Chapter 10 #3
“Which is what? His money?”
Declan sighed. “No. It’s not about that,” he said softly.
He looked at both of them. “It’s one thing to have a program.
Another thing to have the obsidite that can fuel it.
But you have to synthesize it, right? You have to know how to turn it into the fuel that will make this resource valuable.
” He stuck his hands into his pockets. “And I have that.”
Silence from Steinbeck as his expression changed. Horror? No, fury .
Her voice emerged low. “What do you mean?”
“He means that he was always planning to use it for his own purposes,” Steinbeck said, looking at her. “He was never planning to dump it into the ocean and scuttle it.” He looked back at Declan. “Were you?”
“No.”
Her mouth opened. “So you were planning to use it?”
“Not just me,” Declan said quietly. “There’s a bigger plan in play here.
And I can’t...” He sighed, shook his head.
“I’m sorry I got you guys involved in this.
This was never my intention. I thought I could outsmart the Petrovs.
Clearly I can’t. Now I’m in over my head and your lives are at risk.
” He turned to Austen. “You have to believe me that I am not a terrorist. I am not planning to use this for evil.” He reached out to touch her hand, but she pulled away.
“Then what will you use it for?”
His mouth tightened around the edges. “I can’t tell you. I’m not...” He sighed. “I’m not allowed to.”
“What? If you tell me, you’ll have to kill me?” She wasn’t really kidding. Seriously? He’d lied to her? After everything?
And Phoenix’s words rose inside her. “Don’t be deceived by his good looks or his money, honey. Rich men only have room for one thing in their heart. Themselves.”
“Get away from me,” she said. “I can’t believe that after everything, you won’t tell me what’s going on. How do you expect me to trust you?”
His eyes darkened, a fierceness in them. “I expect you to trust the man that you know. The man that I’ve been to you. That’s the man I hope that you’ll trust.”
Steinbeck shook his head and looked away.
“And now I hope you’ll trust me enough to escape this ship.”
“What?” Austen said.
“The stateroom is equipped with an escape hatch. In case the boat goes down or flips, there’s a hatch under this floor.” He pointed to a small square etched into the carpet. “It leads to the walkway on the deck level. You get to the swim deck, deploy the lifeboat. And get off this ship.”
Austen stared at him. “No. I’m not leaving you here. You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, he’s serious,” Steinbeck said. He stood up, considered him. “How do you propose we accomplish this?”
“I’m going to knock on the door and tell them that I’ll lead them to where we’re taking the obsidite. The captain of the Santa Maria is waiting for final coordinates from me. I will send them and we’ll meet it there.”
“Where is there ?” Steinbeck said.
Declan shook his head. “I want you guys off this ship. I want Austen safe.”
“And I want you to tell me the truth,” Austen said.
“I want you to not be this guy that lives a double life. I want you to be the nice guy I met at my sister’s wedding, who danced with me and left me wanting to know him more.
The same guy who showed up in Key West and asked me to come help him at a charity event he was running.
For orphans !” Her voice shook, rising a little, but she didn’t care.
“I want you to be that guy who helped look for a couple of lost kids on Mariposa and even got my brother out of trouble with a bunch of thugs on the island. I want that guy who helped people during the landslide and got dirty and sweaty because he cared about people.” She took a breath, her eyes filling.
“I want the guy who stopped at nothing to find me in the middle of the ocean just because he cared about doing the right thing .”
“I am doing the right thing!” He recoiled, then schooled his tone. “I am doing the right thing. But sometimes doing the right thing requires you to do some, well, some bad stuff to get it done.”
“Stuff that gets people killed?”
He paused and looked at her. “Not you.” He looked at Steinbeck. “Can you get her off this boat?”
“I’d like to see you try!” Austen said. That sounded tougher than she felt, and probably stupid too, but frankly, she didn’t know what to believe.
Because in her heart, everything she’d said about Declan, everything she saw about him, proved that he was a good man.
An honorable man. She couldn’t believe that he would do evil things.
But maybe she didn’t know him. “Was there anything you told me that was true?”
“Everything I told you was true, Austen. Everything. I just left a few parts out.”
She nearly lifted her hand to slap him, but even that she couldn’t do. Because of course she again simply froze.
“We’ll need to do it quickly, before the sun rises,” Steinbeck said tightly.
Declan said. “It’s about two hours to sunrise, and I figure the current will carry you east. You should be able to hit the Keys or even the Bahamas. Or, more likely, a cruise ship.”
“Does the raft have an EPIRB?” Steinbeck asked, rising.
“Yes, it does. All the rafts do. It’s in the survival case.”
Steinbeck nodded, looked at Austen. “Then yes, I can get her off this boat.”
No. Yes. Oh, she couldn’t move.
Declan looked at Steinbeck. “Thank you, Steinbeck. I don’t deserve... Well, you are the best bodyguard I’ve ever had.”
“You’re a hard man to protect,” Steinbeck said quietly, and held out his hand.
Declan considered it for a second, then shook it.
“You’re not going to let them find that ship, are you?” Steinbeck said.
Her eyes widened as Declan considered Stein.
Her brother held up a hand. “If, say, a guy was planning some sort of sabotage of your yacht, what would it be?”
Declan glanced out the window, back at Steinbeck. “If a guy knew where the lithium batteries were, in the front bow garage, he might damage them so they’d light on fire. Once they’re on fire, nothing can stop them.”
“The ship would go down,” Steinbeck said.
“It would.”
Silence.
Wait—was he ? —
Declan looked back at Austen, so much in his eyes that she didn’t know how to unpack it. Finally, “Stay safe.”
What? No. “Declan!”
But he ignored her, walked to the door, and knocked. It opened and he said something in Russian.
And if she hadn’t believed it before, all the accusations that Phoenix had leveled at him about being Dark Horse and a Russian contact and a smuggler and a terrorist—all clicked into place.
He was a criminal and a hero.
And she could not love a criminal.
Her eyes filled as Declan stepped out and the door closed behind him.
Steinbeck kept staring at the door.
“What?” she said.
He seemed to be lost in thought, and then he looked at her and shook his head. “Nothing. But he’s right. The most important thing to do is get you off this ship.” He turned to her. “And as far away from Declan Stone as possible.”
* * *
It might be a twin thing, but Steinbeck knew exactly how Austen felt. A tight clenching in the gut and a sense of fury and despair all wrapped up in a hard ball inside the chest. Yeah, he totally got it as he watched Austen sitting on the bed, her knees pulled up, her forehead braced against them.
He’d spent the last hour, while watching Declan pace, trying to tell himself that yes, Phoenix was just fine. She hadn’t been captured by some Russians, or worse—killed. She’d somehow gotten away.
And ditched him.
“I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”
He wanted to hit something because leaving her had been the right thing to do. He’d known it in his gut even as he’d told Declan to drive away. And he’d hated it anyway.
Then they’d been taken captive again, and shoot , Steinbeck nearly wanted to go over the side of the rail, swim his way back to Havana and find her.
But priorities said he had to stay and rescue Austen. And sure, Austen was plenty capable, even knew how to face down sharks, but terrorists were a different kind of danger, and frankly, he wanted her off this boat ASAP.
But if Declan thought Stein was leaving him behind, he had another thing coming.
Stein would get Austen into that life raft, push her out to sea, and then help Declan take down the Russians.
Because Declan’s story dug deep inside Steinbeck.
Declan was hiding something. And it was just outside Steinbeck’s reach.
There was something bigger afoot, like Declan said, and if Steinbeck thought hard enough, he could figure it out.
Unfortunately, his brain kept circling back to yesterday in the harbor, when he’d gone overboard, splashing into the water in Phoenix’s wake.
He’d surfaced in the murky water, his head on a swivel for boats ready to run him over, and made a beeline for the nearest pier. He’d come up again between a couple of fishing trawlers tied to the dock.
But he’d lost Phoenix.
He’d swum toward the dock and hung out there, watching as the fishing boat docked and officials boarded, and had turned into a prune by the time Austen and Declan left the boat under official escort. Working his way closer to shore, he’d watched as they disappeared into the immigration building.
It was during that surveillance that a hand had touched his back. He’d jerked, whirled around, and Phoenix had treaded water, her dark hair plastered to her head, her gray-green eyes shiny.
“I can’t believe you came in after me.”
He’d wanted to say, “Yeah. Yeah, I did . Because, well, you’re just crazy enough to do something that could get yourself killed. Or thrown into prison. And maybe I couldn’t bear the thought of that, although I don’t know why.”
But instead his stupid mouth had said, “Don’t get excited, honey. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t gonna betray us.”
“Oh.” Her smile had vanished as her mouth turned into a grim line. “No, Steinbeck, we’re in this together. At least until we can get off this island, right?”