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“You checking out my ass?” She flicked a sassy grin at me.
“No. Do you want me to?”
Although she didn’t answer, she seemed to be fighting a smile. Indiana seemed to belong here, amongst the weathered equipment and faded maps, but I had a feeling that something very sad had happened to her, and whatever it was, it dragged her down.
She pushed the throttle forward and flicked a couple of levers next to an empty coffee cup. Rhino’s engine beat increased.
“Would you like a coffee?” I stepped forward and indicated to her empty cup.
“Sure. But not your pussy brew.”
I grabbed her mug. “I wouldn’t dream of it. How do you have it?”
“Two spoons of coffee. Three sugars.”
I cringed, and as I strolled away, her laughter drifted to me. As I chuckled with her, I tried to pinpoint when I’d last laughed, but I couldn’t. It had been a tough couple of years. When I’d joined the force, I hadn’t aspired to go undercover. I sure as shit hadn’t known it would rob three years of my life.
As the wind tickled my neck, a sense of freedom embraced me. It felt good to be out in the open. It felt good to be me, Tyler Kingsley, yet I still couldn’t shake off the memory of being Adam Holman, the man who pretended to be a hard-ass criminal, just to fit into the underworld I’d embedded myself into during my undercover operation.
As I made two coffees, I turned on my laptop and opened the folder containing all the files on Ziháo Hàorán Chui and his criminal dealings.
I returned to the bridge with the two steaming coffees. Indiana jolted when I put her mug in front of her.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She reached for the coffee and, stepping back from the wheel, cupped the mug in both hands, turned to face me, and put one foot up on an overturned metal bucket. “So, you say you’ve been out on the ocean a few times. What are you talking? Surfing, boating, fishing?”
“All three.”
“What kind of boating?”
“I’ve been sailing a few times. I’ve taken the ferry across to Tasmania many times. I’ve been on a couple of fishing boats. But I’ve never been on a boat like this.”
“Rhino is one of a kind, that’s for sure.”
“How long have you worked on Rhino?”
“I was born on this boat.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, what?” She leveled her gaze at me.
“I’ve never met anyone born on a boat before.”
“And?” She cocked her head, revealing a jagged scar on her forehead.
“And nothing. Just making conversation.” I rested my hip against the back counter, and as she turned her back to me, I sipped my coffee.
After a couple of minutes, where she made it obvious that she didn’t want to chat, I said, “Well, I’ve got work to do, so I’ll be in the covered area if you need me.”
She glanced at me over her shoulder. “We call it the hut. And no, I won’t need you.”
I saluted her. “Roger that.”
As I returned to the hut, my thoughts drifted to the last woman I had protected, Nikki Bolton, wife of a ruthless drug kingpin and mother of the teenage boy I’d killed. The woman I shouldn’t have had an affair with.
My undercover role had led me to work as a driver for her husband, Albert ‘Bonebreaker’ Bolton. Primarily, I drove his identical twin sons Wesley and Owen to and from school, and Nikki to her various social appointments. It took four months for Nikki to even look at me. It was another two months before she spoke to me. I’d been patient, and when Nikki finally opened up to me, I discovered a demoralized woman who hid behind a stony façade.
