The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(27)

“Thanks,” I say weakly, tucking the gun into the waistband of my still-drying jeans.

“The offer for coffee is still open. Let me know.”

I watch Solar drive off, still trying figure his angle in all this.

Everything he said and did seemed sincere. But he’s a smart man. Acting sincere and building my trust is exactly the smartest approach to get to me.

He’s supposed to be retired. He has no official business in this as far as I know—which only leaves unofficial business. And right now, the primary unofficial business I’m aware of is finding the missing cartel money.

Solar doesn’t seem like that kind of person, but a few hundred million dollars can bring about drastic personality changes.

I’m just realizing how much that affected my uncle—or was he always that way?





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SEASIDE

I can’t fall asleep on the marina office couch, so I text Run a redacted update and decide to get an early start . . . on what? I know what I’m after: whoever killed Stacey Miller. But what do you call it when an off-duty police officer starts investigating a case in which she’s a suspect?

Suspicious.

Whatever. It’s clear to me that the powers that be are not acting in my best interests. You could easily make the case for the opposite. Rather than wait for the next couple of prowlers to climb aboard my boat in search of a treasure map or whatever—or, worse, threaten Jackie—the sooner I can resolve this, the better.

At first, I worried that meddling would make me look suspicious. Well, dollface, too late for that. Now I’m afraid not meddling could make me dead.

So, despite the best advice from everyone around me, I’m going to stick my nose wherever I can think to stick it. Trouble is going to find me either way. There’s no doubt about that.

Ocean Tech Yard is Winston Miller’s old boatyard. It’s the only place I clearly remember seeing Stacey as a girl, other than some possible run-in at the Elbo Room or maybe the mall.

I pull over on the strip of gravel between the highway and the fence surrounding Winston’s boatyard on the side away from the canal.

The two big sheet-metal buildings still stand alongside various boat lifts, supports, and other leftover equipment. The dilapidated dock remains, too, although it looks like it’s on the verge of collapsing.

Beyond that, it’s a ghost town. I grasp the fence and peer through, as if making visual contact will somehow cause the past to come alive again.

In a way, it does.

I remember our boat at the time, the Sea Castle, propped up on supports as Winston worked on the hull and outfitted it with a variety of gadgets like radar, side-scanning sonar, and even an underwater camera.

Dad got a Japanese television station to help pay for the refit in exchange for the television rights and part of any recovered bounty as we explored the Bermuda Triangle for lost treasure.

It was a bit of a con on Dad’s part. He knew it wouldn’t be hard to find something out there. The Bermuda Triangle is huge and filled with shipwrecks—like any other heavily traveled shipping route.

But with Japanese viewers, it made for great television—at least in theory. The network loved the idea of this seafaring family out in the remote ocean—remote for Japan—chasing down ghost ships and pirate plunder.

What was supposed to be a three-week trip ended up lasting only five days when the producer, the son of the head of the network, got incredibly seasick and decided that we should fake the whole thing off the coast of Fort Lauderdale while he supervised from the penthouse of the Yankee Clipper hotel and busied himself with local prostitutes.

This was fine by us. It was already a BS expedition to begin with and mostly a way for Dad to get someone else to pay for the refit of the Sea Castle.

We ended up shooting a bunch of stuff at night, faking some wreckage and getting shots of my brothers and me running around the deck, pointing at nothing and shrieking. We had a blast—and no idea how it would all be edited together.

Three months later we got a VHS tape from the producer and viewed the final result. It was the most bizarre thing we’d ever seen. My brothers and I loved it.

In the “documentary,” we were attacked by ghosts in the middle of a storm after finding lost pirate-ship treasure, only to have it vanish the next day. Or something along those lines. We never had anyone translate it for us. All we know for certain is the special-effects spirits swirling around the deck looked like they had been lifted from some other movie.

The show was a bit of a ratings hit, and there was talk of another until the producer got involved in some scandal back in Japan.

It was during this period that I first met Stacey and the ugly ducks she used to feed by the dock.

The ducks are now gone. I suspect even they know the dock is a death trap.

“You looking to lease?” asks a woman from behind me.

I turn around and see a familiar face—Angie Woodward. She’s the Jamaican woman who ran the paint store in the warehouse next to the yard.

I look over and see the paint store is still there.

“Hey, Ms. Woodward!”

She recognizes me and returns a big smile. “Well, if it isn’t the Sea Monkey.”

Sea Monkey was yet another of my brothers’ nicknames for me. We’d scrounge for quarters and go spend them in the gumball machines in Angie’s store, filling ourselves with Boston Baked Beans, Mike & Ikes, and M&Ms. I try to smile back without wincing.