Page 78 of Uncharted

“He gave it up a while back. But I’m sure he put it in the plans with the intention of using the yacht for meetings. You know, that’s one of the good things Candy did for him. She hated cigar smoke.”

“No one’s all bad.” Not even my ex.

Easton cocks his head at me. “She was darn close.” He opens the seal of the door. And it’s humid all right. “Damn, that’s like a furnace blast.”

The computer and papers that Rocky had out on the desk aren’t there anymore. But then, the yacht was more like a sailboat with its stabilizers gone. We could really have tipped over because of the imbalance of the fuel and water tanks with them down. The desk has even slid to the far wall. The leather sofa hasn’t moved, most likely because it’s latched in place. The two leather wingback chairs are lying on their sides as well. Easton picks up one, and I get the other one. There are papers underneath the one I picked up.

“Do you see a little black book? That’s what Dad uses as an agenda.”

We both crawl around the floor gathering computer printouts. Under the sofa I see his missing laptop, but it’s so far under that with the sofa attached to the floor, I can’t reach it. “His laptop is under there.”

“It’s out of battery for sure and password protected.” Easton’s straightening the papers.

“I don’t see the agenda, though.”

“If his laptop’s in here, it’s got to be here somewhere.” Easton pulls the desk away from the wall. There’s a lot more paper there. We gather it up, making a pile on the desk.

“I didn’t see his agenda in the bedroom, either. I would have remembered it from when we searched the primary the first time.” I sit on the leather sofa. It’s like butter—well, hot melted butter. The faster we can get out of this room, the happier I’m going to be.

Easton’s going through the papers.

“What are all those?”

“End of the quarter reports on both Rockwell-Harding and Rockwell Tire. But something’s off. I had a copy of these reports... well, not these reports. One of them isn’t correct.”

“What’s off?”

“In my copy, Rockwell Tire was doing great. Earnings were up. Like, way up. In this one, the numbers are the reverse. It makes Rockwell Tire look like a piece of shit.”

“Which one’s doctored?” I lean forward, looking at the spreadsheets.

“I... I don’t know.” Easton flips from sheet to sheet.

And I get a flashback of Rocky sitting right where I am, doing the same thing, only with two fingers of his favorite scotch next to him on one side and the stack of papers on the seat beside him. I slide my hand between the cushions. My fingertips hit something hard, and I pry it out. “Is this it?”

“Fuck, yes.”

Chapter35

Watch

Zane

I’m walking through the main salon when Easton yells something from inside the cigar humidor. I have no idea what, because the thing must be designed to be soundproof.

“What’s going on?” I say as I yank the door open.

“We found my father’s agenda.” Easton inclines his head at Haley.

Haley holds up a little black book.

“And did he miss his dentist appointment or tee time?”

Haley scrunches up her forehead, but her blue eyes sparkle with excitement. “Zane... no. We found... we found lots of things, actually. The Pink Phoenix and?—”

“You found the diamond? That’s amazing! So the saboteur wasn’t trying to steal it. It’s still on board.” I’m both excited and confused. Do I like the idea of someone trying to off us all? Hell no. But it’s 55 million dollars. That’s a hell of a lot of money. Not that I would sink a boat for it.

“I don’t know about that. We found it in the bottom of Candy’s wedding dress garment bag, and then we found a note that seems really suspicious in the pocket of Rocky’s tuxedo. Which is why we wanted to know where he was the night before they got on the plane.”

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