Hell, he thought, forget the desertion of his friends and his law firm being the worst that could happen. Not only had their plane crashed, but he’d just seen a fin—more than one—slice through a wave near them. Sharks! Who knew how long they’d been so close in the dark. And Jace had fallen into the water getting them off the plane.
A shark—that was the way he’d always thought of the man he was certain had not only ruined his father financially, but had murdered him too and made it look like a cowardly suicide. Clayton Ames, a deadly, devouring shark.
“Jace!” Nick hissed, and the man’s eyes flew open.
What? Jace mouthed. Nick pointed at the circling fins and read Jace’s lips as he cursed silently. There were at least three sharks near them.
Nick noted Heck had seen them too. His right-hand man had mentioned these waters were full of them, a threat to Cubans fleeing the island, though it hadn’t stopped the influx to the States. The refugees included Heck’s and Nita’s Cuban parents years ago, looking for a better life for their families. It was what he wanted for his new family. Maybe he should have stuck it out in Naples, though Ames knew they were all there. He had to be stopped, and the US government’s help was the best way.
“Time for the name game,” Jace whispered. “Let’s not focus on new dangers.”
“Hard not to,” Claire put in, as she’d seen them too.
Nick wondered how she had stayed so calm. Despite her disease of narcolepsy, the woman had guts and stamina. He’d seen that up close and personal in the two murder/suicide cases they’d worked together. He also saw now that, though her eyes were wide on the fins, she quickly shifted Lexi lower between her spread legs rather than on her lap so that the girl could not see the sharks. Now, if only everyone else would keep their mouths shut...
“Let’s not talk at all about things we see here,” Claire called out, “but instead learn our new names and identities. That way, when we get ashore, we can just get some help before we all head to Michigan—to Mackinac Island, with all the horses, remember, Lexi?”
“I’m going to find one I like to ride.”
“Right,” Nick said, opening the seal on the plastic pouch he wore under his shirt like a wide belt. He’d kept their newly created passports, credit cards and quite a lot of cash in mostly big bills dry. He pulled out what he’d thought of as his cheat sheet with the names he and Rob Patterson, their FBI contact, had come up with for everyone.
“Okay,” he said, giving his stepdaughter a one-armed hug, “we will start with Lexi. Our family’s new last name—you, Lexi, your mom and me—is Randal. Oh, yeah, Jace’s too.” He spelled Randal and let her repeat it. He tried to ignore Jace’s scowl. As supportive as he was being, since he was on Ames’s hit list too, Nick knew Jace was thoroughly teed off that he had to act the part of Nick’s brother and Lexi’s uncle.
“And your first name, Miss Randal,” Nick went on to Lexi, “is Megan, but you can be called Meggie if you want. It’s up to you.”
For a moment he figured she was going to say she wanted to keep her own name or take her best friend and cousin’s name Jilly, but she said, “Meggie is more like me.”
“Good!” he said. “Did everybody hear that? This is Meggie Randal. Her mother’s name is Jenna Randal, mine is Jack Randal, and Jace is Seth Randal, my brother and Le—Meggie’s uncle.”
They all went around and said their new names: Heck was now Roberto, called Berto, Ochoa; Nita was his cousin, Lorena Ochoa; and Bronco Gates was Cody Carson.
Bronco piped up. “Suits me. Nothin’ much suits me but glad I’m here to help all you and ’specially Lorena Ochoa, here,” he said, giving Nita’s shoulders a squeeze. “Glad to make your ’quaintance, Senorita Lorena.”
Heck rolled his eyes and shook his head over that. He knew Bronco had eyes for Nita, and that obviously annoyed him. No, he must be looking at the sharks again, staring off a ways at the horizon.
But was Jace nuts? He was getting to his knees in the raft, rocking it more than the waves did.
“Seth,” Nick said. “What?”
“To the south. Is that a boat?” he asked, pointing.
Everyone sat up and craned to look. It was, even though the silhouette was small. It was slow moving but seemed to be coming straight for them.
“We need to make a flag, a banner that shows up against the sea and sky.”
“I’m wearing something bright,” Nita said. “My skirt.” Without a moment’s hesitation, she wriggled out of it as Heck twisted around to look at the boat again and Bronco stripped off his jacket to cover her panties and bare legs.
“Everyone sit tight!” Jace ordered. “I’m the only one who stands.”
Nick tried to brace Jace’s legs as he got up and stood shakily. Using his arm as a flagpole, he waved the bright pink skirt until they were certain the small vessel turned even more their way. Unfortunately, the sharks were still circling, and the ramshackle craft looked like it was coming from the direction of Cuba, where it was rumored Ames might be living all cozy with the Castro brothers. So, Nick thought, as desperate as they were, with all the deceit and treachery they’d faced already, would the boat bring friend or foe?
Claire prayed silently that the boat would be American, but, as it came closer from the south, she knew better. It was all wood, with peeling green-and-white paint, draped with fishing nets, old and battered, maybe twenty-five feet long, so unlike the solid, sleeker fishing boats she’d seen going out of Naples or Miami. Held up by four poles, a makeshift canvas canopy flapped over the back half of the boat. The hand-painted name on the prow read Alfredito, and the flag that flapped above the stern had blue and white stripes and a single white star in a red triangle.
“Cuban,” Nick said over the loud but uneven sound of the motor. “But not an official boat and with only one man. I think we’re safe, but can we get him to take us north, not south? I have some cash. Heck, you do the talking. Maybe he doesn’t even speak English.”
Claire knew some Spanish but only caught a quick word or two in the shouted, rapid-fire exchange between the fisherman—if that was what he was—and Heck. She’d learned not to trust anyone but those closest to her since she’d worked two cases with Nick and had seen Clayton Ames up close and personal.
Finally, using broad gestures, just as the boatman had, Heck turned back to them to translate. Claire knew the fact that Nita had taken it all in and was crying was not a good sign.
Heck told them, “He is Hernando Hermez, called Nando, out of Cuba, but not Havana. He say—he says—no way his boat can reach Los Estados Unidos. That not allowed, against the law. He is from a small fishing village called Costa Blanca about forty miles west of Havana. He comes here to this spot, pretty far out, once a year on the date he lose—I mean, he lost—his son Alfredito. He fell in where sharks eating their catch in a net, but Nando not start fishing yet today. He like to kill them all, maybe same ones as these.”
“Mommy, are there sharks in the water? That kind with the really big, sharp teeth?”
Claire hugged Lexi harder. “Shh, it’s all right. They can’t get us.” But that reminded Claire that Lexi had seen too much killing. She prayed this Nando would take them aboard. Even that rattletrap of a boat and a small, Spanish-speaking fishing village or a prison cell—even facing Ames again if he did live in Cuba now—had to be better than this. She tried never to hate anyone, but she hated Ames and silently vowed again, despite their desperation, that she would help Nick and Jace bring him to justice someday.
Heck’s voice interrupted her frenzied fears. “These sharks are killers, Nando keeps saying, so he says we be careful if we