Tropical Dragon Diver (Shifting Sands Resort 5)

Chapter 1

The last notes of her song were fading out of the room as Saina rose carefully from the foot of the bed.

The man at the other end of the bed remained still, one arm flung back on his pillow as he drooled on it. Saina nudged him with a finger and decided with relief he would probably sleep for a while. Her lullaby had done its work, and he’d fallen asleep without laying one greasy finger on her.

If she was lucky, he’d be snoring for a few hours, and wake up not the slightest bit wiser for his little nap, every memory of Saina and her music nothing more than a distant fantasy. She gathered the skimpy dressing gown around her shoulders and drew in a breath.

It was a big room, for a boat, but it wasn’t big enough to hide much in. The safe in the closet gave her a moment of pause, but she knew that what she was really after wouldn’t fit in the shoebox-sized compartment, so she continued her hunt until she found the suitcase under the bunk. It was locked, but too ridiculously heavy for its size to be clothing. The handcuff hanging open off the handle made Saina certain this was her goal.

She slipped her hairpin kit out of her dark, upswept hair and wriggled it into the lock, grateful that it wasn’t a digital system. A few careful movements, listening diligently, and the tumblers fell away and clicked open. Saina unsnapped the clasps and tipped the lid back to expose bricks of pale gray, plastic-wrapped, just as it had been described.

This was it.

She sat back on her heels. She hated this whole job, every part of it was distasteful and wrong, even if the people on this yacht were all low-life smugglers who deserved no better. But her directions had been very specific and her Voice… her Voice needed her. No one else was going to come to her rescue, so it was up to Saina.

She went to the closet and got the lurid pink carry-on she had bought the week before, emptying its contents on the floor.

The bricks all but filled it, leaving room for one dress smashed on top, and her evening purse with her phone and makeup. The rest of the clothing, she stuffed into the handcuffed suitcase, shoving what was left to the very back of the closet.

Saina paused at the doorway and cracked the door, and was glad to see that the short hallway was empty. Sounds of carousing still came from the lounge towards the bow of the yacht, and she crept down the stairs towards the stern, pulling the luggage behind her as quietly as she could manage.

Two guards were standing outside the door out onto the back deck, smoking cigarettes and talking loudly.

Saina observed them through the windows, and looked past them to the dinghy tied along the side of the boat. It was pitch black out, in the very early hours of the morning. The tropical air was warm and thick with humidity. She suspected that a storm was coming.

Saina chewed on her cheek for a moment, considering her options. There weren’t many. She sighed, sucked her breath in, loosened her dressing gown, and sauntered out of the door like she owned it.

Her appearance arrested their conversation, and she heaved a dramatic sigh, nearly upsetting her breasts out of the skimpy lingerie she was wearing. “Good evening, boys,” she sing-songed.

“It’s that lounge singer Anders picked up at Jaco yesterday,” one of them recognized.

“And what a bore that guy was,” Saina said, giving them both appraising looks. Anders hadn’t gotten anything more from her than a nap, but they wouldn’t know that. She put one hand on her round hip and inspected her fingernails on the other.

They stared, cigarettes hanging from the edges of their mouths, before exchanging looks. Saina immediately dubbed them Skeptical and Hopeful in her head, based on their expressions.

Skeptical eyed her overloaded rolling luggage curiously, while Hopeful couldn’t stop staring at the cleavage spilling out of the frilly little number she was wearing. Saina turned her attention on Skeptical, humming lightly under her breath.

“You looking to give us a little private show?” Hopeful suggested gleefully.

Saina answered with a few bars of an appropriate pop song:

“Are you looking

For a good time?

Have you got yourself

A thin dime?”

&nbs

p; By the time she hit the second chorus, they were both swaying in place, the smile on Skeptical’s face as broad and entranced as Hopeful’s.

She kept singing as she went to work, persuading them with her song that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. There was nothing to see, they were simply lost in a simple fantasy of their own imagination. It would have been easier to simply drown them than to keep singing, like any one of her sisters would have, but Saina couldn’t bring herself to do that.

Not even to drug-running scumbag mercenaries like this.

She pulled the pink bag behind her to the stern of the ship and lifted the cowling off the inboard motor. It took only a few strong yanks to disconnect the fuel and easy-to-reach electronics, and Saina used a fire extinguisher to dent the ignition mechanism so it wouldn’t be an easy fix. The last thing she wanted was for them to be able to follow her. A glance showed that the disruptions to her song as she worked hadn’t broken the spell over Skeptical and Hopeful, but she knew she didn’t have much time or breath left.

Hauling the dinghy down from its rack and getting it over the side of the boat was a Herculean task, and Saina wished, not for the first time, that sensible shoes fit with the image she was trying to attain.

The dinghy splashed into the water, and Saina struggled to get the heavy luggage over after it, her song stuttering with the effort.

Then, as she drew in breath to get Skeptical and Hopeful back on track, her luck ran out.

On the deck above, there was a sudden shout and Saina looked up in alarm to spot another guard, this one with a girl hanging on his arm, dressed much as she was and looking vacant and tipsy.

Saina weighed her options. She wasn’t sure that she could enspell the guard before others came to his alarm cry, and she wasn’t sure how many more she would be able to sing insensible - she’d spent more of her energy than she anticipated. Instead of standing her ground, she kicked off her heels and vaulted over the edge of the boat into the wobbly dinghy. She flipped out the choke and yanked the tiny outboard to life.

The guard’s shouts intensified, and Saina heard others answer. Hopeful and Skeptical shook off the last of her song in confusion. Frantically, she pointed the dinghy away from the yacht and kicked it up to high gear, cursing its powerless motor and slow speed.

Still, the yacht and the shouting began to drop away in the darkness behind her, and Saina breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she would actually get away with this. Maybe…

Distant shots fired and bullets shattered the air around her. Saina dived to the bottom of the inflatable boat, covering her head and biting her lip against her cries of fear as they blasted around her for a length of time that seemed impossibly long. They couldn’t see her in the darkness, so the shots were wild, and she knew that was her only saving grace. As it was, the boat lurched sickeningly and she knew it had been hit. She could only hope that it had multiple floatation pockets, and that what hadn’t been compromised was enough to keep her afloat until she could get somewhere safe.

The motor hummed blissfully on, pushing her further and further away from the disabled yacht, and the shots became more and sporadic as the shouts got more distant. Saina’s cries of fear turned to sobs of pathetic relief as she thought she might escape with her life.

She crouched again, leaning to one side as the boat, clearly deflating on the other side, tipped and sagged. She scanned the water ahead, hopeful for lights, but saw nothing.

Behind her, another few shots rang out, and she was driven forward, nearly out of the boat, as pain and fire bloomed to one side of her back.

Chapter 2

Bastian drew in a deep breath of salty air. It was already windy, and he could smell the storm that was coming, though the sky above was still clear and sunny.