The Keepers Read online

“And Miss Trinn.”

  “And bloody well Miss Trinn!” He scowled. “But in exchange, I get what I want. You take me to Constantine, straight away. And if you cross me, dear lady, you’ll stand front and center as I kill each and every one of your friends—while you watch.”

  Helena reached up and adjusted the cap. “Then we should get started. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

  Dr. Freeman typed on his computer. The processors next to the table whirred.

  Helena took a deep breath, staring straight ahead. An image of Hollings appeared on the screen. He was slouching, his chin in his hand, as he sat next to Dr. Freeman in the old warehouse.

  “I know what I look like,” Hollings grumbled. “Where’s the little girl?”

  Helena continued looking straight ahead. The picture on the screen faded, turning a light blue-green, as if a thick turquoise fog had settled over the monitor. The color became more vibrant, twinkling with ripples of white, like diamonds scattered across a pale blue background, moving and twinkling as they passed

  The color became streaked with waves, zipping across the screen; a distant shoreline came into view. Tiny islands off the bow of a fishing boat. A handsome man raised a wiggling worm toward a fishing hook as a young girl watched.

  “Here. Here we go.” Hollings leaned forward, licking his lips. “That’s it. That’s it.”

  The rear of the boat came into view. A beautiful, dark-haired woman in a black bikini stood on the rear deck. An African-American man in a blue-striped shirt stood in the boat’s wheelhouse, looking out over the waves. He pointed, drawing the attention of the young girl. Dolphins crested the crystalline waters.

  “Yes!” Hollings said. “Yes, that’s it. Where are they?”

  The image flashed to the little girl stepping aboard the boat when it was tied to the dock. The man had already boarded. He held her hand as she stepped down onto the deck, the woman following behind. In the distance, a large resort rose over the palm trees. And in between, the hulls and sterns of the many moored boats in the marina displayed their names—and their home port.

  Andros Island Marina, Bahamas.

  “The Bahamas!” Miss Franklin clapped her hands together. “Easy enough. That’s a four-hour flight. Let’s go. Stash the vehicles and—”

  “No, not so fast.” Hollings raised a hand, staring at the monitor. “We can’t just buy plane tickets—she got no passport, and I can’t exactly be seen in public. We’ll need a jet—a big one—or we hire a charter boat. The only thing with the range for a trip like that is a blooming freighter.”

  “A boat?” Franklin put her hands on her hips. “That’s slow.”

  Helena’s gaze was fixed on the wall, her voice a whisper. “Armen Twa has a plane in Paris.”

  “Bah.” Hollings tapped the ground with his cane. “I don’t trust him. My mates at Port of London can get us on a freighter. But I know this old bird.” He glared at Helena. “If I don’t ask specific questions, she won’t tell me specific answers.”

  “Going by boat.” Franklin shook her head. “That adds days.”

  “Aye. But the girl’s worth billions. That’s worth taking days for.” He rubbed his chin stubble. “Now, Keeper 27, who is in The Bahamas?”

  Helena remained silent. Jaden Trinn and Hamilton DeShear flashed on the screen. DeShear hugged Jaden from behind, slipping his arms around her waist and kissing her.

  “But not Constantine.” Hollings grumbled. “I thought not. And where might she be?”

  The screen went black.

  A dark room with a stone floor and walls appeared. Water dripped somewhere in a corner, letting green moss grow on the wall. Above a wood-slat bed, a tiny window with bars on it looked out over another crystal blue sea.

  On the floor of the cell, a raggedy man sat, scraggly and dirty, his long hair disheveled.

  “I don’t see her.” Hollings leaned forward. “Where is she?”

  Helena blinked a few times and the image faded.

  “What!” Hollings slammed his hand into the table. “Bring it back!”

  She turned to Hollings. “Constantine will be there. Soon.”

  “But where is that place?”

  “First, we collect my friends.” Helena lowered her head, staring at her hands. “I shall tell you no more until then.”

  “You blasted old crow!” Jumping to his feet, Hollings raised his cane and slammed it into the tabletop. “Woman, I have no time to waste on these games. Tell me where she is!”

  “If you have no time to waste,” Helena said quietly, “then we had better get to The Bahamas. When my friends are safe, I will tell you more. But for now, I can tell you this. You have a friend—a pilot—who runs air freight. Captain Restley. He will require $200,000 American dollars to take us all safely to The Bahamas. In cash. When you tell him you’ll need an additional two days to get to where Constantine is, he will agree to do it—for an additional three hundred thousand.”

  “Half a million dollars!” Hollings choked, putting his hand to his chest. “Half a million dollars and two days!”

  “Two additional days.” Helena looked at her kidnapper. “But as you say, there is no time to waste. His plane is scheduled to leave for The Bahamas in four hours. If we leave now, he will let you aboard. A delay of even thirty minutes will add a week to your journey.”

  Cursing, Hollings smashed the cane into the table. “You old crow! I ain’t got the helpers back from chasing your little doctor friend what run off, do I?”

  Her face did not show the faintest hint of a smile. “I suppose you’ll have to call them back and let her go.”

  Red-faced, he heaved his cane toward the exit and plopped back down in his wheelchair. The cane skittered across the dirt floor, coming to a stop near the wall.

  Franklin put a hand on her hip. “What do you want to do?”

  “Sod it!” Hollings pushed the wheelchair away from the table, rolling himself toward the ambulance. “Pack this gear. Be ready to leave in five minutes. We’ll hire whatever men and guns we need once we get to The Bahamas. And let the doctor lady go. She won’t be able to do us no harm from here.”

  Chapter 18

  In the darkness, Moray’s boat rocked gently in the waves. Louis moaned, waking up again. The makeshift bandages on his wounds were caked in dried blood, his chest slowly rising and falling.

  DeShear knelt next to the Lieutenant, holding a plastic water bottle to his lips. “Here. It’s the last of our water. You take it.”

  Louis sucked up the final sips, then turned his head away, his voice a whisper. “You are cruel, mister.”

  Picking up a rag, DeShear wiped the sweat off the Lieutenant’s brow. “It’s cruel to save your life? You’re just tired. You’re in a lot of pain and you’re talking nonsense. When we get you to a hospital—”

  “They . . . will hang me.”

  “Forget about where you were taking me, and why. Nobody needs to know that now. We’ll tell them I’m just a tourist, and that I hired your boat to take me scuba diving at night. On the way, we were attacked, and we defended ourselves.”

  “You know where we were really headed.” Each breath Moray took was a raspy wheeze. “You . . . could have killed me in the night. Thrown me over the side to the sharks. Why didn’t you?”

  “I’m not a murderer. I told you, I’m trying to find a little girl, not kill her. I was trying to save the woman I was with, too. That should be obvious to you by now. I had every reason to kill you and I didn’t—doesn’t that at least make you think I might be telling the truth?”

  The engines of the Defense Force cutter could be heard long before the boat itself was visible. DeShear jumped up, rushing to the rear of boat, waving his arms as the beam of a distant spotlight swung back and forth over the water.

  “Here! We’re here!”

  He knew the sailors on board the cutter couldn’t hear him, but he couldn’t help himself.

  DeShear glanced at where the lieutenant lay on the deck. “It
’s almost over, Louis. We’re going to be rescued. You just have to hang on a little longer.”

  Moray’s head hung sideways, his cheek on his shoulder. “You . . . used the radio.”

  “That’s right.” DeShear continued waving. “Now, we’re almost rescued.”

  “You saved me from dying in the night.” Louis got to his feet, sagging against the railing. “So I can be humiliated and die in the daytime.”

  “What?” DeShear turned around.

  Groaning, Louis threw a leg over the rail. “Let the sharks take me. I’m not going like this.” He put both hands on the railing, leaning toward the water.

  “No! Louis!” DeShear lunged for the lieutenant, wrapping his arms around him and hauling him in. They crashed back onto the deck. “You’re going to stay alive, Louis.” DeShear gasped. He gritted his teeth and grabbed the lieutenant by the collar. “You’re going to tell the Defense Force sailors how I bandaged your wounds and gave you water through the night and saved your miserable life!”

  The spotlight bathed the deck in brightness. DeShear rolled onto his back, holding a hand up to shield his eyes. Louis lay on the deck, moaning. Sitting up, DeShear waved again. “Help us! We have an injured man!”

  The Defense Force cutter slowed its engines, pulling along side the two smaller boats. A man’s voice came over the ship’s loudspeaker. “Raise your hands. Do not move!”

  DeShear stood, lifting his arms over his head. “Hurry! We have an injured man. Bring your medic.”

  Several sailors in white uniforms jumped from the Defense Force cutter and onto the deck of the diving boat. Another crewman stood behind a machine gun mounted at the front of the big ship, aiming his weapon at DeShear.

  Two more sailors came on board. One carried a black bag, the other carried a rifle.

  “This man is Louis Moray.” DeShear pointed to the lieutenant. “He’s a member of your armed forces and he needs urgent medical attention.”

  The sailor with the bag kneeled at Louis’ side. The other sailor stood in front of DeShear, pointing the rifle at him. “You sent a distress call?”

  DeShear squinted in the bright light. “I did. That’s right.”

  The rifleman looked over the two boats. “How about you tell me what happened here, sir?”

  “We were going night diving. Scuba diving.” DeShear spoke loud enough for everyone on board to hear, including Moray. Nodding at the diving tanks at the back of the boat, DeShear looked at the sailor. “We were shot at by men from another boat. My charter captain is also in your armed forces, so he had some weapons. He slowed the boat down. They had us tie the boats together, then they boarded us. There was a firefight.”

  The sailor with the rifle narrowed his eyes. “You shoot the men on the other boat?”

  “No,” DeShear said. “The lieutenant shot one. I knocked the other one into the water. He was killed by sharks.”

  “Sharks.” The sailor nodded. “Lots of sharks in the waters around here. Too many to go night diving.”

  “We didn’t plan on stopping here. We stopped because they shot at us. We were headed somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  The loudspeaker crackled. “We have something in the water! Port side of your vessel.”

  The rifleman peered over the railing. “This be your man?”

  “I don’t know.” His hands still over his head, DeShear walked to the side of the boat.

  The bloated corpse of a man floated face-down in the water, bathed in illumination from the ship’s spotlights. An anchor chain was wrapped around the dead man’s waist. The chain hung straight down from the body, its anchor barely visible in the spotlight.

  “You knocked the man into the water, but tie him to the anchor first?”

  “No.” DeShear winced. “That’s . . . I don’t—”

  A crewman on the Defense Force cutter tossed a retrieval pole to a sailor on Moray’s boat. Leaning over the side, the man swung outward and made a grab for the corpse.

  The curved end of the pole made a small splash as it fell short of the body. The sailor pulled the pole back and moved up the deck a few feet before leaning over again. His second cast bumped the corpse’s leg.

  The dead body rocked back and forth.

  “That’s a good-sized anchor,” the rifleman said. “But the body still pull it up. In these parts, the sea always give up the dead.”

  DeShear kept his eyes on the corpse.

  The sailor’s pole went out again, dropping the long retrieval hook on the side of the corpse’s neck.

  “Ha!” the rifleman said. “You got him.”

  As the sailor pulled the pole, the bloated corpse turned, nearing the boat but slipping from the hooks’ grasp.

  DeShear stared at the dead body in the water. It had both arms and legs.

  As the corpse drifted closer, more details became clear. The spotlight illuminated the dead man’s clothing. He wore a blue- striped shirt.

  DeShear stepped closer to the rail, his jaw hanging open.

  Laquan! The fishing charter captain!

  Gasping, DeShear grabbed the railing.

  How did he end up here? Dead, and chained to an anchor?

  How could that happen?

  When the crewman’s next cast reached the body, he snagged the waist.

  The corpse rolled over as he pulled it in. The dead man was wearing a black scuba diving mask. His arms, legs and clothing were streaked with a yellow paint, and the short harpoon from a spear gun stuck out of his chest.

  “Shark repellent.” The crewman pulled the body next to Moray’s boat, pointing to the streaks of paint across the dead man’s clothes. The crewman fanned his nose. “He’s covered in it. That stuff sure puts off a smell.”

  The rifleman glared at DeShear. “You say you knock this man in the water?”

  DeShear’s mind raced.

  Laquan was in on the attack. He had to be. He sent Constantine to the front berth on purpose, and arranged for the rendezvous with the kidnappers.

  But to end up chained to the bottom, with a spear in his chest . . .

  He got double crossed.

  When the shooting started, Laquan must have put on the mask and doused himself with shark repellant, then went over the side—either carrying a hidden air tank or knowing one was waiting for him on the bottom.

  And it was—along with someone holding a spear gun and an anchor chain.

  The whole thing had to be planned pretty precisely, but I guess once they had Constantine, they didn’t want any loose ends—or extra partners.

  The sailor nudged DeShear with the tip of the rifle. “Sir, I asked you—is this the man you knocked into the water?”

  “No.” DeShear squeezed his eyes shut, fully aware that his next words were going to sound extremely bad for him. “That’s Laquan. He . . . was the captain of my fishing charter a few days ago. Lieutenant Moray saved us that day.”

  The sailor whistled. “You sure are unlucky. Sounds like every boat you take, somebody ends up dead. Or maybe you’re not unlucky at all.” He called out over his shoulder. “How’s the lieutenant?”

  “He may not make it,” the medic said. “Bring the stretcher!”

  DeShear turned to Moray. “Louis! Tell them. Tell them how I saved you. Tell them I’m innocent.”

  The rifleman glanced at the bloody man on the deck. “Well, lieutenant?”

  Louis raised his eyes to DeShear. “All I know is, he told me a big story. Looks like it didn’t turn out to be true.”

  “Louis!” DeShear rushed forward.

  The rifleman stepped in front of DeShear, forcing him back. He grabbed DeShear’s arms and held them behind his back.

  “Tell them!” DeShear shouted. “My charter was attacked. You picked up me and Jaden Trinn out of the water. I told you we couldn’t find the captain.”

  “Looks like we found him now.” The rifleman pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “But he’s not talking.”

  Two more sailors carried a
stretcher over to the lieutenant. Laying it down, the men eased their wounded patient onto it and strapped him in.

  DeShear twisted out of the rifleman’s grasp, dropping to his knees at the lieutenant’s side and grabbing the stretcher with both hands. “Louis, please! You and I, we were attacked last night! I saved you. Tell them. I’m not a murderer! I just want to find the little girl.”

  His eyes half open, Louis turned his head to gaze at DeShear. “You saved me . . . and you ruined my life,” he whispered. “Now, I ruined yours.”

  “No!” DeShear cried. “No!”

  The sailors pried DeShear’s hands off the stretcher.

  “Same water . . . same story,” Moray wheezed. Straining, he lifted his head off the stretcher. “You go on a boat, someone you don’t like dies.”

  “No! Louis, tell them the truth! Please!”

  “You’re a murderer. You killed them all.” Drops of blood flew from Moray’s mouth with each word. “You never should have come back here.”

  The lieutenant collapsed back onto the stretcher.

  “I didn’t kill anyone! Louis!”

  One of the sailors put his fingers to Moray’s throat. After a moment, he shook his head. “He’s gone.”

  Grabbing DeShear, the rifleman dragged him away as the other sailors lifted the stretcher onto the cutter.

  The rifleman thrust his weapon sideways against DeShear’s chest as two others held his arms and handcuffed him.

  “You’re a killer, working with these pirates,” the rifleman said. “You’re up to something—and we’re gonna chain you up in a hot jail cell until we find out what it is.”

  Two other crewmen hauled the floating corpse into Moray’s boat, rolling it over so Laquan’s face stared up at the night sky. As they waited for another stretcher, one reached down and pulled off the dead man’s black diving mask.

  Chapter 19

  In the back of the ambulance, Helena shuddered. She pulled her seat belt tighter and folded her hands in her lap.

  Hollings leaned forward from where his wheelchair was clamped to the ambulance floor. “What are you up to, Keeper 27? You seeing one of your visions?”

  As she stared at the ambulance wall, the metal seemed to soften and fade, a low hum growing in her ears. A dim image of a recreational boat appeared, drifting forward like it was playing on a movie screen that was immersed in a thick fog. The image became clearer, the fog lifting. DeShear struggled against two sailors in white uniforms. They dragged him from the vessel. On the boat’s deck lay a man in a blue-striped shirt, soaking wet and streaked with yellow paint.