Bud looked between the two of them, a little taken aback.
“What are you doing?”
“We,” Kerry told him, covering the mouthpiece of the phone,
“are doing what we do.” She glanced at Dar’s fierce expression, then went back to the phone. “Yes? Yes. We have a room, I know.
I’d like a second one.”
Dar waited for Kerry to finish. They entered Charlie’s room, walking quietly into the softly blinking machinery that surrounded him.
Dar closed her eyes. The beating her friend had taken was hideous. DeSalliers, you bastard. You don’t know what you just stirred up. She laid her hands on the iron rails and gazed at Charlie’s battered form. “Hey.”
His eyes were mere slits, but they opened a little wider on seeing Dar.
Bud gently clasped his hands around Charlie’s, chafing them.
“Called in the Marines, Punky.”
A faint hint of a smile pulled at Charlie’s lips. “So I see.”
“Take it easy.” Dar leaned on the rails. “I’m in charge now, and I make the rules,” she said. “They giving you good drugs?”
Charlie nodded slightly.
“Good.” Dar wrote her cell phone number on the pad sitting on the small bedside table. “You need anything, call.” She put the pen down. “I’m going to stop at the desk when I go out. You’ll get taken care of.”
“B…” Bud straightened.
Dar just looked at him, and Bud subsided with a tired sigh.
“I’ve got a wire transfer coming in tomorrow,” Dar went on. “We’ll get your Uncle Guido taken care of, then I’m gonna go after DeSalliers.”
“What are you gonna do?” Bud asked.
“Find out the truth first, then I’m gonna give him exactly what he asked for,” Dar said. “You staying here for a while,” she asked Bud.
Bud nodded.
“Inn at Blackbeard’s Castle. We’ve got a room for you,” Dar told him.
Charlie made a muffled sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
“You hush,” Bud growled at him. “I can stay right here.”
Terrors of the High Seas 207
Kerry leaned over and gave Charlie’s arm a squeeze. “Chase him out, okay?”
Charlie nodded, still chuckling. “Runnin’ some tests or suchlike on me. Checking my guts out,” he explained. “Hell, if they get their asses done, I’ll drag him over there m’self.” His bruised eyes went to Dar’s face. “Damned if you don’t sound just like your daddy.”
Dar straightened. “Thanks.” She gave him a gracious nod.
“C’mon, Ker. Let’s go light some fires.”
Kerry’s eyebrows went up. So did Bud’s and apparently Charlie’s, but it was hard to tell.
Dar cocked her head. “What?”
Kerry circled the bed and took Dar’s arm. “You can light my fires anytime, honey,” she assured Dar. “But you don’t need to brag about it.”
Dar opened her mouth to answer and saw the smirks. She closed her jaw and gathered her dignity, sweeping it around her like a cloak as she followed Kerry’s lead out of the room.
Bud glared at the door for a minute, then he released a sigh.
“Son of bitch, I hated doing that.”
“Buddy, Buddy, Buddy…” Charlie squeezed his hand. “She’s a friend, yeah?”
Bud stared at the bleached linen.
“We got any other friends who’d do what she’s doing?”
“It twists my shorts,” Bud ground out. “I ain’t a charity case!”
“Bud,” Charlie’s voice gentled, and he stroked Bud’s cheek,
“for her, it ain’t charity,” he said. “She’s Navy; she’s family. That runs deep, you know. If anyone from back then asked, and we could, wouldn’t we do it?”
“Almost anyone,” Bud muttered. “But…” He slumped a little.
“Yeah.”
Charlie ruffled his hair affectionately. “Well then, they gotta let me outta here, ’cause damned if I ain’t gonna stay with you in Blackbeard’s Inn.”
KERRY PUT THE phone down into its cradle and closed the room service menu. Dar was seated across from her with her laptop open on her lap, its cellular antennae poking up along the side. “Hey, sweetie?”
“Uh?” Dar looked up, blinking at her.
“Could I bribe you to do that from here?” Kerry patted the bed next to her.
“Sure.” Dar got up and carried the laptop with her, dropping down onto the bed and waiting as Kerry fluffed the pillow up behind her. She leaned back and was rewarded with not only a 208 Melissa Good backrest, but a body pillow that propped up her arm and twined between her legs. “What’d ya order?”
“It’s a surprise.” Kerry put her head down on Dar’s shoulder and examined the screen. “What’s that?”
“Police reports.” Dar scanned them. “Not that I really know what I’m looking at. I need a lawyer.”
“Sorry.” Kerry stifled a yawn. “Though, that was actually one of the acceptable alternative careers my family would have allowed me.” She reviewed the cryptic comments on the screen. “They were hedging their bets. I think they knew Mike wasn’t going to cut it.”
Dar rubbed the side of her thumb against the laptop, trying to imagine Kerry as a lawyer. “What kind of lawyer would you have been?” she asked curiously.
“No kind,” Kerry informed her. “I never even considered it.”
She scrolled with the thumb pad and clicked. “First thing I wanted to be was a fireman.”
Dar held back a chuckle. “That shoulda told them something.”
“Mm.” Kerry chuckled softly. “Yeah, now that I think about it,”
she agreed. “Then I wanted to be a research scientist, but I realized in high school that I didn’t have the aptitude for it.” She clicked again. “Then I found computers, and went… Ah hah!”
“Ah hah.” Dar examined the screen. It was a complaint filing, apparently by Bob’s grandmother at the time of his grandfather’s death. In the stark, impersonal language used by the police, the complaint involved the woman’s accusation that Bob’s uncle had somehow been involved in the sinking, and detailing why. Threats had apparently been made. The police had not been impressed, and merely had noted the complaint along with the comment that the woman had been extremely “emotional” when the statement had been taken.
“Hm.” Dar drummed her fingertips on the laptop keyboard.
“What do you think?”
“Well,” Kerry exhaled, “at least it wasn’t just some bs story Bob made up on his own,” she said. “Which does not excuse him from skunkhood for leaving Bud and Charlie behind.”
“Mm. Think you can find him? Where do you figure he went—
back to St. Richard?”
Kerry rolled over and squiggled across the bed, reaching for the island directory. The squiggling intrigued Dar, who enjoyed it as Kerry squiggled on back and opened the book.
“I’m betting he’s here in St. Thomas,” she said. “It’s bigger and busier than St. Richard.” Her finger traced a column of hotels.
“Let’s see if we can find the little stinker.”
Dar watched in bemusement as Kerry selected a number and dialed it on the room phone. “He’s probably not registered under his real name,” she commented.
Terrors of the High Seas 209
“Last name, no,” Kerry agreed, waiting for an answer. “Hello…
Hi, um…” Her voice shifted to a slightly different tone. “This is kind of crazy, but I met this guy today… Yeah… I’m trying to find him again, and I only know his first name. Can anyone help me?”
She paused to listen. “Oh, thanks. You’re wonderful.”
Dar folded her arms over her chest.
“Hi, yeah. No, his name’s Bob, and he’s really cute… Oh, right, um…he’s got red, curly hair, and he’s really well built… Yeah, about that age. Yeah…okay, I’ll hold.” Kerry hummed under her breath. “No? Oh, what? Oh, I see… You did? Wow… Thanks!” She hung up. “They’re full. They sent their overflow to a different hotel, and she thinks Bob was one of them.”