13. Sydney
CHAPTER 13
SYDNEY
He is not impressed with my little question and points at the cabin. “They could be watching,” he offers as an explanation.
I glance behind him and can barely see the waterway that leads to the docks. Unless they have eagle eyes or binoculars, they won’t be able to see anything clearly. He’s bluffing. But because he just saved my life, I oblige him and go below deck again.
The boat hits a wave, and we dip up and down. I’m suddenly grateful to be in the cabin where I can sit down and feel secure. I grip the counter that’s bolted down as we continue to go up and down.
I’ve never wondered if I would get seasick, but as we pitch back and forth, I wish I had. When the boat finally stops lurching, I catch my breath and take inventory. I’m not queasy. Thank goodness.
I glance around the room. Now that I’m not shaking in fear for my life, I notice more details—like the fact that this cabin is tiny. Good grief, it is tiny. I thought it was just my nerves making it feel small when West had been in here with me, but now I see that it is, in fact, a postage stamp of a cabin. I’ve never been on a sailboat before…but I guess I’d always imagined them as huge. This thing looks more like a play toy.
There’s a toilet right around the corner of a small divider wall, with only a curtain separating it from the rest of the cabin.
What kind of man is okay with living in such small quarters?
The kind of man who was going to leave me behind. I’m lucky he hid me and got me out of port. But eventually, he’ll have to turn around and put me on shore again. It’s not like we can just float around out here indefinitely.
He’s probably going to catapult me off this boat the second he can. Hopefully he gives me a chance to convince him to do some work for me first.
Supposedly, this little flash drive has the location of a large stash of money. It’s money the Riccis are trying to find and steal from someone, if I understand right.
But after this, I’m not sure he’d even be willing to work with me for a simple paycheck. I’ll have to do something to make it more palatable. Bodie said he’s the best at tracking down phantom information—which is why I need him.
I crack the door again. It’s been at least an hour since I first climbed onto this boat.
If he was taking me out here to kill me, I think he would have done it by now. There’s no way we could still be in port. Of course, I have never been on a sailboat before, so maybe they are really slow. Being killed by this guy seems like the lesser of two evils. He seems like the kind of guy who would toss me overboard in annoyance, not stab me with a knife and take his sweet time cleaning it.
The sail is catching wind, and the man is bent down, tying some rope around a pole.
“Can I come out now?” I glance around to see the shore in the distance, and we seem to be sailing south.
Unless the men hid on this tiny boat, I think I’m safe.
“Wouldn’t you rather stay down there?” he asks, looking at me over his shoulder.
“Not really.”
He turns and takes a long drink out of his insulated bottle. I’ll just accept it as an agreement. Whatever is in that bottle must be stronger than water because he gives a satisfied little sigh as he screws the lid back on.
I climb up the stairs, skipping the one with the broken planks, and hold onto the small rail as I make my way to the edge of the boat.
It’s a sunny, clear day out on the water. The wind is strong. I’m beginning to suspect that, in Newport, those two things go hand in hand.
We’re still close enough to shore that I see a seal dive back into the water after a fish. A few seagulls circle overhead and talk to us.
I take a deep breath of fresh salt air and immediately feel better.
I’m okay . I’m safe. I can take a breath and figure out things later. My hands are shaking, and I press them to my stomach to try and ease the tremoring.
“You’re not gonna be sick, are you?”a sardonic voice calls out from where he’s standing at the front of the boat now. He takes a few quick steps and jumps to the deck beside me.
“Not even close. I feel so completely and utterly relieved.” I let out a long, heavy sigh. “It’s felt as though I haven’t breathed at all today. I’m afraid my body is going to quit on me. I shouldn’t have run so far this morning, because then I did the full sprint to you, then some race car-style driving to the police station, then back to you. I think I’ve given myself whiplash!”
I glance back at West and see that he looks a little stunned, as though I’ve just given him whiplash with my barrage of words.
Apparently, he’s not used to people-ing.
“I told you it’d be dangerous to go to the police station.” He shakes his head as though I should have known to take the word of a stranger.
“Well, you were right. Is that what you want to hear?” I tease.
He nods, his lips turned down in a frown. “It doesn’t hurt to hear it.”
“Okay. Well, you were right. I should have stayed away or kept running.” I look out over the water toward the now fairly distant shore. “When are you going to turn around and take me back?”
“I’m not.”
My head spins so fast that I get that burning feeling in the back of my neck. “What do you mean?”
“You can’t go back today. They’ll have someone hanging around town. We’ll go to another port, and you can get away from there.”
Three solid sentences. Wow. He’s really outdoing himself. But I smile. “You can drop me off at the next available port if that would help.”
He holds up a hand. “Just let me think a little. I need to figure out your options here.”
I wait patiently for a few minutes as he gazes out at the horizon. “Did you figure anything out?”
He turns back to me. “Yup. Sydney, you landed yourself in a pile of crap.”
I nod because he’s not wrong.
With that, he bends down to pick up a stainless-steel water bottle and unscrews the cap. It clinks against the side loudly, scaring the seagull perched on the boat’s side.
I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he takes a long drink. I also spy another tattoo creeping up from beneath his collar.
I squint my eyes, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. That’s when I realize he hasn’t broken eye contact, even while drinking.
It’s not the first time this man has caught me staring at him. This is not a good way to start out a partnership. Because even though I keep saying he can drop me off back at port, it’s the last thing I actually want. I need his help. That’s why I was seeking him out in the first place.
So, while he’s busy screwing the lid back onto his bottle, I turn toward him and say the first thing that comes to mind.
“How would you like ten percent of thirty million dollars?”