Page 96 of Ship Outta Luck

“How’s Charlie?” he asks.

Pierce, then.

My brow wrinkles. Something about that man. Where did they go last night? Suspicion rises.

Charlie and Pierce knew where to find us. We told them about the beach, then they’d taken the inflatable boat and driven away in the middle of the night. I focus on the control gauges, the endless blue ahead, my mind running a mile a minute.

Couldn’t have been him, though.Pierce is government, for crying out loud, he works for the DEA, why in the world would he have given us away? It makes no dang sense.

Dean smashed the tracker to smithereens while I watched. That’s how the cartel found us. Fear punches me. The tracker was how they found us, and they almost captured me.

Still. Unease flickers through me, catching like wildfire.

Dean clicks a button on the black brick of a phone and tosses it back into the pack.

“What did he say about Charlie?” Dread spreads, tingling down my limbs and into my fingertips, tapping against my thighs.

“She’s still with him, said to tell you hello.”

Huh. Seems normal enough.I frown.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Shaking myself, I stretch my arms high above my head, pointing my toes as hard as I can. When I look back up at Dean, his mouth hangs slightly open before closing it with a snap.

“What?” I echo his question.

“You seem upset. Worried.”

“It’s nothing.”

A crease appears in his forehead.Dang. He’s going to age like a fine wine. “I always teach my people to listen to their gut.”

If I listened to my gut, I wouldn’t have let Dean strong arm me onto this boat. I wouldn’t have gotten drunk and poured tequila all over that Russian dude at the bar.

I probably wouldn’t have gotten this close to finding theSantu Espiritu.

I wouldn’t have kissed him, and that would be the biggest shame of all.

“You keep watching the fish finder,” I say.

It’s time to go to work. Turning the boat on is safe. Work is safe. There will be no turning me on.

“I’ll watch the depth. Let’s do this.”

He nods at my directive, a sly smile on his face.

The quicker we find theSantu Espiritu, the sooner this nightmare will be over.

And the sooner I can figure out what, exactly, I’m going to do with Dean Evans.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

JUNE

The fish finderis good at its job—finding fish. Those, there are plenty of, swimming in massive schools, black rectangular blips across the screen. Shipwrecks? Not so much. I sigh. The sun’s high overhead, and perspiration beads on the back of my neck.

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