Into the Deep

Nikki watched a struggle play across his face. Finally, he spoke in a low voice. “I don’t want to involve you any more than you already are. It’s safer if you don’t know.”

The memory of being watched crept over her like a wave washing up on the beach. She glanced toward the closed patio curtains again. Was someone out there now? What had Ben done? Who had he run afoul of?

With a jerk, Nikki straightened her spine. It didn’t matter. Ben Dearinger was no longer a part of her life. Whatever trouble he’d gotten into, he could get himself out of. She wanted no part of it. She would leave Key West tomorrow, first thing in the morning, birthday or not. Forget the vacation. Forget the beach. She just wanted to go home, to safety and to Joshua.

She picked up his untouched glass and slung the juice in the sink. “You need to leave now.”

“Nikki, I—”

His protest died in the face of the glare she turned on him. With a resigned sigh that sounded more like a huff, he reached near the telephone for the pen and notepad with the resort’s logo. He jotted a number on the top sheet and shoved it across the counter in her direction.

“My cell phone. Call me if you hear anything weird. Even if it’s just the wind blowing.”

Though she would never admit it, having his number made her feel a tiny bit better. She followed him to the door. When he’d crossed the threshold, he turned. His mouth opened, then he hesitated as though he changed his mind about whatever he’d been about to say.

“Goodbye, Nikki. Lock the door behind me.”

Any words she might have said were impossible. Her throat was too tight. She searched his face, memorizing the features she had never forgotten, and then gave a single nod before closing the door.

Not only did she lock the dead bolt, she shoved a chair from the dinette set beneath the handle. Then she rummaged in the kitchen drawers for the largest knife she could find. No doubt she wouldn’t get a minute’s sleep tonight. That was okay. She’d sleep on the plane tomorrow, on the way home to Oregon.

In the breezeway outside Nikki’s door, Ben waited until he heard the lock click into place. A slivered moon cast white light across the resort grounds, but deep shadows darkened the areas beneath the many trees. He made his way to his bicycle, tense knots in his gut.

Nikki hated him. And he had no idea why.

No, hate was too strong a word. He hadn’t sensed any strong emotion from her at all, other than an intense desire to get rid of him as soon as possible. Which wasn’t fair. What did he ever do to her? Nothing, except be honest with her. Hadn’t he told her right up front, before she moved into his Cozumel apartment, that he wasn’t interested in a permanent relationship? That if she was looking for a husband, she should return to the States with her friends and leave him to his carefree life in Mexico?

He walked the bike over the winding path toward the resort entrance, his mind filled with memories of the pretty blonde tourist who came into the dive shop with her friends. They’d wanted to go snorkeling in Cozumel’s crystal clear waters. The attraction had been instant and mutual. Ben and Nikki spent every minute together for the next week, and when her friends left to go home, she stayed. Quit her job over the phone, had her roommate send her belongings to her mother’s house for storage and slipped easily into the life of a beach bum. His life.

Then she started going to that church and all the problems started.

Ben reached the main road. He waited for the traffic to pass, then swung his leg over the bar of his bicycle and planted a sandaled foot on the pedal. The bike picked up speed as he pedaled, generating a warm, salt-scented breeze to ruffle his hair.

Apparently she hadn’t gotten over her religious phase in the years since she left. She’d clutched that cross like a talisman. Like he was a vampire and she needed protection against him. Which was ridiculous. They might not have parted on the best of terms, but surely she knew he would never hurt her.

But apparently, there was someone who would.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. The Reynosa drug cartel wouldn’t hesitate to kill if it accomplished their purposes.

Even an innocent. Even Nikki.

And he would be responsible.

He reached a decision. With a quick glance over his shoulder to check for traffic, he executed a U-turn. Even if it meant spending the night beneath one of those moss-covered trees, somebody had to watch out for her, no matter what she said. Because she had no idea who she was dealing with.

But he did.

FOUR

Ben arrived at the dock for work early the next morning. He wedged the front tire of his bicycle through the steel rack at the end of the pier and threaded the bike chain around the frame. A wide yawn took possession of him for a moment, and he was too exhausted to fight it. He’d finally fallen asleep, against his will, sometime after four. An angry resort groundskeeper had mistaken him for a transient and kicked him awake at seven. Though he’d been chased off the resort property, a quick inspection of Nikki’s building showed nothing out of place. At least, the door hadn’t been broken down or anything.

He unstrapped his backpack from the bike and shouldered it as he stepped onto the wooden pier, heading for the dive shop. Actually, he felt a little stupid for spending the night there. His fears in the darkness last night seemed unreasonable today with bright sunlight sparkling on the constantly moving waters of the bay. Nikki was probably right. Her being here was a coincidence. More than a million tourists visited Key West each year. Plus, he worked for the biggest water sports shop on the island, and they maintained a top-notch Web site. Anyone wanting to find out about booking an excursion long distance would naturally contact them.

But what about that note?

Ben’s step faltered as he passed a twenty-two-foot sailboat getting ready to leave the pier. Okay, the note could be explained, too. Somehow the Reynosa people had found out about Nikki’s visit. Or…maybe they’d witnessed the encounter on the pier. He’d long suspected they were keeping close tabs on him. Yeah, that was probably it. They jumped on the opportunity, decided to use her as another scare tactic to force him to act.

But there was no way they could know for sure he had the flash drive. They were guessing, hoping to force an admission out of him. The best thing he could do was treat this attempt like the others, and ignore it. As long as he didn’t confirm their guesses, he and Nikki would both be safe.

His course of action decided, the confidence returned to Ben’s step as he continued down the pier. Up ahead, he saw activity around the Sally Jane, the larger of the two dive boats owned by Key West Water Adventures. He bypassed the shop and went to the edge of the pier.

Tyler, co-owner of the shop and dive master on the Sally Jane, stood in the boat, snapping a diving cylinder into white plastic tank holders. On the dock, a cart with one more cylinder waited nearby. Ben dropped his backpack on the pier and grabbed it. When Tyler turned around, Ben handed the tank into the boat.

“Hey, man. You’re here early.” Ben nodded at the nineteen cylinders already secured. “I would have helped if you’d just waited a minute.”

“No problem,” Tyler assured him. “I wanted to get a jump on the day. Now that you’re here, could you grab the weight belts? We’ve got eight divers this morning, all renting equipment.”

“Sure thing.”

Ben scooped up his backpack and tossed it onto the empty metal cart. He started toward the shop, pulling the cart behind him.

“Oh, yeah,” Tyler said. “When I came in this morning there was an envelope on the floor. Had your name on it.”

Ben stopped. Though the early morning sun was already working overtime to warm the air, a chill cooled his core. He turned. “My name?”

Tyler nodded, unconcerned. “Somebody must have shoved it under the door. It’s on the counter.”

Without another word, Ben hurried toward the shop. He left the cart in the center of the floor while he scooped up a manila envelope from the edge of the counter. Careful block letters spelled out his name in blue ink.

Fingers trembling, Ben bent open the metal clasp and unfolded the flap. A single piece of paper had been slipped inside. A sentence of Spanish scrawled expansively across one side.

Tráigalo al Mallory Square en la puesta del sol.

The second note in two days, but this one had the unmistakable sound of a demand. Bring it to Mallory Square at sunset. No doubt what it the note referred to.

Ben turned the paper over to look at the back side. When he did, his heart skidded to a stop.

The door behind him opened. He whirled, and then leaped forward to grip Tyler’s shoulder. “Can you handle the morning dive without me?” He hadn’t meant to shout, but his voice filled the small dive shop.

Tyler’s eyebrows arched. “Sure, Ben. I’ll give Jason a call. He can always step in on short notice.” Concern colored his boss’s features. “Is everything all right?”

“Yeah. No.” Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve got to go.”

He scooped up his backpack and shoved the door open with his shoulder. He stuffed the paper in the pack as he sprinted down the pier toward his bicycle.

Nikki’s resort was located near the center of the four-mile-long island. Ben arrived there in a matter of minutes. He didn’t bother bringing the bike to a stop before jumping off in front of Building C. By the time the bike hit the side of the building and came to an abrupt halt in a flowering shrub, Ben was already beating a fist against Nikki’s door.

“Nikki, it’s Ben.” When she didn’t appear immediately, he pounded the wood harder. “Come on, Nikki. Open the door.”

A sound came from inside. A scrape, and then the dead bolt turning. The door opened inward. Nikki stood inside wearing a pair of stretchy sweats and a rumpled T-shirt, a blue coffee mug in one hand.

Her lips twisted sideways. “This is becoming a habit, Ben.”

Relief washed over him. She was okay. With an effort, he restrained himself from wrapping his arms around her in a protective hug. Instead, he took a step forward.

She didn’t move. Her hair, inches from his nose, smelled of soap and flowers. A clean smell, outdoorsy and fresh.

“May I come in?” Her head started to shake, but he spoke again quickly, before she could deny him. “Please, Nikki. I need to tell you something important.”

Her sigh delivered a whiff of coffee-scented breath before she stepped back. “All right, but I don’t have long.”

He brushed past her and edged around a chair in the entry. What in the world? When she closed the door and turned around, she saw him looking at it.

“I, uh, propped it under the door handle last night.” A flush colored her cheeks. “You had me pretty spooked.”

“Good. You should be.”

He entered the condo and plopped his backpack down on the breakfast counter. She went into the kitchen and stood on the other side, watching him with a cautious tilt to her head.

“I’d just about convinced myself that you were right, that you being here is nothing more than a coincidence.” No need to mention his night spent outside her door. He slid the pack’s zipper open and pulled out the paper. “Until I found this waiting for me at the dive shop this morning.”

Nikki held his gaze as she took the paper. When she looked down, she gasped. Color drained from her face. “It’s a picture of me. This…this was taken last night.”

Ben looked at the black-and-white photo. It had been printed on regular paper by a computer printer. Even so, the quality was quite good, not grainy at all. In it, Nikki reclined on a lawn chair, a cell phone held to her ear. Her lips curved into an attractive half smile, and her eyes held a faraway look, her attention focused on whomever was on the other side of that phone. A stab of jealousy surprised Ben. Who commanded her attention so thoroughly?

He shook away the question. Behind her in the photograph, the patio door stood open. Through it, he glimpsed familiar-looking furniture. A quick look over his shoulder verified his guess. The picture was taken here, just outside on the patio.

“I thought so.”

“I…I heard it. The camera.” She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and gave a shaky nod. “I remember hearing a noise that sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place what it was. Now I know. It was the sound of a camera taking a picture.”

“There’s more.”

He took the paper from her and turned it over to let her read the note on the back. Her eyelids narrowed as she translated, then looked up at him.

“What are they talking about, Ben? What do you have that these people want?”

“Nothing.” His protest met a stony expression. He spread his hands. “Honest, I don’t have it.” He swallowed and lowered his eyes. “I did have it. Briefly. But they don’t know that.”

She crossed her arms. “Don’t play games with me, Ben. Just tell me. What is it?”

For the span of a few seconds, they indulged in a stareathon that he had no chance of winning. Nikki wasn’t about to back down until he came clean with her. Ben filled his lungs and blew the air out slowly. She had a right to know, especially since she’d been dragged into the situation against her will.

He slid the paper toward him and folded it over and over, mostly for something to occupy his hands while he told her about the night Sergio Perez Rueda was killed on a Cozumel beach not far from Ben’s apartment. Then he described how he’d found the flash drive wedged in the tank of his toilet the next morning. Nikki’s eyes widened appreciatively when he told her how he’d discovered that Sergio was a known associate of the Reynosa drug cartel. She had spent enough time in Mexico to know exactly how alarming that was.

“And what was on the flash drive?” she asked.

He pressed one last fold in the paper and avoided her eyes. “I didn’t look.”

A movement forced his gaze upward. She stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “I know you better than that, Ben Dearinger. The curiosity would have driven you nuts. You looked.”

He conceded with a dip of his head. She did know him well. “Okay, okay. I looked. But believe me, I wish I hadn’t. The information on that drive was…” He selected a word carefully. “Incriminating.”

“To you?”

“No. To someone important.” He glanced over his shoulder, toward the empty living room area. A stupid gesture, but he couldn’t help it. If anyone heard what he was about to say, it could be bad. Very bad. He lowered his voice. “Have you ever heard of Senator Adam Webb?”

Nikki reeled as though she’d been slapped. She couldn’t have been any more stunned if Ben had told her that Santa Claus had just landed his sleigh on the roof. In fact, she’d believe that more easily than believing that Senator Adam Webb, the man who was daily on the front page of nearly every single newspaper in the country, was somehow involved with the infamous Reynosa drug cartel.

“I don’t believe it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s true. There was a spreadsheet on the flash drive, and it had two pages.” Ben pulled out one of the high-backed bar stools and slid into it. His forehead wrinkled at a memory. “The first page didn’t make sense. Just row after row of numbers and dates, none of them formatted. One column looked like it could have contained dollar amounts, but the others were too long, just a string of unintelligible numbers. Then I saw the tabs along the bottom of the screen. It said Depósitos.”

“Deposits,” Nikki said. She used spreadsheets at work all the time. She could picture exactly what Ben described.

He nodded. “The second sheet was labeled Cuentas. Accounts. At the top of that page were the names and addresses of several offshore banks in the Cayman Islands, each with an electronic routing number. Cayman National Bank. Banco do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. First Caribbean International Bank. Then beneath each bank were two columns. A name, and a number that corresponded with one of those long numbers on the first sheet.” His fingers sketched invisible lines on the countertop to demonstrate. “So the first sheet contained deposits made to specific bank accounts, and the second sheet identified the bank account’s owner.”

Nikki lowered her voice to match his volume. “And Senator Webb’s name was one of them?”

“Yeah. That’s what got Sergio killed, Nikki. If anyone finds out that Adam Webb is on Reynosa’s payroll…” He let out a low whistle.

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Nikki’s imagination filled in the details. The famous senator had won his senate seat primarily because of his hard stand against the Mexican drug cartels and his efforts to stamp out their presence in his home state of Texas. He was widely acknowledged as one of the favorite candidates for his party’s bid for the next presidential election. If it became known that Senator Webb was secretly being paid off by one of the most notorious cartels, it would be among the biggest scandals in the history of the country. Proof would certainly send the senator to prison, not to mention wreck his political future and those of many of his highly placed supporters, as well.

This was big. Way too big for them.

“You’ve got to call the FBI, Ben.” She picked up the phone from the far edge of the counter and scooted it toward him.

Ben backed away like the telephone was poisonous. “I don’t think so. I’d rather not get involved with the feds.”

Nikki tightened her lips. That was so like Ben, Mr. I-don’t-want-to-get-involved. He hadn’t changed a bit. “You’re already involved. With Reynosa. Personally, I’d prefer the FBI.”

“I’ve got it under control,” he insisted. “I just have to convince them that I don’t have that flash drive.”

She couldn’t stop a sarcastic comeback. “Yeah, ’cause that’s worked out so well for you up till now.” She studied him more closely. “Why did they follow you to Key West, anyway? They must have some reason to suspect you’ve got that drive if they followed you all the way from Mexico.”

He rubbed a hand across his chin. “I wish I knew. I never let on at all. Just played dumb, even when they almost broke my jaw.”

Nikki straightened. “They hit you?”

He winced. “That’s an understatement. The day after Sergio died, my room was ransacked. Then that night I surprised a couple of men searching the scuba boat. They roughed me up pretty good.” He ducked his head. “That’s when I knew I had to leave Mexico. I hightailed it outta there the next day.”

She pursed her lips and watched him. He must have mistaken her silence for an accusation, because he placed his hands flat on the counter and said defensively, “Hey, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here. They’d have killed me for sure.”

“Oh, I agree. I was just thinking that you leaving so suddenly probably looked suspicious. Either that or you didn’t give a very convincing performance when they were, uh, questioning you.”

His shoulders heaved with a soundless laugh. “Trust me. I did my best.”

He sounded sincere. If this evidence was important enough to the Reynosa people to beat up Ben and then follow him to Florida, what did that mean for her? Her presence here was a coincidence, of that she was certain. How could it be anything else? But now she had alerted them to her existence. It seemed obvious that someone had seen them together on the pier yesterday and followed her back here, searching for a way to use her to pressure Ben to hand over that information. If they investigated her, it wouldn’t take much to uncover her past relationship with Ben. And if they checked into her life any further, they’d find out that she didn’t live alone. Her blood chilled at the thought.

Oh, why didn’t I just stay home, where it’s safe?

The idea to celebrate her birthday in the Florida Keys had been hers, though when she first mentioned it to her friend, she’d assumed that Allison would come with her. She’d thought they could split whatever cost was involved in using the place for the week and figured it would be affordable since it belonged to Allison’s father. She’d never dreamed she would be given the use of the condo for free.

Even worse, she had almost brought Joshua with her. If she had…

Her coffee mug rested on the counter, the contents cold by now. She picked it up just to have something to hold on to. “Maybe you ought to just give them the flash drive.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do that. I really don’t have it.”

“What did you do, destroy it?”

He didn’t answer and wouldn’t look her in the face. Instead, he stared at the snapshot of Nikki from last night, his head bowed over the counter. She studied the top of his head. His hair needed to be trimmed, as always, but the curly, carefree style suited Ben in a way a more conservative cut wouldn’t. She gripped the cool coffee mug to keep her fingers from smoothing down a dark, wavy lock. Joshua’s hair had the same amount of curl.

Her throat tightened. If the Reynosa people had moved so quickly to take advantage of her presence in Key West, what would stop them from investigating her? A sick wave of panic threatened.

“Ben!” She spoke more sharply than she intended. His head jerked upward. “What did you do with that drive?”

He leaned forward and held her gaze. “I left it in Mexico. And I don’t want them to know I ever had it to begin with.”

“Then what are you going to do about that?” She dipped her head toward the photo with the note.

Ben’s lips became a tight line as he stared at the paper. She watched thoughts play across his face. Then he snatched up the note. “I’m going to meet them at Mallory Square at sunset. I’ll talk to them, explain that I don’t have whatever it is they’re looking for. I’ll convince them this time.”

Nikki turned her back on him to dump the cold coffee into the sink. She should follow through with her plan. A phone call last night confirmed that there was a plane leaving the Key West airport at two-twenty this afternoon. The flight was full, but she had put her name on the standby list. If she didn’t get on that one, she’d planned to rent a car and drive to the Miami airport. Anything to get off this island and away from Ben.

But now, she wasn’t sure that was a good idea. What if she left and Ben failed to convince the Reynosa cartel that he didn’t have the flash drive? They had followed him from Mexico to Key West. Would they follow her from Key West to Portland? If an ex-girlfriend looked like a good tool for blackmail, a child he didn’t know about would be even better.

I can’t lead them to Joshua.

She whirled around. “If that’s the plan, then I’m going with you.”

She had the satisfaction of seeing his jaw drop.

FIVE

Mallory Square was packed with people. Nikki hung close to Ben, wishing she could cling to his arm so they wouldn’t get separated. On her train tour yesterday, she had visited the famous pier and snapped a few pictures of the chickens running free in the wide-open area where the nightly sunset celebration occurred. The place had looked big and empty during the day, but now an astounding number of people crowded into the square. A variety of music clashed in a cacophony of sound, both from street musicians and from a nearby bar. Performers of all kinds vied for attention, everything from performing dogs to tightrope walkers to a Houdini wannabe pulling brightly colored scarves seemingly out of thin air. Along the perimeter, rainbow-hued umbrellas arched over handcarts displaying an array of wares for sale.

“Is it always this crowded?” she shouted toward Ben.

He placed his mouth so close to her ear that she felt his warm breath on her cheek. “Almost always. But Saturday nights are busier than most.”

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