Jack Rogan - The Ocean Dark

“Fine,” Josh replied. “I’m just saying that whatever happened on this boat, it wasn’t about stealing guns.”

Miguel turned his back on them, walked over and looked out at the darkness through the gore-encrusted broken porthole. The Mariposa swayed gently on the water, cradled in the arms of the ocean, but Josh didn’t feel soothed. He’d been in even more remote places in his life, but had never felt farther from home. Thoughts of ghost ships lingered in his mind, of vanishing crews and drifting mysteries.

“I know where our cargo is,” Miguel said. “That’s all that matters to me, and it’s all that will matter to Gabe.” He turned to face them. “Dwyer, gather up the guns you found and load them onto the transport. Josh, go down into the hold and knock some holes in the hull.

“Sink the bitch.”

Tori stood on the metal walkway outside Josh’s room. The accommodations block creaked along with the rest of the ship. The metal underfoot no longer held any of the heat from the day, and this far out at sea, this late at night, the Caribbean breeze had lost much of its warmth. At least she told herself that was why she shivered, standing there with the captain’s key in her hand.

She pressed her eyes shut tightly, trying to force away images of Josh gazing up at her, memories of his hands on her, and the sick feeling twisting now in the soft, tender place inside her that he had reached. She had trusted him, and it looked like she might be about to pay dearly for that.

Gabe had said she was looking for anything that shouldn’t be there. But he’d given examples, too, and they’d made his suspicions clear. Her stomach hurt. She was all twisted up inside, but that was good. With her guts fisted with anxiety, she wouldn’t throw up.

If you used me, asshole … she thought, but stopped herself right there.

All men lied. She’d come to that conclusion a long time ago. But the kind of men she’d always been with were expected to lie. Only a fool would presume anything else, and though she had been a fool once upon a time, she’d thought herself cured of that condition. Good men, though … they were dangerous. They were the kind of men a woman could put her hope in, and their lies cut so much deeper because of it.

Shit .

With a sigh she put the key into the lock, turned the handle, and let herself in. The door swung inward, nudged by the wind, and she drew the key out and slipped it into her pocket. For a long moment she stood on the threshold.

The ship rolled so gently on the sea that, rather than rocking, it seemed to breathe, as though it were a living thing. The metal sighed, and then she heard a creak, and footsteps.

Sal Pucillo came around the corner of the tower, tipping a beer can back to get the last dregs. As he lowered the can, he caught sight of her and a smile played at the corners of his lips. He glanced through the open door into the darkness of Josh’s room, and pointed a finger at her.

“I knew it,” he said, listing to one side. Sal was not entirely sober.

“Knew what?”

He gave a dramatic roll of his eyes. “You and Josh. Knew you had something going on. You two played it pretty cool, but I’m not stupid.” He tapped a finger beneath his left eye. “I’ve seen the way you look at each other. Anyone paying attention coulda figured it out.”

Tori spread her hands, smiling. “You caught me.”

Sal frowned, craning his neck to look into the room again. “Doesn’t look like he’s around, though.”

For a moment, she wracked her brain for some explanation, then she realized there was no point. Pucillo was a nosy bastard, but Gabe was the captain, and Viscaya the owners, and Pucillo didn’t have any business sticking his nose into the job that the captain had sent her to do.

Tori showed him the key the captain had given her. “He’s working up tomorrow’s menu, and I’m planning to surprise him.”

She put a finger to her lips and shushed him. Pucillo arched his eyebrow even higher, a suggestive grin on his face, and imitated the shushing. Then he mimed locking his lips and throwing the key away.

“Not a word. I’m off to bed anyhow.”

He put the empty beer can on the metal walk and crushed it under his boot, instantly forgetting about it. Tori hesitated. If the man was that drunk, wandering the metal walkways that terraced the sides of the accommodations block was seriously dangerous. Pucillo could go right over the railing and crash down onto the deck below.

“Sal …” she started.

Pucillo paused and looked at her.

“Be careful, okay? Watch your step. And good night.”

He wagged his eyebrows with a lighthearted laugh, an entirely different man than he was when sober. “You, too, Tori. Josh is a lucky guy.”

“Thanks.”

Pucillo walked on, chuckling to himself. Tori backed into the room and clicked the door shut, locked it, then hit the light switch. Turning around, she scanned the room. Josh kept it neat enough — military neat — but that fit with what she knew of him. He liked the galley spotless and completely organized, and his cabin reflected the same sensibility, with a pair of boots and two pairs of sneakers arranged together under his rack, but otherwise everything was put away. An iPod sat in its dock on the small table near the bed.

Tori hesitated. She was torn between the fear that she’d find something that would take them both to ugly places, and the fear that she’d find nothing and Josh would learn that she had violated his trust, instead of the other way around.

Then she remembered the look in Gabe Rio’s eyes — regret and anger in equal measure — and she knew she had to search.

“Sorry, Josh,” she whispered to the room, to whatever of himself he had invested inside those walls.

His neatness made searching easy. Suspicion told her it came from a military or police background, but he’d said he had spent time in prison, and the Spartan arrangement of his things could easily be explained by time behind bars or even spent at sea. In the small closet, his jackets and shirts were hung. In the bureau, she found underwear and socks and T-shirts and several pairs of pants, along with an envelope with his passport and a sheaf of cash inside.

On a shelf above the bed were maybe a dozen books, westerns and mysteries, dog-eared paperbacks that looked as if they’d been read many times. No porn. No drugs. No gun. No badge. He had some cookbooks that he kept down in the galley, and she found two battered hardcovers under the bed.

And deeper, behind the boots and sneakers, a backpack.

“Damn it,” she whispered.

On her knees, she reached underneath the rack and dragged the backpack out. It had been zipped up tightly and she blew out a breath before running the zipper open. When she looked inside, she frowned, trying to decipher what exactly she was looking at. A brightly colored towel. A plastic bag full of sunscreen and sunburn ointment, just in case the sunscreen didn’t do the job. Two pair of sunglasses. A ratty sweatshirt. A pair of flip-flops.

Rocking backward, Tori laughed and shook her head. She very much wanted to kiss Josh at the moment. He’d put together a quick shore-leave kit, everything he’d need to go to the beach if they happened to get a day in port somewhere. The fact that he apparently burned easily only endeared him to her more.

Whatever Gabe had thought she would find, this wasn’t it. Tori picked up the backpack, zipped it, ready to slide it back under the bed. But when she dropped it to the floor, it made a heavy thunk. She frowned at the sound, running the bag’s inventory through her head, trying to figure out what could have made it.

Tori let herself deny the obvious for a few seconds longer, and then ice trickled down her back, bringing a numb sort of dread that she wished wasn’t so familiar.