15. Indiana
After we surfaced, we shoved everything onto the dive deck and climbed onboard. The beeping from the case was like a deadly countdown. My heart matched its rhythm.
“Is it a bomb?” I asked Tyler.
“I don’t know. But stand back.” Tyler spread his arms wide as if protecting me from a potential blast and corralled me toward the stairs.
Dad climbed down the stairs and stood beside me with an open bottle of whiskey in his hand. The sickly-sweet smell of booze seemed to seep from his skin. “What’s that?”
“We found the case in the plane, but it started beeping just before we surfaced.”
Tyler’s body coiled with tension as he squatted near the case, studying it with his piercing blue gaze.
Curious, I stepped toward him.
“Indiana, stay back.” His voice was a low growl.
His words triggered a jagged memory from the minutes before my mother’s murder. Dad had uttered those exact same words to me. The scar on my forehead prickled as if recalling the brutal attack all over again.
Dad stepped past me with reckless defiance.
Tyler glared at him. “Don’t move.”
“If it was gonna blow, it would have already.” Dad scoffed.
“Smithy, just stay there.”
Clutching Dad’s arm, I dragged him back, and he stumbled, nearly tripping over our discarded fins. His bottle hit the deck and shattered into a million pieces. The harsh stench of potent alcohol filled the air.
“Fucking hell.” Dad stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the spilled liquid as if he’d lost a limb.
“Dad.” I gripped his arm again. He swiped my hand away, scowling at me. I raised my palms in a calming gesture. “Just give Tyler a minute.”
I couldn’t believe I was choosing to defend Tyler over Dad.
Tyler shifted the case side to side as if his gaze could somehow penetrate the battered metal. His jaw was clamped, and he was as tense as our anchor chain. As the salty tang of seawater filled my nostrils, I couldn’t shake the dread crawling up my spine.
Dad shuffled forward again. “What the hell are you waiting for? Get it open already.”
Tyler didn’t answer. His focus was fixed on the beeping case.
Dad grabbed an ax next to the emergency fire kit on the wall. “Get out of the way. Let me do it.”
His movements were agile for a man weathered by decades of storms as the ax glinted in his grip.
Tyler stood like a linebacker, ready to tackle Dad. “Smithy, no!”
Dad swung the ax. Tyler grabbed the wooden shaft just as the blade arced toward the case, missing it by inches.
“Get back, ya bastard. Whatever is in there is ours!” Dad’s slurred voice had an iron edge.
“The pilot down there could have been murdered because of this case. It’s police evidence.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck.” Dad swung the ax again.
Tyler lunged for the ax again.
“Get back, or I’ll fucking make you.” Glaring at Tyler, Dad aimed the ax at him.
My mind raced as images of the dead pilot flashed before me. Tyler was right. This had to be connected to that pilot’s murder. Tyler’s mouth tightened, and the circular scar behind his ear whitened with tension.
Dad swung the ax again, carving off one of the locks. It flew through the air and landed in my scuba mask.
The beeping continued, relentless and mocking.
Tyler swept his gaze to me, shaking his head.
“Dad, maybe?—”
“Shut up, Indiana.” Dad swung again. The ax glanced off the case and embedded into the timber deck.
“Dad!” I yelled. “Stop.”
Dad yanked the ax free.
Tyler pointed at me. “Get back. Stay behind something solid.”
Despite being torn between him and Dad, I obeyed. Marching to the crane, I eased in behind the solid-metal base. Tyler’s eyes fixed on me, worry etched on his features.
He stepped toward Dad. “Listen.”
“Back off, Kingsley,” Dad said, raising the ax again.
They locked gazes, Tyler with his piercing blue eyes, and Dad with his brutal determination. Tyler’s attempts to stop him would be futile.
A pair of sea eagles swooped overhead as if getting the fuck out of there.
“This is a bad idea, Smithy.” Tyler stepped back with his hands raised in reluctant surrender, but his jaw was clenched tight enough to crush pearls.
The way Tyler watched every move my father made with hawk-like intensity proved he was an alpha male, yet he seemed to know that fighting with Dad would only make my father even more reckless.
Dad put his bare foot onto the case to hold it in position and the ax came down hard, once, twice, three times. The sound echoed off Rhino’s deck and reverberated through my bones. I flinched with each strike, expecting Dad to cut off his damn foot—or for the case to explode. It continued beeping.
“Careful, Dad,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. Dad hated me worrying about him.
Dad swung again, and the ax blade glanced off the corner. The case shot sideways and slammed into our scuba tanks.
“Fucking hell, Smithy,” Tyler said. “Will you just think about this?”
His muscles strained as he pulled the two tanks back from the case. Dad swung again.
I ran to help Tyler drag the tanks up the stairs.
“Get back,” Tyler said.
Ignoring him, I helped him drag the tanks into the equipment room. Another metal twang rang from below.
“Can you stop him?” Tyler’s eyes pleaded.
I shook my head. There would be no stopping Dad now. He never backed down from something he started. His refusal to back down from the men who raided our boat all those years ago was the reason Mom and I were both thrown overboard with our hands tied behind our backs.
“You could blow up the whole fucking boat,” Tyler called down to Dad, but his protest was ignored as Dad gave the case another blow.
The lock gave way with a shattering crack, went flying across the deck, and plopped into the ocean.
Dad cheered.
Tyler stepped in front of me, shielding me with his body.
I peered over Tyler’s shoulder, glaring at the case.
Dad’s breathing was ragged as he pried his fingers into the seal. The case flung open.
My heart stopped.
“Fuck yeah!” Dad fell to his knees.
Tyler’s shoulders slumped as he let out a massive breath. We both rushed to join Dad.
“I told ya. I fucking told ya.” Dad waggled a bundle of cash.
Inside the case were stacks on stacks of damp $100 bills, bound tight with strips of rubber bands.
The case was still beeping.
“Look, Indy.” Dad plunged into the moldy loot, pulling out a bundle that he fanned out like a peacock’s tail and the rubber band crumbled into several pieces.
“Holy hell!” Kneeling beside Dad, I reached for a stack. The bills felt real enough, and the Queen’s face was still clearly visible despite the dark spots and patches of growth covering the notes.
We rifled through the bundles, and salt crystals flicked into the air like miniature fireworks.
The corner of a plastic bag was wedged against the side of the case.
Squatting at my side, Tyler reached for the bag and pulled it out. Inside was a black plastic rectangular box with a cable running from it like a rat’s tail.
“Found what’s beeping.” Tyler held the corner of the plastic like the contents were a ticking bomb.
“What is it?” I eased back with a wad of notes in my hand.
“Looks like an external computer storage.”
Frowning, I pointed at the blinking red indicator light at the top that was flashing in time to the beeping.
Tyler’s deep frown confirmed he wasn’t sharing the same joy Dad was.
Dad’s laughter boomed, unrestrained, and all the years of worry lines etched into his face seemed to smooth out. “There must be a hundred grand here.”
He looked so alive and free of the shadows that usually clung to him that despite Tyler’s obvious dread, it was hard not to grin at Dad.
My heart was a wild drumbeat. “Yeah, Dad! This is insane!”
I flicked my gaze between the damp notes and Tyler’s worry lines.
A sense of dread haunted his eyes.
“We can fix Rhino now, Indy. Get the new engine we’ve been talking about.”
Tyler sucked air through his teeth and turned away.
“Where are you going?” I called over the top of Dad’s cheering.
“To check this out.” The beeping noise petered away as he marched up the stairs and strode toward the hut.
A knot tightened in my stomach. He really was worried. By the state of the decay on the body of that wreck, it had been about three months since that plane crashed and sank. If someone knew where the plane went down, then they would have recovered the metal case. Surely, they would have given up searching for it by now.
Dad’s hand on my shoulder brought me back. “I can’t believe it.”
“Me neither, Dad.”
“This is gonna change our lives.” His grin was so wide it showed the gap in his teeth where his tooth had been yanked out by the murderous bastards who raided our boat.
That memory added to the sense of dread creeping through me. As much as this was a lucky find, something was severely wrong with it, too.
When Dad started counting how many hundred-dollar bills were in one stack, I said, “I’m going to see if Kingsley got into that computer thingy.”
Nodding, Dad continued thumbing through the moldy notes.
Tyler was on the sofa in the hut, hunched over his laptop, where he’d plugged the beeping device into the side.
He glanced up at me as I entered.
“Any luck?” I asked as I sat on the sofa opposite.
“No. It’s locked. Highly encrypted by the looks of it.”
“Which means . . .?” I zipped down my wetsuit and peeled my arms out.
“Whoever owns this went to a lot of trouble to stop anyone snooping.” He lowered his gaze to the screen, showing me the scar behind his earlobe again.
“Do you think the pilot was killed because of this?”
His back stiffened, and when he faced me, those piercing blue eyes bore into mine as if searching for something I wasn’t sure I wanted him to find.
“Yes, I do. And that means we need to get this to Aria and her team before they come looking for it.”
“But it’s been down in that plane wreck for ages.”
He scooped the beeping device into his palm. “Agreed. But this tracking signal just told some bastard that it’s no longer on the bottom of the ocean.”