Love Overboard

Chapter 49

EMILY ENTERED THE brIDGE, WHERE a row of large glass windows fronted two raised leather seats commanding a view of the bow of the ship. One chair was empty, and Peter sat on the other. He hopped down as soon as he saw her. The washed-out first mate looked like they never let him see the sunlight. His skinny face rivaled the whitecaps dancing on the ocean behind him.

“Mrs. Windsor.” His voice squeaked even though he was well past the age of puberty. “Did you come to visit me?”

“Good afternoon, Peter.” She propped her cane against a control panel. “Is the captain away?”

“He went to the mess for a bite to eat. Could I be of help?”

“I came to ask a favor.” Emily walked over and gave him a hug.

He squeezed her tight. “Anything you want. Name it.”

She eased back and eyed him. “Stop the boat.”

His thin lips gaped. He lowered his arms and stepped away. “But, Mrs. Windsor, that’s against the rules. We’ve got to make it to the next port by sunset.”

“Pish-tosh. We always arrive an hour early and sit around waiting for an available pier. You know that.”

“Even so”—he shook his head—“the captain told me to hold the course. He’ll put me on bread and water if I go against him.”

“I’d be asking the same favor of the captain if he were here. But it’s you, so you’ll have to do it.”

“But, Mrs. Windsor, there’s no brakes on a ship. It’s a complicated process. You have to stop the forward momentum. And … and achieve thrust reversal … the propeller—”

“Peter”—Emily held a finger to his lips—“I don’t need a sailing lesson. I need you to Stop. The. Ship.”

“But, Mrs. Windsor!”

“Please stop butting me, young man.” She reached out, took his hand, and placed it on the control. “And crank that nice lever to the Stop position. This is an emergency.”

Peter’s eyebrows rose. “Is someone sick? Not one of the Shippers.”

“No one is ill, unless you count being heartsick. But it’s easily remedied if you’ll do what I ask. You remember Lacey Anderson, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“We have to get her to Cozumel before Jon McMillan leaves.”

“You mean, the new CEO Jonathan McMillan?” Peter paled even more, if that was possible, and backed away from the panel.

“How do you know about that?” Emily asked.

He ducked his head and lowered his voice to a whisper. “The captain entrusted me with the information, but he made me swear I’d keep my mouth shut. Please don’t tell him I told you.”

“Don’t worry, dear.” Her tone sweetened. “Stop the boat, and your secret’s safe with me. Plus, you’ll get on the new CEO’s good side. He will forever be in your debt. You’ll have a job for life.”

“But … but, Mrs. Windsor, even if we stopped, there’s no way for Lacey to return to shore. She can’t use one of the tenders.”

Emily took hold of the man’s elbow and steered him back to the control panel. “You take care of the stopping. I’ll take care of the transportation.”

He stood with his mouth opening and closing like a freshly caught sea bass gasping on the beach. She ignored him, took out her cell phone, and scrolled through her saved numbers. After finding the right one, Emily dialed and waited. Glancing at Peter, she shooed him away. “Go.” She pushed his arm as a voice on the other end of the line answered.

“Hello, Fernando?” Emily waved at Peter to hurry. “Do you still own that lovely little motorboat?”

Lacey cringed as the lime-green craft she’d hoped never to ride in again chugged alongside the MS Buckingham. She waited on one of the lower openings in the ship used to load passengers onto tender boats. Emily, Gerry, Althea, and Daisy stood behind her.

“No call for nerves.” Althea laid a hand on Lacey’s shoulder. “He’ll throw himself at your feet the moment you come into view.”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” Gerry said. “But I agree with Althea. He’ll be overjoyed, Lacey.”

Daisy gave her a well-manicured thumbs-up.

“Hurry, now.” Emily nudged Lacey. “We have to get going.”

“We?” Lacey stared at the four women. “Are you all coming?”

“Of course we are, baby.” Althea wrapped a polka-dot scarf around her head. “You can’t go without backup.”

Lacey tried to reason with them—as if that ever worked. “I might be able to travel faster alone.”

Emily motioned to her group. “You have almost three hundred years of experience standing in front of you, which is nothing to sneeze at. Let’s go.” She tossed her cane in the boat, tottered across the small gap, and grabbed Fernando’s waiting hand.

“Hola, Mrs. Emily,” he said. “It is good to see you again.”

“Likewise, Fernando.”

Lacey grasped the railing as she climbed into the motorboat, and the other three ladies clambered in after her. The trip to shore was a Shipper seminar on how to win your man. Emily coached her on being brave, even if Jon was a little cold. Gerry suggested several different apologies Lacey could use. Daisy tried to fix Lacey’s hair as the wind tore it to shreds. And Althea clapped her hands at how fast the boat was traveling.

They rattled up to the dock in Cozumel, and Fernando leaped out to help them onto the pier.

Althea patted him on the cheek as she exited. “Baby, that was the best boat ride of my life.”

“Thank you, Fernando.” Emily passed him a twenty-dollar bill. “Here’s a little extra for driving at top speed.”

“Gracias.” He bowed and waved goodbye.

“Let’s go.” She raised her cane like a general directing the troops.

Lacey caught her by the hand. “I should go alone from here. It’s a long walk down the pier, and I’ve got to hurry.”

“The story’s getting good.” Gerry frowned. “You’re not going to make us miss the big climax, are you?”

“Don’t worry.” Emily took off her jacket and tied it around her waist. “We won’t fall behind. Right, girls?”

“Right!” Althea and Daisy chimed.

Lacey gave up. They hurried along the dock as fast as a group of septuagenarians could and flagged a small white minivan with a Taxi sign on top. The five of them piled inside and headed for the airport.

Daisy and Gerry settled in the back. Lacey sat on the first bench seat in between Althea and Emily. She tried calling Jon’s phone for the fourth time and got voicemail. She groaned.

“What do I say? I was awful to him last night.”

“He loves you, baby.” Althea rubbed Lacey’s spine. “That covers a multitude of sins.”

Gerry’s head bumped the van roof as they hit a deep pothole. “Don’t you worry, Lacey.” She massaged her scalp. “Any woman who helped track down a ton of cocaine can recapture her man, no problem.”

Lacey chuckled. “I’d hardly call six bags a ‘ton.’”

“Six bags?” Emily lowered her chin. “Is that all they found?”

“Yes. In a paper grocery bag, like you said.”

“But six.” Emily held her hands in front of her and moved them from side to side and then vertically.

Gerry slanted forward. “What are you doing?”

She shook her head. “Each of those little bags holds five pounds. When I met Ricardo on the pier, the paper sack was so full that flour bags were peeking out of the top. There have to be more than six.”

“What do you mean?” Lacey asked.

Emily crossed her arms in front of her. “I mean, someone must’ve taken a share of the drugs before Ricardo was busted.”

“He had an accomplice!” Gerry pulled out her notebook and scribbled.

“Who?” Althea leaned past Lacey. “His roommate?”

Lacey gave a hysterical laugh and pressed her index fingers to her temples. As if apologizing to the man she’d rejected multiple times wasn’t hard enough, now she had to catch another smuggler.

“Driver.” Daisy raised her voice to a genteel screech. “Please turn the air conditioner on. It’s stuffy back here.”

“It is broke.” He eyed her in the rearview mirror. “Sorry.”

“We’re about to solve another mystery.” Gerry snapped her notebook shut. “Who cares if it’s hotter than blazes?”

“Excellent point, girls.” Emily sat up straight.

“What is?”

“It must be eighty-five degrees outside. Why would a man wear thick jeans and a large sweatshirt? A man who hasn’t worn a decent-fitting set of clothes since we’ve known him.”

Althea gasped. “You mean—”

“I mean”—Emily tapped her finger on the seat cushion—“this morning, Mr. Collins was wearing a suspicious amount of baggy clothing.”

“Wait.” Lacey took her hands from her head. “They talked about this in our personnel training. Drug mules wear body suits or even tape packets to their torso under their clothes. And I caught Collins in a staff hallway one day talking to Ricardo. I thought he must be lost.”

“He’s lost all right.” Althea nodded. “Sounds like he needs to find Jesus.”

Emily scrolled through her phone. “We should be there soon. The Cozumel airport has a special lot on the east side for private planes. Driver—”

She tapped the man on the shoulder and directed him where to go. The taxi screeched to a halt at the curb. Everyone spilled out of the back. Daisy opened her wallet to pay, and the others looked around.

“How do we ferret out where he is?” Althea asked. “Have him paged?”

“Too iffy,” Gerry said. “What if he’s somewhere he can’t hear the announcement?”

Emily paced in a small circle beside the group. “I pumped the captain for information before we left. He was the one who arranged ground transportation for them. He told me Mr. McMillan was visiting the cruise office on the way to the airport. He’s still in Cozumel.”

Lacey lifted her cell and tried calling again. It went to voicemail, and she barely kept herself from chucking the phone across the street. “No answer.”

Daisy dabbed the hollow of her neck with her handkerchief. “All this fuss would be unnecessary if the man picked up his phone.”

“Says the woman who doesn’t own one,” Gerry deadpanned.

A shiny black sedan with tinted windows drove by and stopped at a special entrance about a hundred feet away. A man in a gray uniform exited the guard hut, raised the yellow-and-white-striped barrier arm, and waved the vehicle through.

“There.” Emily pointed. “That car has the Monarch Cruises decal on the window. It must be him.”

Lacey ran to the security checkpoint. A thin metal pole and a young man in his twenties were the only things blocking her from Jon. He tugged his cap on his forehead as she approached.

“Excuse me.” She pointed in the direction of the black sedan. “Please let me talk to the man who just drove through.”

“Do you have the correct pass?” He held a clipboard with a list of names and pointed to it.

“No.” She watched the sedan disappear around the corner of an airplane hangar. “But it’s an emergency.”

He dropped the board on a shelf by the guard’s station and rested his hands on his belt. “I am sorry. It is against the rules. You must go in the main terminal and talk to them.”

The Shippers arrived in a noisy, panting herd.

“Young man”—Emily slapped the pole separating them from where the private planes parked—“let us through!”

The guard pulled out his walkie-talkie and motioned at her hand with the antenna. “Please move this. You cannot come back here. If you do not leave, I will call the police to escort you.”

Gerry appeared on Emily’s right. “Then could you deliver a message for us? We need to contact Jonathan McMillan.”

He shook his head. “We cannot disturb our VIPs.”

Daisy joined them. “You seem a nice fellow. I promise Mr. McMillan will be very happy. In fact, he’ll be a tad put out if you don’t admit us. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

His face twitched.

Althea shoved to the front. “What’s your name, baby?”

“Ed-Eduardo.” The guard rubbed his free hand against his pants leg.

“Listen, Eddie.” She leaned over the pole and sweetened her tone. “You remind me of my grandson. Both hard workers. Doing your job. But this is a matter of love or death.”

“Love or death?” He bent closer.

Althea put her arm around Lacey and urged her into their huddle. “This poor girl might spend the rest of her life with a broken heart if you don’t allow her through. Let her talk to the man she loves.”

Eduardo’s jaw firmed. “This is not a movie. There are regulations. I cannot let her in because she fought with her boyfriend. She can call him.”

“He’s not answering his phone.” Daisy flicked her handkerchief in the air. “That’s the trouble.”

“Then she calls him tomorrow.”

Lacey clasped her hands together. “Please, Eduardo. Just five minutes.”

His gaze wavered, but he shook his head. “No. It is a matter of security.” He dropped his walkie-talkie in its holster and did an about-face.

“Oh!” Althea grabbed her side. “Oh, my gallbladder.” She crumpled into a heap underneath the barrier arm. A breeze whipped her polka-dot scarf over her mouth, and she blew it off. “Pffft. Call the hospital, Eddie!”

The guard pivoted and dropped to his knees. “What is wrong?”

Althea moaned. “It’s really the end this time. I’ll get to see my husbands again in heaven.” She beckoned at the clouds. “Open the pearly gates, boys. I’m coming.”

“Oh, Althea.” Emily grabbed the guard’s arm. “Help her. Do something!”

Gerry and Daisy flanked the group. They made a wall with their bodies, blocking Lacey from the guard’s view. Emily stuck her hand behind her back and jerked her thumb at the gate. Lacey hesitated only a second. She ducked under the pole and sprinted, expecting to be tackled at any moment.

“Ohhhhh, it’s the end.” Althea’s voice howled behind her.

Lacey’s feet pounded against the concrete. Good thing she’d changed her shoes. But this was insane. Would they think she was trying to hijack a plane and shoot her?

She ran past parked cars and oil drums, traffic cones, and private planes. Not a soul stopped her. Lacey slowed, stopped, and doubled over, gasping for air. She sucked in a lungful of oxygen and took off around the hangar where Jon’s car had disappeared. As she rounded the corner, she saw the sedan sitting near a small jet with the Monarch crown logo on it. The door was open and the stairs to the ground remained, but the engines whirred to life.

“Wait!” Lacey bolted forward.

Could she get the pilot’s attention? She passed the parked car and ran toward the plane. Footsteps sounded behind her. Had the guard caught up? Lacey tried to dodge, but a hand grabbed her arm and held on. She swatted at the fingers holding her sleeve as someone spun her around.

“Let me go. I have to stop—” Her body swung, and she banged against a familiar torso. She stared up into Jon’s face.

“Did you want to see me?” He observed her without a smile or a frown.

“I thought you were on the plane.”

Jon dropped her arm but didn’t move away. “I was in the car, calling my father.”

Lacey grabbed hold of him in a death grip. “You can’t go to Florida.”

“Why not?”

“Because …” She never had figured out the right words to say. “Because I’m still mad that you lied to me about who you are, and … and I need you to stay with me until I process it. I mean … no matter how angry I feel, it doesn’t change the fact that I … I—”

A commercial aircraft flew low as it approached a nearby runway. The earsplitting sound of the engines drowned out her words. The ground vibrated as the plane roared past.

Lacey tried again. “I’m sorry for how awful I was last night. You didn’t hurt me on purpose. I know that. And I raced here to tell you I—”

Another plane thundered over their heads. Lacey clapped her hands to her ears. Why was this so difficult? As soon as the plane was out of earshot, she removed them and hollered. “I love you!”

Jon’s lips parted in a tiny smile. “Whoa. You don’t have to shout about it.” He placed his hands on her waist. “Are you sure?”

Her chin bobbed. “Before we met, I never realized how happy I could be. The past two and a half years taught me how life looks without you, and I … I didn’t like it.”

“I didn’t like life without you either.”

Lacey paused and put distance between them. “Will you get in a lot of trouble if you don’t go to Florida?”

He shook his head. “I already talked with my father and said I couldn’t leave until my current cruise finished. I told him I have a girlfriend who hates it when someone doesn’t follow through on the job. That scored you Brownie points. He wants to meet you.” Jon took a small step. “I do have a girlfriend again?”

Lacey stumbled forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Definitely.”

He swallowed. “And you forgive me?”

Embarrassment hit her in an excruciating wave of awkwardness. She hid against his chest and nodded.

“Thank God.”

Jon placed a finger under her chin and gently tilted it. He lowered his head, and his eyes focused on Lacey’s mouth. A millisecond before he claimed it, she inched back.

“Hold on. If you aren’t quitting, then how were you planning to return to the ship?”

He quirked his eyebrows and waved at the plane behind him. “It doesn’t only fly to Florida. I was going to have the pilot drop me off at the MS Buckingham’s next port of call.”

“Oh.”

Her lower lip jutted out a little, and Jon bent once again. He pressed his mouth to hers. Lacey rose on her toes and melted into him. His right hand cradled her neck while his thumb traced the outline of her jaw. His other hand pressed against the small of her back, urging her close.

Jon allowed a centimeter between them, his breath hitting her skin hard and fast. “I might as well go for broke. Do you think my girlfriend would consider becoming my wife? When she’s ready?”

Lacey laughed. She closed the tiny distance and kissed him again.

He eased away once more. “Is that a yes?”

She didn’t finish her first nod before his lips covered her own. They spent several seconds punctuating their agreement. A third plane thundered overhead, and the couple pulled apart.

Lacey glared at the ascending aircraft and groaned. “Why is this tiny airport so busy?”

When she lowered her gaze, Jon was holding a small black box in front of her nose. He flipped the lid to reveal a sparkling diamond ring in a shiny platinum setting.

Her snarky eyebrow lifted. “Why did you have that in your pocket? Up until a few minutes ago, I wasn’t speaking to you.”

He grinned. “I’m an optimist.”

“Are you sure you don’t just carry it around to use on anybody?”

“Not a chance.” His arm around her waist nudged Lacey tight against him. “I even had our names engraved—Jon and Lacey McMillan.”

“Lacey McMillan.” She repeated the name. “I like the sound of it.”

She held out her left hand, and Jon slid the ring on the correct finger.

He sighed when it settled into place, and pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles. “I was worried it wouldn’t fit. I couldn’t exactly ask you what your size was.”

The weight of the ring felt unfamiliar on Lacey’s finger. She held her hand out and admired the diamond. “You did good, Mr. McMillan.”

“Thank you, soon-to-be Mrs. McMillan.” He kissed the bridge of her nose. “Come on. My plane will take us to where the ship will be docking next. We’ll probably beat it there.” He kept his arm around her waist as they walked to the waiting jet. “Am I allowed to tell the Shippers this time?”

“Oh!” Lacey moved away. “I forgot. Where’s Collins?”

“Collins? Why?” Jon tried to hold her for more cuddles.

She batted at his arms. “This is serious. The Shippers figured out—”

“Hey, what’s the delay?” Reid Collins bulldozed his way out of the plane’s narrow entrance and stomped down the stairs. “Let’s get going!”

Sirens sounded. He jerked to the side, his shoulders hunched to his ears. Mr. Eliot scurried from the jet as a dark-blue four-door truck with the words Policia Federal emblazoned on the side sped up. A man in uniform climbed out and opened the rear door.

The tip of a shiny metal cane hit the ground, followed by Emily. The other Shippers spilled from the back seat.

“Oh, baby.” Althea headed for Collins. “You left without giving me a goodbye hug.”

“What?” He scrambled back as Althea advanced. “Who are you?”

She wrapped her arms around him and patted him up and down. He squirmed in her grasp, but she held firm.

Emily approached. “No use avoiding it, Mr. Collins. Althea’s serious about her hugs.”

Althea wrestled with Collins like a grandmother with an unruly child. “One good squeeze before you leave.” She stroked his stomach. “You gained a little weight on the cruise. Look at this paunch.”

He wriggled away and tugged on the hem of his sweatshirt. “That’s none of your business.”

Althea released the squirming man. “I frisked him, officer. He’s hiding drugs under his clothes. Cuff him.”

Collins’s gaze darted to the advancing policeman. He hesitated a split second, then dashed between the cars. As he passed the cruiser, Emily stuck out her cane. It tangled in his feet. He went sprawling across the asphalt. Her Shipper companions cheered, and the officer rushed to restrain him.

Jon turned to Lacey, his square jaw sagging. “Did I miss something?”

“Most definitely.” She slipped her arm around his. “I’ll explain it to you on the way to the ship. I hope your jet has enough seat belts for all of us.”