Sandra K. Moore - Dead Reckoning

“How were you planning on finding Isladonata?” Smith asked.

“All I need is a fifty-square-mile window. In theory, I could track other boats or choppers from the mainland and project which island they land at, then dead reckon my way in.” Though her chances of actually succeeding, she knew from having been in the Gulf of Mexico, were incredibly slim. Too much water, too many islands, too little time.

“Navigation by the seat of the pants is risky,” Gus said.

Smith nodded. “It’d be better if your sister could get us the exact location.”

Chris studied her hands, resting so still and lost on the wood tabletop’s vast, empty expanse. “I’m sure it would. But I don’t like asking her to take that chance.”

“Understood,” Smith replied softly.

She looked up to find him staring at her. He was handsome in a vague way, as though the artist painting him had left him unfinished. It showed in the way his hair roughly brushed his neck, in the slight unevenness of his lips. His eyes, she realized absently, were the color of her own.

“And your yacht can make that trip?” he asked.

“Obsession’s not a true blue-water boat, so she can’t take on an ocean,” Chris admitted. “But she’ll handle the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean just fine. An old ship’s log I found aboard said she made two trips down and back in the seventies.”

Gus snorted. “The seventies? A little time has passed, hasn’t it?”

“I tore down and rebuilt both engines myself,” Chris replied. “She’ll make it. It’s the cosmetic work I’m worried about.”

Smith leaned his brown forearms on the table. “What do you mean?”

“If these Isladonata guys are high-dollar bad guys, they’ll have high-dollar hobbies. When I inherited Obsession nine months ago, she needed a lot of work. I’ve got her mechanical systems in order, but it’s the spit-and-polish that’ll convince them she’s legit and get me onto the island.”

“What were you planning on doing once you were there?” Garza asked.

“I’m going to have to look like a private captain on my way to drop off or pick up someone important.”

Gus grunted. “If Scintella’s going to be on the island in three weeks, that’s not much time.”

“Two weeks to dress up the yacht, one week to get down there,” she confirmed.

Garza scribbled some notes. “Is that enough time?”

“Not really,” Chris admitted, thinking about chalky fiberglass and cracked windows. “And I need a lot more money than I have to make it happen.”

“How much?” Smith pulled his hands from his jeans pockets and crossed his arms.

“This is where my plan needs some work.” She ballparked the repair price tag. Gus whistled softly. Once Garza’s brows dropped back from the ceiling, she said, “Look, a brand-new yacht of her build quality would cost upwards of five million. Obsession’s old and needs a serious facelift, but she’s fundamentally sound. I’ve worked on the basic systems myself and sunk most of my savings into her. All I need now is the window dressing.”

“That’s a helluva dressing,” Smith muttered.

“She’s a helluva window,” Chris retorted. “I’m not talking about installing Waterford chandeliers. Just reasonably good quality furnishings and carpet to make her look like she’s been pampered. The external work includes a full-on paint job, replacing windows and railings, that kind of thing. I could do it all myself if I had the time.”

She glanced out the window. Her rusted Chevy pickup, the truck she’d bought as a hobby project but that was now all she had for transportation, stared back at her blankly. “And the cash,” she added, thinking about how soon her remaining savings would run dry even paying only her living expenses.

“You have your captain’s license. Can’t you just rent a vessel?” Garza asked.

She shook her head. “Large vessels carry their own captains and crew. Even with a license, I’m an unknown, an insurance risk. Nobody’s going to let me hire a yacht that size even for twice the going rate without taking their crew. And maybe I’m assuming here, but I bet if I show up in anything shorter than seventy feet, I won’t get within a mile of the island.”

Smith settled back into his chair and studied her for a long moment. “Let’s say money’s no object,” he said finally. “What would your schedule look like?”

Money no object? Fighting down the hope swelling in her throat, Chris forced herself to concentrate on facts, not pipe dreams. “Two weeks in the boatyard for as much as we can get done here in Galveston, then a shakedown cruise to New Orleans to make sure everything’s working. If there’s any cosmetic work left, we may be able to get it done in New Orleans if they’re not still covered up with hurricane repairs. Then I’ll head south for Isladonata.”

“We could take a page from your book and bluff our way onto the island,” Smith mused. “Maybe say we’re coming to drop off a player.”

Garza nodded. “One of the Delacruz family. Enrique Delacruz.”

“They wouldn’t see us coming.”

Gus’s chin jutted like a battering ram. “A private island’s going to be heavily guarded. They’ll be running radar and spot a fleet of choppers and cutters coming from two hundred miles out. Scintella will be gone before you get there.”

“It doesn’t have to be a major operation,” Smith replied.

“You’re not going to sneak up on him.” Gus shoved his creaking chair back and stood to glare down at Smith. “Not on an island.”

Smith raised his face to meet Gus head-on. “We can set it up. With the right hardware, the right men, we can take this guy.”

“And his army?” Gus asked. “Sounds like you’ll be taking in your own army to handle it.”

“Scintella won’t be the only target on that island,” Garza pointed out.

Finally. Let’s talk about Natalie. Chris crossed her arms and willed herself to relax.

Then Garza said, “If he’s doing business you’ll have the Mendoza family on your hands, too. That’s a lot of firepower in one place.”

“If you can even get there.” Gus thrust his hands in his pockets and started filtering change through his fingers. “I’m tellin’ you, he’ll catch you on radar. By the time you get there, the only people left on that island will be the cook and the gardener.”

But not my sister. Chris tried to still her nerves but the jingling coins might as well have been dancing in her dental fillings. If the DEA spooked Jerome with their he-man tactics, Chris thought as the men continued to argue, Natalie would be swept away, as though she’d never existed. She listened to their voices, heated now, Special Agent Smith standing to square off against Gus. Guns, choppers, ammo. Always Scintella. Always his arrest. Never a word about what really mattered.

“All I want is my sister,” Chris said loudly into a break in the argument. “I can get onto that island myself, one way or another, before you bring in the cavalry. Give me that chance to get Natalie out, and you can do whatever the hell you want after we’re gone.”

“That’s a good way to get yourself killed,” Garza remarked.

“If I do nothing, Natalie gets killed. None of you sound very interested in her except as a source of information.”

For a long moment, no one spoke. Gus’s face screwed into his characteristic scowl. Antonio Garza stared at his shoes beneath the table.

“I’m not leaving my sister at Jerome Scintella’s mercy,” she said quietly. “I’ll take Obsession to Isladonata if I have to do it on my own.”

Long seconds passed while she held Smith’s gaze. She wasn’t bluffing and she knew that showed in her face—she was scared, but she wouldn’t back down. She didn’t trust this agent to look after Natalie once he and his team had Scintella in view. Sure, they might be honorable men. But her experience had taught her to be wary. The nice mutt sitting placidly with you on the front porch one minute could become a mindless part of a howling, uncontrollable pack when the quarry was sighted.