Chapter Forty-Two
The Pacific Pines party yacht had been put under police surveillance thanks to Robert and June’s admission of fraud and embezzling, but it turned out that Brigitte had a knack for luring away tired detectives who were low in the ranks and got the boring job of babysitting an empty boat.
All it took was paddling up to the beach club deck of the yacht in a small kayak, climbing through some perfunctory yellow police tape, and Juliette was on board.
Logically Juliette knew the yacht wasn’t moving, but physically her stomach swelled and dropped from the slight variations of the deck beneath her bare feet.
She just needed her traitorous body to keep it together long enough to get into the cockpit and find the door lock access codes from the night of the party.
She made her way up to the main deck, which Brigitte had helpfully provided the master door lock access code for.
Apparently when everybody else in charge is either murdered or incarcerated, they start getting loose with the access codes.
Juliette hadn’t specifically thought through what a yacht’s cockpit would look like—a bigger version of a car, maybe?
Or a more modern pirate ship with the big spinning wheel?
—but the room that greeted her behind the locked door was way more complicated than she anticipated.
There was a wheel and a captain’s chair, as well as half a dozen blank screens, radio controls, dials and switches, and a whole glass cabinet with racks of sleek black machines with tiny blue lights blinking in a steady rhythm.
A bank of windows faced out to the water, the moonlight reflecting off the surface and giving the room an ethereal glow.
Juliette stood before the switches, contemplating pressing one just to see what would happen, when a beam of light swept up and over the windows, hitting her square in the eye. She dropped into a crouch on instinct as the light beam bounced erratically over the far wall behind her head.
“Shit,” she hissed, heart thudding. The beam disappeared and she cautiously rose up to peek over the edge of the window bay. Someone was on the dock, pausing at the kayak she’d left tied up beside the beach deck. “Shit.”
What if she’d set off some kind of silent alarm?
Or worse, what if the Port Authority or the Coast Guard or Greenpeace had decided to come poking around?
Or—and this was a real oh shit moment for Juliette—what if it was Clayton?
What if he’d figured out that she was on to him and decided to add a third murder to his track record?
Whoever it was, she wasn’t supposed to be on this yacht, and she didn’t have a great explanation for why she was here. Best-case scenario, she was getting arrested; worst-case, murdered. She needed to get off the boat. And maybe find a weapon, a harpoon or something.
She cracked the door open, looking for any sign of the flashlight owner before easing herself out.
Someone was talking nearby, too faint for her to catch what they were saying, but it was more than one person.
Juliette went full stealth mode, ducking behind support columns and crawling around couches toward the beach club deck.
There was a long stretch of deck where she would be fully exposed as she made her way toward the beach club, but she’d have to risk it.
She set herself up like she was back in the starting block at a track meet, one knee to the ground and her fingers tented. This should be an easy run, less than a hundred meters. She’d be gone before they ever knew she was there.
“Let’s fucking do this,” Juliette whispered before taking off at a dead run toward the beach club. Her feet thudded against the teak but it couldn’t be helped. Lights flashed around her but she was too fast. They weren’t going to catch her; she was sure of it.
Right up until she hit the beach club and a terribly familiar voice called out, “Juliette?” and she turned her head at the wrong time, skidding off the edge straight into the water.