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 come on board.”
“No kidding,” Jace muttered, then spoke in a louder voice just as Nick was about to say something. “Tell Nando I’ll try to get aboard first to help the others—Lexi first and the women after her.”
Claire wished that didn’t remind her of that old cry of “women and children first” when a ship was sinking. But surely that boat could hold them all, get them off the water, and then they could find a way not to go home but to hide out. But how to contact the FBI in Castro-controlled Cuba? Fidel was supposedly retired, but his brother Raul was in charge now. There were rumors that the US and Cuba might make peace someday soon, but it hadn’t happened yet. President Obama had even shaken hands with Raul at a foreign conference, but Cuba was still a hostile Communist nation.
Heck and Nando talked more in Spanish. “He say, maybe Jesu Christo and the Virgin Mary, they give to him your lives in place of his lost son, his only son, Alfredito. He will take us to his house, give us food, place to sleep. Then we go to Havana, pay someone to take us home, not get seen or caught, he says.”
“Not be seen? Fat chance of that,” Nick muttered. “We’ll have to do everything undercover—somehow.” He said louder, “Tell him we are grateful to him and to the Lord for bringing us together on this great sea. Everyone, tell him gracias.”
A little chorus followed with Lexi chiming in. “Nita,” the child called out to her nanny, “I remembered what you taught me, but I can’t tell his other words. Nada.”
“You will, my Lex—my Meggie,” Nita called to her. “You will.”
The boat gently bumped against the nearest life raft, the one holding Heck, Bronco and Nita. But Jace was determined to be the first aboard, in case there was a problem climbing up the side where Nando was now dangling a rope he’d tied to one of the posts of the canopy.
Jace put one leg over, then rolled into the other raft and secured both of them to the side of the boat near the stern. Oh, Claire thought, so that was what the single rope was for. She had been scared they must climb that to get on board the fishing boat.
Nando secured the heavy, hand-knotted rope net on the side of the boat. Jace, of course, went up it easily, shook Nando’s hand, then leaned over the side. Nick was on the move, coaxing Lexi from Claire’s arms and handing her into the other raft to Bronco. Both rafts tilted and rocked.
“Close your eyes, sweetheart,” Nick whispered to Lexi and shot a quick “trust me” look back at Claire. Her arms felt not only stiff and sore but so empty now. “Claire,” Nick said, when she made a move toward the other raft too, “stay put. As they say, don’t rock the boat. I’ll be back for you.”
Lexi wrapped her arms so tightly around Nick’s neck that his face went red, but he didn’t tell her to let go. Claire gripped her hands together, praying, trusting. When Nick passed Lexi to Bronco, who stood with Heck’s help and passed her up to Jace, Claire slid across the slippery inside of the raft to be closer.
“Let go of me, honey,” Bronco told Lexi as he lifted her up. “Your daddy—Uncle Seth, I mean—he got you.”
And he did. Claire burst into silent tears of relief as the men handed Nita up to Jace and then, thank God, it was her turn. Not only did she want to be with Lexi, but it had suddenly seemed she was so terrifyingly small in the raft by herself, as if it was just her and the vast sea and sky.
Dragging her big purse with her essential narcolepsy meds, she rolled into the other raft. Nick helped her to her knees over to the rope ladder. Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she stood, rocking a bit on legs that were cramping, and he gave her a boost up. When Jace grabbed her wrists, Nick let go. It was, she thought, just the opposite of what had happened in her life with these men. Jace had left her; Nick had grabbed for her.
Her stomach scraped hard against the side and top of the boat as Jace hauled her in. If she was newly pregnant, she thought, that could do her in. She wasn’t sure but had missed her period. Still, with all the upheaval in her life, that didn’t mean a baby, and she hadn’t mentioned anything to Nick yet.
“Got you,” Jace said as Lexi left Nita’s embrace to hurl herself against Claire. Lexi hugged her hard before Nando urged them away to sit on the deck, leaning against what must be a bait box because it smelled bad.
Quickly, the three men followed up over the side, Nick last.
Nick told Heck, “Ask him if he’s going to cut the rafts loose or drag them. They might give our presence away when he puts in.”
“Forgot to tell you, boss,” Heck said. “He asked if he can have the rafts. If we don’t need them again, he can sell them on the black market for Cubans who want to escape. He say with rumors of a deal between US and Cuba, more people are leaving since they think the dry-foot-on-land-you-can-stay in US policy might end. You know, if a Cuban refugee makes it to dry land in the US, he gets to stay, but not if he’s caught at sea. He says—”
Nick cut in, “Tell him he can have the rafts but never to say where he got them. Why isn’t he heading toward shore?”
“He want to curse the sharks one more time. Even if El Senor—the Lord God—made them killers, he curses them for killing
