso that his hands had been busily exploring only moments before. She tossed the windbreaker at his head, stepped back onto the companionway ladder, removed her sunglasses, and then raised a single eyebrow expectantly.

Once again Alfred Bloom marveled at the way the reflective, cerulean-blue fabric of the tightly stretched bathing suit precisely matched the color of her penetrating eyes. Not to mention the thick, quilted cover of the queen-sized main berth, he remembered with a smile, wondering if she had been involved in the selection of that too.

"Well?"

"You, my dear, are on."

She was down below in the teak and stainless steel galley, humming to herself as she filled spill-proof mugs with a warmed lethal mixture of dark and light rums and assorted citrus juices, when she remembered the fax warning light.

Moving across the varnished teak deck to the navigation station in her bare feet, she picked up the top piece of curled paper in the drop tray and began to read.

Her eyes widened as soon as she saw the words U.S. Attorney.

Forcing herself to relax, she read the brief message slowly, word by word. She was starting to read through it a second time when her eyes were drawn to the earlier message that had arrived over three hours ago— the one that they'd ignored because they'd been much too busy with the wind and the sails and each other.

She stood there for a long moment, bracing her muscular body against the rounded edge of the teak desktop as she continued to read. A frown appeared on her beautiful tanned face as she slowly absorbed the import of the two messages.

She paused for a moment, not at all convinced that what she was about to do was right. But then she remembered once again the incident that had occurred—how many weeks ago now? It was so hard to remember—when she had been Valerie, instead of Anne-Marie, and hesitation had cost her a job and very nearly her life.

It had been an easy decision then, she reminded herself. So why should it be any more difficult now?

Don't think about how much you've changed, inside and out. Think about staying alive.

Nodding decisively, she quickly picked up the warm mugs and the two pieces of paper and hurried back up the companionway to the cockpit.

"You got two fax messages. One of them's from some company called ICER," she said. She handed him one of the mugs and then started to hold the printed messages up for his inspection. But before she could do so, the wind caught the pieces of paper and yanked them out of her fingers. In spite of her seemingly desperate attempt to catch them in midair, both messages fluttered out of reach, and out over the water.

"Oh, shit!" she muttered, raising a smoothly tanned arm to shield her eyes as she and Bloom watched the rolled pieces of paper disappear, one after the other, beneath the choppy surface. Then she turned to him with a look of chagrin on her beautiful face.

"Alfred, I'm so sorry. I didn't—"

"Don't worry about it." Bloom shrugged. The troubled expression that had suddenly appeared in his eyes was hidden by the dark sunglasses that were speckled white from the dried saltwater. "They probably weren't important anyway."

"Actually, I think they were," she said, and then paused to take a sip of her rum grog. "The one from the ICER company said something about the time of the meeting being moved back. Everyone is supposed to meet at the villa at nine o'clock this evening, instead of seven. Also, if you need a ride, someone will be at the marina to pick you up at . . . uh . . . eight-thirty."

"Eight-thirty? Are you sure?"

"Twenty-thirty hours. Yes, I am sure." She nodded. "There wasn't all that much to it."

Bloom glanced down at his watch. "Okay, that will work out fine. We've got plenty of time now, so we can just take things slow and easy."

"Hmmm, that sounds fun," she said, moving forward and kissing in his ear.

Bloom grinned and started to make an appropriate rejoinder when he suddenly remembered that there had been two messages. "What about the other one?" he asked. "Do you recall who it was from?"

She paused to think. "No, I can't remember his name. Just that whoever it was wants to talk with you real bad. It said he wants to meet you tomorrow afternoon at the . . . uh, the wharf-side bar on Rum Cay."

"Oh, really? Did he say why?" Bloom asked with apparent indifference, his darkly tanned face glistening from the saltwater spray. He made a slight adjustment of the elk-hide-covered wheel, turning the bow of the
Sea Amber
a little tighter into the wind.

"No, just that it was very important. Something about no more games, fish or cut bait. It didn't make much sense."

"Doesn't sound like it. You sure it was for me?"

She nodded. "It was like a telex, you know, on plain paper, to Alfred Bloom from . . . wait, that's right, now I remember." She smiled. "There was a name. Sal Grin? Sal Grinnerd? Does that sound right?"

Bloom furrowed his eyebrows for a moment as he stared down at his feet, thinking back. Then he brought his head up in sudden understanding.

"Could it have been SA A1 Grynard?"

"Yes, that's it! A1 Grynard. I'm sure that was the name," she said with a satisfied smile. "So what does the SA stand for?"

"Special Agent."

Her eyes opened wide in surprise.

"Special Agent?"

Bloom nodded solemnly. "Grynard's from the FBI."

"So why does the FBI want to talk to you?" she asked, the expression on her beautiful face now a mixture of curiosity and concern.

"I don't know." Bloom shrugged, a distant look appearing in his eyes. "My secretary said he tried to contact me at the office, but I'd already left." He hesitated for a moment. "Do you remember if he provided a local phone number, or if he wanted any kind of acknowledgment?"

"No, I'm sure it didn't. It was a very brief message."

"What about the time? Do you recall what time tomorrow afternoon he wants me to meet him at the bar?"

She shrugged her muscular shoulders helplessly.

"I'm really sorry, Alfred," she whispered, staring down at her bare feet. "I guess I was thinking about how little time we had left today, and I didn't see anything that seemed to involve a schedule change for us on that one, so I guess I just didn't pay much attention to it."

But then she brought her head up suddenly.

"Wait a minute, I just thought of something," she said. "Let me look down below and see if there were any cover sheets with either of those faces that I might have missed."

"How could you possibly miss something like that?"

"Sometimes the first pages on those faces don't feed through the machine right, especially if the leading edge of the paper has absorbed too much moisture," she explained. "And when that happens, they tend to fall out of the tray. And with all the tacking we've been doing, it could have easily rolled under the table."

"But even so . . ."

"A cover sheet will have their fax number on it. We can contact them and have them send us another copy!"

Before Bloom could protest and tell her not to worry about it, because he really didn't care, she disappeared down the companionway again.

The first thing she did was to shut off the radio fax before the damned thing started churning out any more unnerving messages.

Then, after looking over her shoulder to make sure that Bloom was still up on deck, she quickly began to unlatch the front panel of the navigation station. Once she got the panel off, which took about fifteen seconds, she carefully reached in among the maze of wiring and found the pair of colored switches, one blue and one red. She snapped the blue switch to the down position, hesitated for a brief moment, and then—her face set in an unreadable expression—snapped the red switch into the same down position. After that, she found and pulled loose the wire that ran from the antenna to the fax machine. Then, after returning the external on/off switch for the now disconnected fax back to the on position, she quickly began to re-latch the console panel back into place.