Page 66 of Under Pressure

“Google,” Don said.

Walt glanced up, nearly making Don fall. “You mean to say his address was just online?”

Almost everything was online these days. “Yep.”

“Can you hurry it up?” Harry wheezed. “You’re not exactly child-sized and this wind has a bite to it.”

Don finally caught his balance, and peered in the window, over the man’s sink, and into his living room. Blue’s laggard of a fiancé was on the sofa, feet on the coffee table, watching TV, talking on the phone, and eating a sandwich all at once. He stuck his sandwich in his mouth and used his now free hand to scratch his backside.

“What’s he doing?” Walt asked.

“Wasting precious time,” Don replied. Wasting Blue’s time. She shouldn’t be with a man like him. She was so dedicated to everything she attempted, she’d never be happy with a guy like him. No, only Sean would be able to make her really happy. And Don worried that only Blue had the power to make Sean happy. Just like Don standing on his friends’ backs, Sean’s happiness was teetering toward oblivion.

“See anything incriminating?” Walt asked, sounding more winded than he had before.

Don glanced around. Drats, no. As much as he didn’t like how he was spending his time when there was a hurricane headed their way, there was nothing that said bad guy except for an itch on his hind end. The guy lived in a nice residential area, in a white craftsman home with blue shutters—that were currently not doing their job—and had a big front porch.

Jonah finished his sandwich, grabbed his plate, and headed into the kitchen, still talking on the phone. “I’m still in shock she moved the date up. You’ll be here, right?” he asked, then waited for an answer. “Yes, tomorrow. You know I need my best man here.”

Don’s shoulders stiffened. He whispered down to his friends. “They’re getting married tomorrow.” Why would she do such a foolhardy thing?

Don crouched below the windowsill as Jonah came right toward him. A groan wafted up from one of his friends. “Shhhh.”

“You’re heading over now?” Jonah sounded surprised as he set his plate in the sink.

He couldn’t let this happen, couldn’t let Bluebell go through with it. This was clearly an emotional response to whatever had been said between her and Sean on the porch this afternoon, and Don had to stop it.

“Would you hurry up?” Harry’s body began to shake beneath Don’s foot.

“All right, all right. I’m getting down,” Don bark-whispered. He braced himself to step down against a window pane that was in serious need of sanding and a paint job and accidentally peeled paint off with the hair on his forearm.

Jonah leaned against the sink. “TheRey Del Mar? Are you serious?” He glanced at his watch. “Tonight?”

Don snapped to attention. Wasn’t that the boat Bluebell said Sean was working on?

“Are you serious?” Jonah asked, pulling away from the counter in a flash as his face lit with excitement.

Don stood to his full height, staring in at Jonah. Jonah caught his eye, and his jaw dropped at the same moment that Harry crumbled, taking Don down with him.

14

Chapter 14

Sean

Before sunset, Sean, Gray, Knox, and Wolfe we’re on the ocean heading for theRey Del Mar. The shipwreck was a good hour out, and Sean wanted to reach it before dark. They may be short on time, but any salvager worth his salt didn’t start salvaging from a boat until they knew what they were up against.

The sky was just starting to darken before any of them spoke.

“Are you seeing this boat behind us?” Knox asked.

A good two miles behind them, which appeared little more than a dot in the distance, a boat headed in the same direction as them. Sean had spotted it a while ago. Its navigation lights gave it away. He had been hoping it was a coincidence, but the fartherthey got out, the less he believed that it was. Which was why he’d started steering off in a different direction.

“Yeah, I see it.” And it was a liability. They couldn’t risk leading some curious ne’er do well to the treasure. “If they don’t turn off soon, we’ll have to scrap the mission for now.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Gray snapped.

As a SEAL unit, the guys had faced many situations that had big countdown clocks hanging over them. Two hours to deliver a message. Five hours to stop enemy combatants from completing a mission. Twenty-four hours to extract a prince from a foreign country where an assassination attempt had just been made on his life. Over time they’d gotten used to bearing the weight of such countdowns, but this was different.

---