Topsail Island
A novel by
Paul Boardman
Copyright 2015 Paul Boardman,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2581-8
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.
Other books by Paul Boardman
Normans Cay
Hidden Agendas
Chapter 1
Cynthia
The bow of the twenty-five foot fishing boat lifted as its sole occupant slammed the throttle forward but as the boat began to plane his frustration subsided and he backed it off to a cruising speed of thirty-five knots. He was forty miles off shore, on the edge of the Gulf Stream, no place to abuse his boat and risk a breakdown.
The vague haze of land on the horizon became clearer and soon he could begin to distinguish the shapes of trees and houses, still miles away. Ahead he noticed a forty-foot cruiser floating calmly in the gentle swells. As he passed, he saw a middle aged woman waving at him and casually raised his hand to return the friendly gesture. The woman continued waving. It was a call for assistance, not just a friendly wave.
Maritime law dictated that it was unlawful to refuse to help a stranded vessel. It was also against the man’s nature.
Langdon immediately eased off the throttle and swung his boat within thirty feet of the cruiser.
The woman called out to him through microphone-like cupped hands. “My boat stalled and I can’t start it. I ran the batteries dead trying. I’m alone on board.”
Langdon quickly assessed the situation. Boats ran into trouble all the time but they usually called Sea Tow. Still, the woman was definitely too old and overweight to be seductive bait for any self-respecting criminal. Her boat looked in reasonable shape but was just dirty enough to indicate a lack of regular maintenance. The woman dropped her hands to her side. Even from a distance her face and body language suggested that her sense of defeat was totally sincere.
“Hang tight, I’ll circle around,” he called back.
Langdon pulled away from the cruiser and let his boat drift while he extracted a large pair of fenders from under the seats. He looked up and saw the woman securing dock lines on her starboard side and tied his fenders off to port. As he pulled alongside and shifted the transmission into neutral, the woman tossed her lines down to the lower, smaller fishing boat. Langdon tied off with quick release knots, just in case he had to make a fast get-away. When the boat was secure he looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see the woman holding a frosty glass over the rail.
“Thank you so much for stopping,” she said. “I suppose I could have radioed for a tow but I didn’t get that far. I thought I could get this damn thing started if I waited a while.”
“I’m already glad I stopped,” said Langdon, accepting the frozen Margarita.
“Would you mind coming aboard and taking a quick look at things?” the woman asked tentatively. “There’s a generator somewhere but I’ve never used it.” Then she seemed to remember her manners and introduced herself. “My name is Cynthia.”
Langdon took a sip of his drink and assessed the situation. It was odd that the middle-aged woman was alone off-shore with apparently very little experience. He rejected that idea with a degree of nautical cynicism toward land-lubbers he deemed appropriate. A lot of people thought that if they could drive a car they could handle a boat and Cynthia was no exception. But she didn’t appear to pose much of a threat and she mixed a good drink so Langdon decided to cut her a bit of slack. He passed the glass back and in one quick motion he put both hands on the cruiser’s rail, swung a foot onto the gunwale and hoisted himself up and over the rail. The woman had to look up nearly a foot to meet Langdon’s eyes as she handed his drink back to him.
“Langdon Sykes. I’m pleased to meet you Cynthia.”
“Come sit in the shade and finish your drink, Langdon. The boat can wait a few minutes.” She eased past him between the rail and the cabin and sat down on a padded seat on the stern deck under the large canvas awning. She motioned to another seat in the opposite corner but still in the shade.
“Fishing or just out for a cruise?” asked Cynthia, politely. She was trying to appear relaxed but there seemed to be an underlying tension. Probably she was on her second or third libation.
“A bit of both. The fish refused my bait. I motored up from Wilmington off-shore but decided to go home on the ICW and not bounce around so much. What do you think is wrong with your boat?”
“It was running just fine. Then it coughed and died. I tried to start it but the batteries finally gave up.” Her reply was listless, lacking the anger most people attribute to machines that break down.
Langdon took a deep swallow and finished off his drink. “Let’s take a look.”
The wheelhouse was like the rest of the boat. Everything was orderly but it had not seen a cleaning rag in months. Langdon turned on the key and studied the gauges. A light blinked on the dashboard but the fuel gauges didn’t move. There were two sets of controls for the twin engines. He let the exhaust fan run for a minute, then tried the starter button and was rewarded with nothing more than a clicking sound. Cynthia hovered in the background leaning against the doorway to the stern deck.
“I think I found the problem. You are a bit low on fuel. Empty, in fact.”
“I thought that might be the case,” Cynthia admitted.
“When did you last fill up?”
“I’ve never done that,” she answered.
There was a wet bar in the salon and Cynthia began to make another pitcher of Margaritas. Her actions were automatic, lacking in enthusiasm. Langdon watched her, wondering what was coming next.
“My husband died a few months ago. I never did that sort of thing. He would always fill up the water and fuel tanks. I should probably sell the boat.”
Langdon quickly expressed his condolences, noting the slump in Cynthia’s shoulders and the way she refused to look him in the eye.
“He was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago. He always knew it would come back. The end was quick and merciful. He died at home. That’s the way he wanted it. This was the first time I took the boat out since he died. It’s the first time I ever took it out alone. I really never drove the thing myself. We had an arrangement, though. When we were docking I would drive so Bob could throw the ropes or jump onto the dock if he had to. I’m pretty damn good at docking but I don’t even know where the fuel gauge is.”
Suddenly she remembered her manners. Her back straightened and she forced a lame smile and went back to the task at hand, mixing, pouring. She looked directly into his eyes as she passed a drink to Langdon, which he accepted gratefully.
“I have a couple of jerry cans,” he said. “Enough to get you to the nearest fuel dock. You said you had a generator, so that should be fine to charge the batteries.”