see the café is now empty, and a quick scope of the shore below tells me that’s empty too. I drop my feet off the chair and stand, groaning as I stretch my muscles. God, that feels amazing.
As I wander through the cabin, I browse the rails of wetsuits, as well as the glass cabinets that are full of goggles, sunglasses, and sports watches. At the back of the shop, I spy a workshop, where a few jet skis are in parts. He fixes them too. What a wonderful notion. To be fixed. Repaired. To be made as good as new.
Making my way out to the front, I scan the deserted space. No one. Nothing. It’s like a ghost town. I must have been relishing the sun and peace for longer than I thought. I take the steps and follow my feet to where his car was parked. It’s still there. No Danny. No anyone, in fact.
I’m about to call out a hello when I hear a loud clatter from one of the containers. My spine straightens, and I follow the sound of voices. Danny’s and Brad’s voices. As I creep closer, I hear Ringo too. All of them in a big metal container? Then I remember: the consignment arrived. They’ll be checking the order.
“All looks good, yeah?” Brad says.
“Yeah,” Danny replies. “Very good.”
I edge around a corner and stop abruptly in my tracks on a lumpy swallow, not sure I’m seeing right. Danny’s holding a machine gun in his hand, inspecting it closely, as Ringo pulls out another, this one a rifle, from underneath a jet ski, handing Danny that one too. Guns? Oh my God. I cast my eyes across the endless jet skis, counting twenty of the big machines in total. Are they all packed with guns? “Get them all loaded back inside,” Danny orders, handing the gun back to Ringo. “I want them spread across all the containers.”
I quickly back up before I’m spotted. Guns?
“Who’s watching the girl?” Danny asks, and I freeze, listening.
“I thought you was,” Ringo grunts.
There’s a bang, the sound of a container door shutting and then the slide of a big metal bolt engaging. “I can’t watch the girl and count fucking bullets.”
I’m moving quickly, tiptoeing across the ground as quietly and as quickly as I can, practically throwing myself up the steps to the cabin. I’ve never moved so fast in my life. I land in the chair that Danny put me in earlier, and just about get my breathing stable and my feet up when I hear urgent thumping footsteps coming through the café.
I look back as he falls through the doors onto the decking, his face a little red, his breathing shot. He thought I’d be gone.
“Okay?” I ask, visions of machine guns rolling through my mind. Not just machine guns, either. Bullets, rifles, grenades, and all kinds of other weaponry, all hidden in the bottoms of jet skis. My brain is currently an arsenal fit to kick off a world war. This place, it’s a cover. That’s all. I should laugh at myself for stating the obvious. Of course it’s a cover. I knew that. Danny Black owns it, for God’s sake.
His whole upper body rolls and relaxes, his hand coming up to the doorjamb to support him as he finds breath to talk. “Yeah,” he exhales, looking over his shoulder. I hear the stampede of more steps and see Danny shake his head, silently telling his charging men the panic is over. He’s found me.
“What’s going on?” I ask, acting totally dumb.
He sighs and comes forward, gazing down the length of my legs stretched out before me on the chair. “You’ve been here the whole time.” It’s not posed as a question, more of a statement. Like he’s telling himself.
“It’s peaceful,” I say without thought. “Besides, you told me not to go anywhere.”
He takes my feet and lifts them, sitting on the chair and resting them back on his lap. He’s thinking. What’s he thinking? “And you listened to me?”
I nibble on my lip, unable to read the way he’s looking at me. It’s almost . . . pensive. “You’d find me and kill me,” I whisper.
“Yes, I would.” His eyes narrow on me, scrutinizing my reaction. I have no reaction. Yeah, he’d find me, but he wouldn’t kill me.
“Then I’m sensible, yes?”
“Not obedient?”
My smile is unstoppable. “Never.”
And so is Danny’s. “Ever been on a jet ski?”
I slowly shake my head.
“Want to?”
No, not if I’ll be riding