Limbo Man by Blair Bancroft Read Free Book Online

call this a charter, Charlie, and you never saw us.”
    The captain didn’t so much as raise as eyebrow. “Can do,” he announced cheerfully and swiftly shipped the gangplank. He entered the wheelhouse, and twin diesels roared to life.
    Nick scanned the harbor with narrowed eyes, decided he didn’t like what he saw. It looked like he was about to be marooned on some damned island. Trapped. Surrounded by water and so many nasty-looking rocks he couldn’t count them all. Everywhere he looked, rocks. Treacherous little rocks visible only at low tide. Rocks the size of train cars scattered starkly over the horizon. Rocks big enough to support trees and houses. All in all, an area that screamed, “Boaters, beware!” He could only hope the captain knew his business.
    One consolation: any stranger trying to navigate his way through this nightmare of granite obstacles was going to end up swimming. Or worse. So maybe Ms Frosty wasn’t so crazy. He could turn being marooned with Valentina—a good Russian name—to his advantage, he knew he could. Or Sergei could. The trouble was, he’d lost his looks, and he didn’t much like Sergei. Gangster, mobster, wiseguy. Lover. He was none of those.
    Not that lover was bad, but women weren’t his top priority; that much was conviction, not speculation. And besides, no matter what her orders, Frosty wasn’t going to fall into the arms of a guy who looked like Vin Diesel after a bar fight followed by a car wreck.
    Vin Diesel. Hollywood. Extreme action movies . The memory played odd tricks. He could recall a rough, tough action hero, but not himself. “Black houses?” he grumbled to the woman slumped at his side.
    “They say Captain Kidd used to hide his ship in a cove over there,” she told him. “The houses on that island like to promote a pirate atmosphere. Among other things, if you live there, you have to paint your house black.”
    “Right.” Nick shook his head. Add one more proof to the theory that people with money were weird. Not that it might not be cool to live in a black house tucked under trees on a hunk of granite that once sheltered pirates, but right now close neighbors they could do without. And there seemed to be a whole cluster of ominous black homes squeezed onto the island, as many as eight or ten. But Captain Charlie never slowed, keeping the boat on a steady pace for wherever Frosty was taking him.
    How many islands were there? Nick wondered. They seemed to go on forever. There was even one that was only large enough to support a single home, built on stilts. No trees, not even a blade of grass. Frosty’s island seemed to be the end of line, with open blue water beyond. No more rocks. So maybe not so good, if the bad guys moved in from the west. But what the hell, it was better than camping out in a some no-tell motel.
    Only one house on this island and lots of greenery. A three-story white clapboard Victorian with elaborate gingerbread, set in a nest of tall trees on the crest of the island. Definitely the queen of safe houses. As the captain pulled up to a well-maintained dock next to a equally sturdy boathouse, Nick had to restrain a smile of satisfaction. He bet those big double-doors hid a boat as perfectly kept as the dock. Escape . They weren’t going to be marooned, after all.
    Now if he could only find the strength to get off the damn boat, walk up the rise to the house, climb the steps to the porch, and find his way to a bed. Which was probably at least one more flight up. Govnó!
    Nick’s mood improved ever so slightly when he saw Frosty stagger a time or two as they climbed the path to the house. She’d grabbed the bag with the canned goods, leaving him the one with the clothing. Good little bodyguard, a real Girl Scout. But he groaned when she lifted a fake rock at the foot of the steps to the front porch and took out a key. The damn place was about as secure as a public park on Staten Island.
    “You have a better idea, I’m