Reckless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel

Book 3: Caribbean Thriller Series

by Wayne Stinnett

Genres: Action & Adventure; Sea Adventures

Synopsis

Charity Styles is a world class sharpshooter, martial arts expert, and government assassin... but after a stressful assignment, all she wants is a little time to unwind on the quiet side of St. Thomas, the picturesque Magens Bay. What does she get? A hurricane, an ex, drug dealers, a psychotic murderer, an amorous developer, and forced to stay in the rowdy tourist town of Charlotte-Amalie. Naturally. By the time she sails Wind Dancer back to her beloved Magens Beach, a storm is brewing that threatens to displace her again, but this is a man-made storm and Charity has had all she can take. She's stressed and reckless and not even her friends can hold her in check as she takes on a fight that could change her future and the future of those she cares for.

Release date: March 28, 2017

Publisher: Down Island Press, LLC

Print pages: 220

Sample

Chapter One

Tiny waves lapped gently at the coarse, yellow-white sand. They seemed more like the tiny ripples you’d see in a small pond, after tossing a pebble. Just a few yards from the beach, the water of the bay turned a deep blue as the bottom quickly dropped away. Further up the shore, toward the foot of the long, rocky point that protected the bay, several good-sized fishing boats were beached, unloading their catch.

Around three sides of the bay, craggy volcanic rock rose right out of the water in most places. Aside from this quarter-mile-long shore, there were only a handful of other sand beaches in the bay, all very small. Magens Bay, the largest bay on the island of Saint Thomas, and Magens Beach, arguably one of its largest beaches, were rarely crowded—even in the height of tourist season, which hadn’t yet begun. 

This was to a certain degree due to its exposure to the sometimes treacherous North Atlantic. Magens Bay was a cruising destination, popular for its panoramic views and quiet tranquility. Most of the tourists stayed on the south side of the island, to be close to the nightlife of Charlotte Amalie. Though they were only a few miles apart, mountains separated Magens Bay from the more popular anchorages to the south.

Normally, the bay would have had at least two dozen cruisers, mostly sailboats, anchored just off the north end of the beach, where the fishermen were unloading. But three days ago a late-season hurricane had passed within two hundred miles of the Virgin Islands, so the bay was empty. The fishermen had only returned to work the day before.

Moving Wind Dancer was a waste of time, Charity thought as she gazed out over the water. The storm had never come any closer than two hundred miles, and its forward speed had been enough that it didn’t kick up large waves on Saint Thomas. Still, moving Wind Dancer had been the prudent thing to do. Living on a boat, you didn’t mess around with hurricanes. 

“One comes this way, you go that way,” a salty old sailor had told her, just before weighing anchor and heading south out of the path of Hurricane Ike.

So she’d moved the Dancer to a slip at Yacht Haven Grande, a large marina on the more protected south side of the island. 

Charity had come to Saint Thomas to unwind, work on her tan, and be alone—and for the last two days, she’d been forced to ride her bike for miles to find a secluded beach. 

Starting early this morning, she’d ridden the three miles from the marina to check on the anchorage in Magens Bay. Not a long ride on her folding bike, but the route across the island wound its way through the higher mountains. The pass on Hull Bay Road, roughly the halfway point of the ride, was nearly a thousand feet above sea level.

Charity spread a towel on the deserted beach and dropped her pack next to it. She took a long pull from a water bottle as she slowly looked around. Aside from the fishermen several hundred yards away, the beach and the bay were completely devoid of people. She pulled off her tee-shirt and shorts, then stretched out on the towel wearing the yellow bikini she’d bought in Aruba several months before. The towel was already warm from the sand, and the sun felt hot on her skin. Occasionally, a puff of a breeze out of the north would rustle the coconut palms and cause her exposed flesh to prickle.

“I’ll move back here tomorrow,” she said aloud and closed her eyes.

The late summer air hung heavily, and the warm sun lulled Charity to a more relaxed state than she’d been in many weeks. Her mind wandered back over the past eighteen months, since she’d left the States headed for an encounter with a terrorist cell on a volcano on the Mexican mainland. She’d been sent there to kill the leader, but she’d killed the whole cell in a bloodthirsty rage. 

Since then, there had been several more missions, and she’d crossed the Caribbean in all directions. She preferred to sail Dancer to each one, but occasionally she flew a helicopter that was currently stored at a private airfield in Puerto Rico.

She’d been reprimanded after that first mission, but more work had soon come her way. She’d been sent after a land baron in Venezuela, a cartel kingpin in Colombia, and a gang leader in Jamaica; she’d even kidnapped a couple right out from under Fidel and Raul’s noses in Cuba.

The Cuba mission had come very close to getting her killed, so she’d requested a month of rest and relaxation.

Her missions now were a lot different than the ones she’d participated in, while working under DHS. There, she’d worked with a whole team of highly skilled operators, each sharing his or her expertise with the other members of the Caribbean Counter-terrorism Command.

Now she worked alone, completely unfettered by responsibilities for others or ridiculous rules of engagement that gave the enemy a huge advantage. In the near future, she’d be given another target; soon after, that person would die. She had no illusions about what she was doing, nor about her own abilities. 

Well-trained in hand-to-hand fighting, Charity had taught krav maga to her former teammates. She’d learned the Israeli combat fighting technique while convalescing from injuries she received in Afghanistan, then continued her training after returning home and taking a job as a Miami-Dade patrol officer. 

Through her DHS counterparts, she’d mastered other skills and weapons, as well. 

And she had wiles that could disarm her target, and looks that could distract any man—as she’d done in Colombia. There, she’d had to get in close and kill the man with a fast-acting poison. The two days she’d spent inside his compound—and in his bed—would have nauseated her, but for the knowledge that he would die as soon as he let his guard down.

Later, in Cuba, Charity had sensed that she was losing her edge. She wasn’t as focused as she normally was, and that lack of focus had nearly cost her life. Inwardly, she readily admitted to herself that only the killing of the terrorists had been satisfying. But she would never tell anyone else that. 

Since then, her missions had been more against enemies of the CIA than against enemies of the state. She was unsure how much longer she could continue, or even if she should. Her reassignment was supposed to be more about fighting the country’s enemies on their terms, which were no terms at all. No rules—kill or be killed, any way she could get it done.

Her nightmares had all but ceased after Mexico; the demons that had once prowled her mind while she slept were for the most part dormant. She’d always been able to compartmentalize her conscious mind, to put the bad things that had happened to her under a mental lock and key. She’d openly confided in one of her former teammates, a man with whom she’d spent several weeks tracking down a traitorous killer. She’d told him about her nightmares and everything that had happened to her when she’d been captured in Afghanistan.

She’d never told anyone else everything that had happened—not even her shrinks, though she did have to give them something. She couldn’t very well tell them that her Taliban captors had provided sweet tea and fresh linens on her bed, but she also couldn’t tell them that for the first twenty-four hours her “bed” had been the table she was tied face down on while she was repeatedly raped and sodomized.

She’d told all these things to Jesse McDermitt, during their weeks alone on his boat. She’d sensed that he was plagued by his own demons, and he was the kind of man that could draw things out. He’d told her not to fight against the demons, but to embrace them and bend them to her own will. He’d shown her how she was stronger than them—and he’d been right. 

She’d soon learned to control things much better, tempering her desire to slaughter the enemy with a methodical approach and selective targeting. Jesse had once trained Marine snipers, and was a good teacher and role model of self-discipline—and when it came to the rifle, she’d learned later, there was no equal. He’d taught the team not just the art of shooting accurately at long distances, but also how to use cover and concealment in many forms. 

Charity missed the friends she’d made. She wondered all the time what they were doing—if they remembered her, or talked about her.

The sound of a splash brought her back to the moment. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked out over the serene bay. There was a sailboat anchored about fifty yards off the north end of the beach, with a man on the bow securing the anchor chain. 

She must have dozed. The entrance to the bay was a mile and a half away, and the bay had been empty when she’d lied down in the sun. The boat was big—bigger than Wind Dancer by about ten feet in length, with a cutter-ketch rig and the beamy look and high freeboard of a passage-making blue-water cruiser. She recognized the lines of the small ship, a Formosa. 

She also recognized the man on the bow.

Quickly, she gathered her towel, clothes, and backpack, and walked toward the trees where she’d left her bike. She didn’t move fast enough to draw attention—at least, she hoped not. She walked nonchalantly toward the trees and didn’t look back until she was out of sight of the boat.

Behind a flowering bush, Charity stopped and moved a branch slightly for a better view. Victor Pitt was looking in her direction through a pair of binoculars, scanning the tree line. She was certain he couldn’t see her through the brush, with its bright yellow flowers. But had he recognized her as she walked away with her back to him?

Her hair was now close to its natural blond, so she doubted the fugitive CIA agent recognized her. She’d been a brunette—and he’d been Rene Cook—when she’d met him on the island of Trinidad, over a year ago.

Slowly, Victor lowered the field glasses and went back to the aft cockpit, disappearing below deck. Charity quickly pulled her shorts and tee-shirt on over her bathing suit, shouldered her pack, and grabbed her bicycle, hurrying toward the road that would take her back to Charlotte Amalie and Wind Dancer.

Pumping hard up the trail leading to the high pass, she released her body to the task of riding the steep ascent and thought about the man she’d just seen. They’d shared a bed, more than once—even after they’d each known who the other really was. He’d helped her on her mission into the jungles of Venezuela, had even taken a bullet in doing so. Then he’d disappeared like a puff of smoke. 

She grinned slightly, remembering that he’d told her that had been his code name before deserting the Agency: Smoke.

What’s he doing here? Magens Bay was just the kind of place Victor would choose, if he were still on the run. Secluded and isolated, visited by cruisers who mostly wanted to be left alone. Could that be all there is?

Charity Styles wasn’t the kind of woman who slunk away from an altercation, but she’d also learned patience. If an altercation was unavoidable, a smart operator would make it on their own ground and at a time of their own choosing.

She would move Wind Dancer back to Magens Bay and confront Victor Pitt, but not today—and not at a time when he could see her coming. Today, she’d go back to the marina and make ready to sail. It was only fifteen or twenty miles around the western tip of the island; it wouldn’t take long, even if she had to run the diesel engine the whole way. There was no chance that Victor might stumble upon her at the marina. She’d go to sleep early and leave after midnight, so it would still be dark when she dropped anchor in Magens Bay.

As she reached the pass, the ground leveled off for a few yards. Charity stopped for a moment to look down at the bay. The area where Victor was anchored was obscured by trees, but the high pass had a commanding view of the bay’s entrance and Hans Lollik Island just to the north.

She chugged half a bottle of water, then leaned over and poured the rest over her head and neck, letting the water cascade down over her face. Though it was warm from hours in the backpack, it cooled her. She flipped her hair back to sling off most of the water, then got back on the little bike and coasted down the hill toward Long Bay and the marina.

The afternoon sun had heated Dancer’s interior, so Charity opened all the hatches and went back up on deck to store the bike and let the cabin cool down. In the cockpit, she powered up the chart plotter and plotted a course around the western tip of Saint Thomas.

Wind Dancer had a five-and-a-half-foot draft, and there were shoal waters to avoid. A forty-five-foot cutter-rigged sloop, designed by John Alden himself, she’d been built in a small shipyard in Maine in 1932, and refitted nearly two years ago. With her modern technology and amenities, Wind Dancer was easily single-handed. She had electronics that controlled virtually everything onboard, and she could sail herself across the Pacific. With her thirty-nine-foot waterline, she was easily capable of a sustained speed over eight knots—not fast by powerboat standards, but she had no engine failure worries. The bulk of her eighty-gallon fuel tank was used to power the auxiliary generator, to keep the batteries charged on cloudy, windless days, when the solar panels and wind generator were useless.

With her course plotted, Charity went below to eat a light lunch. She’d bought provisions and refueled when she brought Dancer around from Magens Bay, so there was little else to do but go to sleep early.

In the forward berth, Charity stripped down and stepped into the tiny head, turning the water on full hot. Minutes later, her skin raw from the heat and scrubbing, she stretched out nude on the bunk and was soon asleep.

 

* * * * *

 

The alarm woke Charity from a sound slumber. It was the middle of the night. As always, she was instantly awake and fully alert. She dressed quickly in dark jeans and a work shirt. Out of habit, she made her bunk, then went to the galley to put the coffee on. While it brewed, she powered up her laptop and connected to the secure satellite. She had no messages, but checking often had also gotten to be a habit. There really was no time off in her line of work. She could be called on to move at a moment’s notice, and was always prepared.

Mug and thermos in hand, she started the engine and went up to the cockpit while it warmed up. The little Yanmar diesel made a gentle burbling sound, the only thing to be heard in the marina at this hour. Looking around, she saw nobody on the docks, and none of the other boats’ lights were on.

Placing her mug and thermos on the aft bench seat, Charity quickly untied the dock lines. In minutes, she was slowly chugging out of the marina, turning the bow toward the southwest to go around Hassel Island and the much larger Water Island.

With the flip of a couple of switches in the small wheel console, the mainsail and jib silently deployed, catching the easterly breeze off the port quarter. Charity shut off the engine, relishing the silent movement of her craft. It was always a rush to her senses when her boat transferred power from the engine to sail. 

The sails snatched at the light wind, heeling the boat over a few degrees. Sunrise was still five hours away, but with just the main and jib she was sailing at a good six knots. There was no need to set the staysail; at this speed she’d enter Magens Bay in about three hours.

At the helm, she sipped her coffee and looked up at the night sky as the lights of the harbor town slipped away to the stern. Due south, just beyond the star-lit horizon, lay Saint Croix. The smart thing to do would be to sail there—or anywhere else, really. 

Charity didn’t think Victor was a threat to her, though. And he was the first person she’d seen in months that she knew. 

Charity sailed around the tip of Water Island and jibed west, then northwest. She engaged the autopilot, and the computer adjusted the sails slightly, following the line on the chart plotter and making for the passage between Kalkun Cay and Salt Cay. 

Nearly three hours later, Charity disengaged the autopilot as the computer turned Dancer into Magens Bay once more. Studying the bay, Charity stealthily guided Wind Dancer into the protected waters. Dancer’s hull was a deep blue and her sails chocolate brown, nearly invisible against the dark horizon as the boat silently moved across the water.

She steered toward the spot where the rocky spit joined the mainland of the island at the north end of Magens Beach. Victor’s big Formosa was still there and she watched it carefully. There were no lights on and she saw no movement on deck.

Finally, only a few hundred yards from his boat, Charity toggled a switch and the sails rolled silently back into their furlers. Drifting slowly forward, she waited until Dancer had nearly stopped before she released the brake on the windlass. The heavy anchor splashed into the water.

The light wind dropped down from the headland and slowly pushed Dancer back and away from the Formosa. Charity checked the depth and let the drift pull more of the chain from the closet until she had the right scope out. She engaged the windlass brake and felt the backward momentum stop as the anchor bit into the sandy bottom and pulled the bow around into the wind.

Quickly, Charity went forward and secured the windlass. When that was done, she went below, doused all but the anchor light on the masthead, and sat down at the navigation station. She moved the cursor on the laptop to the camera icon and activated the newly installed remote camera, mounted on the very top of the masthead. The camera could be rotated in a complete circle, giving her a three-hundred-sixty-degree view.

Turning the camera, she studied Victor’s boat again, moving the camera slightly as the Dancer swung back and forth in the light breeze. There still weren’t any lights on. She switched to thermal imaging, but the big boat’s thick hull couldn’t be penetrated enough to show people inside. It did show the aft section slightly warmer than the rest of the boat. The three big, square portholes on the stern practically glowed, indicating it probably had an aft stateroom and that was likely where Victor was.

She zoomed the camera out, so that the whole boat and then some was in the frame and switched the optics back to night vision, knowing that the man was an early riser. Using only the subdued red light over the galley, she prepared breakfast and started another pot of coffee to drink while she waited.

The wait was less than an hour. As she cleaned the dishes and put them away, a bright light appeared on the laptop screen. She sat down and switched the camera to normal optics. Light poured from the portholes, illuminating long ovals of water around Victor’s boat. The eastern sky was starting to brighten, and provided more than enough light for the camera’s sensitive optics.

“Okay, Vic,” Charity muttered. “Let’s see how long it takes before you get curious.”

Opening a drawer under the desk, she reached her hand all the way in and pressed a small recess in the corner. The back of the drawer flopped down and she extracted her Sig Sauer P229 and a loaded magazine. Knowing how well sound transferred to water through the wood hull, she quietly inserted the magazine, and without taking her eyes off the screen, slowly racked a round into the chamber, easing the slide back into place. Decocking it, she placed the gun beside the laptop, then reached back into the drawer, removed a clip-on holster, and closed both the hidden panel and the drawer.

Charity holstered the Sig and clipped the holster to her belt. She doubted that Victor being there was anything more than coincidence—and she didn’t feel he was a threat in any way—but he was a former CIA operative and a dangerous man. Who knew how he might have changed since they first met?

Ten minutes later, Victor came out of the hatch into his cockpit and looked right at the Dancer laying at anchor less than fifty yards away. After a moment, he pulled a pair of binoculars from under a bench and studied Charity’s boat from stem to stern.

Victor had never been aboard Wind Dancer, Charity had never mentioned her boat’s name or what it looked like, and he’d never seen her on it. But they’d both been docked at the same marina in the Caymans when they first met, so he might very well remember having seen the Dancer before.

Victor lowered the binoculars and scratched at the stubble of beard on his chin as he gazed at the Dancer. Charity zoomed the camera in on his face. Aside from the week-old beard, he hadn’t changed much. She still found him ruggedly handsome.

He seemed to come to a decision and quickly went below. A moment later, he emerged and went to the stern, where his tender was tied. Charity felt a rush of excitement as he glanced at her boat again before pulling the dinghy up to the port side and stepping down into it.

Though it had an engine, Victor set the oars in the dinghy’s oarlocks and began rowing. This troubled Charity. Was he trying to approach quietly? She followed him with the camera, as he circled wide around Wind Dancer’s stern. He was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt, typical of the boating crowd. It didn’t appear that he was armed.

Charity reached over to the electrical panel and flipped on the lights in the forward vee-berth. Victor stopped rowing for a moment and finally turned toward Charity’s boat. He swept the oars twice, then stood up and hailed her: “Ahoy, Wind Dancer!”

Charity didn’t hesitate. Victor’s guard was down. She went up the ladder to the cockpit and quickly stepped up onto the port bench, her left hand on the boom and her right resting easily on the Sig.

“Sleeping late these days, Victor?” she asked in a barely audible voice.

He nearly stumbled back, but caught his balance before going overboard.  “Who is that?” he asked, also in a hushed voice.

He couldn’t see her face. With her boat pointed into the easterly breeze, the gathering early morning light was just over her left shoulder, so what little light the rising sun provided was behind her. 

But the outline of the gun on her right hip would be clearly visible.

“You’ve forgotten Port of Spain already?” she asked.

Bending and trying to get a better look, Victor said, “Charity?”

“Why are you here, Victor?”

“Why am I—what? You think I’m after you now? Why are you here?”

“I’ve been here for days,” she replied, recalling his paranoia. “Watched you anchor yesterday, so I thought I’d bring my boat around and say hi. Why are you here?” 

The sky was getting lighter by the second. Soon, it would be fully daylight. Twilight lasts only a few minutes on the ocean. 

Charity could see Victor’s eyes as he looked to his right, toward shore, and then to the left, toward his boat.

“Jeez, you’re a paranoid shit,” she said. “If I were here to kill you, you’d already be dead. You know I don’t play games.”

Slowly, Victor sat down on the tiny bench. “I used to come here pretty regularly. I have friends here. Been up on Andros for the last year or so, working for an old guy who does fishing charters.”

“Someone figured out who you were?”

“Something like that.”

“Want some coffee?” Charity asked, turning her back and stepping down off the bench to the port rail.

Victor hesitated, then began rowing toward where Charity stood. He rowed backward, ostensibly so he could watch where he was going. But Charity knew it was also due to an overabundance of caution. 

When he was close, he tossed the painter and Charity caught it. Wind Dancer’s cockpit was small, and Charity stepped back as far as she could as Victor stood, put his palms flat on the side deck, and levered himself up. 

He stood and faced her, lifting his tee-shirt and turning. “I don’t have a gun.”

“I know,” she replied casually. “What I don’t know is if you’re still running—or maybe hooked up with one of the many enemies I’ve made since we last saw each other.”

“Hooked up with—” he began, then a light seemed to go on behind his eyes. “I didn’t even know that was you on the beach yesterday. You’re a blonde now. No, I’m not hooked up with anyone in that way, and not even considering it. I just want to be left alone.”

“Except when you don’t,” Charity said with a grin, remembering that one wild night in her hotel room. “Coffee’s in the salon.”

As she started to step down into the cabin, a roaring explosion split the calm, morning air. 

Dozens of roosting birds flew up from the trees, all screaming together, as Victor and Charity took cover on the deck. Both instinctively reached for their weapons, but only Charity was armed. She drew her Sig from its holster as they lay flat on the deck, faces only inches apart. 

On the beach, back among the trees, a rolling cloud of orange flame and black smoke rose into the sky, igniting the branches of several palm trees, which crackled like mini-firecrackers. She’d stopped at the little Tiki bar a few times. It sat just inside the trees, where the road climbed up to the ridge and ran out to the end of the long spit of land, a gathering place for tourists and a spot for locals to exchange information. The old man who owned it made the best conch fritters she’d ever eaten.

“Come on!” Victor said, scrambling over the side to his dinghy and untying the line. As Charity climbed down, he lowered the engine and pulled on the starting cord. It fired up instantly. In the back of her mind, Charity wondered why he’d rowed over if his engine worked.

“That’s Chet’s shack,” he said, twisting the throttle, and running the little boat quickly toward shore. Along Peterborg Peninsula, lights were coming on in the nearer rental villas. A few people came out on their back decks to see what was going on. From up the road leading away from the beach, angry voices could be heard shouting.

Victor ran his dinghy right up on the beach at full speed, only shutting off the engine as the prop came up out of the water, and grabbed a fire extinguisher from under the little console. Together, he and Charity sprinted toward the fire. 

Charity could see that the little Tiki bar was completely destroyed, what was left of it ablaze in an alcohol-fueled inferno. Through the trees, she could see a group of men in the firelight. One was on the ground, and three others were kicking and screaming at him. She veered off toward them as Victor began dousing the fire with the extinguisher.

The three men turned as one when Charity crashed through the brush into the clearing. None appeared to be armed. Not wanting to explain to anyone why she was shooting people, she quickly holstered her gun and walked toward them, her strides long and purposeful.

“Ain’t nutting for yuh here, white bitch,” one of the men said, as he separated himself from the other two. Then he grinned and looked at his friends. “But maybe dis pretty thing wanna dance wit all three of us.”

The other two men spread out a little. They were young black men, long hair twisted into dreadlocks—more popular on Jamaica than in the Virgin Islands. Their accents didn’t sound like those of the people here on Saint Thomas. All three were capable looking.

A second man grinned. “Ya mon, let’s take dis bitch up to di shack and dance all day. Dat what yuh want, white girl? Three big bulls to dance yuh pretty ass on?”

The man they’d been kicking scurried a few feet away like a crab as Charity closed the distance. The second man to speak was closest and charged at her, arms wide, like he was trying to catch a chicken.

Charity moved instinctively, fluidly stepping in and ducking under the man’s outstretched arm without breaking stride. It was a move she’d taught her former teammates, one she’d learned in the Middle East while studying krav maga. Her head and shoulders went under the man’s outstretched arm, and her knee came up on the other side, jamming deep into his midsection with enough force and speed to send him toppling backward as the air whooshed from his lungs.

Moving toward the other man, she nonchalantly kicked the first attacker in the side of his head with her bare foot as he tried to get up. He went sprawling back onto the sand, his body inert. 

The first man circled around behind her as she closed on the man who hadn’t spoken yet. He was bigger than the other two. He grinned broadly, exposing two gold teeth.

Charity feinted to the left and the man took the bait, grabbing for her. But she was already spinning back the other way, and his arms grabbed nothing but air. She leaped into the air, completing the spin as her right leg whipped out. The bottom of her foot met the man’s nose, flattening it and spraying blood everywhere. 

He dropped to his knees, his eyes blinking, but his body no longer responding.

Charity finished the spinning back kick, landing lightly in a crouch next to the kneeling man. She grabbed a handful of dreadlocks with her left hand and lifted his head. Then her right fist came down hard on the left hinge of his jaw. The sickening crack left no doubt that he’d be eating through a straw for a while.

Whipping her head around, Charity looked for the first man. When he saw her face, he stopped. That proved to be his undoing, as Victor stepped up behind him and clobbered him with the spent fire extinguisher.

Victor dropped the heavy cylinder and started toward Charity, but stopped in his tracks at the sight of her face.

“Easy now,” he cautioned. “They’re all down.”

She slowly rose from the sand and looked around at the three thugs.

“I knew my first instinct was right about you,” Victor said with a grin.

“Your first instinct was that I exhibited poor field craft.”

“Okay,” he said with a grin, pushing a shock of dark blond hair from his forehead. “My second instinct, then. What the hell was that acrobatic stuff?”

“Staying alive,” was Charity’s only response.

As she stepped up close to Victor, she glanced toward the man who had been on the receiving end of the thugs’ beating. He was struggling to his feet, clutching his side.

Suddenly, the first man Charity had put down jumped to his feet and began scrambling up the hill. In a flash, Charity was after him, screaming like a banshee. The man had a good fifteen-yard head start, but by the time he was halfway up the hill, it looked like a dead heat as to who would reach the road first. 

The constant stream of terrifying growls and obscenities from Charity’s lips seemed to spur the man on. Above, a car engine started, and the man redoubled his efforts, reaching the top a step ahead of the maniacal woman clawing and charging up the hillside to reach him.

Charity heard a car door slam and the roar of the engine as the car’s tires spun sand and loose gravel. Reaching the road, she glared after the receding vehicle, hands on her hips, breathing heavily. A rusty, blue Datsun pickup, more than thirty years old, bounced and weaved up the hill, like a drunk, wheezing boxer.

Charity’s shoulders slumped, and she turned to look down on the carnage. Aside from a few planks with blue alcohol flames dancing on them, the fire was out. There wasn’t much left of the little Tiki bar. 

She’d visited it a couple of times, sat on a stool and looked out over the bay while talking to the little old black man who owned it.

A wave of emotion came over her and she dropped to her knees. She’d done what she’d spent the last year trying so hard to avoid: when her feet had first hit the sand, the lock had opened, and the demons had all flown out. 

She usually did that intentionally, when she didn’t know just what danger was ahead; the demons kept her focused. This time, she felt that if Victor hadn’t stopped her, she would have broken the neck of the man she’d been kneeling over, then calmly walked over and killed the other two. 

When the three aggressors were down, there was no longer any danger—but she hadn’t intended to unlock the demons the second time.

I can’t keep doing this, Charity thought. 

And then, without knowing she was speaking, she whispered, “I want to go home.”

Chapter Two

Charity had stashed her gun in the little console of Victor’s dinghy before the police arrived. Victor introduced Charity to the little old man, Chet, who had agreed to keep them out of it. Charity and Victor devised a quick timeline of events so their stories would be the same.

When the police arrived, Chet explained that the two men—and another who ran away—had tried to rob him, and they’d burned up his Tiki bar.

“I don’t think they knew there were propane tanks inside,” he told the lead police officer. He went on to tell him that the propane and liquor bottles had exploded and injured him and his attackers. “These folks arrived in time to put out most of the fire.”

“You didn’t see where the other man went?” the young policeman asked the three of them. His nametag read Lucien.

“He got into an old blue pickup,” Charity said, with a touch of a Cuban accent. She pointed up the hill. “It was a Datsun, I think. Then he took off up the hill.”

“Mmm,” Lucien said, writing in a notebook. “Nothing to worry ’bout. Dis is an isolated incident.”

Over his shoulder, Charity couldn’t help but notice Chet rolling his eyes at the comment.

“May I see yuh identification?” Lucien asked Victor and Charity.

“Mine’s on my boat,” Charity said. “We came ashore in kind of a hurry.”

“Is dat your dinghy?” he asked, pointing with his chin.

“No,” Victor said. “It’s mine. She’s welcome to use it to go to her boat and get her visa, if that’s all right.”

“Americans don’t need a visa,” Lucien said to Victor.

“Well, I don’t have a driver’s license,” Victor said, handing the policeman his own visa. “Don’t own a car or a house.”

Lucien looked first at Victor, then at Charity. “Go dere and right back, please.”

Charity went down to the water’s edge and pushed Victor’s dinghy into deeper water, then climbed aboard and started the engine. She was glad for Victor’s suggestion; it would give her a second to stash her weapon on the Dancer before returning. 

Officer Lucien seemed suspicious, and though Saint Thomas was an American territory, if either of them were caught with guns here, there would be far too many questions to answer.

Climbing up to the cockpit, she stepped quickly down into the salon, opened the drawer at the nav-station, and put the Sig away in its hiding place. Then she grabbed her passport from the same drawer and returned to the beach.

Lucien had already taken Victor’s statement, and now examined Charity’s visa. “No house and no car, as well?”

“No,” Charity replied. “I have both, but don’t bring them with me on the boat. I leave my purse at home as well.”

He looked at her sternly for a moment. “Very well, Miss Fleming. Tell me what you saw happen here dis morning.”

“I really didn’t see much,” Charity said. “It was still dark when Mister Cook invited me to breakfast. The explosion happened just as we got into his dinghy. When we got to the beach, he put out what he could with a fire extinguisher and I checked on Chet to see if he was okay.”

“Both he and di two men he claimed tried to rob him look like they been fighting.”

“Fighting?” Charity said, trying for an incredulous expression. “Look at poor Chet, Officer. Does he look like he could beat those men up? Maybe they were all hit by debris in the explosion.”

“Mmm,” Officer Lucien said again, as he wrote in his notebook. “Dat was what he said. Di two men and one other put a match to his shack and di liquor blew up, hurting all of them.”

Charity looked around at what little was left of Chet’s Tiki bar. The sun was well above the horizon now, the sky clear and bright, so nothing was hidden. Charity thought about what the two men would say when they woke up. She doubted they’d be cooperative with the police, and it was also doubtful that they’d admit a woman had beaten them up.

“It was a big explosion,” she said. “Good thing there weren’t others around. It could have been much worse.”

“Mmm,” Lucien said again. “Guess yuh right about dat.”

An ambulance arrived, and the two men had their vital signs checked before they were put on stretchers and loaded into it. Chet refused treatment, saying he’d only been hit in the side by a board, and felt fine.

Later, after the police and most of the gawkers had left, Victor asked Chet what was really going on. Chet looked from Victor to Charity, then up to a group of people still standing on the road above. Two of them, an elderly island couple that Victor knew, started down the hill.

“Those men have been coming here for a week,” Chet explained, his accent a distinct French Creole. “They tell me and other businesses that we need their protection and we should pay them for it.”

“Protection?” Victor asked.

“Oi,” the tall man approaching said. He was an older man, perhaps sixty, with soft features, skin the color of mahogany, and surprising green eyes. A little round woman with dark skin and light brown eyes accompanied him. “But it is none of your concern, Rene. It is something we must take care of ourselves.”

“If I’m here, Henri, it concerns me, too,” Victor said. “You are my friends. Please, say hello to another of my friends, Gabriela Fleming.” He turned to Charity and said, “This is Mister Henri Heureaux and his wife, Lisette. They own a couple of small rental villas on Peterborg Peninsula.”

“My pleasure, Miss Fleming,” Henri said.

Charity shook the man’s hand, and then his wife’s. “I’m inclined to agree with Rene, Mister Heureaux. I’m no stranger to these islands; they’re almost like a second home. Those men aren’t from around here, are they?”

“No, they are Jamaicans.” Henri said it with a bit of venom in his voice. “And please, call me Henri.”

“Only if you will call me Gabby,” Charity said, liking the old man instantly. “Since when are Jamaican gangs spreading their influence to the Virgin Islands? And soliciting for protection money? That sounds like something from an old noir movie.”

Henri smiled at Charity. “There is little to stop the spread of evil here.” He then turned to Victor. “But, Rene, my friend, we cannot involve you.”

“We’re already involved, Henri. Those two men weren’t hurt by flying debris, like Chet told the cops.”

Henri glanced at Chet, who nodded, then at Charity. Finally his gaze returned to Victor. “When those men wake up, you will be in trouble. All the more reason for you to leave.”

“They’re not going to say anything to the police,” Charity said.

“How can you be sure?”

“It wasn’t Rene who beat them up,” Charity replied.

Henri gave Victor a confused look, then slowly returned his gaze to Charity and grinned. “Ah, I believe you are right. They won’t tell the police who it was that beat them. But there are more of them. Those two will tell the others. And they will come for you. It would be best if you both left the island.”

Victor looked at Charity and nodded his head toward the beach. “Can I speak with you a moment?”

They walked away from Henri and the others, and stopped beside Victor’s dinghy. “First,” he said, “thanks for not spilling my real name.”

“And thanks for remembering my alias,” Charity said, with a grin. “And giving me a chance to stash my weapon. And, before you say anything else, I’m not leaving.”

Victor looked out at their two boats, resting quietly at anchor just off the beach. “Part of me says to pull the hook and set the sails. I don’t need the attention.”

“Nor do I.”

His brow furrowed. “These people are my friends, though. If there’s anything I can do to help them, I will. But you’re not involved.”

“I don’t like bullies,” Charity said. “I came here to relax and unwind after a mission. I’m staying, and if I can help your friends, I will.”

Victor considered Charity’s eyes and, for just a moment, he saw that flicker of fire he’d witnessed when she stood over the fallen Jamaican. She looked away and, as she brushed a strand of hair away from her face, he stole a quick glance at her body. 

When she looked back at him, he smiled. “You look good. I like the blond hair.”

Charity smiled back. “You look good, too. I’ve missed you.”

“Really?” he said, stammering slightly. “On Trinidad, I felt like you couldn’t get rid of me quick enough.”

“I was working,” Charity said, with a shrug. “You were a liability.”

It was Victor’s turn to stare out over the water. “Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from.” He looked back at Charity and asked, “So, we’re staying?”

“Something’s not right here,” she replied, turning and slowly walking back toward the group of islanders.

“What do you mean?” Victor asked, joining her.

“Jamaican gangs aren’t into extorting protection money. The big money’s in drugs and human trafficking.” She stopped and turned to him. “How much do these people know about you?”

“I’ve been here off and on many times,” Victor replied. “Usually there are a lot of cruisers here, and most have some work that needs doing and they’re not qualified to do it. Same with the locals. I have a decent shop on board. Why take a fishing boat all the way around to Charlotte Amalie, if someone here can do the work? That’s who they know me as, a boat worker.”

“Then we’ll keep it that way for both of us.” Charity resumed walking toward the others. “I’ve been thinking, Henri,” she said, as she approached the Heureauxes. “I’ve been on that boat for months now. Do you have a villa available?”

“A villa?”

“Yes,” Charity said. “With a view of the bay?”

“Why, yes,” Lisette Heureaux replied, beaming. “The villa on Little Magens Beach is available. It even has a pool and sauna.”

“Where is it?”

Lisette pointed to a spot halfway out the long peninsula. “It’s there, on the ridge just beyond that small beach.”

Where she pointed, Charity could see a house on the highest part of the ridge. Below it was a small, sandy beach. It had a view of the whole bay and the beach they were on. Scanning the ridge and looking up the road from the beach, she could tell that the house had a commanding view of the road, down to Magens Beach and probably more.

“I’ll take it,” Charity said.

“Well, don’t you want to see it first?” the little round woman said.

“Or ask how much?” Henri added.

“I’m sure it’ll be roomier than Wind Dancer,” Charity said.

Lisette cast her eyes down a moment then looked sheepishly at Charity. “It is one thousand dollars a week, I’m afraid.”

“Will cash be okay?” Charity asked. “For two weeks?”

Lisette smiled. “Yes, yes, that will be fine. There is one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Well,” Henri began, “the sandy beach just this side of the villa is Little Magens Beach. It’s known to be clothing optional. It is not permitted, nor sanctioned by either the government or ourselves, but we have no control over what people do.”

“I can live with that,” Charity said.

They arranged to meet at the villa at noon, so Charity could move and re-anchor the Dancer just off Little Magens Beach. Victor and Charity pushed the dinghy out and climbed in, idling slowly out to their boats. 

Reaching the Dancer, Charity climbed up to the cockpit and turned to look down at Victor. “You’re going to move your boat, as well?”

Victor squinted up at her. “Is that an invitation, Miss Fleming?”

“We need to stay close, Victor. Something about this whole thing just seems weird. Who robs a bartender in the morning?” Then she smiled and said, “And as far as anything else goes, let’s just take things as they come.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that, too,” he replied, his boat bobbing in the slight chop, as he held onto Dancer’s rail. “It would have been smarter to wait until he closed up at the end of the day. Sure, I’ll move Salty Dog over.”

“Salty Dog?” Charity asked with a grin. “Not very original, Victor.”

“Name she came with,” he said, pushing away from the Dancer. “Too lazy to change it. Lead the way. I’ll anchor upwind of you.”

“Off the nude beach,” Charity said with a grin. “Figured as much.”

She went below and opened the forward hatch over her bunk, leaving the main hatch open, to let the boat air out. She started the engine and activated the electric windlass to pull the anchor. Once it was seated in its roller, she put the transmission into forward and turned the bow to the northwest, following the peninsula.

Little Magens Beach was easy to find. Nearly all the shoreline was craggy rock. A natural jetty of what looked like tumbled down rocks blocked the wave action in one spot about halfway out the peninsula. Over time, sand had built up on the side facing the bay opening, creating a tiny beach area. The cliff above it had been worn down and was lower there, the landscape tangled with palm trees, ferns, cactus, and jagged rocks.

Approaching the house at the far end of the small beach, she zoomed in on the chart plotter. The bottom dropped away from the shoreline very fast. She picked a spot a little past the house and some hundred-and-fifty yards from shore and dropped anchor in forty feet of water. Backing off, she let out three hundred feet of rode and activated the windlass brake until she felt the backward movement stop and the anchor chain rattle. Even if the wind shifted and swung Wind Dancer’s stern toward shore, she’d have ten feet under her keel, and be about forty or fifty yards from shore.

Satisfied that her ground tackle was secure, Charity shut down the engine. On the foredeck, she released the straps on her tiny dinghy and wrestled it off its cradle and into the water. Minutes later, she had the little outboard mounted, and ran the engine for a moment before climbing back aboard. 

In her cabin, Charity packed just a few things in a small backpack. Kneeling by the entertainment center in the salon, she counted down to the ninth CD in the inboard rack and pushed it in. The catch released and she swung the pair of CD racks out, opening them like doors. 

Behind the racks was a hiding spot, one of many on Wind Dancer. The left side of this one continued several feet deep and contained a long black tactical case, nestled against the hull just below the head. On the right side, two handguns were mounted to the inside of the bulkhead, with boxes of ammo stacked neatly below them on a narrow shelf. On the deck, lay a small black box, which she lifted out and placed on the settee. Opening it, she counted out twenty hundred-dollar bills from a large stack and folded the bills into her back pocket. Then she counted out another hundred dollars in twenties and put that in her other back pocket. 

She closed the box and returned it to its hiding place, securing the racks back in place with a click.

At the nav-station, she retrieved her Sig, and stuffed it and the money into her backpack. She closed and latched all the hatches, then climbed up to the cockpit. She secured the main hatch and stepped down into the dinghy. Later, she’d come back out and retrieve a few other things, after checking the house to see what she might need. Between her and Victor, she was sure they had the skills to make any more extortive visits by the Jamaicans a troublesome affair.

Looking over, she saw that Victor was already anchored, and heading toward her in his dinghy. She started the little outboard and pushed away from the Dancer, turning toward the north end of the beach and accelerating. Victor changed course and they met at the end of the beach, where a trail wound its way up the rocks, splitting into two separate paths. One led up to the house, and the other angled away to the right, probably up to the road above.

“Tide’s nearly full,” Victor said, pulling his dinghy up high on the sand and pulling out enough dock line to tie off to a coconut palm. “The dinghies should be safe here and if we need them at low tide, well, it doesn’t fall much. We can drag them twenty feet to the water.”

Charity secured her dinghy likewise and they each shouldered their small packs and started up the trail. “I’ll come back out later and get some more equipment,” Charity said. “That pool deck up there should have a good view of the road coming down from the pass.”

“What sort of other equipment?”

“I have night vision optics aboard. Also a camera, with a motion alert I can train on the approach road. It will alert me if anyone comes down from the mountains, long before they get to Magens Beach.”

“What’s your motivation here, Charity?

They reached the split in the trail and Charity stopped and turned around. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t know these people,” he said, stopping in front of her.

“Let’s just say I’m bored,” she replied. “And seriously, I don’t like bullies.”

“Good enough for me,” he said, continuing up the trail ahead of her. “It’s never boring when you’re around.”

They reached the top of the cliff, both breathing hard. Charity stopped and turned around. Beneath them, the beach was deserted and the boats looked peaceful, their shadows visible on the sandy bottom.

“Whoa,” Victor said. “Even if it was just a thatched hut, the view would be worth the price of admission. Speaking of which, how much do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” Charity said, looking away toward Magens Beach. Even from this vantage point, she could tell that most of the road would be visible from some spot on the property. “A rich uncle keeps sending me money.” 

At the end of the path was a gate, which Victor opened and held for Charity. The gate slammed shut on sprung hinges, and they walked out onto a concrete deck. In the middle was a kidney-shaped pool, with the small, concrete house just beyond. There were five chaise lounges scattered around the deck, plus an umbrella table with four chairs. All the outdoor furnishings were white, with the umbrella a navy blue that matched the throw pillows on the furniture.

The back of the house was nearly all glass. Heavily-tinted windows and French doors spanned the width of the house. One of the French doors swung open as they approached.

Lisette stepped through the door, followed by Henri and Chet. “Welcome to Hilltop,” Lisette said, as Charity and Victor walked around the pool and joined them.

Charity stopped and looked all around. Everything, except the mountains looking over the bay, was below them. She could see the whole bay and nearly all of the peninsula road as it wound along the top of the ridge. What was left of Chet’s Tiki bar and the burnt palm trees around it could be seen, as well as the road leading up to the switchback high above the far side of Magens Beach. Portions of it could be seen nearly all the way to the pass.

“Would you mind terribly if I ask you something?” Henri said.

“Sure,” Victor replied, as Charity turned and looked up at the roof of the house. It appeared to be flat, like most homes built on the islands.

“What exactly do you plan to do?” Henri asked hesitantly. “I mean, about Chet’s early morning visitors?”

“How many people have been threatened by this gang?” Charity asked, still looking around at the surroundings.

“Most of the twenty-three homes on the peninsula are rentals,” Lisette replied. “We own three. Of the rentals, all but two are owned by local people. All of us, as well as Chet and three other vendors on Magens Beach—people who depend on tourists and beachgoers for their livelihood—have had some negative contact with them.”

“Is your place the only one that’s been damaged?” she asked Chet

“Yes,” he replied. “Until this morning, there have been only taunts and threats, but no violence.”

Charity looked at Henri. “My guess is that none of you have paid them anything. Am I right?”

“None that I know of,” Henri replied. “But now, I’m not so sure it will stay that way.”

“Rene and I have backgrounds in security,” Charity said. “Those men are going to come back. They’ll demand protection money from you to keep something from happening to your villas, like what happened to Chet’s Tiki bar.”

“They used Chet as an example,” Victor added.

“Again,” Henri asked. “What do you plan to do? We cannot allow you to be harmed on our behalf.”

“No harm will come to anyone, if it can be avoided,” Charity said, then asked all three: “The response time of the police this morning, is that about average?”

They looked at each other. 

“I don’t know,” Henri finally replied. “Today may be the first time the police have been called to this side of the island in an emergency, at least that I can remember.”

“So if those guys come back with reinforcements—which they will, and soon—the people here are on their own for more than fifteen minutes? A lot can happen in that short a time.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Lisette said, frowning. “This has always been a quiet and peaceful place.”

“This is a touchy question,” Charity said. “Do any of the home or business owners have guns that you know of?”

“You think it will come to that?” Henri asked, pulling his wife close in a protective gesture.

“It may,” Charity said. “I was once a Miami police officer, and in the Army before that. The police here might not have the experience, equipment, or manpower to deal with this kind of stuff. In my experience, these things do tend to escalate. So, for at least ten minutes, it’s just us.”