Bitter End Read online

  “Yeah? You ever dealt with Caribbean cops before?”

  Screech, who was gulping a glass of seltzer water, narrowed his eyes at him.

  “No,” he spat. “Have you?”

  Beckett shook his head.

  “No—but still. Anyways, you know what happened in…” an image of the rock covered in blood and bone and brain matter flashed in Beckett’s mind and he shuddered. “…New York. I’m on double secret probation here, Screech. I can be getting involved with the cops.”

  Screech took an annoyingly long sip of his water.

  “So, you think that instead of getting the cops involved, it’s a better idea to board a mob boss’s yacht, snap pictures of him and the vessel, then blackmail him into giving the yacht back? That pretty much sums up your plan?”

  Beckett had to admit that Screech had a point—it wasn’t the most genius of plans. But his skinny friend forgot the most important part: Chloe.

  He had to see Chloe again. And besides, a party was exactly what Beckett needed to take his mind off things. It likely wasn’t what Internal Affairs had in mind when they’d suggested a vacation, but fuck it.

  Those pencil pushers weren’t here now, were they?

  “Look, the guy invited us. And based on how you described him, I bet taking pictures would flatter Donnie. Anyways, we’ll just snap the pics and send them to Bob Bumhugger or whatever the fuck his name is and go from there. If things get really hairy, we’ll call Drake. How does that sound?”

  Screech chewed the inside of his lip.

  “Aren’t you a partner at Triple D, anyway?” Beckett needled. “Do you think Drake would have sent you here if he didn’t think that you could handle the job?”

  Screech scowled and took the bait.

  “Fine, we’ll do it your way. We’ll go to the party and snap pictures. But if things get fucked up… I’m not—I’m not—”

  “You’re not what? Jesus, spit it out already.”

  Screech finished his seltzer water in one gulp.

  “Nothing,” he said, lowering his gaze. “Can you promise me one thing, at least?”

  Beckett sipped his scotch.

  “I’m not kissing you, man.”

  Screech ignored the comment.

  “Just don’t get fucking drunk off your ass, okay?”

  Beckett finished his scotch in three swallows.

  “Me? Never.”

  ***

  It was clear from the moment that they saw the yacht that it was the one that Screech was looking for. Even if the word ‘B-Yacht’ch’ wasn’t boldly emblazoned on the back, the tinted windows, the gold handrails, the loud music and flashing lights all screamed that the owner was… well, a biatch. As Screech and Beckett approached the loading platform, they were greeted by human refrigerators crammed into matching black suits, their arms crossed over their chests. It was all so cliché that Beckett couldn’t help but smirk.

  “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed as Screech slid in behind him.

  The man on the left took one look at Beckett’s spiky blond hair, his worn jeans and T-shirt, and frowned.

  “Private party,” he said simply.

  “Oh, you can speak,” Beckett said under his breath. “Nice trick.”

  “What was that?” the bouncer on the right demanded.

  “Nothing. It’s just that if you check your guest list there, you’ll see that we were invited,” Beckett said.

  “By who?” the men asked in unison.

  “The Dalai Lama. Who the fuck do you think?”

  The man on the right unfolded his massive arms and looked about to move forward when Screech spoke up.

  “Yeah, you don’t look like his type. Why don’t—”

  The bouncer stopped speaking when the man himself appeared, needing no introduction. Sporting a silk robe that hung open revealing a pair of short swim trunks beneath, Beckett knew that this was Donnie the way he knew that the yacht was B-yacht’ch. But Beckett was far more interested in the woman at his side, than the man himself.

  It was Chloe.

  “Hey, Screech!” Donnie shouted with a wave. The bouncers turned and then quickly parted to allow Screech and Beckett to pass.

  “You guys are cute, you know that?” Beckett whispered as he strutted by the men. ”Like Bobbsey Twins born in Chernobyl.”

  Screech hurried up to the main deck and this time it was Beckett’s turn to follow.

  “Nice to see you again,” Donnie said, offering Screech a strong handshake. “This your boy AC or Zach?”

  Although Beckett got the reference, he frowned in disapproval.

  Lame.

  “The name’s Beckett.”

  Donnie made an ‘o’ shape with his mouth.

  “Well, nice to meet you, Beckett. My name’s Donnie, and this is my yacht. You guys want a drink?”

  Before either of them could answer, Donnie nodded vigorously and then released his hold on Chloe.

  “Of course, you do. Chloe, sweetheart, want to grab some drinks for our guests?”

  Chloe nodded, her head kept low, and then started toward the front of the yacht.

  “I’ll go with you,” Beckett offered quickly.

  This time, it was he who didn’t wait for an answer.

  Chapter 9

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Chloe whispered.

  Beckett hurried to catch up with the woman, his brow furrowed.

  “I’m sorry, m’lady, but I’m getting mixed messages. Didn’t you just invite me a few hours ago?”

  Chloe ducked behind a pillar supporting a staircase and then grabbed Beckett roughly by the shoulders.

  “I’m no prude, but perhaps you should buy me a drink first,” Beckett said with a grin.

  But Chloe wasn’t smiling.

  “Beckett, you need to get out here. Things have… things have changed. Donnie isn’t… he isn’t who I thought he was.”

  The alarm in her voice and the fear on her face gave Beckett pause. He glanced around quickly to catch his bearings. They were alone by the staircase, but everywhere else on the boat seemed to be populated by beautiful women. Normally, he would have considered this a blessing, but there was something that didn’t fit. Beckett counted at least two dozen women, all beautiful, all scantily clad in bikinis, but it was what he didn’t see that was odd.

  Aside from himself, Donnie, Screech, the bartender Kevin, and the two goons by the boarding ramp, there were no other men on board.

  Gives me good odds, Beckett thought. And he would have said as much, if Chloe hadn’t looked so damn scared.

  “What’s going on, Chloe? Is he… is he hitting you?” Beckett asked, his eyes narrowing.

  There was something else odd about the scene, he realized as he watched Chloe’s face undergo several different emotions in rapid succession. All the women on the boat, save Chloe, were drinking from coconuts that Kevin was hacking away at off to one side.

  “I found other women,” Chloe said softly. “On the boat.”

  Beckett raised an eyebrow and looked around again.

  “Umm… yeah, plenty of women here. In fact—”

  Chloe leaned in close and pinched Beckett’s arm.

  “No, not here… below. They’re below deck and they are—”

  A smiling Donnie DiMarco suddenly appeared from around the corner and Chloe immediately let go of Beckett’s arm.

  A smile effortlessly slid onto her face, but it took Beckett considerably more effort to match the expression.

  “That’s where you went,” Donnie said. “The bar’s over there. You’re not trying to pull one on with my woman, are you, good doctor?”

  Beckett chuckled and held up his hands defensively.

  “No such thing. In fact, I was trying to stave off her advances.”

  Donnie reached out and gave Chloe’s ass a light slap.

  “Yeah, she’s all about the new guys. Go on, sweetie, go find your sister.”

  Beckett’s eyebrows rose at the mention of a sister.


  “Now about that drink, Beckett? You still interested?”

  Beckett nodded and together they walked over to the bartender.

  Kevin raised his head. When he locked eyes with Beckett, his lip curled ever so slightly.

  “What can I get you, Donnie?” the man asked.

  Beckett still couldn’t figure out what Kevin’s deal was, but considering Chloe’s clandestine comment, he was no longer convinced that it had entirely to do with keeping the girls to himself.

  Some of them, certainly, but even a guy as young as Kevin would have a hard time satisfying all the women.

  And, besides, sharing was caring.

  “I’m gonna guess that the good doctor is a Scotch man. Let’s hook him up with some of the good stuff.”

  Beckett’s eyes fell on the five or six coconuts that Kevin had been working on.

  “What? No umbrella coconut drink for you?” he asked.

  Donnie’s smile faltered, but only for a second.

  “No,” the man replied. “Those are for the ladies.”

  How chivalrous of you, Beckett thought. How chivalrous for a man keeping ladies below deck.

  Chapter 10

  There’s something wrong here, Screech thought.

  It was in the way that the women holding coconuts swayed to the music, the way their eyes were glassy, that tipped him off.

  There was something else, too, something that he couldn’t quite place. Screech wasn’t sure if this wasn’t just his paranoia rearing his ugly head, or if Drake’s detective instincts were somehow rubbing off on him.

  Whatever it was, he simply couldn’t shake the feeling.

  I need to get out here, he thought. I need to take some pictures, confirm that this is the boat, then call Bob Bumacher.

  The good news was that with the women acting the way they were, they didn’t notice him slip away from the main deck. A furtive glance at the goons guarding the ramp showed that they were also preoccupied. And yet, based only on his brief encounter with Donnie DiMarco, he didn’t doubt that the man had other people, those less easy to identify, making sure that nothing got out of hand.

  After all, no one steals a two or three-million-dollar yacht and doesn’t expect some sort of retribution.

  Screech took a seat on the cushions near the stern and marveled at how comfortable the seat was. It was as if everything of this yacht was made of clouds, and the women were floating on them.

  It made him wonder how a man like Bob could ‘lose’ the yacht in the first place. As his eyes drifted upward, he saw dozens of whirling electronics and swaying antennae on the roof of the second level.

  Bob couldn’t track the behemoth by GPS? Surely a ship as large as this would be easy to track… why did he come to us?

  Screech shook his head and lowered his eyes. He could see Chloe speaking to one of her other bikini-clad friends, the latter of which was taking heavy pulls on the thick straw jutting from her coconut. Chloe seemed agitated and upset and tried to swat the drink from the other woman’s hands, but the woman, who appeared intoxicated, stumbled away from her. The commotion had started to draw the attention of others, and Screech used this distraction to his advantage.

  With a final glance at the men in the black suits by the ramp, he turned and flipped over the railing. He landed on a platform a few inches from the water and then pressed his back against the rear of the boat.

  When no one shouted and he heard nobody running in his direction, Screech exhaled a sigh of relief. Then, gathering his wits once more, he shifted his position so that he could take a good look at the writing on the back of the yacht.

  “B-yacht’ch, British Virgin Islands,” Screech read under his breath as he pulled his cell out of his pocket. He snapped a few pictures, making sure that they clearly showed the name in the low lighting, then scrolled to Bob Bumacher’s contact. A moment before he clicked send, however, a thought occurred to him.

  It came out of nowhere, but as soon as it had, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it sooner: What if this isn’t Bob’s yacht?

  When the huge, bald man had come to Triple D and asked them to find his yacht, Screech had been green under the gills. But that had been before… before what had happened with Beckett and Craig Sloan. At the time, Screech had been eager to accept the case, to branch out from following octogenarians around to ensure that the help didn’t steal their silverware, and also to show his partner Drake that he could handle something like this.

  But now he was second-guessing his initial judgment.

  Who’s to say that this is actually Bob’s yacht?

  After all, he’d never provided a single shred of evidence that it was, and Screech hadn’t thought to ask. And as far as he knew, Bob had never gone to the police. Even stranger was the fact that the man had only wanted them to find the boat, not retrieve it.

  The job was to locate the boat and let Bob know of the location — that was it.

  As this idea took up precedence in his mind, Screech thought back to Donnie’s casual demeanor in the resort lobby. Sure, the man was being a dick, but he didn’t seem in the least concerned of being found out. And the name… surely, a man who’d just stolen a three-million-dollar yacht would try to disguise a name as unique as B-yacht’ch, wouldn’t he?

  Just staring at those letters now, Screech thought that with just a few pieces of electrical tape, he could change the name to something less conspicuous.

  Screech’s finger continued to hover over the send button as he tried to figure out what to do next.

  Should I call Drake? Ask his opinion?

  He shook his head.

  No, this is my case. I can do this. I’m a partner now, I need to start acting like one.

  A shoot drew him out of his head, and Screech carefully peered through around the side of the yacht.

  Two tanned men in fatigues sporting automatic weapons over their shoulders chatted as they made their way toward the yacht.

  Screech swallowed hard.

  Maybe the police had been notified after all — or the local militia or whatever governing body oversaw this part of the world.

  Either way, Screech knew that it would be in his best interested to get off the majestic vessel as soon as possible.

  If he valued his freedom, that is.

  After a few deep breaths, Screech sent the images to Bob Bumacher, wondering the entire time how he’d gotten himself into this mess.

  Chapter 11

  The bartender kept shooting eyes at Beckett as he poured his Scotch. Beckett did his best to ignore the man.

  The Scotch he was served was indeed the ‘good stuff’. Although Beckett never saw the bottle, he pegged it as a twenty-five or thirty-year-old Glenlivet.

  “Damn good,” Beckett said under his breath.

  “Indeed,” Donnie concurred, taking a sip of his own drink. Then he wrapped his arm around Beckett’s shoulder, something that instantly made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what it was about Donnie that was off-putting, but it was more than just Kevin and Chloe’s warnings.

  It was the way in which everything the man said and did was friendly, but wasn’t. It was all… passive aggressive.

  And yet, Beckett didn’t shrink away from the man’s grasp. They were of equal height, but Donnie had him by about 20 pounds. If push came to shove, Beckett suspected that he wouldn’t be the one doing the shoving.

  “Hey, Beckett, you want to go somewhere and chat?” Donnie asked as he led the man away from the bar and toward the front of the yacht.

  Beckett looked around, noting a bunch of the girls congregating off to one side.

  “Not really,” he admitted. “I’d rather stay here with the ladies.”

  Donnie chuckled.

  “Yeah, me too. But there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Beckett raised an eyebrow.

  And then, as he stared at Donnie DiMarco’s bearded face, he realized something, something that had happened a few moments ago that he hadn’t pic
ked up on.

  I’m gonna guess that the good doctor is a Scotch man. Let’s hook him up with some of the good stuff, Donnie had said.

  But Beckett hadn’t mentioned that he was a doctor, not once. He supposed that Kevin might have told him, or maybe even Chloe, but something told him this wasn’t the case.

  Donnie already knew he was a doctor; Beckett was sure of it.

  Kevin brought the machete down hard on the side of a coconut, sending a green shard over the side of the yacht.

  “Well, okay,” Beckett agreed. “Maybe then you can tell me how you knew I was a doctor, because I think I rather look like a rockstar than a man of medicine, myself.”

  Beckett tried to gauge the man’s reaction to this, but Donnie’s face remained stoic.

  “What are the odds?” Donnie said with a smug expression that Beckett didn’t care for. “I’m looking for a doctor join my team.”

  Beckett’s eyes narrowed.

  In his experience, any ‘team’ that needed the service of a doctor that didn’t wear jerseys with numbers on the back was never a good thing.

  And given the reason behind why he was here on vacation — a “voluntary” suspension — Beckett knew better than to get into bed with Donnie DiMarco.

  “On second thought, I think I’ll pass. I’m in the—”

  The commotion that had begun not twenty feet from them suddenly escalated to shouts and Beckett turned to see a red-faced Chloe on the verge of coming to blows with another bikini-clad woman.

  Beckett moved in their direction, but Donnie stayed him with his hand and tilted his head toward the ramp leading up to the yacht.

  It was then that Beckett noticed the two men with machine guns in the process of boarding.

  Uh-oh, he thought. This can’t be good.

  His initial thought was that they were coming for him, that the NYPD had changed their mind and had decided that they would press charges against him after all. His second was that the man who’d hired Screech, Bob Bum-ache or whatever his name was, had called in reinforcements.