“Don’t you mean a crazy cracker?” Robby winked.
“Ha!” Kenny nodded. “Good one.”
“Gentlemen, please.” Carter held onto his patience by a thread as he raked a hand through his auburn hair. “Ask yourselves if now is the time for humor.”
“Course it is.” Kenny shrugged one over-inflated shoulder. He’d gotten his bulk thanks to ’roids and the three hours a day he spent in the gym. “Stop worrying. They may not have exploded in midair like we wanted, but they’re down somewhere. They gotta be. You saw how much smoke there was. You saw the fuel pouring out of the bird. You saw how those wings were flapping.”
“At the very least,” Robby shrugged, “the explosion Kenny set to short out the radio must’ve worked. We haven’t heard them put out a mayday.”
At mention of the lack of a mayday call, all three of them glanced at the two radios on the speedboat. One was tuned to Air Traffic Control in Key West. The other was dialed into the Marine Emergency station. Both devices buzzed and hummed with voices, but there was no hint that anyone was in trouble.
“True,” Carter muttered. “That’s one thing that went right.”
“Hey!” Kenny objected. “The only thing that wentwrongwas that the fuel tanks didn’t blow. But we’re still okay. ’Cause ain’t no way they didn’t hafta ditch.”
Again, a cold chill snuck up Carter’s spine. “If they ditched, there could be survivors.”
“Which means we gotta find ’em and finish what we started.” Kenny shrugged. “Simple as that.”
Simple. Right. As simple as finding a needle in a haystack.
“You have aplanfor finding them?” Carter demanded.
“They gotta be ’round here somewhere.” Kenny had a true South Chicago accent. He was always cutting off consonants and smashing words together. “This was the direction they were headed, and they were having a helluva time staying in the air. They can’t be far. I’d bet my right hand on it.”
“You sure you don’t want to bet yourlefthand?” Robby snickered, his sorry excuse for a mustache twitching. He’d been trying—and failing—to grow the damned thing since they were sixteen. “Your right one’s the closest thing you got to a girlfriend.”
“Fuck off.” Kenny swatted Robby on the ear. Then he winced and scratched his head as he stared at the fourth member of their little murder squad. “Uh. Sorry. I promise my momma taught me not to curse around ladies. It won’t happen again.”
“Please.” Carter’s aunt Jane waved a small, manicured hand through the warm ocean air. Carter had never seen her fingernails free of polish. Pink. Always pink. “I’ve heard far worse from this one.” She arched an eyebrow over the frames of her sunglasses at Carter. “And his momma raised him right, too. I can assure you of that.”
Carter grimaced. “Except for when she ran off with her boyfriend and left me home alone to fend for myself.”
“She was a single mother,” Jane insisted. “Shedeservedthe occasional escape.”
“I was six!” Carter’s voice strained above the sound of the waves slapping against the side of the boat.
“Psshh.” Jane shook her head. “It taught you independence. You should thank her for that.”
It was an old argument. One Carter never won, so he did what he always did and suppressed an aggravated sigh.
Kenny pointed toward the horizon. “That way. Let’s keep on keeping on.”
“Agreed.” Robby nodded and then glanced at Jane, blushing deeply when she pulled down her sunglasses and turned her emerald-green eyes on him. Even at fifty-four years old, and despite the years of substance abuse, Jane Ennis was still one of the most beautiful women Carter had ever seen. “Hang on to your hat, ma’am,” Robby told her. He’d lived in Kansas City until he moved to Chicago in middle school, and he’d retained a bit of that Missourian accent. “We’re goin’ for another ride.”
“You make that sound a little naughty.” Jane winked. “Don’t you know I’m old enough to be your mother, you handsome thing?”
For the hundredth time that morning, Carter wished his aunt had stayed back in the hotel on Key West. Her flirting was enough to turn his stomach—mostly because it reminded him so much of his mother. But Jane had demanded he let her tag along to see the job done.
And she’s got the right,he thought, closing his ears to Robby’s bumbling response to Jane’s honeyed words.After everything she’s been through, after everything Mia hasputher through, she’s got the fuckingright.
The push of a button had the speedboat’s 450 quad motors rumbling to life. But before he could press up on the throttle, Robby shouted, “Wait! There! What’s that?”
Carter looked in the direction Robby pointed. Even with his polarized sunglasses, he had to squint against the glare of the sun as it flashed blindingly off the crest of the waves. At first he saw nothing, and he was about to ask Robby what the hell he was talking about. But then...
Without saying a word, he turned the steering wheel and the idling engines rumbled with suppressed power as he put the boat into gear and piloted them toward the floating object. Kenny was the one to drag the dark blue square out of the ocean once they’d pulled even with it.
“Oops. Sorry!” he said when water sheeted off the item, causing the pain in Carter’s ass, otherwise known as his aunt, to yelp and race to the other side of the boat, lest her precious sandals get wet.
