Joe looked up. The tanned face of the woman on the beach appeared above him. She was even more attractive close up than she’d been from a distance. He smiled at her. There wasn’t much else to do at this point.
“That was impressively stupid,” she said in a South African accent. “It’s not every day you witness such foolishness.”
Joe continued to smile. “All I hear is that you were impressed.”
“American,” she said, shaking her head.
Joe sat up, taking sudden notice of the MP5K machine pistol in her hand. He dialed back the charm offensive and surrendered to reality.
The two men who’d been working on the outboard ran toward them, along with three armed men from the lower level of the big house. They were outnumbered and surrounded.
Joe put his hands up, though he noticed Kurt seemed oddly pleased.
The woman glared at Joe. “Give me one good reason we shouldn’t shoot you right now.”
Joe deferred to Kurt. “Ask him. It was his idea.”
The woman looked Kurt’s way.
With one hand still in the air, Kurt reached slowly toward the breast pocket of his shirt with the other. He unbuttoned the pocket and removed a double-folded envelope with two fingers. He handed the envelope carefully to the woman. “Give this to Rand,” he said. “If he still wants to shoot us after reading it, I won’t even run for it.”
The woman eyed Kurt suspiciously and rubbed the envelope with her fingers as if trying to determine what was inside.
“Keep your guns on them,” she ordered as she turned toward the house and strode purposefully up the sand bank. “If they do anything foolish, shoot them and dump their bodies out in the sea.”
Chapter 49
Kurt remained in the boat with his hands up. The crash had been unexpected, but other than that everything was going according to plan. A couple of minutes went by, enough time to make him ponder the need for a backup plan, and then the double glass doors to the lower level of the house opened. Four people came out. The young woman who’d threatened them, two members of the house staff, and a tall, redheaded man with a ruddy complexion, whom Kurt recognized as Rand. He was wearing a silk robe and oversized sunglasses. His hair was much longer than it had been two years ago, and he had the aura of a fading, hungover rock star.
They marched down to the wrecked boat at the waterline.
“Well, well, well,” Rand said, taking a look at Kurt, Joe, and the wrecked boat. “You’ve really done a number on your whaler. Afraid that’s not going to make it out of here.”
“Yeah,” Kurt said. “I owe someone a boat. Maybe you can give him one of yours.”
Rand laughed. The fierce woman at his side did not. “Why would I do that?”
“To make amends for your wicked ways,” Kurt suggested.
“I’ll consider it,” Rand said. “Now out with it. Are you here asinterlopers, investigators, or friends? Or did you hear about the party I’m throwing tonight and decide you just couldn’t miss it?”
“Party sounds interesting,” Joe said.
“None of the above,” Kurt insisted. “Mind if I put my hands down? Shoulder is a little sore from some swimming I did in the Arctic.”
“Argh, man,” Rand exclaimed. “What would make you want to swim in the Arctic?”
“You’d be surprised,” Kurt said.
Rand waved his men off and told the woman to put her weapon away. She protested, to which he said. “Pru, please, what are they going to do?”
Kurt lowered his hands. Joe did the same, the smile returning to his face as things took a turn for the better.Pru, he thought.I like that.
“We should probably speak in private,” Kurt suggested, nodding toward the woman.
“There’s nothing you can say in front of me that my sister can’t handle,” Rand said.
“Sister,” Joe said. Things were really looking up in his opinion. Though based on her scowl, she didn’t seem to feel the same.
