Hollis called me at a quarter after two the next afternoon, while I was waiting at a stoplight on my way to Bully Betty’s. I hadn’t yet decided if today would be the day when I gave notice, or whether I’d stick it out and see how much I enjoyed the job when I wasn’t doing it for the paycheck.
“Where are you?” he said.
“On the Hill. What’s wrong?”
My phone buzzed in answer. Hollis had forwarded me a text, from Corcoran.
All good. Meet me at boat. Thanks. Sent at 2:10 p.m.
“That’s it?” I said.
“‘Thanks’? From Jimmy Blessed Corcoran? He was supposed to meet with his fence at noon. Plus, he knew I was going to be down here in Thurston County all day. Why’s he asking me to come meet him?”
A hot day, and suddenly my skin went cold.
“I’m going to the Francesca,” I said.
“Boyyo. That might not be the wisest plan.”
Maybe not. But I had a sudden dreadful feeling about Hollis’s boat. And Corcoran.
At far end of the big marina, Hollis’s dock floated a generous quarter-mile from the offices and yacht club. I forced myself to approach slowly, checking the scattering of weekday-morning cars in the lot. Scanning every moorage slip. If there was a soul aboard any of the nearby boats, they were keeping their peace.
The Francesca strained gently at her lines, nudged by the current. I knocked on the hull. No answer. I grabbed the rail and climbed up and onto the foredeck. The boat groaned and rocked fractionally with my weight. I readjusted the Smith & Wesson under my jacket for a better draw and walked silently aft on the water side. No sounds or movement, other than my own.
All looked normal in the cabin through the sliding glass door. Maybe even slightly tidier than usual. I used my lockpicks to open the door and slid it wide. Listened again, and heard only the breeze through the surrounding forest of masts.
I made my way, very carefully, into the cabin and through every stateroom, checking the closets and lockers. The Francesca was a large boat, but even a sizable cruiser doesn’t offer many places for a person to hide. I was alone.
The cabin was neater than normal. Most of the clothes and papers were strewn on the port side now, leaving the starboard free of clutter. The starboard, where Hollis had built his hidden compartments.
Where we had stashed the gold.
I yanked at the corner wedges and bookshelf rails, removing smaller pieces to unlock the larger ones as Hollis had demonstrated. I had to see. To make sure that the red and blue suitcases with their millions were still inside.
My hands worked as my mind raced ahead. Who had known about the secret compartments, besides Hollis and myself? Who could have opened them without tearing the interior apart by force? Corcoran, for sure. O’Hasson? Cyndra, even? They were here with Hollis and the gold, after EverCon. I had thought they were both exhausted and asleep in the forward staterooms. Had one of them managed to spy on Hollis as he stashed the cases inside?
I set about lifting the settee frame and attached flooring. The piece was long and awkward. I had to shift one side first, and then the other.
A gap below, against the spider’s web pattern of strands in the raw fiberglass hull. No suitcases. No gold.
Empty.
I clutched at the wood of the wall, the larger of the two pieces that covered Hollis’s big hiding place, and yanked it away in one pull.
I’d been wrong. Again.
The compartment wasn’t empty.
The body of Jimmy Corcoran stared up at me.