Page 39 of Jason
“Or into the cove, depending on what you hear,” the man said.
“I’m sorry?”Jason asked.
“Just saying,” the man said.“My grandpa always said old man Blackthorne didn’t take kindly to bootleggers hustling his part of the ocean.Shot and killed a man off one boat who was trying to get to the cove.”
Jason snorted at that absurdity.“Old man Blackthorne had his own operation.”
“Sure he did.Bigger and faster boats, too.He told his men to shoot first and ask questions later.”
Jason shook his head at what he hoped was an absurd rumor.“I never heard this story, and I’m a Blackthorne.”
That declaration did not faze the old man.He handed Jason a ledger to sign, waiving any liability.“Course you didn’t hear it.You know better than me how the Blackthornes keep their secrets.”
Something clicked in Jason’s chest.He knew that very well—nothing should ever besmirch the Blackthorne name.“When was this, exactly?”he asked curiously.
“Prohibition, a’course,” the man said.He stood up and took a key from one of several hanging from a pegboard.“Blue boat, slot two.If you see any skeletons in the cove, you’ll know why.”He chuckled at his joke, revealing a few missing teeth.
“Thanks,” Jason said, and picked up the key.
“That was strange,” Mallory said as she and Jason stepped outside.“Do you think that could be true?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Jason said.He was thinking about the night Aunt Claire disappeared.She’d said to Uncle Graham she’d kept his secret, and he and his cousins had tried to guess what the secret could be.Couldthishave been the secret?That their great-grandfather had killed a man?
“What’s the matter?”Mallory asked.
Jason shook his head.“It’s a long story.My aunt and uncle are having…well, marital problems, I guess.They split up recently and when she left, she told him she’d kept his secret, or something to that affect.My cousins and brothers and I have been trying to figure out what that meant.I’m just wondering if it was a murderous relative.”He smiled at her.“Trust me, Blackthorne Enterprises wouldn’t want that floating around.”
The blue boat they’d rented was hardly bigger than a tub, with a small outboard motor attached to it.
Mallory immediately asked for a life vest.
Jason handed her one.“It’s just around the bend up here,” he said, pointing.
“Are you really going to try and ferry actors and crew and equipment in these boats?”she asked as she strapped tightly into the life vest.
“We’d obviously use bigger boats,” he said.“My cousin Devlin can hook us up.”She looked very wary as she inspected the boat, and alarmingly cute in her blue pantsuit and life vest.The prosecutor, out for a swim.
Jason helped her into the boat and tried hard not to laugh at the way she held her arms out in an attempt to provide ballast.“It’s not funny!”she shouted at him.
He was still grinning as he jumped in after her and pushed the boat away from the dock, then throttled slowly away from the shore.While Mallory gripped the sides of the boat, he opened up the motor and cleared the buoys, then moved around the promontory.
When he was a teen, Dead Man’s Cove was the destination of the more adventurous kids.He hadn’t been out here in years, and the cove was much smaller than what he remembered, nothing but a strip of white sand beach and rocky walls that formed a small cliff.Fitting a film crew in here would be tight.He had not brought Cass here yet—Cass was determined to film the boat scenes in King Harbor.But Jason had wanted to see this again.He motored the boat in as close as he could get, then leapt out and dragged it onto the sand.
Mallory was still gripping the sides of the boat.“This isn’t going to work.”
“You haven’t even seen the cave.Come on, Mal—give it a chance.”
She pressed her lips together.She gave him a curt nod, kicked off her impractical shoes—“I just got these,” she said, miffed about them—and rolled up her pant legs.She inched toward the front of the boat and refused to let go of it with one hand as she reached for Jason with the other.
“Have you never been on a boat before?”
“No!We were not boat people.Helpme,” she begged.
He was laughing when he reached into the boat, put his hands on her waist, and lifted her out.She slid down his body until her feet touched the sand.He smiled.
She glared at him.“What are you doing?”
“Helping.Like you asked.”
