Page 54 of Austen

Yeah, the farther they got from the yacht, the more they headed into trouble.Which was why he slowed the Jet Ski and waited for Steinbeck to catch up.

In that space of time, he tried to reel back what had just happened.First, his steward had materialized as Wonder Woman and started shooting, taking out one of the Russian captors.And then Steinbeck had barreled into the salon, also guns blazing, and everything had turned to bedlam.

For a second there, it had looked like Steinbeck’s epic plan had crashed and burned.The fact that it ended with them in the ocean, Declan on a Jet Ski with Austen behind him holding on, seemed like a crazy miracle.Or disaster.And as Steinbeck came up and shut his engine down, Declan couldn’t stop himself.

“Of all the stupid escape plans, this has to be the stupidest.What were you thinking?Seriously!”

Steinbeck just looked at him, and Declan couldn’t really read his expression thanks to the darkness, but there was enough moonlight for him to grasp Steinbeck’s open-mouthed shock.

“What?I got you off the boat, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, off the boat and in the middle of nowhere.Where do you think we’re going to go?”

“My compass says that we’re heading due south.I figure we’ll run into land at some point.”

“Youhopewe’ll run into land.We could be headed out to sea.”He shook his head.“Maybe you should have taken one more second to think through this crazy plan.”

“It wasn’t a plan!”Steinbeck shook his head, looked at Austen.“You okay?”

“Yeah.”She looked at the woman behind Steinbeck.“Are you okay, Belle?”

“Her name’s not Belle,” Steinbeck snapped.“It’s Phoenix.And it’s probably not even that, is it?”He glanced back at the woman.

“What are you talking about?”Declan said.

Steinbeck turned to him.“Really?I can’t believe you didn’t recognize Ashley.The girl nearly killed you in Barcelona.”

What?Declan looked at the woman but couldn’t make her out of the darkness.Still.“That was you?”

“We need to keep moving,” she said now.The girl he’d met in Barcelona had a small accent.This one spoke with a flat Midwestern tone.

He didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but the fact that Steinbeck thought he was a terrorist suggested that maybe he didn’t have the best of gut instincts.

Speaking of gut instincts—“We should go back to the boat.”

“Were you paying attention back there?”Steinbeck said.

Declan held up a hand.“I’m not suggesting we stick around once we get there.But we need better transport than these skis.Like the tender.”

“What tender?”Stein asked.

“The tender that’s stored in the swim-deck garage.It slides right out into the water.”

“Well, forgive me for not understanding the schematics of your boat, Declan,” Steinbeck said.“You forgot that little briefing in the tour of your floating estate and all your toys.”

“Hey.I’m not the bad guy here.”

“Seriously,” said Belle, or Ashley or Phoenix—whatever her name was.“Yes, actually, you are.”

“Not—I—” He stopped.“Forget it.This is not the time to explain what is going down on that boat.All I know is that we’re out here in the middle of nowhere with a half tank of gas in a couple of skis that are going to be nothing more than floaties on the current in about an hour.”

“Oh, no, we’ll be in the water sooner than that,” Austen said.

In the moonlight, he could barely make out her face, but her eyes were luminous and wide.

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re sinking.”She lifted her foot from the side of the Jet Ski.“The water is rising around us as we sit here.”

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