Chapter Sixteen
Still irate that he had to drive all the way down to the bayous in the middle of the night to find Claire, Nick Black pulled his black Range Rover up beside Claire's white one and shoved the gearshift into park. Not that he was surprised to find Claire holed up on the houseboat. She loved the place, and he figured she was looking for a sanctuary where she could be alone and think things out.
However, it was also dark and isolated and the scene of a recent grisly murder so he thought he better show up and make sure she didn't end up as victim number two. One thing for certain, though, he hadn't expected to find her out there alone with another man. That didn't particularly sit well with him, either, not at all, but he knew her well enough not to get up in her face about it. She would just bull up and take off with the guy, whoever the hell he was.
Climbing out of the SUV, he walked to the gangplank, where Claire stood waiting for him. Her unknown companion stayed where he was, slouched in a deck chair on the top deck. Which was probably a good idea, considering Nick's present infuriated state of mind. The guy was watching them, though, with an amused expression on his face. He didn't appear to be too shaken up by Nick's sudden appearance.
“Hello, sweetheart. Thought I'd come out and make sure you were all right. Seems like you have lots of guys interested in keeping you company tonight, though. Guess you weren't as lonely as I thought while I was out of town.”
“How did you know I was out here?”
“Guess I just know how your mind works.” He glanced up at the guy sitting at the deck table. The other man looked completely ridiculous, as if he were going to a costume party. “So, who's Johnny Depp up there? I don't believe we've met.”
“He's an old friend.”
“How about introducing us? You know how much I like to get acquainted with your old friends.”
“Go home, Black. And quit thinking what you're thinking. We'll talk later, but right now, you need to just go away. I'll be home in an hour or two.”
Like hell. “What is this, Claire? Some kind of payback for Jude being at the party? That's not like you. Or, are you hiding something out here that I need to know about?”
Claire looked annoyed and lowered her voice. “Okay, Black, listen to me. He's an old friend from way back who looked me up tonight. I wasn't expecting him. He just showed up. We're talking about old times when we were kids. That's it. No ex-husband I'm getting cozy with.”
Nick felt the dig in that barb. He stared down at her and quieted his voice, too. “Jude and I were over a long time ago, and you know it. Just like I said, she was all torn up about her stepson's drug habit and wanted advice. That's it.”
Claire frowned and appeared embarrassed that her mystery guy was listening to their conversation. Nick didn't care much. Something was going on, and that usually meant Claire was putting herself in danger. So he wanted to know what. He didn't think she was cheating on him, or even thinking about it. And neither was he. They were in too deep with each other for that, and had been for a long time. But the guy looked downright bizarre and maybe a little dangerous, and Nick didn't like the way he kept staring at him with that knowing smirk. He brushed past Claire and strode up to the aft deck, then took the stairs up top. When he reached the table, he extended his hand to Claire's secret pal. “Hi. I'm Nick Black.”
Up close, the man was big, muscular, confident, and relaxed. But he looked like an idiot in the pirate getup. He stood up, looked at Claire, who was right behind Nick now, and said, “Rocco. Glad to meet you.”
“Rocco who?”
“Rocco Ramone.”
Nick turned around and gave Claire a look that said as plainly as he could make it:
A pirate? Really? Rocco Ramone? Really? You expect me to believe this shit?
Rocco sat back down. “Have a beer, Nick. Claire's got plenty of Dixie longnecks down in the fridge. Ice cold, too.”
“Yeah, I know. I bought them. So help yourself. Really. I try to keep this place well-stocked.”
At that, Rocco shifted his eyes to Claire, a slow, crooked grin overtaking his face. Nick realized that he sounded jealous, and then with some dismay, he realized that he
was
jealous. The concept was a trifle alien to him; he was not the jealous type. But he felt a lot of things about Claire that he'd never experienced with any other woman. He didn't really think she was doing anything wrong with this guy, but he didn't like her being out there alone with him. Claire only sighed and looked resigned.
“Well, go ahead and sit down, Black. Since you've already crashed the party. Want a beer?”
Nick nodded, and after she headed down to the galley at the front of the boat, he sat down across the table from Rocco. “So I understand that you're an old friend of Claire's?”
“Yep.”
“How long has it been?”
“Long time.”
Nick leaned back against the chair cushion. He glanced around the deck and listened to the slow, rippling bayou current and was fairly certain that he and Rocco weren't going to hit it off. He leaned back, nowhere near as relaxed as the other man, and enjoyed dead silence for a moment. The galley windows were open, and he could hear Claire opening the fridge, bottles clinking as she got out their drinks.
“So, Rocco. Who the hell are you really?”
“Your girl down there? We were close once, but not anymore. I'm leaving when she gets back. Don't want any trouble with jealous boyfriends. Just don't ever hurt her or I'll come after you.”
Nick had never in his life been described as a jealous boyfriend, didn't like it at all, and he sure as hell hadn't ever been threatened to his face. Rocco's accent was distinctly Cajun but well-educated, a whole lot like his own. Rocco was trying hard to hide his true persona. He wanted to appear dumb and/or violent and dangerous, but Nick would bet that he wasn't either. Well, he might be violent and dangerous under the right circumstances. Thus, the pirate beard and fake tough biker mentality.
On the other hand, Rocco looked like he could hold his own. And he carried a weapon under his jacket on the right side, probably a .38, and probably some kind of dagger in his black leather boot. Nick had seen such men before and he'd pegged Rocco Ramone right off. Most likely he was an undercover cop. What the hell was Claire into now? And why wouldn't she tell him about it?
“No trouble. Stick around. I usually like Claire's friends. As long as they don't get her shot or put her in a coma. Then I have a tendency to look them up and take care of it. Guess we're alike in that way.”
Rocco placed a steady gaze on him and dropped his lowlife, I-can-kill-you-before-you-blink act like a hot rock. “I won't get her shot. You don't have to worry about that. And I'm not putting moves on her, either.”
That was all he was going to get out of Rocco, Nick was pretty sure, but he had gotten the answers he wanted, so he didn't push it. He got up and headed to the steps, wondering what was taking Claire so damn long. He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned back when he heard the buzz of a motorboat, very loud in the quiet night. It seemed to be going fast and headed up the bayou toward them. As it neared, Rocco stood up, too, and watched it approach. The boat passed them on the opposite side of the bayou, about twenty yards distant, near a stand of flooded cypress trees.
It was dark, and all he could see was a figure in the stern, working a powerful outboard and wearing a dark hoodie against the chilly night. There was a single light in the prow, but it was too dark to see the driver clearly. The boater waved as he passed, a friendly Cajun out frog gigging, probably. Nick watched him a moment, and then glanced down below when he heard Claire come outside.
A low thud behind him told him something had hit the deck, and he spun and crouched quickly, his first thought that Rocco had come up fast behind him, perhaps more dangerous than Nick had thought. But it wasn't Rocco. Rocco was staring at the object rolling across the deck toward where Nick had been sitting at the table. Both of them froze for the first second, until a second grenade was lobbed onto the boat and landed, not a yard in front of Nick.
“Grenade!” Rocco yelled and tried to jump over the rail into the bayou.
Nick took a flying leap down onto the lower deck. He landed wrong, fell down on his shoulder, rolled back up onto his feet, near where Claire was standing, three beer bottles in her hands, looking stunned by his gymnastics. He threw himself toward her and took her over the railing with him. They hit the water about the time the first grenade exploded. The boom rocked his eardrums, and he felt splintered wood and shattered shards of glass raining down in the water all around them.
The second grenade went off almost simultaneously as they plummeted deeper and hit hard against the layer of mud at the bottom of the bayou. Then they fought their way back to the surface, gasping, choking, just as the gas tank in the stern blew up with a thunderous boom and a fiery explosion that lit up the night sky as bright as day. The houseboat disintegrated into rubble and orange flames that shot high in the air like hellfire loosed on earth.
Claire was treading water. In the glow of the flames, she looked shocked but okay. She was bleeding from the nose, but she was still breathing and her arms and legs were functioning. Black looked out over the debris-littered surface for Rocco. He saw him about six feet out, floating face up in the water. Nick felt a little stunned himself, ears stopped up and vibrating, eyes aching, and he was blinking away blood from some kind of gash over his left eye. He headed out to Rocco, found him still alive but unconscious. He and Claire grabbed him and somehow fought their way back to shore.
After they'd dragged him out, they rolled onto their backs for a moment, panting with exertion. Claire appeared too dazed to speak. He got up on his knees and did a cursory check of her arms and legs and found a gash on the back of her head, but it wasn't bad. He jerked off his shirt, ripped it up, and tried to wrap some of it around her head, well aware they'd both been extremely lucky they'd been blown off the boat or they'd have been caught in the fire of the explosion. Then he checked out Rocco, who had taken the brunt of the first blast, probably hit with debris before he made it down to the water. He was covered in shrapnel wounds. It looked like his left arm might be dislocated, maybe even broken, and he might have internal injuries as well. It was a good thing he was unconscious or he'd be in agony. Nick's head was pounding, blood pouring down his forehead, and he checked himself over and found another fairly deep laceration on his right thigh. He bound it up with what was left of his shirt. He felt dizzy for a moment, like he was going to pass out, and got on all fours and hung his head down until it stopped spinning.
“Black, Black . . .” Claire tried to sit up, then groaned and dropped her head back into the mud.
“Don't move yet. You might've hit your head. We've got to get an ambulance out here.”
“You're bleeding,” she managed in a slurred voice, frowning and trying to focus her eyes on his face. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, the shock of the blast wreaking havoc with the capillaries. His probably looked the same way.
“Yeah, a few cuts and bruises. Lie still. Does your head hurt?”
“It's killing me. What happened?”
Nick glanced at Rocco again. He was still breathing, but he was in bad shape. “That boat that passed by? He tossed a couple of grenades in on us.”
That got her attention and she roused up big time. “What? Grenades?” She stopped and then remembered her friend. “Is Gabe all right?”
“Rocco's in bad shape, if that's who you're talking about.”
She pushed herself up, and immediately cried out and grabbed her head with both hands. “Where is he? How bad is he?”
“He took the worst of the blast. I need to call an ambulance from the car.” Nick's head was slamming against his skull as if trying to knock his brain stem loose, and it felt like it was about to get its way. He was weak, but he was the one in the best shape to get them to the hospital. Rocco, or Gabe, or whatever the hell his name was, needed medical attention and needed it fast. His left arm was not in good condition, and he was bleeding from both his nose and his ears. Nick used a shattered piece of plank off the boat to splint the arm as best he could, which wasn't very well.
Still woozy, Claire managed to sit up and stare at the flickering flames, still roaring and crackling and consuming the houseboat, Nick watched her crawl on her hands and knees and cradle the other man's head in her lap. At that point, he knew that this guy, whoever he was, meant a lot more to Claire than some casual old friend. But all that would have to wait. He staggered to his car, got the hospital in Thibodaux on his satellite phone, identified himself as a doctor, described their injuries, and instructed the ambulance to meet them on the highway to Thibodaux.
When he got back, he pulled Rocco up and onto his shoulder, trying to avoid further injuring Rocco's bad arm and hoping to God Rocco didn't have internal injuries bleeding out inside his head or chest. The ensuing pain was severe enough to bring Rocco half conscious, and he groaned in pain. Claire tried to help Nick with him, but stumbled herself and went down to her knees, still groggy and disoriented. He left her there and hurried ahead, got Rocco in the backseat of the Range Rover, and then went back for Claire and settled her in the passenger seat. She lay her head back and shut her eyes and lapsed into semiconsciousness.
More than anything, he feared she'd sustained a second concussion, and he knew all too well what that could do to her, right now, when she had only just recovered from a head-injury-induced coma. Cursing inside, angry at himself for not realizing the danger and getting her out of it before the blast, he turned the ignition, slammed the car into gear, and backed up, spinning gravel in a sliding one-eighty turn and driving hard for the highway and the dispatched ambulance. Because now he knew, and all too well, that the grenades that had hurt Claire and her friend might have been thrown onto that boat to kill him, not them.