Kylie Brant - Alias Smith And Jones

Pappy bobbed his head again. “Cap’n good man. Keep his ship in good shape. And—” his expression went sly “—ladies like Cap’n. Cap’n like ladies.”

Some ladies. Analiese wanted to correct him. Women whose obvious charms were matched by looser morals. In that, he was much like most of the men in her acquaintance. It was plain to see where Pappy believed her interest lay. And she was willing to let him believe just that if it meant she could get him to divulge a bit more information about the mysterious Jones.

“He said you did the cooking and helped navigate. Do you join him on all his trips?”

The man squinted against the rays of sun. “All trips. Only small crew for some, but Cap’n, he need to eat.”

“Have you been to Laconos lately?” she asked daringly. “Jones seemed worried about my safety there.”

“Pretty miss be safe on beach. Cap’n make sure.” He shrugged. “No one want to drive away tourists. Bad for island.”

Which still didn’t answer her question. She phrased the next one more pointedly. “When was last time you were on Laconos?”

Pappy rubbed his jaw. “Me? Last month, mebbe. Most people, they like fishing. Many other beaches. Laconos not beautiful like Bontilla.”

Which meant, Analiese thought, her stomach knotting, that if Jones had taken Sam to the island, the trip had been kept secret even from his trusted crew member. She manufactured a smile and drank again. Her throat had gone suddenly dry. “A ship this large must take a lot of fuel. How many gallons does it hold? Enough to get us to Laconos, I hope.”

The man chortled. “Two big tanks, pretty miss, plenty to go to Laconos. Each tank hold two hundred gallon. Only take three hundred to get to island.” He rose, smiling widely. “I go make lunch. You need food, so you not get sick again.”

She gave a vague smile in response, and he walked away, his stride adjusting automatically to the pitch of the ship. Reaching down, she opened her purse and took out the notebook she kept there. She’d taken some notes while thumbing through Jones’s logs, using a coded shorthand that no one but her would be able to make sense of. Checking them, she determined that Jones had refueled the ship three times in two days well after his last documented charter. Which would have readied the ship for the trip to Laconos, refueled it for the trip back, and then again to prepare it for the next charter. She added and subtracted gallons for several minutes, before she sat back, satisfied. Given the fueling history, this ship could have been the one to carry her brother to the island.

It was thin, she acknowledged, amidst a growing sense of certainty. But it was something. And since she’d discovered that Pappy hadn’t accompanied them, the man would have no other information for her. Which meant, of course, that any other details would have to be pried from Jones himself.

Despite the heat, her skin prickled. The thought of having to play along with his egotistical belief that she was hot for him, in return for stray tidbits she might glean, was about as appealing as having surgery without benefit of anesthesia. But finding Sam was worth the sacrifice, wasn’t it?

Jones would be less likely to be suspicious of her questions if he thought she was using conversation as an excuse to get close to him. She scowled at the thought, but the truth of it couldn’t be denied. He’d handed her a perfect opportunity, and she’d be a fool not to use it.

She could always, Ana thought, consolingly, consider the exercise as practice. God knew she needed the experience at flirting, and since Jones had said in so many words that he was immune, he was a safe enough target. And besides learning information about her brother’s disappearance, maybe before this trip was over, she’d have Jones eating his rejection of her, word by demoralizing word.

She smiled, stretched more languorously on the deck chair and raised her face to the sun. The idea was one to relish.

“Brought you something to eat,” Ana said, strolling toward Jones with a tray Pappy had prepared.

His gaze flicked from her face to the food, then back again. “Is it poisoned?”

“Do you trust your cook so little?”

“It’s not Pappy I don’t trust.” His meaning wasn’t lost on her, but she chose to ignore it. Although earlier in the day she would have given a great deal to see him choke on a chicken bone, she was beyond those feelings now. Almost.

“You were right, Pappy is a great cook. I already ate and it was wonderful.” And when she’d finished, she’d offered to relieve the crew member of the plate he’d prepared for Jones, uncaring of the conclusion Pappy had drawn. She was eager for an excuse to approach the other man. Just not for the reason that Pappy and Jones seemed to think.

Setting the tray down on a nearby table, she removed the napkins covering the food and pulled up a chair. Jones watched her carefully. “What are you doing?”

“I thought I’d keep you company while you ate,” she said artlessly. “You’ve been up here all morning alone. I figured you wouldn’t mind a little company.”

He reached for a piece of chicken. “I like being alone.”

She refrained from pointing out that with his personality, he was likely to spend a great deal of time in that state. Despite her efforts, her gaze lingered on the puckered scar on his back. She’d spent more than an hour formulating ways to finesse needed information from him before approaching him with lunch. But instead of the discreet questions she’d settled on, she heard herself say, “What happened to your back?”

“I lowered my guard.”

His stark answer sent a chill through her. She’d be willing to bet that for Jones that particular error had been rare, indeed. Ana wanted to ask who had gotten close enough to him to gain his trust, only to betray it. But she knew intuitively that he’d never tell her. “Tell me about Laconos,” she said instead, forcing her gaze away from him and out at the shatteringly blue water before them. “The State Department has cleared it for U.S. citizens’ travel, but you seem to believe that it’s still unsafe.”

He turned back to the wheel and adjusted its position. “I just think there’s cause for caution there, that’s all.”

“The scandal six months ago was like a Shakespearean tragedy. The crown prince of Laconos must have been desperately in love with his girlfriend to be so devastated by his family’s disapproval of their marriage.” The world had been shocked to learn that the prince, Owahano Bunei, of the royal family, had shot and killed his parents and siblings before turning his weapon on himself one night at dinner. And all because his parents had refused to give him permission to marry the woman he loved. “I’d heard, though, that the transition of power passed easily enough to Owahano’s uncle.”

“That kind of transition is never effortless.” It was his total lack of expression, rather than the words themselves, that alerted her. What Jones wasn’t revealing was of far more interest than what he did say.

She hadn’t asked Sterling about the nature of Sam’s mission on Laconos. It would have been futile. The man made even the taciturn Jones seem verbose. But she’d drawn her own conclusion from the information she’d managed to glean from her brother’s encrypted files. The United States government was taking a keen interest in the island’s new government, especially now that the current king was jockeying for more clout with the Global Trade Organization. Ana thought Sam had been sent on assignment to see, firsthand, if Laconos’s request should be opposed. Given her brother’s disappearance shortly after he arrived there, she wondered if he’d found a reason for that opposition.