Perilous Waters by Terry Shames

Author:Terry Shames [Shames, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2023-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

During the day, the dock where the dive boats were berthed bustled with activity, but now it was deserted and I couldn’t help feeling vulnerable, given what I was carrying. It was dusk, and the afternoon wind had died down. The dive boats, four in Jeremy’s fleet, hulked in the shadows, spooky and unwelcoming. My imagination was working overtime. I surveyed them, trying to decide which one to hide the jewelry on. They were basically all alike, but dive instructors tended to gravitate toward the same boat every day.

The one I usually worked on was called J-Diver2. If someone did suspect I had stashed the jewelry on one of these boats, anybody could tell them I usually worked on J-Diver2. Maybe I should hide the pouch on one of the others. But I preferred to be near the stash when I went out on the boat tomorrow. If I was lucky, Kevin would call tonight and I could bring him here to retrieve it, but if I had to wait, I wanted to know the package was where I could keep an eye on it.

I stepped aboard J-Diver2, feeling jittery. There was still a hint of light low on the western horizon, but under the canopy of the dive boat, it was pitch black. I heard the crunch of gravel and saw light beams as a car drove into the parking lot a few hundred yards away. The engine switched off. I waited, but I didn’t hear a car door. Whoever it was couldn’t see me in the gloom of the boat, much less what I was up to. One car had already come in behind me, but they had parked near the entrance. I hoped nobody was planning to come here to the dive boats. It could even be Jeremy, checking on something. Maybe it would be best if I tried this later. I went back out and stood on the stern of the boat, looking down the dock, but no one appeared.

I moved back up under the boat’s canopy, turned on the penlight on my keyring and looked around for a place to put the pouch. A dive boat was a basic craft, intended only for ferrying divers and snorkelers back and forth to dive sites. There were no refinements for people’s comfort. There were crude benches for people to sit on while they were underway, but no storage lockers. There were pegs for holding equipment, and a spacious holding area for the tanks, which were stashed overnight in a shed. I flashed the light on the instrument panel. Next to the wheel was a cabinet door marked ‘First Aid.’ Diving was a rigorous sport, but I had rarely seen the First Aid kit brought out. It was one of the few places on the boat where I could hide something.

I opened the door. The bin was small and crammed with different kinds of medical emergency items, everything from packets of Band-aids and antiseptic cream to a big plastic bag at the bottom of the bin that held a defibrillator.

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