The Cayman Caper

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Water, water everywhere and not a drop…

At first, Loxie Llewellyn thought she was in the middle of one of her odd dreams. But her dreams happened at night and she could feel the sun directly above her, scorching her eyes, turning her lips to cracked leather. Her skin burned and stung.

Shading her eyes, she carefully sat up, surprised at how sore she was. Every muscle felt as if someone had tenderized it with a meat hammer.

She made it to her knees and glimpsed an endless expanse of water before a wave tilted the deck and set her back on her butt. An approaching cloud bank shut out the sun. She felt the ribbed decking beneath her hand. She smelled the wet faintly fishy scent. She licked her lips. Her tongue was almost as dry as her lips. Water all around and she was thirsty. Brutally thirsty.

At that thought, she turned a full three sixty. No land anywhere. Sullen, shifting ocean. Overcast sky. Shades of gray in every direction. At least her skin felt better with the savage UV rays blocked by the clouds.

Her brain felt like mush so panic was slow to build inside her chest but twitches and tremors began to ease toward her fingertips. How could she be on a boat in the middle of the ocean with no memory of what had happened? Adam planned to go out and say goodbye to Charles and she’d planned to go with him. That much she remembered, but it was shadowy insubstantial knowledge.

Oh, god, Adam hadn’t gone overboard, had he?

Had there been a storm?

The boat rocked gently and the ocean didn’t seem disturbed. No sense of terror remained in her mind. Probably no storm or the waves would still be thrashing about. So where was Adam?

She spotted the stairs leading down to the galley. Crawled to the stairs and called, Adam? Are you down there?

Silence.

She sucked in one shallow breath after another.

R. J. had come to tell her goodbye. She remembered him by the guest house elevator. He’d seemed embarrassed and grieving but happy too. He and Christine were returning to the states on the morning flight. That memory crept from the cobwebs. She and Adam were staying. Why?

Charles.

R. J.’s father was missing.

They were in George Town in the Caymans because Charles had vanished from a cruise ship.

So thirsty. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The motion of the deck beneath her unsettled her stomach. Another quick look around hadn’t changed the clouded sky, produced Adam or brought help.

She licked her lips and listened to the waves slapping against the side of the boat. A small shuddering breath escaped her dry throat.

Okay.

She’d returned to her room, started to remove her clothes for bed. Then a knock. Someone had knocked on her door. An image of a slender woman with auburn hair and a charming bell-like laugh slid into her mind. Christine. Charles’ wife. R. J.’s stepmother.

The reason she had been in a hotel room in the Cayman Islands.

Probably the reason she was on a becalmed boat in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean.

Christine had breezed in holding up the bottle of wine. She’d moved to the TV stand and without waiting for Loxie’s agreement, poured them a nightcap. A goodbye toast, she’d said. Loxie remembered the cool breeze that had whipped the white curtains and brought in the scent of flowers. The sound of the surf had been gentle. Overhead a ceiling fan had moved the moist air.

Right. They were on Grand Cayman, on the outskirts of George Town. Pastel houses. Impossibly blue skies. Whipped cream clouds sometimes.

Oh, Drat. Christine. The last image Loxie had was of Christine smiling that smile of hers as the drugged wine sent her to the rug in her room.

Somebody else had come into her room then. A man.

R. J.? No, not R. J. Somebody else. Bigger. Rougher.

She felt her arms and sure enough, bruises marred her upper arms where his hard hands had pulled her into a fireman’s carry.

That was it. Nothing. Black nothing until now.

She pushed panic to the back of her throat and tried again to stand. She had to see what her resources were.

According to the owner’s manual Loxie found in the cockpit’s cubby, she was aboard the Lucy Gordon, a 28-foot Bayliner cabin cruiser, circa 1980. The awning over the wheel shut out the increasingly dark clouds as she rummaged through the papers and debris, searching for something, anything to help her understand and deal with this new reality. Panic ripped through her, and it was only by breathing deeply that she kept herself from flinging paper in all directions, possibly losing something that could help her.

She had to get a grip.

Twenty three deep breaths later, she forced herself to confront her situation.

She, Loxie Llewellyn, was in the middle of an ocean on a boat that was apparently becalmed. No motor sounds rumbled beneath her. The only sounds were her raspy breathing as she tried to control her hysteria and the lapping of the waves against the hull. The boat rocked gently in rhythm with the waves.

She really needed a stick of gum.

Loxie’s stomach cramped and her hands shook as she flipped switches and turned knobs. Nothing. The key was in the ignition switch and the steering wheel was tied off. Since the boat was not running, she assumed it was out of gas. The rattling, grinding sound when she turned the key confirmed this.

Even if she could figure out how to drive the damn thing or which direction to go, there was no gas.

Her purse and her suitcase sat behind the pilot’s seat. At first, she felt a wave of relief that she had her things. Then as if drenched with a bucket of ice water, she realized what that meant.

Christine had packed her things and sent them with her? Onto a boat that was without power and rocking in the middle of an endless ocean.

No doubt Christine had set it up so no one would be looking for her.

Why hadn’t the man just tossed her overboard instead of stranding her. Thank goodness he hadn’t, but why? Maybe he was too squeamish to actually toss a living creature into the water to drown. This way he hadn’t really done anything wrong, he’d just sent her on a boat ride.

By now, Christine would have told Adam that Loxie had changed her mind and was flying home with her and R. J. She’d have checked Loxie out of her room so the guest house personnel wouldn’t think anything of not seeing her around.

The Lucy Gordon’s windshield was salt encrusted transforming the view through it into a blurred scene from hell had there been anything to see. Nothing in any direction.

Loxie looked for a compass, a clock, anything to tell her what direction she was going to give her some clue as to the time of day. Was it morning or afternoon? Her watch was not on her arm. Was it back in the hotel room, in with Christine’s things, or stuffed into her own suitcase?

Did it matter?

She blinked back tears, drew in a deep breath, looked again for anything that would suggest a helpful action. She couldn’t just sit here. That wasn’t in her nature. Every problem had a solution. Just ask her friends back in Queens. Mrs. Rattigan across the hallway, Mr. Highsmith next door and Mrs. Goldblum from the second floor all thought she was the original Energizer Bunny when it came to taking care of problems.

All right. She had a problem, but she was a problem solver.

She looked around the boat and decided that it had led a hard life. The pad on the captain’s seat had seen better days and boasted a small tear with stuffing beginning to work its way out. The mahogany dash should have been oiled and refinished. Instead, the wood looked tired and brittle, streaked where the stain had disappeared leaving pale wood.

Staring at the distressed boat, her natural optimism crept into hiding.

Loxie forced herself to her feet, and eased down the narrow stairs to the small galley and cabin below deck. Her mouth was sticky and thick. She located a glass and held it under the faucet. No water came out. So they had either drained the water tanks or not refilled them.

The refrigerator was empty, but still somewhat cool.

In the freezer, she found a tray of ice cubes.

Her hands shook as she freed one. The cube was turning to water in her hands before she could get it to her mouth. The moisture soaked into her dry mouth, releasing a shadow of her normal optimism.

This couldn’t be the end of her. She just had to think and she’d come up with a plan.

The cube tasted a little like the refrigerator and was partially hollowed by evaporation, but was wet. So they had had power until recently. When? Until the motor died? How far had the boat traveled since she was put on it?

Two cans of soup, salty but wet. A partial box of crackers, soggy from the humidity. Salt, pepper and vanilla completed her store of supplies in the galley.

No water, no power, no food.

So she was supposed to vanish. Adam would think she was returning home. He’d go out and say goodbye to the memory of Charles, never dreaming that he should be doing that for her instead.

Firmly, she shoved that morbid thought away.

Nobody was saying goodbye to her. Not if she had anything to say about it. She refused to acknowledge that she might very well not have anything to say about it.

Her father Samuel would wonder about her, but they went for long periods of time without contacting each other, so he wouldn’t be worried until it was too late. Loxie was smart enough to know that without water, once the ice cubes were gone, that she wouldn’t last very long.

When she didn’t call, Kelly would wonder, but if Kelly had an audition, she wouldn’t give Loxie a thought, let alone request a search and rescue operation. Her own small antique shop, well junk store actually, would just remain closed. Her few customers might be a little puzzled, but not enough to do anything. The person who’d first realize she was missing would be her landlord when her rent check didn’t arrive on time.

Since her rent checks rarely arrived on time, it would take a while even for him to realize something was wrong.

Her neighbors at one time might have worried about her, but her landlord had booted her out of her apartment just days before Charles’ disappearance and their wild trip to the Cayman Islands.

Loxie considered sinking down and bawling, but that wouldn’t help. Somehow, she had to get water, determine where she was, send some kind of SOS out and hope somebody heard and responded.

What kind of safety equipment would there be on a boat like this? Would the man or Christine have thought to strip the boat of that kind of paraphernalia? She went through the remaining drawers and closets below, adding three small tee shirts with big eyed cartoon figures, a couple of terrycloth dishtowels, six birthday candles, a box of matches, half full, a bar of soap, paper towels and bathroom tissue. Sheets were still on the narrow bunks, and towels were still stashed in the head.

Now if she could just stop with the panicked hyperventilating and begin thinking, maybe she could…

She climbed to the deck and frantically fished in her purse for one of her packages of gum. When stressed, Loxie released her anxiety with chewing. Great wads of gum, chewed until the flavor was gone and replaced with a new batch. She had gum in her purse, in her travel kit, in various and assorted pockets of her suitcase. In her purse, she found three sticks of Orbit Sweet Mint that went immediately into her mouth, one after the other, the movement of her mouth at last relaxing her enough to allow a complete and deep breath. Still no sun and no sense of the time of day.

But her brain was working again.

She opened the bench seat at the rear of the cockpit and found some rope and the orange distress flag. She laid the rope back in the bench and fastened the flag to the frame of the awning. She also found a flare gun, but no flares.

No water. No gasoline. No compass and no communications. Loxie sat in the captain’s chair and stared out at the shimmering, glinting water on all sides. Nothing broke the gray expanse from her tiny craft to the horizon.

Now what? The terror that had nipped at her as she’d explored the boat swelled like an ugly balloon inside her, immobilizing her, freezing her.

Was this how R. J.’s father, Charles, felt as he watched the cruise ship leave him behind?

At least she was on a boat.

Chapter 2

Once upon a time… a few weeks earlier

Loxie Llewellyn’s slide down the rabbit hole started on her twenty-eighth birthday.

Too many universal forces collided to pinpoint the actual cause of the subsequent events. The only certainty in the resulting chaos was that Loxie was the catalyst.

On this particular day, her birthday, she’d been out almost all day, hitting yard sales for inexpensive stock for her small shop. Loxie didn’t have much to show for her twenty-eight years of life, but her shop, the Rainbow Unicorn Antiques and Collectibles, nestled between the German bakery and the Italian chiropractor’s office, was her joy, her very own accomplishment, created totally by her with just a small influx of capital from her father.

When Loxie stepped inside her tiny shop, she was surrounded by music boxes, snow globes, exotic masks, art glass paper weights. Bronze and pewter sculptures and even a few pieces of silver jewelry lent dignity and stability to the space. Each item was polished lovingly and gleamed in the dim rose colored lighting. The glass fronted cases sparkled. Outside the world could be bleak. Inside, the lighting she’d chosen cast a rosy glow over the entire shop. Loxie’s Rainbow Unicorn Antiques and Collectibles throbbed and vibrated with warmth, brought smiles to her clients’ faces as they browsed, and encouraged happiness.

Unfortunately, Loxie couldn’t stay in her shop twenty-four/seven. She had stock to locate and buy for her shop, and she had a life. Maybe not the one she’d have chosen, but it wasn’t that bad.

The skies had been heavy and gray with a chill wind that raced up and down dreary streets, and a fine mist that soaked her jacket and pulled into mind all of her rotten choices, including today’s outing. Today was her birthday, for heaven’s sake. Why hadn’t she treated herself and stayed home, warm and dry, with a good book?

That thought just served to deepen her depression. Birthdays for her were days when you took stock of your life. Other people might make New Year’s resolutions. Loxie made birthday resolutions.

She was twenty-eight years old as of 2:43 this morning. Grimly, she pushed thoughts of her mother to the back of her mind. This day was about her, not her missing mother.

She was twenty-eight years old.. She should be better organized. She needed to install that computer software for her shop so she could keep better business records. Right now her records were in a small shoebox that rested on the small table that served as her desk in the tiny space at the back of the shop that served as her office.

She actually didn’t need much more than a shoebox. Business wasn’t exactly booming in her small shop. She probably needed to advertise or do promotions or something. Only problem, it took money to make money and she didn’t have any. She could go again to her father, but that was something she reserved for the actual final option. No phone call to Papa. At least not yet.

When were things supposed to get better? When was she going to lose the extra ten pounds that seemed to love her hips? Where was the hero, her true love, like she read about in her collection of romance novels? When would she feel like her own person, not the reject left by her mother’s disappearance so many years before? When would her mother’s disappearance stop festering and become a memory?

She’d just started up the stairs to her apartment carved out of a Queens brownstone, the small box of treasures from the yard sales heavy in her arms when she felt the chill November wind through the opened front door. Behind her, her friend Kelly breezed in carrying a forlorn-looking birthday cake. She struck a pose with her free hand on her hip and with a breathless Mae West/Bronx accent, said, Thank goodness, you’re here.

Grimacing, Loxie continued up the stairs, calling over her shoulder, also in Mae West mode, Goodness had nothing to do with it.

Loxie’s clothes felt clammy and cold on her skin, very much like her mood—no money, getting older, no significant other and no prospects. Hips that would never be streamlined and skinny like Kelly’s. Beautiful, charming Kelly was salt in the wound that dominated Loxie’s spirit. Tonight she just didn’t have the energy for bubbly Kelly. Kelly was too much a force of nature to be a comfortable and caring companion after a ragged day.

But getting rid of Kelly would take even more energy than surviving her. So Loxie ducked her head and kept plodding up the stairs.

The wainscoting from another century added charm to the stairwell. There was an elevator in the building but one rode the ancient and sluggish deathtrap only if one were eighty years old or hung over and out of coffee. The charm of the polished wooden banisters and the lovely tall ceilings softened the fact that they still had more floors to go to Loxie’s third floor apartment. Kelly fairly quivered with happy vibrations as they passed the first landing and proceeded to the second.

Loxie puzzled sometimes how she and Kelly had become best friends. They were nothing alike. Kelly was lightning and excitement; she was order and quiet evenings. She held the heavy box against the wall with one hip while she opened her apartment door. Kelly whirled past her into the minuscule living room of the minuscule apartment. In her trim leather jacket, with a pashima at her neck the exact same shade as her flame-colored hair, Kelly glowed.

Loxie, feeling about as attractive as a scalded cat, could imagine what she looked like after her day, her birthday, for heaven’s sake, spent in the unpleasant weather. Her flyaway strawberry blonde hair would be plastered to her head and straggling down in her eyes. Her soggy clothing would clearly show the ten extra pounds that no amount of time at the Pearl of Heaven dojo could budge. Even remembering that someone had once told her she had a nineteen twenties face, a Gibson Girl face didn’t raise her spirits. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or insulted.

You’re soft. Approachable, the man had said.

She wished it had been someone wonderful staring with passion at her Gibson Girl’s face. Unfortunately, it was her next door neighbor, Mr. Highsmith, who’d said