Deceived - Laura S. Wharton Page 0,20
We used to go out on the commercial fishing boats there. The days on the water were long, but the pay was good for a while. In Wilmington, I could be a deckhand on a headboat, but young boys are eager to get your spot, see. So they work for less. I needed more, so I had to go to Southport, where I could move up in rank and pay. Last year, when shrimping got so competitive from the foreigners coming in, well, I gave up on that and started working for a powerboat broker as a delivery captain. The gigs don’t happen often, but when they do, they are good money.”
“How many boats do you deliver in a month?”
“About three, but there are other opportunities from time to time. I’m a free agent. I work four gigs now and the money’s all right. You can let me out up ahead at the corner.”
“Don’t want me to know where you live or something, Molly?” It was Sam’s turn to feign hurt.
“It’s not that. I’m going down the street to the bar, the Barbary Coast. This is closer. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been there, but it’s like a second home to me.”
“I’ll bet,” Sam said as he pulled to a stop to let Molly hop out.
“Thanks for the ride. Stay out of trouble.” Molly opened the door and saluted Sam. Just before she got out, she said, “May the sun shine on you as you track down the ass who tried to kill us, and may you find him when nobody else is around so you can teach him some manners.”
Sam nodded and chuckled at Molly’s blessing. “Stay out of trouble, Molly Monroe.” He pulled away from the corner and headed to his marina in Carolina Beach.
Chapter ten
Carolina Beach is an odd little beach town, Sam thought, as he drove the last few miles toward his marina. During late spring, before the tourists got into a summertime groove, locals swarmed over the town’s bars as if it would be the last chance they had. Sam watched them scurry like roaches from bar to bar while he waited at a stoplight. Within a month, Sam knew, the town’s character would change from locals just hanging out to families on the boardwalk and college kids with nothing better to do than get drunk. Each night was a party to them, and each day was one big hangover filled with more supposedly clandestine beer on the beach, girl watching and boy watching, and then more partying until their parents from Raleigh came to the beach house for the weekend, or the rental week was over. High-rises were rented out until the middle of September when colleges were back in session, and the younger year-round school kids had their last tracked-out session of the warmer months. By the end of September, the locals breathed a collective sigh of relief, and their world got back to normal.
City officials and those in the hospitality industry relished the increased profits from summer, but locals cursed the nearly four-month-long stretch. Some, who had learned to profit from the mass intrusion, packed up, rented their houses for the summer, and descended upon some other destination where they were tourists. Others, like Sam, had to stay put, work through the mess, and generally be a part of it.
That was one of his job’s drawbacks, but Sam had wanted to live in a quieter place than Charlotte or Raleigh. He wanted to work in a small town where he could be part of the place as much as he wanted, without getting in the way of major trouble. Unlike some of his coworkers, Sam was not an adrenaline junkie who thrived on fast action. Sam liked to see the younger kids enjoying themselves on the beach and at the amusement park on the boardwalk. It reminded him of his own childhood trips to Dewey Beach and Rehoboth Beach in Maryland. These two quiet sisters of Ocean City were the family beaches when he was a kid, and Carolina Beach was similar in size and feel.
When he was twelve, his family moved to Raleigh, and he met Angel. His father worked for the Department of Natural Resources with her father, so the two youngsters were often thrown together at employee functions. In the summer, they sailed on the small lakes around Raleigh with all eyes on them. But back in those days, neither was really interested in the other romantically. Through high