Crystal Blue (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 3) by John Cunningham (novels for beginners txt) 📕

all or if you can’t reach me, let’s make the Beach Bar on St. John our rendezvous point every night.”

“Trouble, what kind of—”

“I’m late, gotta go.”

“Wait, Buck, before we left Key West we heard news reports that Islamic terrorists kidnapped Stud Mahoney.” Ray went on to explain that Mahoney’s captors were demanding the release of prisoners from Guantanamo. “I don’t want to get caught in the middle of that.”

“Don’t worry, Ray. Got to run.”

Good grief. I hung up, took a deep breath, and entered the Private Aviation building hoping Avery Rose’s plane was late.

It wasn’t. And those pictures of her on the Five Sixes taxis had not been airbrushed. If anything, they didn’t do her justice. What is it about a tall woman in cut-off shorts and cowboy boots with long black hair and blue eyes and the world’s biggest smile?

“You must be Buck Reilly,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am, that’s me.”

She had to be 5’11” but with the boots came close to looking me in the eye.

She eyed me up and down. “You’re cuter than I remembered from those pictures in the Wall Street Journal, King Charles.”

Crap. But she winked at me.

“Call me Buck.” She had three large suitcases. What everyone would need for a long weekend in the islands. “Is this everything?” I said. “We’re in kind of a hurry.”

When I reached for one of her bags she took hold of my forearm and gave it a subtle squeeze.

“I’m tired of flying, Buck. Don’t bother with that right now.”

“But—”

“I know you’re busy and I don’t want to throw a wrench in your schedule, but I had a concert in Dallas last night, flew home to Nashville, threw everything I own into these here bags, and barely made my flight to Miami, then to St. Thomas. I need a drink and to stretch my legs.”

“I understand, but—”

She pressed two fingers against my lips and held them there, gently. Her smile was mesmerizing.

This is business, Buck. Focus.

She said she was going to grab lunch with her manager here on St. Thomas, then take the ferry to Tortola, where the Peter Island shuttle would pick them up at Customs. I wondered if she’d seen the Beast and was just being kind.

“But if you’d like to meet there for dinner later…”

“Sorry, Avery, but I’m swamped.”

“I’ll see you again, though, right?”

I couldn’t decide if she was a major flirt, really sweet, or both.

“I’ll be picking you up at Peter Island, unless you’d rather travel by speedboat—”

“No, no, Buck—I’ll wait for you. I love seaplanes, saw yours out on the tarmac. Grumman Goose, right? I grew up in Fort Lauderdale and used to fly the Chalk’s Mallards to Bimini to go fishing with my daddy.”

My, oh my.

I left Avery Rose at the desk awaiting a car to take her downtown but carried with me the scent of whatever citrusy perfume, soap, or shampoo came off her as I walked out to the Beast. I was one-for-one with successful pick-ups, and since I’d assigned the rest to Captain Jeremy, Ray and Lenny, I had more time on St. Thomas to search for clues. That was both good and bad—good because I wanted to turn over some rocks here, bad because it left me exposed to the wrath of Special Agent Booth and Lieutenant White.

A glance at the cell phone showed a missed call from Booth. The red light indicated I had a message. No reason to spoil the mood by listening to him rant. Instead I dialed Crystal.

“Buck, is everything okay?”

“So far so good. Met up with Avery Rose and we’re squared away.”

“Thank God,” she said. “How will you get everyone from their airports to all the different resorts, then here to Jost Van Dyke? I feel so terrible putting all that on your back.”

“Don’t worry, under control.” I explained that help was on the way.

“That’s fantastic!” Her voice lifted. “We just might pull this off! Now, if they’d only find John….”

“I met with Lieutenant White, and the FBI has sent their Special Agent in Charge of South Florida and the Caribbean Basin down. I met with him, too. They’re on the case, Crystal. They’ll check into every possibility.” I let my statement hang in the air.

She was quiet on the other end.

“Crystal?”

“I’m here.”

“Anything new to share?”

“I got a phone call—it’s got to be the same man who called John before. We had a bad connection but he threatened me, Buck. He said if I don’t cancel the ‘save the children’ show, then I’d—and this where he lost me, but it sounded like he said I too would ‘eat shit.’”

“Are you sure you heard him right?”

“I couldn’t tell if it was an island accent, or what. It happened so fast.”

I told her I had some things to look into on St. Thomas. She mentioned that rehearsals started tomorrow, then said goodbye and hung up.

I thought back over everything she’d said. It struck me that she sounded awfully calm for a woman whose husband was still missing, whose big charity event was still in trouble, whose relationship with a kidnapped actor was still (for all she knew) unknown, who’d just received a menacing threat by phone.

REVEREND HELLFIRE’S CHURCH WAS up in the mountains, near Boom-Boom’s compound. I watched the taxi disappear and had serious doubts about how I’d get back to town.

The church was an old stone building that had to be at least a hundred years old. It had the look of former respectability run afoul, amplified by the overgrown tropical forest that pressed up against its walls. There was no sign out front, nor anything to proclaim the name of the Assembly. Unless you knew what it was, there was no way to identify the building as a house of worship.

Once at the rough-hewn front door, I did find a red cross painted on the wood—but it had three lines extending off the top, which reminded me of an old tattoo I’d seen on a paroled felon’s hand