Mystery in the Moonlight (7 page)

What was a boat doing here? Caitlin wondered curiously, heading toward the vessel. She caught the glimmer of lights bobbing in the darkness. Several shadowy figures were carrying the lanterns, moving back and forth to a skiff pulled up on the sand. Before she could call out, they saw her.

“Hey, what’s this?” A man’s nasal voice spoke from nearby. Coming toward her with quick strides, he caught up with Caitlin and took hold of her arm. Not liking his rough grip, she tried to pull away.

“What the hell?” said another man, holding up a lantern as he approached Caitlin’s side. “A woman. What are you doing over here?”

“Maybe she was desperate for some company,” her captor suggested, laughing unpleasantly.

“I’m a guest…of Jean Moreau’s,” Caitlin managed to sputter. “What are you doing here?”

“Jean Moreau!” exclaimed the man with the lantern.

Both men laughed now. Dressed in jeans and a ragged sweatshirt, the one who held Caitlin had greasy hair and a long, bulbous nose. The other had a mustache and glittering, nasty-looking eyes. Were they criminals? Thinking she’d rather not know for sure, Caitlin tried to bluff her way out of the situation.

“I, um…thought your boat had run onto the reef. I was going to see if I could help you.”

The men laughed. “And what were you planning to do? Push us off?” asked the stranger with the mustache.

“Uh, I was going to help by reporting your accident,” said Caitlin hopefully. “To the resort officials. I’ll go and tell them right now.” Trying to extract her arm from the harsh grip that held her, she made as if to walk away. But the fingers on her tender flesh only tightened.

“You’re not going anywhere, missy.” This time the man’s tone lacked any humor. “I don’t know what the hell you’ve seen or heard, but you’re coming along with us.”

“Thanks,” said Caitlin politely, trying to bluff again. “But I’d really rather not. My husband and three children are expecting me back any moment.”

“You’re old enough to have three kids?” asked the younger man.

“Never mind about that, Jenkins,” ordered the apparent leader. “Get her into the skiff.”

Panicking as her captor started to drag her away, Caitlin suddenly struggled, kicking at him until her sandaled foot managed to connect with his shin.

“Ouch!” complained Jenkins. “You little witch!”

Feeling as if the arm he held was being torn out of its socket, Caitlin desperately fought. Her struggle ended abruptly when the man slapped her hard across the face. She fell to the sand with the impact, but he pulled her up again and dragged her toward the skiff.

“We’ll see how spicy you are when I get through with you,” Jenkins threatened.

Caitlin’s mind was full of whirling, fearful darkness. Surely she must be having a nightmare, she thought as she was lifted and dropped like a sack of flour into the smaller boat. Her shawl had fallen away as she was lead roughly down to the water, and now she sat shivering on the boat’s wooden seat beside her captor. Three other men helped the leader load numerous boxes into the craft and then got into the skiff to row it out to the cruiser. Caitlin’s jailer released her as the other men found seats.

Should she jump and try to swim away? Caitlin wondered, gazing over the side of the boat at the slate-gray water. But it was soon too late for that. Jenkins placed his arm around her, drawing her tightly against his sweaty-smelling body.

“Hey, don’t worry about what I said. You ain’t so bad-looking,” he said. “And I like my women spirited. I don’t give a damn if you’ve got kids and a husband. I’ll show you a good time.”

“Where’d Jenkins get her?” asked somebody else.

“Jenkins hasn’t got her,” growled the leader. “And once on the cruiser, I’m going to lock her in the cabin where she won’t cause any trouble.”

“Aw, what the hell…” whined Jenkins, releasing a string of obscenities.

“Shut up, Jenkins. I’m going to talk to the boss about her. I told you I don’t know what she saw. If the boss says okay, you can have her. Otherwise you can go find a broad somewhere else. Hustling up women isn’t the purpose of this night’s work.”

“Well, what if he wants her…shut up permanently?” asked Jenkins, releasing his hold on Caitlin’s shoulders to grasp her arm tightly again.

“Then that’s none of your business.”

Shut up permanently? Did that mean they were going to kill her? Would she never wake up from this horrible dream? Caitlin wondered. A few minutes later, moving along numbly as if indeed in a nightmare, she was pushed and pulled up the ladder into the cruiser where the leader of the group promptly shoved her into the main cabin and slammed the door.

What would happen to her now? Staring around the room, Caitlin saw that there was only one entrance, and the porthole was much too small to squeeze her body through. Sinking down on a narrow bunk, she groaned and stretched out as the cruiser’s motor rumbled into life.

Frightened but exhausted, Caitlin stared up at the wooden ceiling of the cabin. If only this were a dream…

Caitlin had no idea how long she’d been dozing when she heard the sound of firecrackers. Slowly coming back to consciousness, she gazed blankly around her. Why couldn’t this situation really be a dream? She leapt up nervously as the sharp explosions were repeated again.

Firecrackers? No, Caitlin finally realized, the sound was gunfire. Running to the porthole, she peered out to see the dark bulk of a ship that had aligned itself beside the cruiser. Were they attacking or being attacked? she wondered as a man teetered on the side railing of the cruiser and fell overboard.

Then the nightmare deepened. Looking up past the black sails of the new ship, Caitlin gaped at the livid flag fluttering from the craft’s train mast. It was the Jolly Roger!

Before she could focus any longer off the skull and crossed cutlasses, however, she heard a familiar voice shout, “If they won’t give up, blow them out of the water!”

Caitlin’s jaw dropped as she spotted the bearded man in black who stood beneath the pirate flag and issued orders. It was Bryce!

Chapter Four

Caitlin stood frozen, transfixed by the waking nightmare. This was the black ship Basil had told her about, and Bryce was its captain! Her eyes widened further, if that were possible, when she remembered her first impression of the gorgeous green-eyed man at the Beach Bar. Hadn’t she visualized him then as a handsome, romantic pirate?

Another shot and scream made her aware that this was no dream, not even an awful one.

But if she wasn’t having a nightmare now, Bryce must be the ruthless, murdering sea captain the local fishermen feared.

Dismay swept through her as she saw all her romantic notions dashed before her like breakers on the reef, but before she could mourn their loss, she realized that Bryce and his men were boarding the boat. The clunks and thuds and angry, raised voices on the deck made her shudder.

What were the villains planning to do? Rob everyone on the boat? Steal the vessel itself? What if they killed everyone on board so there wouldn’t be any witnesses?

She trembled with the possibilities and, for a moment, could only stare stupidly at the locked door of the cabin. This was ridiculous, for heaven’s sake, Caitlin finally decided, rushing to the door and pressing her ear against it. Bryce wasn’t a thief or a murderer. There must be some mistake. Maybe he’d come to save her. She wasn’t convinced, but at least she could give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Let’s take this lying son of a devil somewhere private,” Bryce commanded gruffly above the other noises. Boots scraped against the boat’s stairs, the footsteps seeming to reverberate through her. Caitlin popped away from the door when he added, “If he won’t give us the information we want about that cache, maybe we’ll cut out his tongue.”

If Caitlin had had any doubts as to whether or not to trust Bryce, they were dashed immediately. He was here to steal whatever the first set of thieves had taken from Hibiscus Island, not to save anyone. Her situation seemed to be going from bad to worse.

“Let me go,” came a whining plea that bore a peculiar resemblance to Jenkins’s nasal tones. “I—I’m telling you God’s truth. I don’t know nothing.”

“We’ll get the information we want out of this sniveler easy, Captain, one way or the other,” Bryce’s cohort told him in mellifluous tones that belied his threatening words. “This the captain’s cabin?”

“Yes!” Jenkins shouted.

They were directly outside the room. Caitlin watched in fascination as the door handle turned. Then one of the men tried to force the door, but though it seemed to bounce in its frame, it held fast. Would they succeed in bursting into the cabin? Would they find her? How had she managed to get herself into this mess?

“Wait, let me get you the keys,” said the sniveling Jenkins. “See? I’m willing to cooperate.”

“That’s good,” Bryce said. “For your health.”

Desperate now, for she heard a set of keys clinking, Caitlin searched the small room for a place to hide, nearly overlooking the footlocker against the wall beside the bunk.

Quietly she made for the storage unit and lifted the lid. Luckily the locker was almost empty. She climbed in, heedless of the few articles of clothing that lay on its bottom. With difficulty Caitlin managed to wedge herself in the cramped space and lower the lid just as she heard the door open. She could only pray that she wouldn’t suffocate.

But perhaps death would be preferable to what she might suffer at that scoundrel’s hands! Caitlin decided dramatically, conveniently forgetting the more provocative fantasies she’d had about the man. Remembering how he’d questioned her about Moreau’s whereabouts, she figured Bryce must have been on Hibiscus merely to glean information in any way he could—the cad!

Well, she’d prove how wrong Mr. Bryce Pirate could be! Caitlin thought, bolstering her own courage. She’d just wait until the men left the cabin, then engineer her own escape. Once on deck, all she had to do was slide into the water and swim to land.

If there were any land within swimming distance.

“Now it’s time for you to talk,” Bryce said.

“You picked the wrong guy.”

“I wonder if he’d sing the same tune with thumbscrews attached to those clawlike hands,” the man with the melodious voice speculated.

“Thumbscrews?”

“Holding him dangling over the railing would be a lot more effective,” Bryce said. “If he doesn’t talk, we could just drop him in.”

“You wouldn’t really do that, would you?” Jenkins asked, his tone desperate. “These waters are shark-infested!”

So much for her ideas about swimming to land, Caitlin thought, trying not to shudder.

“Perhaps the sharks will loosen your tongue.”

“Please! I only know what Nevison tells me. He’s the one you want,” Jenkins told his captors, his nasal voice rising with panic. “He’s the only one who knows anything about our operations.”

The air inside the locker was becoming stifling, Caitlin thought, now barely listening to the conversation. She was beginning to feel like a pretzel. How long would the men stay in the cabin?

Caitlin was relieved when she realized that Bryce was putting Jenkins in the custody of one of his men and ordering that Nevison be found. Maybe that meant they’d all leave the cabin soon, and then she could breathe some fresh air once more. She was beginning to feel claustrophobic. The back of her throat was dry, and her nose was beginning to burn like crazy.

“Why don’t we search this cabin while we’re waiting for Nevison?” the smooth-voiced pirate suggested, dashing Caitlin’s hopes. “There may be something important here.”

“I doubt searching will do any good, Anselm, but it’s worth a try,” Bryce returned. “I’ll look through the desk. You check the shelves.”

Greedy bastards! Caitlin thought. Surely the treasure they sought was contained in the boxes the men who captured her had brought on board. Why couldn’t Bryce and this Anselm just leave? Distracted by the urge to sneeze, she untwisted one arm from around her body and carefully slipped her hand toward her tingling nose.

“Won’t our quarry be bloody angry when he hears we’ve taken another of his vessels?”

She tried not to breathe as she inched her hand toward her face.

“He’ll be livid, Anselm. But I plan to take everything from him. He’ll be lucky if I leave him his hide. He’ll curse the day he ever heard the name Winslow.”

Almost, Caitlin thought, desperately pressing her fingers to her nose. But it was already too late. All she succeeded in doing was distorting the sound.

“
Uh-chloo!
”

“What the hell was that?”

“A stowaway, Captain?” Anselm said from beside the locker. “Let’s see.”

Caitlin’s body thumped painfully against the locker as her hiding place was pushed over and its side suddenly became its bottom. The lid popped open, and she found herself spilling unceremoniously at Bryce’s feet. Looking up the length of his boots to his bearded visage, she tried not to cower. She couldn’t help cringing, however, when his laugh rang out through the room and he pulled her up roughly by the wrist.

“Well, if it isn’t Caitlin O’Connor!” Bryce boomed, his deep voice rich with amusement as his sea-green eyes scanned her thoroughly disheveled form. “I told you I’d see you again, though I admit I never would have thought you’d be at such a disadvantage,” he said, touching a tear in the lace above her breasts.