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

An idea popped into my head and I got off the stool, fast.

“Whoa, cowboy!”

“I’d much rather take you up on that offer, Avery—but later!”

I raced back to the shack—empty. Where had everyone gone? My flight bag was on the floor and Crystal’s phone was still inside. There was only one battery bar lit. I punched in the New York phone number.

“Harry Greenberg.”

I explained what had been going on since we last spoke.

“I saw you on television after rescuing the actor, dear boy. Quite dashing. Too bad e-Antiquity isn’t still traded, the stock would have soared.”

I almost smiled. “So of all the groups we discussed before, it seems the Russians have jumped to the top of the list.”

“Makes sense. They’re highly liquid, ruthless, and would logically go after the shipping routes for illicit goods in the islands.”

“But adoption, Harry?”

“Not directly, perhaps, but the oldest—well, the second oldest criminal profession is the flesh trade. The Russians are big into that now, probably the biggest, and from what my people tell me their mafia was behind the Russian government’s abolishing overseas adoption.”

“But why?”

“Supply and demand, dear boy. People always pay more for scarce items. Babies are no different. From what you’ve told me of Adoption AID, their goal of making adoption more accessible would be a direct threat to the Russian’s move to increase demand and control the market. American babies only account for a small fraction of all adoptions, and that likely won’t change—”

“Unless Adoption AID succeeds.”

I let our conversation and speculation sink in.

“One last thing, Harry?”

“As usual.”

I swallowed. “Just to try and confirm that the Russians are behind all this, can you have someone check a translation for the phrase ‘eat shit?’”

Harry asked me to repeat it, so I spelled it the way it was written on the note. He promised to call or text me if he learned anything. I thanked him, asked him to note the number I’d called from, and hung up.

Russian flesh trade? Really?

DOWN THE BEACH WAS Hellfire, holding up a sign amidst the other protestors. It was too far for me to read the placard, but he was moving funny—dancing? Yes, with a young woman who also held a sign.

No way he was involved with cutting John Thedford’s finger off.

“Reilly!”

Booth pushed his way through the party atmosphere and made a beeline for me. Hundreds if not thousands of people had arrived on Jost Van Dyke now that the start of the show was just hours away. The harbor was full, the bar was packed, and people everywhere were blissfully unaware of Crystal’s pain or John Thedford’s minced finger. Stud Mahoney’s resurrection couldn’t have been better timed.

“What’s this I hear about a severed finger?” he said.

“The final warning, Booth. None of the law enforcement efforts have produced a thing, and if the kidnappers are for real and the show goes on tonight, John Thedford will be killed.”

Booth looked to the left, then the right. His eyes were pinched, his lips pursed, and he had a tic in his cheek I’d never seen before.

“I tried to have it cancelled.” His voice was a whisper.

“Tried?”

“I demanded the concert be cancelled but your lady friend said no and the television network pulled rank on me and contacted the Director.” He swallowed and pressed his lips together.

“Crystal said no?”

“Wants to do it for her husband, no matter what. The damn media says this show’s going on, dead promoter or not.”

I almost laughed at the thought of Booth’s being muscled out by a woman and a few TV executives, but this was bad news. It eliminated whatever urgency there might have been amongst the collective law enforcement agencies to find Thedford.

“Yo! Buck!” a voice called out from the water.

I turned toward the voice—and in the dim light of dusk saw a red Cigarette boat rumbling into the harbor, its triple monster engines vibrating and spitting water into the air.

Baldy’s boat.

Valentine Hodge was at the helm. He steered the Cigarette toward the end of the dock and waved me over. Just past him was another boat heading out to sea—it was a sleek, blue-hulled speedboat, and with all the boats coming in, it was the only one leaving. I couldn’t make out the name, but the typeface looked familiar. There were two men in matching blue shirts and an old bald guy who stood facing back toward the island. He looked familiar, but in the fading light I couldn’t make him out. I turned back to Booth.

“If the show’s on, you better keep an eye on those celebrities,” I said. “If the kidnappers realize Thedford’s expendable, they may up their ante.”

He hesitated only a second, then ran back toward Foxy’s.

I headed for the dock. I passed Hellfire on the beach with his followers, but they’d leaned their signs against palm trees and settled into a party atmosphere. Past them, up on the road, were Boom-Boom, Diego, Lenny, and Ray—almost jogging parallel to me, away from Foxy’s.

I called out with a shrill whistle and they hustled toward me as I reached the dock, which had so many boats tied off it looked like a hundred-foot-long mother hog nursing swarms of piglets. I looked out to open water. The speedboat was now a blue speck moving at high speed out of Great Harbor.

“Everyone’s given up on finding Thedford,” I said. “If the kidnappers are serious—”

“I’d say that finger in the burger box qualifies them as serious,” Lenny said.

“—he’ll be dead in a few hours.”

Boom-Boom held his hands up and turned his head at an angle.

“Told you, brudda. It’s the Russians. In fact, me and my friend Diego—”

“Friend?” I said.

“Merger.” Boom-Boom smiled. “Bruddas vs. Bolsheviks.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Come on, we’ve got some news out here.”

I jogged toward the end of the dock and arrived just in time to catch a line from Valentine as he squeezed between two boats. My old friend might be ancient, but as a