Celine gaped at her, stunned speechless.
“What did all that childhood trauma do to Lloyd? You’re responsible for bringing him to Sea Smoke Island and now a woman is missing. She’s thirty-two, about five-foot-six, brown hair, gray eyes, slender. If any harm comes to her?—”
Celine cut her off, slashing a hand through the air. “That’s it, we’re done. Better leave me be before I take the leash off these attack dogs.”
With her bodyguards at her side, she swept down the ramp toward her yacht.
Tina wondered if they minded being referred to as dogs. Then she hoped that if they caught Jack onboard, they wouldn’t rip his throat out.
28
At the sound of voices coming onboard, Jack slipped into a storage hatch filled with survival gear. As with all boats, luxury yachts weren’t the easiest places to hide. Space was at a premium even on a boat this size, and the designers didn’t take into account wannabe stowaways.
He could barely hear through the fiberglass door as Celine and her bodyguards stepped into the main cabin. But he picked up on the urgency in her voice, so he took a chance and inched the hatch open just a crack. Peering through it, he saw a flash of white pass one direction, then the other. Celine was pacing. Under stress. On the phone.
“Come on, pick the fuck up,” she was muttering.
In the short moments he’d been able to poke around the yacht, he hadn’t found Jessie or anything to indicate she’d ever been on this boat. He’d only searched the lower level, since he could hear crew members on the upper floor, where the wheelhouse was located. He’d avoided the galley as well, darting past the opening while the cook was focused on chopping vegetables.
If Jessie was here, maybe the appearance of a police officer would shake things up, inspire them to move her somewhere else. Maybe Celine was arranging a transfer right now, on the phone.
“Goddamn it,” he heard her say. “Call me back and tell me what the fuck is going on. I just had a Harbortown cop here. I don’t need this right now, you know I’m trying to keep a low profile. Does this have to do with that wacko doctor? I warned you to stay away from that fucking hospital. And what’s with this girl they’re looking for? Did you seriously kidnap someone? Just call me back right away and tell me what the fuck is going on.”
His heart sank. Clearly Celine didn’t know anything about Jessie.
But she knew something.
“Ugh.” With an exasperated groan, she threw herself onto what looked, from his tiny slice of a view, like a low couch. “He’s going to ruin his life. Would someone go get me a drink? Never mind, I’ll get it, you two go upstairs and keep an eye on that cop. Don’t let her on this boat. And tell the captain we need to leave asap.”
Shit. He really didn’t want to get stuck on this craft if Jessie wasn’t here. He calculated quickly what his odds were of sneaking past Celine without her noticing and came up with zero.
He’d have to do something dramatic.
As soon as the bodyguards had left the cabin—he heard their heavy footsteps on the short flight of steps that led to the upper level—he fixed a smile on his face and stepped out of the storage hatch.
Celine jumped to her feet, ready to shout for help. He lifted his open hands to show he wasn’t a threat, then shifted them to a prayer pose and bowed slightly. “Jack Finnegan, at your service,” he said with his best leading-man smile.
“I’m sorry.” She blinked at him. “Jack Finnegan, the actor? That was you out there? From that show…what is it, Dark of Night?”
Great, she’d heard of him. He hoped that was a good thing. She was a beautiful woman, with slightly tilted eyes that gave her a pixie quality, and white-blond hair cut in a casually sexy crop. It was hard to imagine her as the stepmother to Luke and Barnaby, since she wasn’t much older than they were “Yes, ma’am. That’s me.”
“What…how…?” The sheer surreal surprise of a TV star popping up on her yacht seemed to have rendered her speechless.
“I’m really sorry to startle you, and I know I’m trespassing on this beautiful yacht of yours, but I promise I mean you no harm. I’m here because of my sister.”
Her expression shifted as she put two and two together. “You’re with Officer Chen?”
He heard the suspicion in her voice, and decided his best bet was to throw Tina under the bus. She had arrested Celine, after all.
“Hell no, that woman is a pain in my ass, that’s why I’m hiding in here. I’m trying to locate Jessie before she does. My sister’s a little unpredictable and there’s a chance she might be doing something not strictly by the book. The last thing I need is cops catching up to her first.”
Would she buy it? He held his breath.
After a long moment of scrutiny, she relaxed and strolled toward the bar set into the teak interior wall of the cabin. “I was about to get myself a drink, how about you join me? It gets a little lonely on this boat sometimes.”
“Does it? Seems like you got a whole crew here to keep you company.”
He nodded when she held up a bottle of premium Tanqueray gin, and watched her pour a healthy splash into two crystal glasses, followed by a scanty amount of tonic. Then came slices of fresh lime perched on the edge, along with a pretty mint garnish.
