7. Tyler
I woke with a jolt and tried to work out what roused me. The darkness inside the tiny cabin smothered me like a concrete blanket. I checked the time on my phone. 4:37 a.m. About an hour before my usual waking time.
Then again, I did go to bed at least two hours before I usually did.
After Indiana stormed away from me last night, and Old Smithy was already passed out to the world, I tried to get my computer working, but without signal, it was pointless. My phone kept dropping in and out, too. After waiting forty minutes for Indiana to reappear, I’d conceded that she was not returning topside and went to bed, too. I should have brought a book to read. With nothing else to do, I had no choice but to sleep.
Stretching my back side to side, I moved to Rhino’s slow roll. Maybe that was why I’d slept so well.
Beyond my porthole, the blackness of night that had filled the circle when I went to bed had morphed into a faint pale orange hue.
A bang resonated from somewhere up top. Jumping up, I grabbed my gun and yanked open the door. The hall was dark and silent. I ducked back into my room to get my phone, and with my flashlight on, I ran along the passage to the ladder. Through the square hole, stars still dotted the night sky.
I tucked my gun into the back of my shorts and my phone into my pocket. The rusted ladder rungs scraped the soles of my bare feet as I climbed. At the top, the silence was incredible, like we floated in another world.
I climbed the final rungs, and keeping low, I stepped onto the deck. At the hut, Old Smithy was asleep on the sofa, flat on his back with his mouth wide open.
Another bang cut through the silence and ducking down, I pulled my gun from my shorts.
Old Smithy smacked his lips together and rolled away.
Holding my gun against my thigh, I crouched low and headed toward the front of the boat. A bang sounded ahead of me. I jumped toward the giant crane and pressed my bare back against the cold metal.
The boat rolled side to side. The silence screamed in my ears.
My gut told me there was nothing wrong, but my memory reminded me that I’d made that mistake before.
I stepped out from the crane, and crouching over, I dashed to another piece of rusty equipment that was about the size of my ten-year-old car. Pausing there, I peered around the corner. My breath hitched. A light was set up and Indiana was center stage. She wore the same outfit as yesterday, denim shorts, a black bikini top, and ankle-high boots. She had one boot braced on a massive metal pipe, the other on the ground. Using a wrench that seemed way too big for her hands, she was trying to move a bolt as big as her palm.
Hot damn, she’s fit.The muscles in her stomach were toned to perfection. Her arms were strong, and the definition in her legs was sexy as hell.
The urge to race forward to help was strong, but after her warning yesterday, I waited until she paused so I could announce my approach. She lowered her leg, raised the wrench, and bashed the massive bolt.
Mystery about the banging noise solved.
“Goddammit,” she muttered, adjusting her stance to the sway of the boat.
After shoving the gun into the back of my shorts, I whistled.
She spun toward me.
“Problem?” I called across the distance.
“Always.”
As I walked toward her, she shifted her stance, giving me a full-frontal view of her stunning physique. The previous woman I’d been with was milk and honey, and physically underwhelming. Indiana was 80% cocoa chocolate, bold and strong—and delicious.
“What’s the problem?” The bolt she’d been trying to move was rimmed with rust. There was a high probability that nothing would make that thing move.
She tapped the bolt with the giant wrench. “Damn equipment is older than Smithy’s sea stories.” She huffed. “You’re up early. Did you wet the bed?”
“Yeah. Funny.”
“What’re you doing up so early?” She made a show of running her gaze up my bare chest, and I couldn’t decide if she was trying to make me feel uncomfortable or if she liked what she saw.
I shrugged. “We went to bed early.”
Off the side of the boat, a shadow glided through the water, large and menacing.
“Shark.” I pointed at the foot-high fin.
“Yeah. Nosy bugger has been doing that for a while,” she said without looking. “Must think we’re chumming.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Sharks?” A smirk played on her lips as she finally met my gaze. “Only the two-legged kind.”
“I’m with you on that.”
She cocked her head in a silent question.
Before she asked for more details, I pointed at the bolt. “Need help?”
She handed me the wrench. “Knock yourself out.”
Stunned at how heavy the tool was, I used both hands to wriggle it into position over the hex head bolt, and copying her stance, I put everything I had into undoing the bolt.
But it was no use. Conceding defeat, I stepped back.
“Told you.” She shrugged.
“What does it undo?”
She pointed at the crane arm. “We can’t move the crane arm without undoing that bolt. And with the arm not directly behind the boat, it could give us a bit of drag once we get the wreck to the surface and start to tow it.”
I ran my finger along the rust. “It hasn’t moved in a long time.”
“Nope.”
“So why is it important now?”
“Because we need to get this wreck back to shore ASAP, and you bastards want me to keep this salvage a secret.”
I leveled my gaze at her. “I’m not the enemy here, Indiana.”
She rolled her eyes, then turned her back on me and marched away.
“Indiana. Come on, I’m trying to have a conversation.”
She gave me the bird and continued walking.
I whacked the bolt with the wrench, and the clang reverberated up my arm so fiercely I nearly dropped it. I put the wrench aside and scanned the ocean for the shark. The dark shadow cruised along the side of the boat, low enough that its fin didn’t break the surface.
I shuddered. I’d met some killers in my life, even seen them commit murder. But the thought of that shark coming near me scared the fucking shit out of me.
A ray of light pierced the horizon, and I turned to the sunrise. The golden glow colored the patch of clouds it was pushing up into in slow motion, gradually turning them from gray to white to yellow.
The silence was unreal. No buzzing of electricity. Or machinery.
Not even a wave lapping at the sides of the boat. Or birds squawking overhead.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard anything like it.
Was this the calm before a storm?
Not a single boat was visible. Nor plane, or person.
Indiana wasn’t returning, so I headed for the hut. I needed coffee.
At the rear of the boat, Indiana carried a scuba tank. The woman was a machine.
I strode to her and started whistling as I approached.
She put the tank down next to a large machine and turned to me with her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to be a wise-ass, you know.”
“What? You told me to announce my approach.”
“Yeah, well, cut the whistling out.”
I raised my hands in a peace gesture. “Okay. Got it. Now, will you let me help you, please?”
“I’m fine.”
“I can see that. But maybe with my help, we can do this quicker, and you’ll get rid of me faster.”
“Good point.” She pointed to a row of scuba tanks contained in a metal cage. “Could you bring them down here?”
“Sure thing.”
As I reached for the first one, she started an engine that sounded like dozens of ball bearings bouncing around a metal drum.
Conversation was nearly impossible with the air compressor going. Using hand signals, we worked together to fill her ten scuba tanks with compressed air and return them to the cage.
She cut off the engine, pitching us into welcome silence. “Thanks.”
“No worries. What’s next?”
“Coffee.” A tiny smirk crossed her lips, and she swept her gaze up my bare chest, then turned on her heel to walk away.
“Do you normally start this early?” I asked, attempting conversation as I followed her long, striding legs.
“Yep.”
So much for small talk.
In the hut, I couldn’t believe Old Smithy had slept through that noisy engine. Indiana slapped his right foot, and he squinted at her with one eye.
“Go away.”
“You want coffee?” Indiana asked.
“I want sleep.”
“Not today, Dad. I need your help.”
Indiana and I both moved toward the kitchen together and we bumped shoulders. I paused to let her go first.
At the sink, she plucked a mug from a hook below the overhanging cupboards, and as she handed it to me, she seemed to watch for my reaction.
She expects me to cringe at the coffee staining the inside.
I didn’t.
“Thanks,” I said with a smile.
Before I’d become the designated driver for the Bolton crime family, I’d worked in one of his car mechanic yards. The business seemed legitimate on the books, but it was a front for his luxury stolen car racket and served as one of Bolton’s money laundering scams. The men who worked in that mechanic yard were some of the grubbiest men I’d ever met. To blend in, I’d had to drink out of the same filthy mugs they did.
As Indiana filled the kettle, I turned on my coffee machine and opened the packet of coffee pods I’d brought with me.
“You sure you don’t want one of these?” I showed her the purple pod. “I brought my favorite coffee blend.”
Her sneer was all the answer I needed.
“Your loss.” I shrugged and pressed the button to make my black coffee.
I scowled as she put two spoonsful of instant coffee and three sugars into two mugs and filled them with hot water.
Our coffees were ready at the same time. She plonked a mug on the coffee table before her dad and smacked his leg to wake him again. I remained standing, waiting to see what was next on the agenda.
Old Smithy groaned as he swung his legs over the side of the couch and reached for his mug.
As Indiana stood with her back against the kitchen counter and sipped her coffee, my stomach growled loud enough that she swept her gaze at me. “Hungry?”
“Yeah, always.” I shrugged. “So, what do you want me to do now?”
“I didn’t peg you for the type to take orders.”
“From you . . . I think I’d be a fool not to.”
She looked away, but not before I caught the flicker of something softer in her eyes.
Progress.
“Well, while you’re busy protecting us, I’m going to dive down to that wreck.”
I studied her, contemplating whether or not voicing my concern would backfire.
“What?” she snapped.
I put my mug down and shifted so I could see her father better. “Are you diving with Indiana, Old Smithy?”
“No.” Indiana answered for him. “Dad’s keeping watch over the equipment while I’m down there.”
“But I thought the second rule of diving was to stick with a buddy.”
Indiana gave a chuckle that I thought was fake. “There are no rules out here, Kingsley.”
“Safety should come first.”
“Aw, you hear that, Dad? The cop is worried about me.” She gave me the side eye.
“Yes, Indiana, I am.”
Her stunning amber eyes seemed to shimmer in the dawn glow. Or maybe that was anger flaming in her irises.
She flicked her hand. “Well, thanks for that, but we have no choice. Because you bastards aren’t paying me to raise this wreck, I couldn’t hire anyone to help me. Dad needs to stay up top to keep the compressor going. So, unless you want to risk your balls in that shark soup, then it’s just me.”
I looked at Smithy, who had an expression that seemed to dare me to answer.
“Can you scuba dive?” I asked him.
He scoffed. “I’ve been diving since before you were born.”
“Good. In that case, you have two choices, Indiana. I can either dive with you, or I can maintain the compressor while Old Smithy dives with you.”
She chuckled. “What do you know about engines?”
“I was a mechanic in a past life.”
“Ha, he’s got you there.” Old Smithy smacked his hairy leg.
“Shut up, Dad.” She glared at him.
He pushed back on his seat like he was enjoying the show.
Indiana settled her gaze on me. “That air compressor is my lifeline down there.”
“I know, and I promise you can trust me.”
“Cops never keep their promises.”
“I have never broken a promise.”
She turned to peer toward the rear of the boat, and there, leaning against the side railing with his arms crossed, was Wesley Bolton’s ghost.
My chest nearly caved. I’d made a promise to Wesley that I would always look after him.
But it was my bullet that had taken his life.
When Indiana turned back to me, her expression was almost fatalistic, like she, too, had seen Wesley. Or maybe she expected me to fail her.
I wanted to reiterate my promise, but my words felt so hollow.
Behind Indiana, Wesley’s image vanished into the ocean beyond, but my memory of what I had done to him was forever etched into my brain.
Protecting Indiana was always important, but it was no longer just about guarding her and Old Smithy. This was about protecting my sanity, too.
If I let anything happen to Indiana and Old Smithy, I would never recover.