Page 82 of Hard Luck (Blackstone House)

“Maybe bring more napkins?” Cole suggested.

The server ran off, and Delroy headed for the door, clutching his injured hand with the other. I rose too.

“I’ll check he’s okay.”

Or stick the knife in again if necessary.I caught up with him outside the front door, and funnily enough, he wasn’t happy to see me.

“You bitch.”

“No means no, asshole. Have fun at the hospital.”

“You’re a psycho.”

Admittedly, there were some interesting notes on my psych evaluations, but that didn’t make me a full-blown psychopath. Perhaps half a one?

Okay, three-quarters.

“If you ever touch me again, I’m gonna saw off your testicles and nail them to the harbour railing. Understood?”

“Fuck you.”

He staggered to a waiting cab, and I hoped his mood improved by the morning or Cole would have a fun day. At least I didn’t need a trip to the hospital myself this time. If Demelza found out I wasn’t taking my vacay seriously, she’d probably send me to Tristan da Cunha.

CHAPTER 28

COLE

“Yeah, I understand, buddy. Take it easy, and hopefully you can join us next week.”

Cole’s run of bad luck continued. Delroy had some numbness in his hand, and apparently the doctors were worried about nerve damage, so he had to stay in for tests. How the hell had the man managed to injure himself during dinner? He’d splattered blood all over Bella’s clothes, and she’d looked pretty upset about the whole incident. Just when he thought things were going smoother between them, more shit happened.

“Everything okay?” she asked, walking onto the deck with two steaming mugs of coffee, one with milk, one without.

“I lost my deckhand, for this week at least.”

“Delroy? Can you replace him?”

“Not at this short notice. It’s hard enough getting anyone from San Gallicano to sail near Skeleton Cay.”

“Why?”

“Because the locals are superstitious, and they think it’s haunted.”

Bella handed him a mug. “Ghosts? Are you serious?They’d turn down work because they think the bogeyman’s gonna get them?”

“Skeleton Cay has a dark history. It isn’t actually a cay, by the way; it’s a huge, ugly rock.”

“Then why is it called Skeleton Cay?”

“Because a hundred and something years ago, a couple of fishermen got shipwrecked there, and when they finally made it back home, they told everyone about the skeletons they’d stumbled across while exploring caves they found. The story got passed from one person to another, and somewhere along the line, Skeleton Caves became Skeleton Cay. Not enough people had been to the island to know the reality, and so the name stuck.”

“Skeletons?”

“Probably former inmates. For centuries, it used to be a prison isle, but eventually there came a point where the authorities couldn’t find enough people to staff it.”

“Because of the ghosts?”

“There was an unusually high number of accidents, so I’ve heard. Plus it’s the farthest island from Ilha Grande, and I don’t suppose the guards wanted to be away from their families. It’s not as if they could commute each day. They had to live in a barracks.”

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