LITMIR.BIZ

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him.

      “Something I didn’t like about that guy.”

      “He thinks he can do anything he wants ‘cause he’s got the big bucks.”

      “Probably hogged the oxygen.”

      He understood the need to assign blame. And understood that the rich, handsome adventurer, Noah Fielding, was a convenient target.

      Still, he heard himself protesting, “No.”

      The captain’s voice cut through the muttering of the crew, telling them to cool it until they had the full story.

      Two men brought a stretcher and lifted Noah onto it. He knew it wasn’t easy maneuvering his one hundred seventy pound, six-foot frame down the companionway, but they managed to do it without dropping him.

      Below deck, he lay on the exam table in the infirmary, letting Dr. Dupont poke and prod him.

      “You’re in good shape. It looks like you were damn lucky,” the medic said.

      Noah pushed himself to a sitting position. “I’ve got an iron constitution. And that rebreather thing kept me going.” His voice caught. “I’m just sorry it didn’t save the others.”

      “Yeah.” Dupont walked to the door and stuck out his head. “You can talk to him now.”

      Captain Sampson came in, his gaze hard. “Do you remember what happened?”

      Noah struggled not to tense up. He had nothing to hide. Well, nothing that mattered to Sampson or the rest of the crew of Neptune’s Promise.

      “It got pretty fuzzy at the end. I was functioning on hardly any oxygen, so I don’t know if I can be perfectly accurate. The Fortune wedged into a rock formation. After Eddie passed out, I was able to shake us free.”

      “I thought you were just financing the expedition. I didn’t realize you could operate the sub.”

      “I’ve picked up a lot of skills over the years,” he clipped out, hoping that was enough of an explanation—and hoping he wasn’t going to have to fight his way out of here. He knew it was natural for the men to resent his miraculous escape and his money. He was alive. The crew who had gone down with him in the sub were dead. But that wasn’t his fault. All he’d done was survive.

      

      NEPTUNE’S Promise returned to George Town. As soon as the craft docked, Noah left the ship and headed for the luxury B and B where he was staying.

      He knew the captain had already informed the men’s families of their deaths. After closing the door to his room, he made condolence calls to the widows.

      The deaths were like a raw wound in his gut. He couldn’t bring the men back, but he could arrange to transfer a million dollars to each of the wives. At least that would make the next few years easier for them and their children.

      Guilt gnawed at him. He and the crew had carefully gone over procedures, and the craft should have been safe. Maybe if he’d used another pilot, they would have avoided disaster.

      Noah had liked Eddie Carlson, most especially his sense of humor and sense of adventure. Now Noah was second-guessing himself and thinking that the guy was too reckless to have been at the controls. If he’d stayed in open water, everybody would have come back alive.

      Live and learn, he told himself.

      Twenty minutes after he’d closed the door to his room, a two-man team from the local constabulary showed up. One was a brisk little dark-skinned cop named Inspector Dangerford. In his fifties and balding, he was accompanied by a younger, taller assistant named Sergeant Wilkins, who mostly let his boss do the talking.

      Noah knew the inspector’s type. Nice and polite—until he thought he had something on you. Then he’d get his sidekick to whip out the handcuffs and march you off to an interrogation room where you might or might not undergo some physical persuasion.

      Noah had a lot of practice answering questions—hostile and otherwise. Dangerford asked a lot of them in his soft island accent, approaching each point from several different angles, but he couldn’t shake Noah’s story that he’d strapped on the rebreather and hoped for the best.

      From the first, it was clear the cops were just on a fishing expedition, hoping Noah would make some kind of mistake and incriminate himself in the deaths of the other men.

      But he stuck to his guns, repeating the same story over and over. He hadn’t done anything illegal or immoral. He didn’t know why he was alive and the other men were dead.

      Strictly speaking, that was the absolute truth.

      At the end of the interview, Dangerford asked him to stay in town until the investigation of the incident was completed.

      Noah politely declined, and because he wasn’t under arrest for anything, they had to back off.

      When they asked for his address, he gave them the condo he owned in San Francisco. He wasn’t there often, but he paid the security staff to maintain his privacy.

      Although he’d planned to stay on the island for a couple of weeks, he felt a sudden urge to get out of the sun. Picking up the phone, he booked a flight to the West Coast with High Fliers, a company that sold shares in private jet planes to rich passengers who wanted to travel in comfort to various destinations around the world.

      

      AS NOAH’S PLANE flew over Las Vegas, an interesting conversation was taking place in a studio apartment in a run-down part of the desert gambling oasis.

      “You must be crazy.” Olivia Stapler gave her brother a hard stare, struggling not to spit in his face after the hateful suggestion he’d made.

      Pearson’s response was a nasty smile. “If you don’t do this, I’ll tell Dad that you’re working as a prostitute.”

      “That’s a bald-faced lie!”

      “What would you call it?”

      “I’m working for an escort service.”

      His laugh was even nastier than the smile. “You expect him to believe that? An escort service in Las Vegas. He hated the idea of your coming here in the first place. Now he’s going to know you’re wallowing in sin.”

      A sick feeling rose in her throat. Her dad was in a nursing home back in Paterson, New Jersey. After two strokes he was paralyzed on one side and barely functional, and he’d always favored her brother.

      If Pearson said Olivia was a prostitute, her dad would believe it, and it would kill him.

      After delivering his threat, Pearson softened his approach.

      “And there’s money in it for you, too. A lot more than you ever saw.”

      “I earned good money dancing,” she shot back.

      He made a snorting sound. “In a chorus line?”

      “Yes! And I had a featured part.”

      “Well, you had to kiss all that goodbye. So you might as well get used to being a gimp.”

      The cruel gibe made her want to rush her brother and beat him with her fists. But he’d only start slapping her around, and she’d be in worse shape than she was now. From where she sat, it was too bad she’d focused all her energy on her dance career, but she’d been young and sure that she had what it took to make it.

      While she was still in high school, she’d saved money from her after-school job at Macy’s. As soon as she’d graduated, she’d bought a bus ticket to Las Vegas.

      With her long legs and years of dance training, she’d been instantly hired by one of the smaller reviews on the strip. Six months later, she’d applied to one of the top shows and gotten in. Her boss had told her she was on the fast track to being offered a starring role.

      That was then. Her reality

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