Devil and the Deep (The Ceruleans Book 4) - Julie Ann Walker Page 0,49
up to the top of the parapets. As his legs chewed up the distance, his fisted heart seemed to pound out a name in Morse code against his ribs.
Alex…
She was the thorn in his side. The bane of his existence. But he hoped she hadn’t set sail for Wayfarer Island. Because everything that was anything inside him desperately needed to see her and make sure she was okay.
* * *
8:17 p.m.…
“It’s takin’ too long,” Gene insisted.
For the last hour, he had been trying to pace a hole through the deck of the yacht, and it was starting to drive Tony in-fucking-sane. The fact that he was on his third cocktail should’ve meant the sharp edges of his nerves were smoothed over by top-shelf scotch, but to his dismay, they were not. He was so wired it was a wonder he wasn’t shooting sparks from his ass.
And Gene wasn’t helping, damnit!
“Sit down, Gene,” he snarled, not hiding the impatience in his voice.
“Screw you, Tony,” Gene snapped, whipping off his Stetson to run his shaky fingers through his thinning hair. The ocean breeze blowing across the back of the motor yacht caught the sweaty strands and lifted them in hunks. “I don’t take orders. And I’m tellin’ you, it’s takin’ too goddamn long. Somethin’ is wrong. You get on that satellite phone, call up your guys”—when Gene stressed those two words, Tony squeezed his highball glass so hard it was a miracle he didn’t shatter it—“and get a situation report right now.”
“I’m not going to do that, Gene,” he said as calmly as he could.
“The hell you say!” Gene thundered, his blood pressure boiling so hot and fast that his face flushed ruddy in the overhead light, his eyes going bloodshot in an instant. “In case you’ve forgotten, Anthony, we’re partners in this. And she’s my fuckin’—”
“I won’t call them.” Tony cut him off and waited to see if that vein snaking up the center of Gene’s forehead would blow. It pulsed frantically for a couple of seconds, but seemed to hold. “We need to stick to the plan. And the plan is I wait for them to call me. I won’t disturb them before then. Who knows what they’re dealing with? They could have run into some kind of issue.”
All the blood drained from Gene’s face as he stopped pacing to glare at Tony. “Like what?” he demanded. “What possible issue could a group of highly trained, armed men run into on a remote island filled with nothin’ but three teenage girls, one woman, and a guy who decided to make a career out of huggin’ trees?”
“If I knew the answer to that,” Tony told him, feeling the vein in his own forehead pulse menacingly, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we? Now sit down, Gene. I’m sure everything is fine and the phone will be ringing any minute to tell us they’ve got them. Then they’ll sail Maddy and the girls out to international waters and call in the ransom, just like we planned. The ball will be rolling into our court.”
“I don’t know…” Gene shook his head.
Tony glanced over his shoulder at the man who covertly poked his head around the door leading into the cabin. Gene thought he was just another one of Tony’s guys, brought onboard to help pilot the little yacht. And that was true. That was part of his job description. The other part of his job description was that he would help Tony implement Plan B, should the need arise.
The man lifted an inquiring brow and Tony subtly shook his head. Not yet. Let’s give it a little more time.
* * *
8:35 p.m.…
Alex tossed the anchor overboard and watched it sink to the shallow, sandy bottom. She’d sailed the catamaran to within forty feet of the beach on Garden Key, and on an impulse she decided to forgo using the dinghy to make it the rest of the way.
It’ll take too much time.
Tucking her glasses into the front pocket of her shorts, she pinched her nose and chucked herself over the side of the sailboat, hitting the water like a lead anvil—gracefulness had never been her strong suit. The sea was colder than she anticipated when it rolled over her head. The average water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico this time of year was anywhere between sixty-five and seventy-five degrees. But the raised goose bumps on her bare arms and legs told her this particular spot was far below the norm.