Red Tide (Billy Knight Thrillers 2)

Now I was trying on armor, looking for a white charger. And trying to please the princess and Nicky the Wizard. Whoever said life was funny was a sadistic bastard.

It might have been all the driving, the rhythm of the tires on the road and the miles rolling past with the sun going down. But as it got darker I started to feel like I was dreaming. Everything that had happened in the last few weeks pushed back into my mind. It was all gumming up together, turning into one glob of pain and uncertainty.

Anna. The look of her neck and clavicle. Her story of the soldiers coming, the murder of her family.

Nancy. What we had been through, what we had almost been.

The sailboat sliding through the water with Nicky belching on the bow.

The fight with Tiny, which seemed like it had happened to someone else a long time ago.

And pushing out all the other pictures was the image of bodies bobbing in the water, washing up on the beach. And a man with no face far out to sea, counting the money while the voodoo drums rolled.

I didn’t know what to do. I felt caught in a nightmare where everything else moves fast, with a purpose, and I was stuck in slow motion wearing lead sneakers. And I couldn’t even wake up and pound on the pillow.

It was dark when I got back to Key West. All I wanted to do was go to sleep, stop thinking, let my unconscious brain sort things out. But there was a light showing in my window, and when I pushed my front door open and stepped into the living room, Anna was sitting in my easy chair.

She was wearing a loose white silk shirt and white pants and she looked so beautiful that at first I thought she was another dream image. Except that Nicky was standing in front of her in the center of the room, a beer in each hand, telling her some outrageous something or other, and whatever else he was, Nicky was no dream.

“Billy!” he bellowed, and Anna smiled at me.

“Thanks for waiting up,” I said.

“No worries, mate,” Nicky said, and he held up one of my beers. “This stuff was going bad so we had to field test it.”

“I appreciate it,” I said, moving towards the kitchen. “Did any of it survive the field test?”

Nicky looked hurt. “Aw, man, think I’d take your last one?”

“Only if you were thirsty,” I said.

He giggled. “Too right. And I’m always thirsty. But I left you one any road.”

I opened the refrigerator and took the last beer. There had been a six-pack this morning. Five bottles gone. So I knew Nicky had been here waiting for at least ten minutes.

I took a long pull. I knew they were waiting for me to tell them what I had found out, but I didn’t know where to start, how to say it. “It’s bad,” I said.

“This is why we wait,” she said. “So you are not alone with the bad in the night.”

I looked at her. It was worth doing. “That’s right,” I said. “Except it’s worse than you thought.”

“I knew it,” Nicky said softly.

“Somebody has killed some people, just dumped them alive into the Gulf Stream and let them drown. As far as I can find out, no American law enforcement agency is looking into it.”

“How the bloody hell can they not?” Nicky wanted to know.

“It’s in international waters, Nicky. The Australian Coast Guard isn’t looking into it either.”

“That’s eyewash, Billy, and you know it. What’s the real reason?”

I shrugged. “It’s politics,” I said.

“Just so,” Anna said softly.

“Bloody savages,” Nicky said.

I finished my beer. “They’re not bad guys, mostly. They’d just rather not have the hassle. They figure they got enough crime here at home, and they’re not allowed to solve those, so why go looking for trouble? It’s not really their problem.”