Chapter 29
Tina motioned to Captain Sparrow to roll her a plastic water bottle from the case he kept onboard for passengers.
Once she had it in hand, she crawled across the deck to Jack and opened it for him.
He spent the next few minutes washing out his mouth, gagging, spitting, and otherwise ridding himself of whatever he’d swallowed in the past few minutes.
“Is that what I look like after a boat ride?” she murmured to him.
“Shut up.” He gagged. “Back pocket. Grab it.”
“When a man asks me to grab his ass, I usually tell him to shove it, but for you…” She gingerly reached into his back jeans pocket, so sodden it was hard to get her fingers under the fabric, and tugged out a cell phone. “Is this—” She hardly dared hope.
“Celine’s. Yes. Could be dead by now.”
It was the latest version of iPhone, safely ensconced in an expensive case that was probably guaranteed to survive being dropped in water. But grimy harbor water might be more than it could handle.
She crawled back to the cabin, where the captain sat on his chair, with his legs crossed at the ankle, sunglasses perched on his head, watching their antics with bemusement. “Got any rice onboard?” she asked him.
“Basmati or long-grain?” he deadpanned. “Just kidding. Why would I have— Actually, hang on.”
He dug around in a cabinet and pulled out a box of Uncle Ben’s white rice in a Zip-loc bag. “You got lucky.”
“Pour it into a bowl.”
“No can do. This is survival rations, that’s the only reason I have it onboard.”
“I’ll buy you another,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ll buy you a whole fucking case. We need to dry this phone out.”
He shrugged. “I guess we better hope we don’t face any life-or-death situations before you get to the grocery store.” He found an orange plastic bowl and emptied the box into it. Tina handed him the phone, which he buried in the rice.
Jack was using his elbows and knees to pull himself along the deck toward them. He still looked green around the edges, but at least he had enough energy to crawl. She helped pull him the last little bit, until he was curled on the floor with his back propped on the bench.
“Need a blanket?” The Captain made no move to get him one.
“I’m good. I might need my stomach pumped at some point, but other than that…did the phone survive?”
“It’s better if it stays off for now. We don’t want them to track it. Let’s give it some time to dry before we test it.” Tina peered out the window at the yacht. “They’re taking their sweet time leaving the marina. What’s going on over there?”
“I don’t know. She could be looking for her phone. I think we should go.”
Tina weighed whether or not that would look suspicious. It probably would if they left too soon. On the other hand, why linger and give them a chance to make trouble?
The boat tied up behind them started its engine; it was a large sailboat that dwarfed the water taxi. If it was leaving the marina…
“Sparrow, can you maneuver this thing so that sailboat blocks us while we leave the marina?”
“Evasive maneuvers cost extra.”
“Fine, just do it.”
While he climbed off the boat to unwind the lines from the cleats, Jack gave her a quick rundown of everything that he’d overheard on the Swan Song, and everything Celine had said.
“I really don’t think she’s involved. She tried to warn him against whatever he’s doing now.”
“Shh.” She put a finger to her lips. One of the crew members of the Swan Song was shouting something to Sparrow.
“Who?” Sparrow, a rope in one hand, shouted back.
“Some TV star, she says. I don’t know who the fuck he is, but he just dove into the water. You seen him?”
“Naw, man. All I’ve seen is fish guts and bottle caps.”
“Who you got onboard there?”
Sparrow tossed the last line into the taxi and climbed back onboard himself. “Just me and my girlfriend. It’s my day off. Have a good one.”
Tina grabbed a baseball cap from a nearby hook and tugged it over her hair, then gave a cheerful wave in case anyone was looking her way.
With these sea-salt coated cabin windows, she was probably just a dark-haired blur.
But some of those crew members had seen her and she didn’t want to take a chance.
She ducked out of sight again as Captain Sparrow took the controls.
“How much extra do I get paid for lying?” he grumbled.
He steered the boat to the far side of the slowly cruising sailboat.
If anyone from the big yacht tried to look closer at who exactly was onboard, hopefully their view would be blocked by the billowing sail now being hoisted up the main mast.
“I’m still open to negotiation. Thanks, Captain Sparrow. Don’t forget, we’re the good guys here. You’re helping a police investigation. Besides, you just got a girlfriend out of it.” She winked at him.
“My wife is not going to be happy about that.”
“Oh shit, I’m sorry, if you need me to—”
“I’m kidding. No wife. I’m working on it. Need my own Salty Gal, if you know—”
“How’s that phone looking?” Jack interrupted, his voice still rough from swallowing salt water. “I think her most recent call was to her brother. We need to get that number.”
Tina dug the phone out from under the rice. It was dry enough, but turning it on would run electricity through it, which would not react well with any water that had filtered under the case. It might also make them trackable.
Still, the opportunity to get a lead on Jessie’s location made those risks worthwhile.
She turned on the phone. It glitched, the screen flashing static, then the home page appeared. Asking for a password to continue—of course.
“Any chance you know her password?” she asked Jack.
“Fuck.” He buried his head in his hands. “Fuck fuck fuck. Damn it.”
“Hey, this is a family boat,” Sparrow said. “Easy on the—eh, who am I kidding. Sorry, man. Swear away.”
“It’s all right,” Tina told him as she switched off the phone. No need to risk tracking if they couldn’t even get information from it. “Give me a sec.”
She called the Lightkeeper Inn and asked for Judy Griffin, the manager. Judy knew everything there was to know about the place and the Carmichaels—maybe even Celine’s password.
“Sorry, I don’t. But I have an idea. Call you right back.”
A few painfully endless moments later, Tina’s phone rang. “Got it. Celine’s favorite masseuse knew it. Once Celine was getting a hand paraffin treatment and a seaweed replenishing mask at the same time and she couldn’t answer her phone.”
“You’re amazing. Thank you so much.”
Just as Tina entered the password, the phone rang. The letter L flashed onto the screen as the incoming caller.
“L for Lloyd?” she wondered out loud.
“Give it to me.” Jack reached for it. “I want to talk to him.”
“No. He thinks he’s calling Celine. Maybe he’ll let something slip.” She hit the “accept” button and did her best imitation of Celine. “Hey.”
Best to stick to single syllables, she figured.
“Did you get rid of the cop?” A man’s voice—it must be Adam.
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“I can’t believe she showed up like that. What did you tell her?”
She looked at Jack, who was listening closely. He shook his head.
“Nothing. What should I say?” Hopefully the drone of the engine was helping disguise her voice. She put the phone on speaker to bring in even more noise.
“Nothing. Don’t say anything to anyone. I’m starting to freak out, Lin. This is getting out of control. You were right, I’m in over my head.”
Tina shared a glance of alarm with Jack. He sounded so panicked. This was getting more serious and more scary by the minute.
“Need any help?” she said cautiously.
“You’d help me? Really? After you told me to leave you out of all this? What about Hendrick? Forget it, I got this. I just need you to…” There was some muttering in the background, and a series of sounds she couldn’t make out.
“Need what? I can’t hear you.”
“I need new wheels. Send them to the hospital. It’s not far.”
Wheels. Hospital. They’d have to hurry. “I’ll try, but you better make sure nothing happens to that girl. Promise me.”
She shrugged at Jack—hell, it was worth a shot.
“I don’t know, Lin. Everything’s a mess. I thought it would help her, but…” More cryptic sounds in the background. Was that another voice, a woman’s? Tina strained to hear. “I gotta go,” he said, and the call ended.
Mindful of the tracking, Tina quickly turned it off.
Jack was on his feet now, gripping the metal frame of the open hatch. “We have to find her. That guy’s a loose cannon.” Panic vibrated through his voice.
“Hey, hey.” She put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. “I don’t think he’ll go against Celine, and I just told him not to hurt Jessie. She’s the dominant one.”
“But he’s out of control, you heard him.” With his reddened eyes and hair stiffened by drying ocean salt, Jack looked like Poseidon risen from the deep. “We have to do something. We have to geolocate, trace the call, whatever.”
“Sit down,” she ordered. “We need to focus, not panic.” She pulled her own phone from her jacket pocket, where it had been happily recording that whole time. “I want you to listen to the call and try to figure out what those sounds are in the background.”
“You recorded it?”
“Of course. What do you think I am, a rookie?” She handed him her phone, and went to stand next to Captain Sparrow at the controls. “Who’s the biggest gossip on the waterfront around here? Who knows everyone?”
“If you’re wondering about Hendrik, that’s no mystery. It’s probably Hendrik de Vries. He’s a South African globetrotter dude who comes here in the summer to play with his boats.”
“Celine’s boat is registered to an LLC called HV Holdings.” While they’d waited for Jack, she’d done some quickie research on the Swan Song.
“Yeah, that’s probably his.”
“What else do you know about him?” She gritted her teeth as they hit a whitecap. The wind was picking up out here; it felt like a storm to her, though it was probably nothing more than a gentle breeze to someone named Captain Sparrow.
“Filthy rich, obviously. Aging playboy. He and John Carmichael used to be sailing buddies until Carmichael aged out.”
“What business is he in, do you know? Where does his money come from?”
“You got me there, lady. The only thing I’ve heard is that you don’t want to mess with him.
Owns a security firm that hires former black ops dudes only.
He’s one of those master of the universe types who goes around screwing people over and getting away with it.
Scary. If I’d known that was his boat…” He shook his head.
“Probably would have dumped you two overboard.”
“Oh come on, Sparrow. Where’s your pirate spirit? Besides, what would be the point, when Jack already dumped himself overboard?”
He eyed her as if he really wouldn’t mind pitching her over the side, and would do so if he thought he could.
“Just take us back to Harbortown. We have some catfishing to do. Make that car-fishing.”
Neither of the two men laughed at her lame play on words. She rolled her eyes and focused on the horizon.