For all Voss knew, Josh might be floating somewhere out on the Caribbean, feeding the fish. She didn’t want to believe that, but she had to accept it as a possibility. Standing out there in the merciless sun, sweat trickling down her back and between her breasts, eyes squinted against the glare off the water, amounted to Voss punishing herself for not wanting to accept it.
The only reason for Josh not to have set off the PLB by now — so many long hours after signaling that the Antoinette would rendezvous with their gun seller — was that his cover had been blown. Josh was either dead or in no shape to be setting off any beacon. Voss considered the possibility that the Rio brothers had found both the sat-phone and the PLB and tossed them overboard instead of throwing Josh over, but that seemed like wishful thinking.
Her hands started to shake and she crossed her arms to still them.
Last time she’d checked her watch, it had been after two p.m. The Colombian drug lord’s yacht floated in the same waters where the Antoinette had been sailing when Josh had called in on the satellite phone. That meant they weren’t that far from the rendezvous point for the gun buy. How far away was the Antoinette now? The only things on their radar were tiny, scattered islands. Nothing moving. No sign of the container ship.
Standing out on the deck meant more than one kind of torment for Voss. The scorching heat was hot enough, but the glare of the people on the other boats around hers burned her just as badly. There were four Coast Guard craft and two Immigration and Customs Enforcement ships, and the commanders of those vessels were getting more than a little impatient.
“Rachael.”
Voss hung her head and surprised herself by laughing, but she didn’t turn around.
“Christ,” Pavarotti muttered. “Special Agent Voss.”
She turned to look at him. The younger agent had taken a lot of crap from her this time out, and he’d put up with all of it. Now, though, even Pavarotti looked like he was on edge. And why not? They were all tired and ragged, wondering if this deal was going to fall apart, and if they’d left an agent out in the field to die.
“What’s up?” she asked.
Pavarotti stood up straight, like he was a jarhead reporting to his commanding officer. “Supervisory Special Agent Bosworth contacted me and asked me to pass along a message.”
Voss sighed, and gritted her teeth. “Go on, Joe. What did Chauncey say?”
“Supervisory Special Agent Bosworth—”
“I’m gonna break your nose, Plausky.”
Pavarotti allowed her a smile. “I quote, ‘Tell Voss if she doesn’t answer her phone I’m going to come out there and shove it down her throat.’ He also mentioned that SAC DelRosso would be on the line the next time your phone rang.”
Voss had continued to communicate with the guys coordinating the interagency efforts for the Coast Guard and ICE, but she had stopped picking up Chauncey’s calls a little before noon. Now she looked at Pavarotti.
“We’re not leaving Josh out here,” she said.
Pavarotti nodded once. “I’m with you. But at some point, the rest of these guys are gonna be called away.”
“What else did Chauncey have to say?”
“He had other choice words for you, but honestly, Rachael, they were halfhearted. He’s got more on his mind than just being pissed off at you for not responding.”
Voss shook her head and looked out to sea, back turned to Pavarotti and all of the other ships who had gathered there to wait for some signal, any indication that Josh Hart might still be alive, so they could rush in and save his ass and bust some assholes responsible for putting automatic weapons on the streets of America.
DelRosso was the special agent in charge. The only reason Chauncey would get him involved was to hammer home a point, or to take this case away from her. Probably both. And that meant only one thing.
“Ed Turcotte’s come to town?” she asked. But it wasn’t really a question.
“He and his squad left St. Croix an hour ago,” Pavarotti said.
Voss swore under her breath, then turned to him. As she did, her phone began to ring. She flinched, her heart racing, and started to reach for it. Her hand froze.
“You’ve got to answer it, Special Agent Voss,” Pavarotti said.
The boat swayed under them. Voss stared at him. “Oh, now you’re all fucking official?” she asked bitterly. “DelRosso’s going to tell me to stand down, Joe. He’s going to tell me to wait for Counter-Terrorism to get here and turn the case over to Turcotte the second they arrive.”
“Answer it, Rachael. Tell him whatever he wants to hear. Turcotte’s not here yet. It’ll be hours yet. Until then, we do whatever we have to do to take care of Josh.”
Taking a deep breath, Voss answered the phone.
40
You’re a survivor, Tori. That’s what you do. You make it through.
She held such thoughts close to her, repeating them over and over like a mantra. Whatever had happened to the people whose bones now rolled in the surf as the tide went out, Tori refused to end up like them.
“Hey,” Gabe said quietly, stepping up beside her. “It’ll be okay.”
Tori nodded, but would take no comfort from him. She kept her distance now from all of them. When they had discovered that the FBI was onto them, that Josh was an agent and they might all be going to prison, she had thought they were screwed right then. But whatever this was, she knew it was worse. They had scoured half the island and seen no sign of anyone living, and if the Antoinette had picked up ships returning — pirates or raiders or whoever had killed the Mariposa’s crew — Miguel would have signaled Gabe. As the shadows grew longer and the breeze off the water picked up, the sense of foreboding she’d had for hours now only increased.
Despite who he was, Tori liked Gabe Rio. Ironically enough, she also liked Josh. If she thought about it, she’d grown fond of most of the Antoinette’s crew during the voyage. Boggs, Tupper, Angie Tyree, and a few others she could do without, but guys like Dwyer and Kevonne and Bone made her smile. They were in this together, and she’d do whatever she could to help get them all out of it.
But she had felt herself closing off the doors between herself and the others ever since she and Gabe had seen those bones in the grotto. As they had lugged the gun cases through the trees, she had thought about her father’s cruelty, and the way her mother had turned a blind eye, and she knew that had been a lesson. Marrying Ted had been another. Tori could not rely on anyone except herself. When she had found kindhearted George online and he had helped her to escape from Ted, she had thought of him as her rescuer. But she had found George, and asked for his help, and she had taken what he had to offer and then moved on.
Tori had finally reached a place of peace and confidence inside her head, and a moment in her life when she felt she really could start over. The intensity of her attraction to Josh and the chemistry between them had felt like the result of that, or even a reward for finding her own inner strength. How long had she dreamed of a man she could really trust and believe in?
Now, with the new life she’d been trying to build falling apart around her, and with a heart full of dread like she had never known, she had to learn the lesson all over again.