the wreck out of here,” Max said, “and take it to a shop.”
“What do you think they were carrying?” Viv asked. “Drugs?”
“Maybe,” Max said. “More likely cocaine than grass. It makes a better payload. Stone, what did the suitcases look like?”
“They were black, probably aluminum,” Stone said, “and seemed to be identical in size.”
“Gotta be cocaine,” Max said. “Those things seal to be watertight.”
That evening, Stone and Max yielded to their mutual desires, while not far away, another couple were about to experience a different outcome to their tryst.
* * *
—
At Key West Hospital, Keith Barron, a resident, and Julie Harmon, a registered nurse, found each other in an empty patient’s room. Julie ripped off the sheets, so she wouldn’t have to replace them with fresh ones later. As they were kissing and fumbling with each other’s buttons, an alarm on her wrist went off.
“Shit!” she exclaimed. “I’ll be right back.” She trotted down the hallway to a room with a card on the door that read “Dix” and opened the door. Her patient, whose hands had been restrained to keep him from turning in the night, had one hand free; the IV on his opposing arm had been pulled out. She knew it had been yanked by the attached tube because the needle had been firmly fixed in place with cloth tape, and now one end of the tape was dangling free.
She turned to her patient, and he shrank away from her. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“You’re trying to kill me,” he complained.
“No, Mr. Dix, I’m the night nurse.”
“A different one tried to kill me,” he said.
“Why do you think that?”
“She came in here with a little kit in her hand, and I woke up. She said she had brought me something to relieve the pain and help me sleep. I told her I had been sleeping just fine until she woke me. But she pulled out a syringe that was too big for the job, and filled it all the way up, then she jabbed the IV bag with it and plunged it in. Then she said, ‘Sleep tight,’ and hurried out. I knew what she had done, so I got my hand loose and pulled the needle out.”
“How do you know so much about syringe sizes and doses?” Julie asked.
“I used to be a junkie,” Dix replied, adding, “in my extreme youth.”
“I’ll get you a new bag,” she said. She left, taking the existing fluid with her. She ran back to the room where Keith was waiting. He was lying naked on the bed.
“Get up, get dressed, and call the police,” she said to him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone just tried to murder my patient.” She handed him the IV bag. “Give the police this and tell them to test it for something besides saline.” Then she left to get a fresh bag.
4
Stone awoke to sunlight streaming through a porthole and a ringing phone that wasn’t his.
“Hello?” Max said, sitting up in bed and failing to cover her very attractive breasts. Stone lay there, enjoying the view.
The speaker was on, perhaps inadvertently. “Yes, Cap?”
“Max, there was an attempt on the life of Al Dix at the hospital last night.” He explained what had happened. “I’ve requested an emergency rush on the tox lab’s report. Can you get back here in a hurry? The call was answered by a car on patrol, driven by a clueless, rookie uniformed officer, and I’ve got two detectives out with the flu. Anyway, it’s been your case since you loaded him onto the chopper.”
“I’ll find out how quick I can get there and call you back,” she replied, then hung up. She turned to Stone. “Enjoying the view?”
“It’s a sublime view,” Stone said.
“How fast can I get back to Key West?”
“Well, we’ve planned our departure for after breakfast.”
“What speed can this yacht make?”
“We normally cruise at fifteen knots. She’ll do twenty-five in a pinch, but she sucks up a lot of fuel at that speed. It would be better if we just put you in the RIB and point you east. That thing will cruise happily at forty knots and screamingly at fifty. One of the crew can bring it back.”
“I know how to drive it,” she said. “Can I just take it and leave it at your berth?”
“That makes more sense,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Just after seven. Have some breakfast before you go.”
“Something light,” she said. “A muffin, orange juice, and coffee.” She called her captain and gave him an ETA.
Stone picked