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

My mouth dropped open.

“Get in here and crank this bitch up, I got places to be.”

Boom-Boom was in the starboard rear seat with a shotgun pointed at my head.

“What’s wrong, Buck?” Crystal had stopped ten feet behind me.

“Who’s that?” Boom-Boom said.

I still hadn’t found my voice.

He leaned out, the gun still pointed at me.

“Got a lady friend with you, huh, brudda? Good for you.” He waved the gun. “Come on honey, let’s get on this old piece-a-shit so your boyfriend can get me outta here.”

Crystal stared at him, her mouth wide open.

“Leave her alone, Boom-Boom. I’ll take you wherever you want to go, but she’s got enough problems—”

“Problems? You don’t know shit about problems—and man, was I wrong about you. You just a broke loser who ain’t connected to shit. This group that rolled into the islands is heavy, man. My people been disappearing left and right. My whole organization’s gone to shit.”

Crystal’s face shifted from surprised to wild-eyed as she slogged toward us as fast as the thigh-deep water allowed.

“Did you kill my husband?”

“Whazzat she saying?” Boom-Boom’s brow furrowed. “Kill who?”

Crystal had nearly reached us.

“Did you kill my husband!”

I grabbed her around the waist as she tried to push past me.

“Crystal! Stop—”

“You better calm her ass down, Reilly, or I’ll pop her right here and now.”

I tried to hold her, but Lord, she was strong.

“That son-of-a-bitch killed John!”

“What the fuck!” Boom-Boom eased back inside the plane, the weapon pointed straight at us. “I ain’t killed shit, least not yet, but you better shut your damn mouth or that’s gonna change.”

“Crystal, stop, please! If he wanted to hurt us, he’d have already done it.” I held her in a bear hug. “Listen to me, he’s a drug smuggler. He doesn’t care about adoption!”

She finally stopped struggling. We were both soaked from wrestling in the surf.

“Was a smuggler,” he said. “But I got one last run to make, ‘cause they took all my cash.”

Crystal collapsed in my arms.

“Give me a hand, Boom-Boom,” I said.

I lifted her toward the plane, he reached out and grabbed her beneath the armpits to haul her inside. She was nearly dead weight. I helped push her up into the hatch, where he laid her down in the rear seat. I pulled myself aboard. The gun was resting against the cabin wall, and he must have read my mind because he snatched it up.

“We’re on our way to identify her husband’s body,” I said.

“You lied to me, Reilly. Said you could hook me up with those assholes.”

“I told you I’d help you if you came up with anything that helped me find John Thedford. Alive.”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here, brudda.” He nodded toward Crystal. “If there’s a reward, then I got some intel for you.”

I knelt down and fastened Crystal’s seatbelt.

“I said alive, Boom-Boom.”

“But even if he’s dead, well, wouldn’t you like to catch the motherfuckas who killed him?”

Crystal’s eyes suddenly cleared and she sat up straight.

“Damn right.”

Boom-Boom smiled. “Thought so.”

I climbed into the left seat. Halfway through my pre-flight checklist, Boom-Boom slid into the right seat next to me.

“You ain’t interested in what I got to tell you?”

“You told the Royal Police?”

“I ain’t going to no police station, brudda.” He reached into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts and removed a baggie from which he pulled out a fat blunt. “These murdering bastards is after my ass—hell, I had to take the public ferry to St. John!”

I fired up the engines and the Beast roared to life. I checked the fuel gauges—which were low—and the charges on the batteries, then glanced back at Crystal. Her head was against the seat and she stared ahead with faraway eyes.

Boom-Boom pulled on the spare headset and lit his doobie.

“Slide that window open,” I said. “What’s your information?”

“I heard some Russian dudes grabbed your boy. In fact, they may be the same motherfuckas that destroyed my business.”

“Russians? What about Baldy—”

“They hired Baldy to make the snatch then met him for the trade.”

“Trade?”

He rolled his eyes. “Money for the dude, brudda. Hell you think?”

What the— If it was a Russian cartel that had moved in, it was because of the shipping lanes and all the drug and arms trade passing through here. What would that have to do with adoption? Did Booth know all this? I powered on my phone to text him but after a couple tries realized it was dead—disconnected.

Prick!

“Buckle up, we’re headed out.”

Boom-Boom exhaled a plume of smoke.

“Haven’t told you where we’re going yet.”

“We’re taking the lady to Tortola,” I said.

His smile caught me off guard. I suddenly felt like Little Red Riding Hood.

“Perfect, Brudda. Now wasn’t that easy?”

Something told me nothing about this day would be easy.

THE TENSION INSIDE THE BEAST on the way to Beef Island was so thick it felt as if we were under water. Crystal sat in the back with her eyes closed, Boom-Boom watched my every move. He smelled like week-old sweat, had bags under his eyes, and his normally eight-ball-shaved head had a crown of stubble. For now he was getting what he wanted, but what would happen after we landed?

He caught me staring at him. “You do anything stupid when we land, what boys I got left’ll find you and your lady friend, and it won’t be pretty. Know what I’m saying, brudda?” He turned the barrel of the shotgun toward me from where it rested between his legs.

I get it, asshole.

The brief flight took us back around Marina Cay. As I focused on the runway beacon at Beef Island, I glanced north toward Guana Island. Diego had been urging me there since yesterday, but with John likely dead, I wasn’t doing anything until we saw his body.

Once Air Traffic Control gave me the go-ahead, I set the Beast down hard, which jarred Boom-Boom and jerked Crystal up straight in her seat.

“Remember what I told you,” Boom-Boom said.

“I really don’t care what you’re doing here,” I said. “Just