Page 99 of No Safe Place

You almost didn’t need the binoculars.

Frank Stone’s boat, the Lampas, was easily the largest in the marina.

“How did it go?” Colleen, who was sitting beside me, said.

It was a little after nine in the morning now. After leaving the carnage of Cushing’s house, we had double-timed it here to Long Island in my truck. It had taken Colleen and me an hour to get to the ferry in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where we’d just caught the 6 a.m. one to Port Jefferson, New York. After an hour’s crossing and another hour-and-a-half drive, we’d made it out here to Montauk.

Now we were sitting at a picnic table at a closed shoreline seafood restaurant near the Montauk Airport staring across Lake Montauk where Frank Stone’s massive yacht was docked.

Just out of the water, I was still in my neoprene diving suit. My tanks and gear were already back in the truck bed.

It was all set.

Everything was ready to go.

There was a reason why I had sped here as fast as humanly possible.

I needed to be done by the time I made the call.

“I said, how did it go?” Colleen said again.

I relifted the binocs and looked at the yacht. Then I looked at the tinge of clouds out over the Atlantic to my left. It was a beautiful, cool, sunny morning.

“The water was darker than I expected but other than that, it went like clockwork as they say. It’s all set,” I said.

“We’re doing this? Really?” Colleen said.

I thought about Jodi dead in that tunnel. I thought about Scotty and Daisy.

Then I thought about Olivia, across the water down in the bowels of that demonically evil billionaire’s ship.

“Really,” I said.

“You’re sure?” Colleen said.

“I’m positive,” I said. “It’s the only play. And since that’s the case, Colleen, this is the part I think you should skedaddle for. You don’t need to get involved in this. When I’m done, I’ll bring Olivia to you.”

“Leave now? With Olivia right there? There is zero chance of me leaving, Mike. Zero.”

I smiled at her.

At her fired-up angel eyes.

Who needs coffee, I thought.

“Okay, then. If that’s your final say,” I said as I stood and headed to the truck for a towel.

87

Shaw was enjoying the sea and sun from the lower deck of Frank’s yacht at the appointed spot forty miles north of Montauk.

It was an almost cloudless day and, out beyond the rail where he was sitting under the canopy of the upper deck, the Atlantic in every direction was a striking and sparkling dark teal color.

The massive boat rocked up and down smooth as butter even in the heavy seesaw waves. Shaw wasn’t really the nautical type, but even he thought the scene and the craft were quite impressive.

“Not a bad life, this yacht stuff,” Shaw called back to Olivia.

Olivia was sitting behind him at an outdoor table with her hands cuffed behind her. She was staring off into space as if he had said nothing. She hadn’t said anything since they’d been reacquainted below in the broom closet–like room where she was being kept beside the engines. Even after Shaw was nice enough to take off her duct tape.

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