Hurricane Read online

Talk about a one–two punch. She hadn’t realized that she’d lost her friend in the divorce. She’d thought, hoped, that Persephone would remain neutral. But clearly Peri sided with her brother. Tears sprang and Addison’s chest hurt. It took fifteen minutes for her to move and function again.

  As Rydell always said: One thing at a time.

  She picked up the phone and gave Badri a number to connect her to her financial adviser in Milan.

  When Pia Naletti answered the phone, Addison gave her the bare-bones information in rapid Italian, then finished with, “Liquidate everything. Sí, I realize I’ll lose—that much?” Addison shrugged away the loss of at least a third of her assets. “Yes, I’m dead serious, and no, I don’t have six months. I need my assets liquidated in less than week.” She paused to listen to Pia’s expert, always sound recommendations. For once, Addison wasn’t going to take Pia’s advice.

  “I appreciate your concern, and I do hear you. I have the royalties from the Treasures Of books to live on. And if necessary, I’ll get a job.”

  Addison listened to Pia try to talk her out of this “financial folly” for a few more minutes.

  “Even my trust fund. All of it. Everything I have. I’m on board Tesoro Mio on my way to the Maldives.”

  Pia’s concern ratcheted way up. “Think about this for a few days. You cannot liquidate your assets on an impulse. Besides what this may mean to your future, I need to assess market timing. I strongly advise you not give this more thought, and at least wait until—”

  “I don’t have the luxury of time. Please do as I ask. Call me with a number and how soon everything is liquid. Molte grazie, Pia.”

  * * *

  “Sure, stay. I’ve asked Oscar to meet me here, but we have a few minutes. What’s up?” Ry asked MoMo, who hung back as the dive crew departed the dining room. Through with breakfast, the dive crew was leaving to check equipment for the next day’s first dive. Ry had asked Oscar to meet him in the dining room to go over additional security plans. Jax was belowdecks, stationed outside Addy’s door.

  He hoped to hell Shlomo Bergson didn’t have some insurmountable issue, because right now Ry had enough fucking crap on his plate.

  “I hope this isn’t inappropriate, but as your friend—as Addison’s friend—I have misgivings I want to share with you.”

  Ry was pretty sure MoMo had fallen for Addy as quickly as Ry himself had. Mo’s feelings for her might have once been something romantic. In the early days, Ry had been aware of the looks of longing the other man sent Addy when he didn’t know anyone was watching. Now MoMo seemed just to have a soft spot for Addy. “You have an issue with Darshi.” Not a question.

  MoMo looked startled, then nodded. “Yeah. I do. There’s something—squirrelly about the guy. Look, I know this is none of my business. He’s your guest, and Addison likes him, but—” MoMo spread expressive hands. “—I just don’t like the guy.”

  “Join the club,” Ry said drily. “What brought this on?” Was MoMo as jealous as he was himself? Probably. Neither of them was exactly impartial as far as Addy went.

  Mo shoved his hands in the front of baggy green board shorts. “I was watching him the other night at dinner. That wasn’t the look of a man in love.” His swarthy skin flushed, and the tips of his ears, visible through his thick, curly black hair, turned bright red. “Not even the look a man gives a woman he lusts after.”

  Thank God. Not his imagination then. “Darshi watches her almost clinically, right?” Ry leaned his hip on the table and folded his arms. “Like she’s some sort of science experiment. Believe me, I notice. Must admit, at first I chalked it up to pure, unadulterated jealousy. But then I started really listening to the way the guy speaks to her. More telling, and a crapload more subtle, is the guy’s body language.”

  “Exactly!”

  Contrary to the international playboy image he projected, the prince wasn’t into Addy. Something Ry couldn’t comprehend. Unobserved, he’d watched them from the deck above while they shared breakfast earlier.

  Even when talking to her, Darshi’s eyes flickered around the deck. Looking for what? For whom? Or, hell, no one. He was distracted, when his gaze shouldn’t have left Addy’s face.

  Darshi had cradled Addy’s head, dragging her in for a kiss. But where Ry himself would’ve filled both hands with her, Darshi’s free hand lay relaxed on the table. Darshi wanted something from Addy, but not because she was Addy. Ry couldn’t imagine what else there was.

  “Addy’s—everything. Beautiful, sexy, articulate, independent, and when she’s not bowed down with grief, funny. What’s not to like?” MoMo asked, looking miserable. “And yet—” He shrugged. “I don’t get it. Is he after her money?”

  Ry shook his head. “Addison’s wealthy but she’s not in the same financial bracket as the prince. She comes from a wealthy family, and her father left her a sizable trust fund. But Darshi’s loaded. He doesn’t need her money.”

  MoMo looked even more miserable. “So if it isn’t attraction, and it isn’t money, what the hell else is there? Look,” he said quickly. “I know I have no right to have a voice in who she sees, but honest to God, not Darshi. He’s—hell, he’s fardekhtik, suspicious. Skeevy.”

  “No shit. You’re preaching to the choir. I’m going to tell him he can’t stay for the salvage. No reason for him to be here.”

  “Right,” MoMo agreed with alacrity. “Sorry if I overstepped…”

  Ry clasped the other man’s shoulder. “You didn’t. And thanks for watching out for Addy.”

  “Are things—Did you—Everything okay now?”

  “Yeah. We talked out some things last night. I think we’re going to be good.”

  “Good. That makes me happy. Rather you than that putz. Seeing them together again must be tougher than shit on you, Ry. I hated to add to that. But I couldn’t just let it go. Addy deserves better. I’m happy you’re working things out. Real happy.” MoMo sucked in a breath, looking slightly uncomfortable about the exchange. “I’ll go help Georgeo with the tanks.”

  After last night’s revelations, as far as Ry was concerned, watching Addy and the prince having breakfast mere hours later had sealed the fuckwad’s fate. The guy had to go. They’d reach Malé by noon tomorrow. He’d make sure Darshi’s feet were on terra firma and not Tesoro Mio within minutes of the first sighting. Addy had looked distracted at breakfast with the prince and, her distraction had given Ry a small measure of satisfaction. No shit. They’d been making love like there was no tomorrow just an hour earlier.

  Ry hated that the lips he’d kissed had touched Darshi’s an hour later. Hated it, with every fiber of his being, yet with the realization of heart-wrenching grief that had come in the stormy night, he knew it was a penance he deserved.

  He’d taken their kiss like a man. Though he’d prefer to walk slowly over hot coals, he’d stood there at the upper rail, silent. And let it happen, then made a strategic retreat before the urge to throw His Mightiness overboard became overpowering.

  He didn’t want the guy dead, but he’d draw a great deal of satisfaction when His Royal Pain in the Ass was in a fucking galaxy far far away, preferably with a crapload of broken bones. Just thinking about the fucking prince had made Ry feel feral and homicidal.

  Cut him loose, Addy. Tell him to fuck off. And if you don’t, I’ll do it for you.

  The man overboard had been put on a back burner in light of the revelations in the early hours of this morning. Ry still felt raw and off kilter. Partially hopeful, but also deeply troubled by Hollis’s actions. Addy’s mother—and possibly Darshi himself—had changed the course of their lives.

  He’d spent an hour reading some of Addy’s texts, starting on March 18 and working his way through the days, weeks, and months of anguish, despair, and finally anger. Her pain, her need to have him at her side was all there in print. Oh, Addy.

  Ry decided he’d take her ashore tomorrow when they reached the dive site. Let the crew start the setup, persuade Darshi to fuck
off, and ban Hollis from ever boarding his ship again.

  He and Addy would go for a romantic dinner. Walk along the beach at sunset. Make love, talk—fall in love all over again. Ry’s heart lifted.

  Yeah. Great plan. At any other time in his life, when he had the world in his hands. He’d broken her heart. Their daughter was dead and he hadn’t even had the decency to grieve with her. On top of that, he was staring down almost certain financial ruin. It would be better for Addy if she got off the ship and walked away from him without looking back. Ever.

  Damn.

  If he had any decency at all he’d let her to go. But not with Darshi. He might be royalty and wealthy beyond belief, but Addy was still too damn good for him.

  Oscar walked in. “Addy’s been in her cabin. Alone, for the past hour. Jax is outside her door. The prince is in his own cabin.”

  “Excellent. I want both of you to be like white on rice with Addy until such ti—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Case?” The senior police officer interrupted as he and one of his subordinates came into the room. With them was Captain Seddeth. “We’ve made an arrest.”

  Fifteen

  Still reeling from sensory overload in the early hours, Ry hadn’t forgotten that a man had died yesterday. He glanced at Oscar, then back to Sharma. “That’s good news. Who is it?” Please. Tell me you arrested Darshi’s ass and are going to throw him into prison for the rest of his sodding life.

  “The prince’s bodyguard, Okito Van Engen. As you know, the camera was disabled on that section of the ship at the time of the incident. But we spent several hours looking at past recordings, searching for anything that might give us a clue. May I?” He indicated the control for the monitors and picked it up when Ry nodded.

  The center monitor flicked for a moment, and Seddeth said, “We watched several hundred hours of footage in the early hours. Fortunately, when I replaced some of the defective cameras about six months ago, I didn’t bother erasing prior recordings, and I had the disks in a drawer. I isolated the relevant footage. See for yourself.”

  Ry and Oscar turned to watch the screen. All the images were of the prince with one or more of his bodyguards.

  I knew it! Damn that fucker for bringing danger to Addy’s door. I’m going to kill him.

  “This was the most telling,” the senior officer said, slowing the video. “Fortunately, Varma here has some knowledge of lipreading. Here is the first exchange between Prince Darshi and Van Engen, dated only nine days ago.”

  The footage was taken in broad daylight, with crisp, clear visuals. Darshi and his bodyguard, Van Engen, stood with their backs to the rail; Cannes Marina and a string of luxury hotels lay in the background. The Tesoro Mio had been docked there for several months.

  Goddamn it, Addy had been on board at the time. Ry’s blood pressure rose to throb behind his eyeballs, and his fingers flexed as he imagined them wrapped around the fuckhead’s neck.

  “Varma,” his commander said, “if you will?”

  The younger man nodded. “Here the prince is telling Van Engen, ‘You work for me’—I believe the word here is ‘asshole.’”

  Clearly not a friendly exchange. The prince’s handsome face was contorted with anger, and he pounded his chest for emphasis.

  Van Engen shoved the prince’s shoulder, his face clearly visible as he gave his boss a smug look. “No I don’t, dickhead,” Varma lip-read. “If I don’t make my regular call in, he’ll come down on you like flies on shit.”

  Ry’s fury rose. “Who’s he?”

  Sharma shrugged. “This we do not know. Yet. With this new information, we will of course interrogate His Highness again. We wanted to bring this to your attention first.”

  “Is it possible it was the prince who was meant to go overboard, and not Azm Kapur?” Oscar asked.

  Ry shook his head. “The two men couldn’t have been confused, even in the dark. Kapur was fifty pounds heavier and at least six inches shorter than Darshi.” The prince was tall, slender, and Indian, with a British accent. Kapur had looked Asian, was built like a sumo wrestler, and had a strong Australian accent. No confusion possible. He looked back to the officers. “Why arrest Van Engen and not the prince?”

  “Out of deference to His Highness, we interrogated Van Engen first, knowing the prince is, technically, at our disposal as long as we are at sea. Van Engen confessed, with some persuasion.”

  “Okay. So now we know Van Engen worked for someone else, and we presume killed Kapur.”

  “It would appear so. Although it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that he confessed to cover for someone else,” Sharma agreed. “Here is another interesting section that we found, dated the day before Tesoro Mio set sail with you on board.”

  The view switched to a location aft, near the hot tub. “As you see, they have their backs to the camera, and therefore we could not read their lips. This exchange was once again impassioned, and not … friendly.”

  To say the least. Van Engen seemed to be the one talking, and the prince, shoulders tense, stood and listened. When the exchange was over, the bodyguard walked away.

  Darshi’s handsome features showed fear before he turned to grip the rail with white knuckles. So the threat had scared the shit out of him. Good.

  What struck Ry was that this was filmed the same evening Darshi had taken Addy to the Hôtel de Paris for dinner that first night Ry had come aboard to wait for her.

  What the hell was Darshi mixed up in? More important, what was he involving Addy in? One man that they knew of was dead. A man connected to Darshi, and killed on board Ry’s ship. Darshi was clearly shit scared of something—or someone. Whatever it was, whoever the fuck it was, it couldn’t be allowed anywhere near Addy.

  Ry felt a start of alarm. Darshi and Addy were both belowdecks. “Now we know why,” Ry said tightly, only remaining where he was because he knew Jax stood guard outside Addy’s door. “To get the who Van Engen was talking about, we have to speak to Darshi. Get him up here. I want answers, and I want them now. I want to know who ordered the hit, and if or what it has to do with Addy and Tesoro Mio.”

  Ry had never liked the fucker; instinctively, he’d always known the guy was a sleazeball. Now he was even more sure that Darshi had been involved in Addy’s mother’s deception. Hell, he was probably the one to reprogram Addy’s phone. He’d certainly whisked her away so her frantic husband couldn’t find her.

  Ry tried to stay focused, but he still felt raw after the night and early morning spent with Addy. “What does Van Engen have to say?” One fucking problem at a time.

  “With a little persuasion, Okito Van Engen admitted he was hired to kill Kapur. It was not meant to look like an accident,” the senior officer told them. “He claims he was ordered to deliver a message.”

  “The message was intended for Darshi,” Ry said. “‘If I can kill your bodyguard, I can kill you.’”

  The police captain nodded his agreement. “Van Engen will not say for whom the message was intended, nor will he tell us the name of the person who hired him. What we do know is that he carries a New Zealand passport. Residential address is in Tasmania. When we ran background checks on everyone yesterday, his didn’t raise any red flags. He appeared to be who he claimed to be. Worked for the prince for six months. Freelance security for the last ten years. Some high-profile clients. No complaints. The prince told us his staff ran a security background on Van Engen before he was hired. He was not only cleared, but came highly recommended. Of course,” he said drily. “Under the circumstances we’ll dig deeper. Look at his connections, et cetera.”

  “Will you send him back to New Zealand?” Oscar asked. Since the “event,” Oscar, Jax, and Ry had all been carrying guns in plain sight. The captain’s weapon was concealed under his white dress shirt, but it was there. No one was letting down their guard until this matter was resolved.

  Paras Sharma shrugged. “If they ask for extradition. They might try him separately. But since the crime was committed in
Indian waters, we’re taking him back with us to Mangalore to stand trial for murder.”

  “Van Engen confessed?” Oscar asked, looking like Ry felt. Incredulous. “Makes no sense at all.”

  The taller officer shrugged. “He claims he’ll be safer in prison.”

  “Presumably he did what he was hired to do. Why would he think he’d be safer in prison in a foreign country rather than just disappearing? That makes no sense, either.”

  Varma, the younger, shorter officer, glanced longingly at the coffeepot and the pile of pancakes—cold—beside it. They’d taken their meal in the galley hours earlier. “Hopefully we’ll know more when we have him in interrogation and he realizes the severity of his actions. Though the death penalty is rarely imposed in India, capital punishment is an option for murder. We will advise him of that fact.”

  “Van Engen confessing is—odd,” Ry said. “I’m not sure that few-second video would hold up in court. A threat? Sure. But leading to tossing someone overboard? Maybe not. We’re about to reach the Maldives. Land. He could’ve split. Disappeared.”

  “Our thoughts exactly,” the senior officer said. “Hopefully we’ll know more after we’ve spoken to Prince Darshi again. He might be able to give us some insight.”

  “Or he’s involved in some way himself,” Ry pointed out.

  “This is true,” the police officer admitted. “Although, given the prince’s celebrity and wealth, even with the tapes, it might be impossible to prove he knew what the killing was about. It remains to be seen.”

  Removing Darshi and his men sooner rather than later would resolve Ry’s more immediate problems. Finishing that conversation with Addy would, hopefully, if not resolve things then at least ease them even more. Finding that silver—in time—would take the boulder off his chest.

  “Oscar? Go get Darshi, so we can get this over with. Whether he was directly involved or even aware of what was going on, both men worked for him; he’s got to have insight into their backgrounds and habits.” And if he discovered the fucker had colluded with Hollis, Ry would kill him himself. Oscar left quickly to go belowdecks.