When he returned to the living room, the generator was running and the vents were blowing cool air into the cabin. Both brothers now held cans of beer. Diggory set the black case on the table, then pulled the headphones off Pinky’s head. “Go down to my cabin and put clean sheets on my bed.”

The man glared at him. “What you talking about?”

Diggory grabbed Pinky’s throat in his right hand and lifted him out of the chair until the barbarian’s face was mere inches away from his own. Dig saw that his irises were such a light blue they looked almost white — just before the man squeezed his eyes shut. Shame, that, Diggory thought. The pudgy limbs flayed about ineffectually and odd clicking noises came from between his clenched teeth.

Spyder looked up from the TV remote control he’d been studying, then jumped to his feet. “What the fuck? That’s my brother! Put him down, you son of a bitch!”

Diggory dropped the splotchy man to the floor. He lay crumpled on the carpet gasping. “Remind him who gives the orders here.”

Spyder helped his brother to his feet. The two disappeared down the stairs, and Diggory heard them moving about and talking, but the low rumble of the generator prevented him from hearing what they said.

Yorick had taught him the importance of establishing dominance during his first dinner at the Tomb. Diggory had arrived early and was wandering the rooms alone. The building held him with an almost erotic fascination as it was filled with hundreds of artifacts some of which dated back to the founders in 1832. There were bones, including real skulls — both human and animal — paintings, images on crockery and silver, and quirky, odd mementos dating back to the Civil War that all depicted and glorified death. Most of his fellow Bonesmen got a laugh out of all the paraphernalia. It wasn’t unusual to find them tossing footballs or playing Hacky Sack around the many valuable objects. They had no doubt grown up in grand old homes decorated with original oil paintings and ancient objets d’art. They found the death motif amusing. They didn’t walk through the rooms as he did, feeling the low warm tingling of power growing in his groin.

That night he had been standing in front of the fireplace in the library admiring an enormous painting of a nude woman hanging above the mantle.  In the painting, a small red man with pointed ears and an over-sized erect penis was dragging her toward a gaping, glowing hole in the earth. The woman’s white belly and thighs were scratched and bleeding, but she continued to claw at the dirt. Her mouth was open and round, and Diggory imagined he could hear her screaming.

“Like that one, do you?”

Diggory jumped. The voice was at his shoulder, but he hadn’t heard anyone come into the room. An older man stood behind him, his chin lifted, hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the painting that stretched all the way to the fifteen-foot ceiling. When the man turned to face him, Diggory saw the wandering eye and knew this was the man who had played the part of Uncle Toby at his initiation. Without warning, ‘Uncle Toby” crashed his forearm into Diggory’s neck pinning him to the stone fireplace mantle. He felt the older man’s hot breath on his cheek. He concentrated on staring at the one good eye.

“So, you think you’re one of us now, Priest?” The man pressed harder, trying to make him squirm. He seemed intent on crushing Diggory’s larynx, but Dig tried not to struggle. He could go a bit longer without air. “I know your old man, and he doesn’t want you here, either. How are we going to turn a half-Irish bastard like you into a Bonesman?”

The edges of the room began to disappear into the creeping blackness.

“I decide when and if you breathe. Understand?” Yorkick said. He released the pressure on Diggory’s throat and stepped away, as if from something distasteful.

Dig settled into a chair at the yacht’s dining table. He opened the black case and the small flat screen glowed blue. He was adjusting the settings when the brothers returned to the salon.

“You don’t need a little DVD player, man. This boat’s got a whole entertainment center.” Spyder slid open a teak panel to reveal a flat screen TV and an array of black boxes. “We even got satellite TV, but my brother said not to use it ‘cuz they could probably track us with it.”

Pinky gave Diggory a wide berth when he came upstairs. He headed straight for his laptop, but when he saw the small black case and screen, he edged closer to take a look. Diggory saw that the whites of the freak’s eyes were bloodshot.

“That ain’t no DVD, Spyder,” Pinky said. “It’s a computer.” He blew out air and waved his mottled hand dismissively. “We got one of them on this boat already.”

“Not like this one.”

Pinky took another step closer to look over Diggory’s shoulder as he removed the voice encryption module and plugged a cord into the data port on his sat phone.

“So, we gonna up anchor and follow that bitch’s boat or not?” Spyder asked.

Diggory placed his finger on an icon on the touch screen and the zoom changed. He was now looking at the northeastern end of the island Terre-de-Haute. The wedge-shaped icon of a boat was located off the entrance to the next bay to their east, and it crawled across the screen, turning into the anchorage.

“Not tonight,” he said. “We won’t have any trouble finding them in the morning.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Aboard the Bonefish

March 26, 2008

9:25 p.m.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Cole sat up so fast, the chart table lid slid off his head and slammed down on his hands. “Ow!” He lifted the table top, extracted his hands, then grinned sheepishly up at her. “This looks bad, eh?”

Riley pulled the dive knife out of the scabbard on the bulkhead. She took the companionway steps one at a time keeping the knife between her body and his. When she reached the bottom of the ladder, she eased her way forward to the settee. She motioned with the knife, “Get up and go sit down over there.” Her voice was flat, a soldier’s voice. Giving orders. But she felt like she was going to be sick. He had conned her so easily.

The corners of his mouth dropped and the look that replaced the smile was difficult to decipher. Sad? Scared? She wasn’t sure.  Who was he? 

He sat down on the settee, and she switched on the overhead florescent light.

“Yesterday —” he began.

But before he could go any further, she said, “Quiet.”

She held the knife on him, remaining absolutely still as she thought it through. Under the settee, she had a package of large wire ties. She would bind his hands, his feet. Then sail back to Pointe-a-Pitre, back to that snooty immigration officer. Once she had her passport, she’d be off to Dominica to her job appointment, and get back to the life she’d had before she plucked Cole Thatcher out of the sea.

“Riley, let me explain.”

The knife in her hand twitched. But he didn’t look at the weapon. He kept staring into her eyes.

“When you picked me up out there in the water,” he continued.

Dammit, she’d been conned enough by this Speedo-clad character. She wanted to tell him to shut up but her lips wouldn’t move.

“The coin I was wearing. You saw it?”

She didn’t move.

“It’s an 1899 fifty-franc French Angel. Very rare. This one was given to me by my father. The Brewsters want it.” He paused but held her gaze.

She’d had many a stare down as she stood sentry in front of her embassy posts. But this time, when she attempted to force her mind into that cool void, images of his bare chest and smooth shoulders popped into her head. Damn. She turned away, relieved to preserve some sense of dignity.

She shifted the knife from hand to hand, wiping her palms on her shorts. “What does that have to do with you digging through my chart table?”