James Patterson - Second Honeymoon

There were two other Jet Skis—Yamaha WaveRunners, actually—that belonged to the resort sitting side by side a little farther down the beach.

“Hey, I was thinking about going out for a spin tomorrow. What do they charge you here for renting these things?” I asked.

Speedo, however, wasn’t riding a Yamaha. His was a royal-blue Kawasaki, a beat-up one at that. It may or may not have been his, but it almost certainly didn’t belong to the Governor’s Club.

In other words, I was playing dumb. My real question was, Are you a guest here, Speedo?

“I’m visiting,” he said curtly. “Don’t know what they charge.”

“I guess I’ll have to ask the guy,” I said, looking at a water activities hut next to the bar. The guy sitting in front of it, taking care of zero customers, looked even more bored than the bartender. It was the same theme all around. There was nothing like a couple of murders at a high-priced resort to kill off business.

Speedo turned and walked away from me, the clichéd reputation of the French attitude toward strangers fully intact.

Wait a minute, mon frère , I wasn’t done with you yet. In fact, I was just getting started.

He was heading toward the pathway that led back to the pool. I caught up to him about halfway there.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “There was one other thing I wanted to ask you.”

He couldn’t have looked more incredulous when he turned to me.

Sacré bleu! What does this stupid American tourist want now?

“I’m kind of busy,” he said.

“Me, too,” I shot back. “I’m trying to solve a murder.”

I was hoping to see him flinch. He didn’t. Cool as could be, he simply nodded. “Yes, the Breslows,” he said.

“You know about it, huh?”

“Of course. It’s the talk of the island.”

“Funny you should say that word. Talk, that is. From what I understand, you were talking to the Breslows here on this beach about a day or two before they were murdered.”

“So?”

“Did you know them?” I asked.

“No.”

“What were you discussing?”

He shifted his feet. “Who exactly are you?” he asked.

“Will it change your answer if I tell you?”

Speedo eyed me for a moment and I eyed him straight back.

“Snorkeling,” he said, finally.

“Snorkeling?”

“Yes. They asked me about Dead Man’s Reef,” he said, pointing over my shoulder.

But the second I turned to look I knew I’d made a mistake.

Chapter 17

AS SUCKER PUNCHES go it was a pretty good one. Straight to my gut, hard and fast. Kind of like how I went down.

Breathe, O’Hara! Breathe!

Fat chance. I was on my knees, hunched over in a helpless ball, my arms and legs resting on the sand.

Meanwhile, Speedo looked like the start of a one-man triathlon, dashing across the beach and heading straight for the water. Except I knew he wasn’t about to start swimming. Shit!

I pushed myself up, took one look at him dragging his Jet Ski into the surf, and immediately started running…in the opposite direction.

The guy manning the water activities hut barely had time to blink.

“I’ll be back,” I said to him, swiping the set of keys off his counter. With any luck he’d simply wave and tell me, “Have fun!”

Yeah, right.

“Hey, man!” I heard over my shoulder as I sprinted back down the beach. Now we had it going on. I was chasing Speedo, and Water Activities Dude was chasing me. “Hey, hey, you! Stop right there!”

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my southern cavalry. Carter was up from his bar stool, blazing across the beach like General Sherman through Georgia. For an older man, he sure could run.

As I dragged one of the resort’s two WaveRunners into the water as fast as I could, I looked up to see Carter nearly tackle the activities guy. Jesus, what a sight. This beach had never seen such action.

While Carter was quickly trying to explain the situation, I was trying to give myself a quick refresher course on the finer points of riding a Jet Ski. It had easily been more than twenty years since I’d last been on one.

Just like riding a bike, right?

I turned the key, punched the Start button, and jammed the throttle. Then I held on for dear life. Speedo had a head start, but he hadn’t lost me yet.

“Go get ’em!” I heard Carter yell.

For the love of James Bond, how do I get myself in these situations?

Chapter 18

I WAS STRADDLING the seat, bouncing up and down with the waves, catching far more air than I cared to. Every time I jumped over a whitecap, the water would splash my face, the salt stinging my eyes. The engine had hit the redline. My hands and feet were shaking to the point of numbness from all the vibration.

Hey, who’s having fun yet? Definitely not me. Maybe Speedo was having a blast.

Speeding after the Frenchman, I wondered where he was leading me—or whether he had even thought that far ahead. About a hundred yards separated us, and I was desperately trying to close the gap.

It wasn’t happening.

If anything, I was losing ground. But as long as I could still see him, I had a shot. He couldn’t drive his vehicle forever; eventually he’d have to head to shore. I saw a footrace in my future.

Then I saw something else.

Off in the distance there was a series of rock formations jutting up from the water. They looked like little black chess pieces in a game that was about half over.

Speedo was heading right for them.

Before I knew it, he’d disappeared.

He was using his home field advantage, and suddenly I felt like I was being played. But there was no time to slow down and think things over.

I kept the throttle cranked and stayed on his tail, swerving left, right, then left again through the maze. I was drenched, exhausted, and coming way too close to these rocks. Jet Skis don’t come with air bags, do they?

Finally, I was out in the clear again. To my amazement, I’d even made up some ground.

Speedo was only about fifty yards ahead now, and looking nervously over his shoulder at me. For the first time, I actually took one hand off the handlebars.

And waved.

I was starting to get the hang of things, using the swells to propel me even faster. Keeping up? Hell, no, I was catching up!

Then Speedo made a sharp right.

He was aiming toward shore. I looked ahead and saw a stretch of beach in front of another resort. Which way would he run?

Soon I saw that running wasn’t part of his plan.

Suddenly I saw a series of red markers in the water spread out in a large circle. All around the perimeter were the heads of snorkelers, their neon-colored breathing tubes bobbing up and down. But no one was in the circle.

Except Speedo.

And then me.

Immediately, he started swerving again, as though we were back among those jutting rocks, only I didn’t see any rocks.

Until it was too late.

Thump! Bam!

I came flying off a swell only to see the water disappear beneath me, a jagged patch of rock and coral taking its place. That explained the markers.

My knees buckled as I landed, the vehicle careening hard to the right as I tried to hold on.

I couldn’t. I flew over the handlebars, somersaulting through the air, head over heels, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.

That’s all I remember.

Chapter 19

THE GOOD NEWS was that I wasn’t dead.

“Now do you want the bad news?” asked Joe Eldridge. “Because I do have some bad news.”

He was standing at the foot of my bed, his expression teetering somewhere between pity and annoyance. Surely the police commissioner didn’t expect to see me again so soon, let alone laid up in the Grace Bay Medical Centre with a couple of cracked ribs and a mild concussion.