Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(22)
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out on the back deck,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ve picked up a little espa?ol here and there. Hopefully I know enough to get across the point that we’re friends and not foes.”
“I—”
Whatever Captain Harry’s objection might have been was lost when she let the bridge’s rear door slide shut behind her.
The afternoon air was warm and welcoming. It smelled of salty sea and the stainless-steel polish that Nigel used on the yacht’s endless metal accoutrements. Lifting her face into the breeze, Maddy breathed deeply, letting the wind tunnel through her hair to caress her scalp. Then she turned to make her way down the stairs to the back deck, reaching up to twirl a strand of her ponytail and realizing, quite shockingly, that it was gone. On impulse she’d had her stylist give her a pixie cut—her father wasn’t the only one given to whimsy—right before she hopped the plane to Bermuda. She was having trouble getting used to the new ’do.
Make me look chic and super cute, she’d told her hairdresser. Like Pink or Michelle Williams. Unfortunately, after having studied her reflection in the mirror a time or two over the last few days, she was a little worried that her stylist had missed that whole Pink and Michelle Williams mark and instead saddled her with the Justin Bieber.
“Serves you right for leapin’ before you looked,” she scolded herself as she pulled the two halves of her robe closer together and skipped across the deck as the Black Gold sliced through the seas like a greased torpedo, all sleek and sure. She chided herself for not taking her father up on his offer of some time spent alone on the yacht before now. But for the last seven years she’d needed all of her waking hours—and some of her should-be-sleeping hours—to get to the point where Powers Petroleum Company’s myriad charities were staffed by good, upstanding folks and running smoothly enough for her to take a break.
And what a break it’s turnin’ out to be!
Her heart beat with happiness at the thought that she was here this morning to help these unfortunate men. And even though she didn’t believe in destiny or kismet or any of that other woo-woo hoopla-hoo, she couldn’t help but think it awfully coincidental that she—a bona fide professional philanthropist—happened to be making the ocean crossing with Captain Harry the one time he came upon a boatful of stranded would-be immigrants.
Captain Harry pulled back on the throttle when the dinghy was still a good way off the bow, deftly maneuvering the big yacht parallel.
“Hola!” she called when the men were within ear reach, leaning over the rail and trying to see into the bottom of the dinghy. She hoped they carried fuel cans that she could fill with gasoline from the Black Gold’s mammoth tanks, because the only other containers she could think to use were the pots from the yacht’s kitchen. Unfortunately, the men were still too far away and the angle wasn’t right for her to see inside the little boat.
“Me llamo Maddy! Uh…we…have la gasolina and…I mean y…uh…” She made a face and murmured to herself under her breath, “Damnit, Maddy! What’s the word for ‘food’?” She snapped her fingers and started over. “La gasolina y la comida! Sí?”
The men blinked at her, then glanced around at each other. They were bone-thin with scraggly beards, and she couldn’t help but wonder if, in fact, they were escaped convicts, just like Captain Harry had said. They certainly had the air of a group who’d been on the run or in hiding for a while.
A niggle of apprehension skated up her spine, but the sensation was short-lived because one of the men yelled back in broken English. “Thank you! Please throw rope!”
“You speak English!” she hollered delightedly, the smile returning to her face. Common Cuban street thugs surely wouldn’t know English, would they? Maybe she was the one who was right before. Maybe these men were political dissidents. How cool would that be?
“Yes!” the man yelled again. “Rope?”
“Of course!” She ran down the edge of the deck until she came to one of the bright-white life-preserver doughnuts attached to the railing. Pulling the floatation ring off its peg, she took a step back, wound up, and threw the sucker with all her might. The attached rope sailed out after the ring, creating a pristine alabaster arc over the turquoise water.
Much to her surprise, she actually got fairly close to her target. Within a couple feet of it anyway. The men were able to lean over the rubber raft and paddle until two of them could reach the life preserver. After they got a firm handhold, she grabbed her end of the rope and walked toward the aft of the yacht, pulling the dinghy closer and closer with every step. By the time she descended the stairs to the teak swim deck, the men in the rubber boat were already securing the rope to one of the Black Gold’s glistening stainless-steel cleats.
Shoot. No gas canisters. Just a couple of weird-looking metal tubes. Well, no matter. She’d make do.
“It’s a good thing we saw you—” That was all she managed before the yawning black mouth of a gun barrel was shoved in her face.
She blinked twice, stumbling back as her entire body flashed hot and cold. The hair on her head tried to crawl off her scalp, the traitorous stuff, and she opened her mouth to scream. But when the man drawing down on her saw her gearing up for a bloodcurdling yell, he quickly jumped from the boat onto the deck. He punched her straight in the throat, and that was the end of that. The only sound to issue from her open mouth was a wheezing, “Uhhhhh! Uhhhhh!”