Bluewater Vengeance: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 2) Read online

  Bluewater Vengeance

  By C.L.R. Dougherty

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  Copyright © 2012 Charles L. R. Dougherty

  All rights reserved.

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  Table of Contents

  Bluewater Vengeance

  The Windward and Leeward Islands

  St. Vincent to Union Island

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Read a preview of Bluewater Voodoo, the next book in the series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Bluewater Voodoo is available from the Kindle Store:

  A Note to the Reader

  About the Author

  Other Books by C.L.R. Dougherty

  The Windward and Leeward Islands

  St. Vincent to Union Island

  Chapter 1

  "I want what's owed me, bitch," he hissed, his massive head blocking her vision as his lips sought hers.

  Dani's mind raced as Nigel Smythe shoved her into the stone wall. A moment's inattention on her part had allowed him to trap her; he had one massive arm on each side of her, and his big belly was squeezing the breath from her lungs. He reeked of alcohol as he leered down at her.

  "Stop this before I make you regret it, Nigel."

  "Hah! You're the one who'll regret it."

  She felt her temper building, even as she fought to control herself.

  "You think I'm going to pay you back for what your own foolishness cost you? Forget it, and get off me before I hurt you."

  "Oh, I'm scared, all right, missy. Think your rich old daddy can buy your way out of this, do you? It's not money I want now, and you know it. Now give. I'll be rougher if you make me force you."

  She felt time slow down as adrenalin flooded her system. The intervals between his words seemed to stretch to seconds as she took a deep breath, centering herself in her slim, wiry body as she focused her eyes on his chest. She was past the point of control now, operating on pure instinct honed by years of bar fights. As her tormentor shifted his weight to pin her against the wall, freeing his hands to paw at her clothing, she slipped to her left slightly, grabbing his shirt, pulling him with her.

  Off balance now, he fell toward her as she jerked her right knee up, making solid contact with his groin. He grunted in pain, even through the anesthesia of alcohol. As he gasped for breath, Dani gripped his styled hair with both hands, ducked her head, and smashed her forehead squarely into his face. She felt the satisfying crunch as his nose shattered. He roared with pain and anger, took a step back, and lunged at her. She ducked slightly, stepped under his right arm, and pivoted, putting her left hand on the back of his head and using his momentum to drive him face-first into the edge of the stone wall against which he had pinned her moments before.

  Knowing the risk in stopping too soon, especially when your attacker outweighs you by a hundred pounds, she didn't hesitate. As Smythe rolled over, spitting out broken teeth, and raising his hands, she delivered a perfectly executed kick to the point of his chin, breaking his jaw and rendering him unconscious.

  "Bastard," she muttered as she caught her breath. "Had it coming for years, I'm sure. Wish your wife could have been here to help." She went through his pockets, looking for the monogrammed linen handkerchief that he always carried. Finding it, she pulled it out and used it to wipe his blood from her face and hands, dropping it to the ground as she turned to walk away.

  ****

  As Dani made her way past the yachts tied stern-to the dock, she willed herself to calm down, striding smartly to work off the adrenalin high that she always got from a good brawl. Approaching Kayak Spirit, she saw that the lights were still on in the main cabin. Phillip and Paul must still be awake. She gathered her thoughts as she climbed aboard.

  "It's Dani!" she said, in response to Phillip's soft-spoken challenge, uttered as he felt her weight shift the boat.

  "Hi! Come on down. Paul and I just poured a little nightcap. Want something?"

  "Sure," she said, climbing down the companionway ladder, her eye on the liter bottle of St. James Reserve on the galley counter. "Neat, with rocks."

  "Only way to drink it," Phillip agreed, rummaging for ice in the refrigerator.

  "What happened to you?" Paul asked, eyeing her bloodstained T-shirt. "I thought you were going to take a shower."

  "Well, I did, but when I came out of the ladies' head, I ran into that jerk from Ramblin' Gal. I never really got a chance to talk to him when I resigned from his crew, so I took the opportunity."

  "You okay?" Phillip asked, turning to look at her over his shoulder as he put the lid back on the refrigerator.

  "You're all bloody," Paul said.

  "Yeah," she agreed. "But it's not mine. He had a nosebleed. High blood pressure, I guess. I got him settled down, though."

  "Do we need to get the hell out of Dodge, Dani?" Phillip asked, guessing what had happened. He had known Dani since her childhood, and had taught her to take care of herself when he discovered that she had her father's belligerent temperament.

  "Nah, I think it'll be all right. No witnesses. My word against his. That's if his injured pride even lets him go to the cops. He was falling-down drunk. I think he tripped and fell into that retaining wall out near the main entrance. He busted his face up pretty badly. He's probably too concussed to remember what happened, anyway."

  Dani went into the forward cabin and closed the door. Rummaging through her duffel bag, she found a fresh T-shirt and put it on. She combed her hair, still damp from her shower, and joined Phillip and Paul in the main saloon. She sat down at the dining table and took a sip of the smooth rum, feeling the tension fall away as she consciously relaxed her shoulders.

  "So what's the plan from here?" She glanced from Phillip to Paul, waiting to see who
would answer, hoping neither would press her for more information about her encounter with Smythe.

  Phillip picked up his drink and took a sip. He set the moisture-beaded glass back in its coaster. "Well, I guess we're done. With Sea Serpent sunk on the reef and no sign of Mike Reilly, there's not much left for us to do here, is there?"

  "Not that I can think of," Paul said. "Unless you and Dani have other ideas, I'm booked on an early flight back to Miami in the morning. I'll get back in time to have lunch with Mario and the boys. You know they'll want a report."

  "I'm sure my father has filled them in by now," Dani said. "How about you, Phillip?"

  "I just got off the phone with Sandrine; she wants me back in Martinique. I'm missing her, too."

  "So, is she the one?" Dani asked, a mischievous smile on her elfin face.

  "Well, you know, she just might be. I hadn't given it much thought until your father called and asked for my help. Until this little adventure took me away, Sandrine and I were just kind of having a day-to-day thing. Since I've been chasing around the islands the last couple of weeks, we've both realized it's serious."

  "About time you settled down, Phillip. You don't want to wait too much longer, or you'll end up a crusty old bachelor for sure," she said.

  "What are you going to do now, Dani? Back to Paris to see your folks?" Phillip asked.

  "No, I don't think so. It's too hard to get away from them, once they get their hooks into me. I'm not sure I want another crew berth, though."

  "Back to investment banking, then?" Phillip asked. "Maybe you could find something in the States, if you want to avoid your mother's clutches."

  "No way, Phillip. I tried that. I'm not cut out to be a parasite. Besides, you know how I love the sea. I'm thinking I'll find something else yacht-related, and I'm like you about the islands. There's nowhere else I'd rather live than down here. I need some time to chill out and think my way through this, though."

  "Nothing wrong with that. You've been through a lot in the last couple of weeks. I'm probably going to fly back to Martinique and leave Kayak Spirit here for a while, anyway. If you want to boat-sit, you're welcome. She needs a little love from a skilled hand."

  Dani's face split into a big grin. "Can I fix her up a bit? Like re-upholster these dismal settees? Put some fresh varnish on the table?"

  "Knock yourself out. Treat her like she's yours for as long as you want."

  "Deal," Dani said, standing to give Phillip a big hug. "I'm beat. 'Night, guys." She went back up to the forward cabin, and Paul and Phillip finished their drinks and crashed on the settees.

  ****

  Dani and Phillip waved as Paul got into the taxi the next morning after breakfast.

  "Let's go over to Customs and Immigration and get you on the paperwork as the skipper, Dani," Phillip said, as they walked back toward the docks.

  With that accomplished, Phillip stopped in a travel agent's office and booked a flight to Fort de France, departing in the early evening. He and Dani spent the rest of the afternoon talking about Dani's ideas for sprucing up Kayak Spirit. Before either was ready, it was time for him to catch his own taxi.

  Dani cooked a quick pasta dinner for herself, drank a glass of red French table wine from a bottle that she found in the bilge, and stretched out on the starboard settee to think, utterly content.

  Chapter 2

  Liz tore the sheet from her sketchpad and balled it up, throwing it to the floor with her other rejects. Staring through the window of the gallery in frustration, she stood up, rolling her cramped shoulders, gradually working the stiffness from her sore muscles. She could visualize Sea Serpent clearly in her mind's eye, but she couldn't get the proportions down on paper. The graceful sheer line, the spoon bow, and the counter stern -- she could sketch them individually to her satisfaction, but blending them into the beautiful profile of the old yawl was more of a challenge than she had expected.

  She walked out onto the porch and let her gaze wander over the harbor as Suzanne finished wrapping a painting for her lone customer. The gallery was a feast or famine business, depending on whether there was a cruise ship in the harbor up at St. John. When a ship was in port, the tour buses would bring crowds of frantic shoppers to the quaint little shopping center at English Harbour. There were stores offering local rums, "native" crafts, many of which were imported from China these days, and expensive upscale clothing. There was a musty-smelling shop with an eclectic collection of books; some were genuine antiques, but many were by present day, Caribbean-based writers.

  The cobwebs and moldy stone walls of the 18th-century building that once was a chandlery for the British Navy made it seem as if the shops existed in some time warp, giving the customers the feeling that they were back in the early 1700s. Then, a splash of dazzling color and light broke the spell; there was Suzanne's Art Gallery. On the days without cruise ships, Suzanne would have one or two customers, usually people who had recently bought one of the condominiums in the marina complex and wanted to decorate with island art.

  Suzanne had come to Antigua on holiday after she and Liz had finished their university studies, Liz in finance, with a minor in graphic arts, and Suzanne in art history. Suzanne never went back to Belgium. A holiday romance had blossomed into a marriage to a well-known local artist, and she had found the place where she was meant to be. Liz envied that. Based on her own experience of the past few weeks, life in the islands seemed idyllic. Of course, she hadn't actually tried to live here. She had been on holiday for several weeks, which cast a rosy glow over her experiences, even her most recent adventure, a nearly fatal yachting accident.

  She had caught a ride as pick-up crew with a single-handed sailor who was northbound from Guadeloupe, expecting to part company with him in Antigua, where she planned to visit with Suzanne and her husband. The yachtsman had turned out to be an odd character, and she had begun to worry a bit about his strange behavior. He had clearly wanted her to accompany him on his travels beyond Antigua, suggesting an open-ended itinerary that encompassed the entire Caribbean basin. Before their conflicting goals could become a problem, fate had intervened.

  She still wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but it appeared that he had fallen asleep on watch with the autopilot steering for the southwestern tip of Antigua. She had sailed through the evening hours, and he had relieved her in the early morning. Exhausted from sailing solo for about 6 hours, she had left him and gone below. She had been sound asleep when Sea Serpent had struck the unyielding Cade's Reef.

  Thrown violently to the cabin sole by the impact, she had taken a severe blow to the head. She regained her senses as the vessel pitched about, breaking up and filling with warm, tropical seawater as the wave action ground the keel against the coral. Semi-conscious, she made her way through the flooded interior into the cockpit, registering that there was no sign of her host.

  As the wreckage settled into the water, she managed to hold on to one of the larger sections. With full consciousness returning, she realized that the water in her immediate vicinity was only a little over waist-deep. She quickly discovered that the current was so swift that she couldn't stand without holding on to the firmly grounded wreckage.

  In the soft glow of moonlight, she could make out a silvery strand of beach a few hundred yards away across the surging channel between the reef and the island of Antigua. She knew that the tidal range was only about 18 inches in the islands, so she reasoned that if she could hang on, the water wouldn't get much deeper. She could swim to the beach easily except for the vicious current; it would sweep her out to sea before she could reach the shore. She clung to the wreckage, waiting patiently for slack water. It seemed like an eternity, but eventually the current abated. She swam to the beach, collapsing in the warm sand until the sun woke her up.

  "Liz, are you all right?" Suzanne asked, interrupting her recollections.

  "Fine, Suze. Just got lost for a moment. Did your customer leave?"

  "Yes. I just put some herbal tea on
to steep. Let's sit out here on the porch and relax. Looks like you need a break."

  When she saw the puzzled look on Liz's face, Suzanne smiled and gestured at the discarded sketches that littered the floor.

  ****

  Santiago Rodriguez, known as Big Jim to his minions and Iago to his close friends, decided that it was time for an unannounced visit to his operation on Baliceaux. Rodriguez lived on Mustique, a haven for the very wealthy, and Baliceaux was a large island, only a stone's throw away.

  Rodriguez and his associates had been using Baliceaux as a transshipment point for drugs and human cargo for several years. The island was uninhabited and privately owned, yet readily accessible by boat. He and his colleagues had donated generously over the years to the 'campaign funds' of key politicians in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to ensure that the island remained undeveloped.

  Baliceaux had some historical significance from the early colonial era that made it politically plausible to keep it untouched. The members of the widely dispersed family that technically still owned the island had no interest in it; after 400 years, there were so many heirs that the value of any one person's claim was insignificant, and without the impetus from a developer, no one could be bothered to clear the title to the island. Rodriguez's boss, Juan Camacho, had stumbled upon Baliceaux on one of his sport-fishing excursions and realized its potential.

  Rodriguez didn't have any pickups or deliveries scheduled for several days, but he figured that the girl that Rosa was holding captive might have come out of her coma. He wanted to know who she was. Never one to overlook an opportunity, he thought that ransom was a possibility, although he had not shared that with Rosa or that idiot Julio, who had found the girl.

  To Big Jim, the girl looked like someone's rich kid; he had a sense about those things. There was nothing specific that he saw. It was more the absence of tattoos, piercing, and needle tracks. Even though she was bedraggled from her time adrift before Julio's crew fished her out of the water, Big Jim sensed that someone cared about this girl, and that she took care of herself. She might be worth more in ransom than he could get for her from his Arab contact in Caracas.