Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(18)

“What about their parents?”

“They live in Seattle.”

“Didn’t they come here?”

“They did, but she sent them home Tuesday. Some aunts and uncles and cousins came in and left on Monday. She wanted alone time. She’s single, she’s a workaholic, and most of the few friends she has were Tony’s friends, including me, Ken, Rusty, and Eliza. So if you really want to honor Tony’s memory, come out, befriend her, and help me get her through this. She’ll need all the true friends she can get right now. I’m really worried about her.”

He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose to keep his tears at bay. “Yeah. We can do that.” Well, he knew he could do that. He wasn’t sure what Reed’s schedule would be or if he’d even feel like going out that late when he’d likely have a Saturday morning charter scheduled.

After ending the call with Jenny, Lyle opened his office door and headed for the bathroom to splash water on his face. His day felt cloaked with gloom, a dark funk settling over him from the moment he woke up.

It was hard to believe the friendly, full-of-life guy they’d known was…gone. He wasn’t even forty yet.

Hell, I’m not even forty yet.

He was still four months from his fortieth birthday. Almost the same exact age as Tony.

People their age weren’t supposed to die that young. Especially over something so stupid as pneumonia, something easily treated in someone that age.

Maybe a tragic car wreck, or unfortunate accident, okay.

But…that?

Note to self, I’m overdue for my annual checkup.

So was Reed, come to think of it.

After telling the receptionist he was available again, he buried his head in his work and tried not to think about the loss of their friend, the loss of what might have been had they said something sooner to him. Maybe they would have been able to force him to the doctor sooner.

Maybe…maybe…maybe.

It echoed in his brain like a lonely church bell lost in the fog.





Reed’s morning had gone to shit before he even moved his boat out of the slip. The starboard engine didn’t want to crank. He was able to grab one of the marina’s techs to look at it, who discovered it had a bad ignition module, and fortunately had the part in stock. Over two hundred dollars later, and running nearly forty minutes late, he and his morning charter headed out of the marina basin.

That would put him up against the clock with the afternoon charter. He’d be lucky to have time to hit the bathroom, much less eat lunch.

One solution would be trying a spot slightly closer to shore than he usually fished, one that he’d had luck with before. A diver friend of his had given him the numbers to the rock pile, said it usually had grouper, sheepshead, grunt, mangrove snapper, and sometimes even amberjack on it. Reed had only fished it twice, and at different times of the year, both times producing decent catches even though the grouper they’d caught were almost all too small to keep.

He called the spot up in his GPS before he reached the channel’s head marker and plugged it in.

With that done, and the course laid in…

Basco’s death returned to mind. Not even the gorgeous day and perfect weather could drive the darkness back once that thought had settled in.

Memories of their friend had haunted his mind all morning, kept at bay only by the hectic detours in his routine before returning now with a vengeance.

He wasn’t even sure if he’d have time to call Lyle at lunch to see if he got hold of Jenny or not about it. This wasn’t exactly the kind of discussion he wanted to have via a text stream.

It definitely wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have in front of other people. Especially customers.

All he could do at this point was try to make it through the morning as best he could.





Fortunately, the spot paid off. It didn’t hurt that Reed’s morning charter passengers were not experienced anglers. They were tourists from Minnesota who’d booked a charter with him at the last minute. They were perfectly happy to reel in the fish they caught, much to Reed’s relief.

No, nothing huge, and no grouper today, but nearly everything else was legal length. By the time he had to haul anchor for the return, he’d thought maybe he was going to pull this day out of the crapper after all.

Until he’d almost reached the head marker. He cut in a little sooner than he usually did and was startled by the bump and sudden severe vibration from the port engine.

Dammit.

Immediately throttling down and shifting to neutral, he raised the engines and took a look.

One of the blades on the port prop was missing a chunk from it.

Only the fact that one of his passengers was a twelve-year-old boy kept him from swearing a blue streak at his luck.

“Everything okay?” one of the men asked.

He forced a smile. “Could be worse. Just a prop. I’ll swap it out when I get back to the dock.”

Spare props he had. He’d be stupid not to. And yes, he could swap it out himself. After he had the marina pull the boat with a forklift.

Dammit.

So much for making up time.

Reed lowered the starboard engine back into the water, checked his bearings, and slowly made his way toward the channel.

He was running right up against time when he finally made it to the dock. He’d already called the marina over the VHF radio and they said they’d have the forklift waiting for him to haul him out. After offloading his passengers, he cast off lines and motored over to the pull-out dock.