Deeper Than The Ocean by Julie Ann Walker

 

 

Chapter 33

 

12:59 AM…

 

“Sorry, man. I’m sure that hurts.” The paramedic winced in sympathy as he smeared ointment over Wolf’s wound and then slapped on a large self-adhesive bandage. “I can’t believe you didn’t want any numbing gel.”

Wolf touched the scar running along his temple and assured the guy, “I’ve had way worse. Believe me.”

The paramedic shook his head. “You’re one tough sonofabitch.” He glanced over at Chrissy, who sat on the ambulance’s tailgate beside Wolf. She was wearing the T-shirt and shorts a Good Samaritan boat owner had provided when he’d come out on the deck of his vessel to investigate the commotion. “You both are,” the medic added.

Wolf wouldn’t disagree with that statement when it came to Chrissy. But he wasn’t sure how tough he was. When he’d seen Busted Can of Biscuits running down the dock with Chrissy over one shoulder, he’d been scared out of his mind. He’d known if Biscuits got her onto a boat—

Even now, even with the danger passed, he couldn’t finish the thought.

He’d been the one bleeding, but he’d insisted the paramedic check Chrissy’s stitches first. The young guy had declared them sound and fashioned her a makeshift sling using gauze. She adjusted it now as she thanked the paramedic for his help.

Wolf added his own words of gratitude, but his gaze was snagged by Dixon. The detective had been questioning Biscuits as paramedics worked to stop the big man’s bleeding. But now that Biscuits was strapped onto a gurney, Dixon turned toward Wolf and Chrissy.

The flashing red and blue lights of the surrounding cop cars highlighted the detective’s rumpled tie and messy hair as he made his way over to them. And a few of the rubberneckers who’d stumbled out of the bars—and who were being kept back by a small army of policemen—shouted questions at him, wanting to know what had happened.

Dixon ignored them. “How are they doing?” he asked the young medic.

The guy repacked equipment into a nylon bag. “They’ll live,” he said with a small smile and then moved away to help his colleagues with Biscuits.

“What about Parsons?” Wolf asked Dixon. “Will he live?”

The detective nodded. “Dispatch says he’s in surgery now. And doctors are saying he’s expected to pull through. Same for Ricky Williams.”

“Who?” Chrissy’s brow pinched.

“The second perpetrator. The skinny one Mr. Roanhorse here”—Dixon hitched a thumb Wolf’s way—“filleted like a fish.” He lifted a brow at Wolf. “Ricky told the attending officers you threatened to cut out his spleen.”

“No.” Wolf shook his head. “I told him I’d slice into his spleen and he’d bleed out in thirty seconds.”

“Oh, my bad. That’s far less brutal.” One corner of Dixon’s mouth kicked up. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

Wolf opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again. Biscuits was being wheeled by on his way to the second waiting ambulance. The paramedics had taken off his ski mask, and Wolf got his first look at the guy’s face.

If he were giving it a Yelp rating, he’d go for one star; do not recommend.

It wasn’t so much the flabby jowls or the cruel twist to Biscuits’s small mouth, although those were definitely off-putting. The real kicker was the guy’s eyes. They were black and shiny.

And completely empty.

It was like looking into the gaze of a reptile.

Chrissy gasped, and both Wolf and Dixon turned to her. “What?” the detective demanded, his eyes shrewd on her face. “Do you recognize him?”

Chrissy nodded. “But I don’t remember from where.”

“His name is Mateo Hernandez,” Dixon supplied. “Ring any bells?”

“No.” She shook her head. “But I know I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

“He tell you what this whole thing has been about?” Wolf asked Dixon. “Why he and his buddy were so intent on offin’ Chrissy and Winston?”

“Nope.” Dixon made a face of disgust. “He’s shut up tighter than a clam at low tide. But he did ask to speak to someone from the DEA, so I’m thinking my initial hunch was right. This is about a drug shipment. He’s probably hoping to cut himself a deal with the Feds by squealing on his contact within the cartel.”

As Hernandez was being loaded onto the ambulance, he lifted his head and looked Chrissy dead in the eye. His tone was full of contempt when he told her, “I’m only the grenade, babe. Someone else pulled my pin.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Renewed anger surged through Wolf’s veins.

He was more than ready to march over to that ambulance and stick the blade he still had in his pocket into Hernandez’s gut. He bet he could get the douche-canoe to talk.

“Oh!” Chrissy lifted a hand to her mouth as the paramedics shut Hernandez into the ambulance.

“What?” This time it was Wolf who asked the question.

“I just remembered where I saw him. I was at the dive shop late one night and I saw him come out the back of Jill’s place.”

“Miss Jill?” he asked incredulously. “The busybody, know-it-all who seems to run the whole island?”

“Jill Jones.” Chrissy nodded. “But she can’t be involved in this. She’s kind and thoughtful, and is always looking out for folks. Surely it’s a coincidence that—”

“Wait a second,” Dixon interrupted her. “Hold that thought.” He turned and marched toward the unmarked police car parked nearby. After scrabbling around in the passenger seat, he came up with a sheaf of papers.

“Printouts of all the vessels the Coast Guard stopped yesterday,” he called as he hurried back to them. “Along with their owners and operators.”

Dixon looked pointedly at Wolf. “The name of the boat Ricky Williams gave you was the Catch of the Day, right?”

Wolf nodded and Dixon thumbed through the papers, his eyes scanning a page before moving on. His was on the sixth sheet of paper when he stopped. “Catch of the Day,” he read. “Says here it’s a fishing charter operated by Mateo Hernandez and Ricky Williams and owned by some outfit named Key West Charters.”

Wolf felt the tension drain out of Chrissy.

“Which is an LLC owned by Jill Jones,” Dixon added.

“Holy shit,” Wolf breathed, trying to square away what he knew of the feisty gal who’d visited Chrissy twice with what he knew now. But if he was shocked to discover Miss Jill was the one behind all this, then Chrissy had to be downright stunned.

Sure as shit.

When he peered over at her, he found her speechless, her mouth opening and closing like a guppy. Her eyes blinking rapidly.

Winding his arm around her waist, he scooted closer to her, remembering how he’d felt when he heard one of his favorite commanding officers had been brought up on charges of—and eventually found guilty of—raping two female recruits.

It hadn’t only felt like a betrayal. It’d made Wolf question his judgment. Made him wonder if he could ever trust anyone.

“Do you know where she lives?” Dixon asked Chrissy, and she blinked at him like she’d lost the ability to comprehend English.

Then she seemed to snap out of it. Her voice was hoarse when she answered, “Um, yeah. On Olivia Street, between Center and Simonton. I don’t remember the number. But it’s the green conch house with the white shutters.”

“Officer Blackstone!” Dixon called over his shoulder to one of the policemen working the scene. “I need you to grab two uniformed officers and follow me to—” He rattled off the information Chrissy had given him. Then he said to Wolf and Chrissy, “The way word travels on this island, she may already know we’ve got Williams and Hernandez in custody. If I were her, I’d be looking to run.”

Chrissy stood. “I’m coming with you.”

“No.” Dixon shook his head, obviously not understanding when Chrissy’s jaw was set at that particular angle, there was no dissuading her.

To save the detective the brunt of her sharp tongue, Wolf stepped in. “After everything she’s been through the last twenty-four hours, I think she’s earned the right to look her would-be executioner in the eye. Don’t you?”

A muscle in Dixon’s cheek twitched. Wolf could tell the man didn’t want to drag along a couple of civilians while apprehending a perp. But he eventually relented with a breathy sigh.

“Fine. But I want you two to stay in the car the entire time.” He pointed a finger at Chrissy. “Do I have your word?”

She crossed her heart and held up two fingers.

Seven minutes later, they were outside Jill’s house, staying put in the back of Dixon’s car—as promised—while the detective and the uniformed police officers stormed through Jill’s front door.

Chrissy rolled down the window to get an unencumbered view, and Wolf was glad for the ventilation. Dixon’s car was filled with greasy fast-food bags and half-empty coffee cups. It smelled about how one would expect.

“Hey.” He tucked a strand of hair behind Chrissy’s ear, loving the delicateness of that tiny shell. “I’m so sorry about all this.”

She nodded and swallowed noisily. But her face was turned partly away from him so that her lashes concealed her eyes and her stony expression hid her thoughts.

Then she went stiff as a board when Jill was frog-marched down the front steps of her porch by the officers. Wolf could feel the tension, the anger and betrayal, vibrating through her. But she didn’t say a word as Jill was led to one of the waiting police vehicles.

He wanted so badly to pull her into his arms. To shelter her from the pain of this moment. But knowing Chrissy, she didn’t need comfort. What she needed was closure. She needed to see Jill on her way to jail.

“Don’t look at me like that, Chrissy!” Jill called before the officers could shove her into the cruiser’s backseat. “You remember what it was like after Hurricane Wilma! The whole island was underwater! I lost everything! The house. The boats. Funding for my kids’ college educations! When someone came along offering me a way out, I took it! You would’ve done the same thing. We’re the same, you and I! Both businesswomen trying to make it in a man’s world!”

Chrissy’s voice was quiet but crystal clear. “We’re not the same, Jill. One of us is a lying, murderous bitch. And the other one is me.”

Attagirl,Wolf thought with no small amount of satisfaction as Jill was crammed into the police vehicle. There was a sense of finality when the door slammed shut with a pleasant-sounding thunk.

Detective Dixon came to stand beside the open back window of his car. Leaning an arm along the roof, his tone sounded jaded. “She was packing a bag full of clothes and cash when we burst in on her. Headed to a non-extradition country, no doubt.”

Chrissy shook her head. “She’s known me since I was a little girl, and yet she didn’t blink at the thought of having her goons kill me. What does that say about me?”

“We are defined by our actions toward others,” Wolf quoted. “Not by others’ actions toward us.”

Chrissy offered him a wan smile. “That fortune cookie thing of yours does come in handy sometimes. Well”—she heaved a big sigh and glanced up at Dixon—“I guess that’s that then. The warehouse mystery is solved. We can all go back to our former lives now.”

“Not so fast.” Dixon made a face. “There’s just one more thing.”

“Ha!” Wolf crowed. “You said it. You actually said it.”

Chrissy turned to frown at him. Dixon ducked down into the window to do the same. “Huh?” the detective asked.

“Columbo’s catchphrase,” Wolf explained.

Neither Chrissy nor Dixon seemed to have a clue what he was talking about. “Never mind.” He shook his head. “What’s the one more thing?”

“I need you both to come down to the station so I can take your statements.”

Wolf groaned. After every mission, he’d had to write and file a report. It seemed the world revolved around paperwork.

“Can we do it tomorrow mornin’?” he asked hopefully. “I don’t know about Chrissy, but I feel like someone set me on fire and tried to put me out with a hammer.”

Dixon took a second to consider, then nodded. “Fine. Now, give me a minute. I need to talk to Officer Blackstone and then I’ll drop you both off at Miss Szarek’s place.”

Once the detective walked away, Chrissy turned to Wolf. The shirt she’d been given was printed with the letters WTF. Beneath them were the words: Welcome To Florida.

Appropriate, Wolf thought with a bemused smile.

“I need a hug,” she told him. Her eyes looked bruised and world-weary. “Or maybe an orgasm to help me forget this night,” she added when he pulled her into his arms. “Is there such a thing as a hugasm?”

“Oh, darlin’.” He kissed the top of her head, loving the feel of her snuggled tight against his heart. Loving the smell of coconut oil and sea air in her hair. “Sex isn’t the answer.”

She pushed back to frown at him.

“Sex is the question,” he clarified with a wiggled of his eyebrows. “And yes is the answer. Always.”

She laughed and then looked at him in wonder. “I don’t know how you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make me laugh even when laughter should be impossible.”

“You know what Charlie Chaplin said, ‘A day without laughter is a day wasted.’”

She narrowed her eyes. “Just because I said that fortune cookie thing comes in handy, doesn’t mean you should push it.”

He opened his mouth to say something self-deprecating and witty, but she silenced him with a kiss.