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In this area, Chui had given everyone a fucking ton of crimes to solve.
None of the detectives on Mom’s case cared about the murder of my thirty-four-year-old mother. Especially when it happened twenty-two years ago. To them, the case was long buried.
Not to me, though. I would never give up searching for the assholes who killed Mom in front of Dad and me. Their faces were permanently etched into my mind, and everywhere I went, I searched the crowds for those bastards. They would show up one day. I felt it in my blood, and when they did, they were going to wish they had never touched my family.
Dad waved his hand in front of my face, lurching me back from my mental abyss, and he pointed upward.
Releasing my hold on the chain, I swam with Dad to the surface. Pressure released from my ears as we broke through to salty air.
The beam from my flashlight flickered across Rhino’s hull and reflected on a red light in a hole in the back.
“The GPS,” I said.
“What?” Dad said as he shoved his tank up onto the dive deck.
I unhooked the GPS anchor and pulled the homing device from the recess. “I forgot I shoved this in here when Whisper and Jeff came to arrest me.”
Dad grinned. “Clever girl.”
We pushed our fins and dive gear onto the deck, and Dad groaned as he hauled himself up the ladder first. My impressions of Dad seemed to alternate between him being as tough as a bull shark and as frail as a conch shell. Tonight was the latter. Then again, we’d had a long day.
Leaving his gear there, Dad walked away, maybe heading for a hard-earned drink, and I aimed for the crane. I gave the cable latch a tug to ensure it was fastened correctly, and with my foot braced on the crane base, I pulled the rip cord. The mechanical winch clanged to life, and as I set it to the slowest possible speed, my mind shifted to when Tyler had helped me. Just about everything about him had been a surprise.
His piercing blue gaze that seemed to truly look at me. His meticulously organized manner which clashed so starkly with my chaotic world. His sexy ass. And his incredible abs that he hid behind his impossibly white T-shirt.
He was off my boat, yet somehow, he lingered, like the afterimage of a camera flash. Something else connected with my thoughts of him that I couldn’t pinpoint. A pang of . . . what? Longing? Company? A desire to get naked with the brooding cop?
“There it is!” My father’s sharp call jolted me back to the present.
“Woohoo,” I called, shaking my head clear of Tyler’s images.
My arms trembled as I manned the winch, adjusting the arm of the boom to bring the cage onto the rear deck. The damn machine groaned as if protesting at the weight of the haul, which was nothing compared to the weight of Chui’s boat.
The cage broke free of the surface with water cascading out the four sides.
“Take it easy!” Dad hollered.
I scowled at him. I had manned this crane more times than I could count. I knew exactly what I was doing.
Dad was just worried about the bottles of alcohol he’d looted.
How would he be if we found those priceless bottles of Penfolds on Siren’s Lure?
The plate! I’d forgotten all about that, too. Hopefully, it was still wrapped up in my wetsuit near the dinghy.
“That’s it. Keep her steady.” Dad raised his hands like he was guiding the cage with some kind of magic.
I lowered the precious load on the deck. As Dad released the chains from the crane winch, I turned off the engine.
“It’s fucking payday,” Dad hollered like a thief after a successful bank robbery.
He stepped inside and reached into the nearest crate. He pulled out a bottle that had lost its label, yet the amber glass was embossed with a crown emblem that Dad obviously recognized. He kissed the bottle. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”
I clapped his shoulder. “You deserve it, Dad.”
He curled his arm around my neck and kissed my temple. “We both do, kiddo.”
“Thanks, Dad. Before you crack that open, can you please secure this stuff while I get us out of here? This area gives me the creeps.”
