Thor smiled slowly. Jack, if youre trying to convince me that shes totally right in the head, youre not getting anywhere. The woman claims she saw a body in the water. And that it talked to her.
Heyfor every tale out there, youll find a grain of truth.
Have you heard about a missing person in the area? Anybody looking for a murder victim? I had the news onfar as I can tell, everyones accounted for.
Youre sounding like a callous son of a bitch, and I know better, Jack told him. What you are is so focused on diving that you dont mind going through women like Kleenex.
Thor arched a brow. Yeah? Havent seen you settle down.
Never knew a woman could keep upin my generation. They probably existed somewhere. We just didnt cross paths.
I dont play where I work, he said softly.
Jack let out a guffaw. Thats cause the one woman on our team is married and an Amazon to boot.
Now, whos being a son of a bitch?
Me? I think Lizzies great, but shes all business. Tough as nails, and I think she could take me if we were arm wrestling. And if she couldnt, well, who the hell would want to mess with Zach?
Thor shrugged, amused. LizzieElizabeth Greenwas not a woman to be taken lightly. She wasnt an inch shorter than his own six-three. Her husband, Zach, had been a professional basketball player, and between them, they were a daunting pair. Lizzie waged a lot of the companys battles when they were seeking permits for projects. She could best almost any man. Lizzies tough. And down to earth. She isnt going to fly off the handle, seeing corpses that arent really there.
Come on. Everyones been spooked by something once or twice.
Maybe.
And youre a pile of crap yourself, Thor.
You think?
Youd have your tongue on the pavement if she crooked her little finger.
Yeah? Bull. He spoke coolly, but he knew he was lying. The nutcase was almost explosively hot. But he hadnt been lying when he said he didnt fool around where he worked. Even on a long haul, they put into port somewhere, and thats where he did his playing. Complications on a job were something nobody needed.
I call em like I see em, Jack said flatly. No ones ever accused me of lying.
Hell, Im accusing you right now, Thor said.
Jack laughed, noticing that Thor was watching the other table again. Remember, Thor, the mighty can fall, he said.
Yeah, yeah. Ive been hearing that mighty Thor shit all my life, Thor told him, then waved to the bartender, the owners son, ordering another round.
We all looked, Genevieve, Victor said. There was nothing there.
Im telling you, I saw a womans body, Genevieve repeated stubbornly, her jaw set. Look, I dont know if it was some kind of a joke, or if theres a real murder victim down there. But I didnt hallucinate. I saw it.
Bethany Clark touched Genevieves knee. Hey, honey, all of us see things down there sometimes. Its the mind playing tricks. The water playing tricks, causing visual distortion.
Have another beer, Victor said dryly. It will make everything better.
Genevieve groaned, gritting her teeth. She couldnt say they hadnt tried. She had kicked her way to the surface with the speed of lightning. Thankfully, she hadnt been deep. The moment the woman had opened her eyes and smiled, she had felt such a sense of sheer panic that she had rocketed to the surface, which could have been deadly if she had been down deep. When shed reached the surface, she had nearly choked on salt water, spitting out her regulator and waving her arms madly.
Marshall Miro, head of their unit, had been on board, and she knew shed been babbling as hed helped her out. Victor had surfaced right after her, having seen her ascent. Then Bethany and Alex, not too far distant, had come up, and Bethany had stayed aboard while the others had gone down, searching for the womans body. The Seeker, one of their fellow ships, had been in the vicinity, as well. Her crew had gone down, too.
And none of them had seen anything.
Maybe she had imagined the eyes opening, the woman reaching out, but she had seen a body. She just didnt know what had happened to it.
Unfortunately, she had babbled something about the eyes and the fact that the dead woman had moved, even tried to speak, and now even Bethany, her best friend, thought she was crazy.
She glanced around the small resort in the old-town area of Key West where they were staying. She actually owned a house not even half a mile away that her great-great-however-many-greats-grandfather had built on the island years before the Civil War.
But this place was a local hangout. Jack kept his beat-up old fishing boat here, and there was one slip where three of the area cops kept their boats berthed. They liked to come here just to have coffee, or drinks in the evening.
Shed stayed here on purpose to be able to work this project at the blink of an eye with the others. Their dive boat was right there, where they needed it, along with The Seeker. There was no spa or twenty-four-hour room service, but what it did have was true old Conch charm. The main house had been built in the 1800s. Bungalows had been added right around World War II and were spread out over a sandy beach, and each offered an outside table and chairs on a little individual patio. There was also the tiki bar and munch house, as they called it, which opened at seven in the morning and stayed open until midnight or so. The night bartender was the owners son, so he kept it open as long as he was having fun. The menu wasnt gourmet, but it was fresh and delicious.
Despite the fact the divers following her garbled directions hadnt found a body, Genevieve had insisted on reporting what she had seen to the policeby then calm enough to report the body but not the fact it had seemed to move of its own volition. It had been late when they had actually returned to shower and change and meet here at the bar to dine on fresh fish sandwiches, and the resorts own coleslaw and potato salad.
Okay, guys, laugh at me all you want. I saw a body, she said firmly.
Bethany lowered her sandy head. Victor, Alex and Marshall all stared at one another, trying not to smile.
Hey, Gen, Victor teased her. Theres a lady at the bar who wants to buy you a drinklookWhoops, no, sorry, you didnt act fast enough. Shes disappeared.
Genevieve glared at him through narrowed eyes. She wanted to wring his neck. Of all people to be so tauntingTheyd gone through school together. He was a year older, but shed matured faster, and having a shape in high school had been tantamount to being cool back then. Shed taken him with her to every social event in their adolescent past.
In college hed finally filled out and grown a few hairs on his chest. Hed grown into his features, as well, and now he was tall, dark and good-looking. Theyd never ruined a good friendship by dating, but he could irritate her as thoroughly as if they were a married couple.
Victor she began.
Grinning, he waved a hand. Yeah, yeah, I know what I can go do with myself.
Hey, kid, it will be all right, Marshall said, but he, too, was still secretly smiling. At least someone was amused, she thought. Marshall was the owner and founder of Deep Down Salvage as well as a local. As a kid, hed been fascinated by the history of Key West, which was inextricably entwined with tales of wreckers and salvage divers. It was a mixed history. Sometimes they had saved the lives of the poor souls on a ship that came to ruin on the dangerous reefs.
Sometimes, however, they waited like vultureshoping ships carrying rich cargos would flounder and sink. Such a system had created many a rich man throughout the centuries.
Marshall was at least ten years older than most of their group. He had made his name by working in the northern waters off Massachusetts, doing heavy-duty, cold-water salvage. But Key West was his home, the place he loved. He had used his earnings to come back and open his own company, buy his own boat and equipment, and set up shop. He made a good income, but he was always pleased to work on any historical effort, and he had a tremendous respect for the reefs, the water and the past. Deeply tanned and buff, and dead even with her own height, he kept his head shaven, a look that went oddly well with his almost ebony eyes and dark brows.
Sitting with his feet up, shades on despite the setting sun, he grimaced. Well find out that there was something down there. You knowflotsam and jetsam of some kind.
Alex hummed a version of The Twilight Zone theme song. Yeah, flotsam and jetsam with a face and hair, he teased.
She glared at him, hiking a brow. Alex was from Key Largo, a different world from Key West, since the city of Miami was barely an hour north. He was blond, bronzed and a child of the sea and sun, a graduate in history and a master diver, but shed shown him secrets of the reefs here that only the natives knew.
Oh, you she said, then broke off in aggravation and rose, taking her beer with her to the little fence that looked out over a deep channel where the resorts pleasure crafts and fishing boats were berthed.
Dont go away mad! Alex called.
She spun around, shaking her head and forcing a smile as well. Just wait, my dear, devoted friends! Somewhere along the line, you will get yours. Im not going away mad, Im just going away.
Hey, dont be mad at me, Bethany said.
Im not mad, Genevieve insisted.
She walked on down to the dock, nursing her beer, looking out at the sunset. It was beautiful and tranquil, but she was roiling inside. Why had she been so panicked? Shed twice worked rescue situations that had become retrieval situations, and they had found bodies both times, once after a plane crash in the southern Glades, and once after a boating accident off Key West.
But the dead hadnt looked at her then.
Digging a flower bed at her house, shed dug up bones oncebut that hadnt been as shocking as it might have been elsewhere, not in Key West, the Island of Bones.
But those bones hadnt disappeared.
She felt a presence next to her, tensed and turned, certain that one of her friends had joined her to continue the torture.
You all right?
She turned at the soft masculine query to see Jay Gonzalez. He was still in uniform, hat low over his forehead, sunglasses dark and concealing his eyes.
She smiled. She liked Jay a lot. He was in his late thirties now, and had been young himself when she had first met him. Hed pulled her and a few friends over when theyd been in high school, and, admittedly, there had been a few beer cans in the car. He hadnt brought them down to the station, though. Instead, hed taken every one of them home.
He was one of the cops who kept his boat here. He didnt go out on it often anymore. Hed been out on it when his wife had fallen overboard and died. But he still kept it up. Maybe he even visited it now and then because he somehow felt closer to his wife when he was on it.
But he wasnt there now for the boat, she knew. He was there for her.
Im fineif you think having all your friends convinced youre crazy makes you fine. She hesitated. Thanks for listening to me today.
He nodded, leaning against the little wooden rail next to her. I know youre not a ditz, he told her, grinning.
Bless you.
He stared out over the water. I just wish I could help you. I dont have anything that would correspond with what you told me. Then again, someone might be missing and it hasnt been reported yet. I sent some men out after I talked to you. They couldnt find anything, either. He hesitated. Bizarre as it may seem, given the amount of drinking that goes on down here, Key West itself doesnt have much of a murder rate. I deal with boozed-out kids and car accidents more than anything else.
Jay, I saw a woman down there. She hesitated before going on, hoping he wouldnt take what she was about to say as a slap on his professional knowledge. Its not like no one ever gets killed here. There was the husband who went nuts and shot his wife a few years back. And there was that almost-super-model who disappeared when I was in high school. No one believed she would ever be found alive. Oh! And just last year, in the middle Keys somewhereanother young woman disappeared.
I didnt say we never have murders, but in comparison to Miami, our numbers are lowsingle digits. And, Gen
I know. Theres no missing blonde on the radar right now.
We could find out later there is, he said gently. But lets hope it was a prank of some kind, huh?
I am definitely hoping thats the case.
He nodded. There could be a bunch of frat boys laughing their asses off somewhere. We may never know. But I believe you saw something. In fact, its you, so I know it.
She smiled her thanks. Can I buy you a beer? she asked him.
He shook his head. Im still on duty. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. He made a face. Theres some trouble up on Mile Marker 6. You take care, all right? And call mewhatever comes up. I dont think youre crazy.
He brushed her chin affectionately with his knuckles, then walked away toward the sand-and-gravel parking lot.
She thanked God for him. At least he believed her. He was an interesting guy, she mused. He was a perfect sheriffs deputy. Tall, dark, quiet. He exuded an air of competence and assurance. She always felt a sense of sympathy for him; his wife had died about five years ago, when theyd been on vacation. Hed kept pretty much to himself after that.
But he was a good guy. And it was comforting to know he had taken her seriously.
Upsetting, though, to know that no one had found any sign of anything.
Staring back at the horizon, she took a long swallow of the Miller Lite shed been holding so long that it was growing warm. When she felt someone beside her again, she thought that Jay had returned.
Wrong.
Hey, cutie. Long day, huh?
It was Jack Payne, one of her favorite people in the world, though he was working on The Seekers this go-round. Crusty as a crab, Jack was weathered and leathered by the sun. He wore one of the coins he had found around his neck, a Spanish gold piece hung from a chain, and in one ear a gold earring in the form of a skull and crossbones. He worked out of the area a lot, but theyd shared several assignments, and he was a great diver with whom to work.
She flushed, seeing the semi-smile on his face.
I know, I know, Jack. Give it a good laugh, okay? But thanks for calling me cutie. At my height, I dont hear that word too often, she said wearily.
Hey, I believe you saw something. And maybe cutie isnt the right word. How about, hey there, gorgeous? And, as to the other, theres nothing else anyone can do right now, huh?
She nodded.
He slipped a fatherly arm around her shoulders. Maybe well hear something soon about someone going missing.