Dead Calm Read online

  Dead Calm

  Emma Rose Watts

  Coastal Publishing

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  A Plea

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  Also by Emma Rose Watts

  Copyright © 2017 by Emma Rose Watts

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Dead Calm: A Coastal Suspense Series Book 1 is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For my Family

  Prologue

  LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

  A YEAR EARLIER

  Eight years with the task force, and she still got nervous. An early morning mist hung low across the street in front of apartment blocks as the U.S. Marshals and local police prepared to arrest another one of New York’s most dangerous criminals. A tall six-story building loomed above them as they rolled out front. Timing was everything. Early mornings, late evenings, it was all about the element of surprise. Within minutes the building was surrounded. After gaining access to the stairwell that led to multiple apartments, they streamed up the stairs like ants. Uniformed, geared up and ready for the unexpected. Hundreds of hours of training kicked in, along with field experience, all coming together like clockwork.

  Skylar Reid banged a fist against the door, her pulse raced at the prospect of death, but never defeat as that was the one thing they were good at — capturing fugitives. Though none of them took an operation for granted, if asked, they would all say it was just another day on the job. So even though the probability of death was high, the need to get this guy off the street outweighed the risk involved. Besides, they had already gone through every deadly scenario that could be encountered. Still, it didn’t alleviate the fear.

  “U.S. Marshals with a warrant. Open up!”

  Again she repeated it, this time banging harder until she requested Scot, their breacher, to step forward. He brought up the steel battering ram and gave the door three large beatings close to the latch. The frame gave way, wood spat in every direction and the door burst open.

  It was chaotic and noisy as they flooded in, weapons trained for the unexpected.

  “Let me see your hands. Get on the floor.”

  A canine barked non-stop as Skylar moved through the large apartment to find a hole in in the drywall that went through to the next apartment. It wasn’t a surprise. Fugitives were living on borrowed time. They knew that, but it didn’t stop them from attempting every trick in the book. K-9 went in first and she followed strafing her Glock.

  Commands were shouted as they cleared each room and took down any and all occupants. She pulled a sheet of paper showing his profile and shoved it in the face of a woman in her late fifties. “Carlos Artego. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  No matter how innocent residents looked, parents would still cover for their kids rather than see them go to jail for violating their parole. Carlos was wanted for assaulting his ex-girlfriend with an AR-15, along with dealing coke.

  Skylar spoke in Spanish to another who said they didn’t know English.

  Again, they got nothing.

  Usually they were on the money when it came to pinning down a fugitive’s location. By the time they rolled up, they usually knew the layout like the back of their hand and had often even been inside. As she continued to question, someone shouted.

  “On the roof!”

  Their eyes in the sky had caught him trying to flee. The eyes of the woman on the ground bounced to the window where a light breeze blew the drapes. Skylar caught it before she looked away. She scowled as she hurried towards the open window and slipped out onto the fire escape. She could hear boots pounding gravel above. Not wasting a second, she hurried up the steps and peered over the lip.

  There he was.

  Hurrying across the top of the roof, wearing jeans and a white muscle shirt, Carlos ducked under lines of clothing. Skylar vaulted up onto the roof, pulled her Glock and barreled after the man.

  Spying her approaching, Carlos bulldozed his way across the building, only turning for a second to squeeze off a round. She heard the zip of a bullet as it whipped by her. That only pissed her off more. The upside? She now had a reason to fire upon the suspect.

  Behind, several other officers joined in the pursuit. That was the beauty of what they did, when they came after anyone, they did it as a team. It was the reason few got away, and if they did, they eventually tracked them down. Skylar burst off the roof, leaping three feet between the apartment building and the next. She landed hard and rolled and was up pounding the roof. Far below the wailing of sirens filled the air. Though it was rare for them to run, as usually her team had the element of surprise, it happened. When it did, she had to admit she got a kick out of it.

  There was nowhere to go, eyes in the sky, cruisers on the ground — it was only a matter of minutes before he was going to be spitting grit, and crying about his rights.

  The pursuit lasted no more than three minutes until he ran out of buildings to jump to. When Carlos reached the end he peered over, then turned holding the gun to his head.

  “You come any closer, I’ll do it!”

  She slowed into a jog, then a walk, keeping her handgun trained on him while holding a hand out.

  “Come on, Carlos. There’s not need for that.”

  “I won’t go back.”

  “Look, you really want to go out this way? What about your mother, huh?”

  Four of the other Marshals caught up and again he looked panicked, screaming for them to stay back or he was going to blow his brains out. They fanned out looking for an angle, a way to get at him while at the same time making it harder for him to focus on all of them.

  He stepped up onto the ledge, and a hard wind blew causing him to almost lose his balance. He was covering his bases, ensuring that if any of them fired at him, he would fall to his death.

  “Carlos, listen to me. No one is going to shoot you, okay? Just put the gun down and let’s talk.”

  “Talk? About what? I didn’t do it.”

  “I don’t care whether you did it or not, my job is to bring you in. The courts will handle it from there.”

  “You’re not listening, I’m not going back to prison. I would rather be dead.”

  “I don’t think so. You have a kid, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Come on, let’s just bring this down a notch.”

  Skylar eyed the other officers and told them to back off. She was breaking protocol but it wouldn’t have been the first time. Scot Wilson eyed her, his eyebrow raised, before backing up with the others until they were out of sight.

  “See, it’s just you and me now. Step off the edge, you’re making me nervous.”

  He cast a glance down while keeping an eye on her.

  “It’s a long way, Carlos. I mean, have you ever seen the me
ss that is left behind after someone jumps?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I gotta tell yah, it is gnarly. Brain matter, and well… I’m just pleased I’m not going to be the one who’ll have to stare at the stain long after you’ve gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yeah, I mean you’re gonna jump, right, otherwise what are we doing here?”

  He frowned unable to believe what he was hearing.

  “You know I was in the middle of making wedding plans before I got the call for this.”

  She shook her head and took a seat on a large steel air vent while still keeping the Glock trained on him. “Yeah, I’m still trying to determine, should I go with flowers in the middle of the tables or a bowl with a fish in it. I mean, I like flowers. It’s pretty traditional, you can’t go wrong, right? But the whole fish in a bowl, ah, it’s supposed to be all the rage now. What do you think?”

  He looked completely dumbfounded and swallowed hard.

  “The fish?”

  She made a motion with her finger towards him. “That’s what my boyfriend said. Must be a guy thing.” She shook her head. “Anyway, how about you put the gun down and we discuss what actually happened? Cause I’ve got this gut feeling. Call it a hunch, but I think you’re telling the truth.”

  His eyes scanned from side to side, sweat trickled off his brow. He nodded. “Yeah. I am.”

  “So?”

  “I want a good lawyer.”

  “We can arrange that.”

  “No, I mean, the best that money can buy.”

  “It’s done.”

  He nodded a little. Slowly but surely, he moved the handgun away from his temple, allowing it to drop to his side. He moved away from the edge. “That’s it. See. That wasn’t hard, now was it?”

  His lips wormed into a smile as she squeezed the trigger and shot him in the thigh.

  Carlos buckled, and she raced in kicking the Sig Sauer he’d dropped out of the way while spinning him over and placing a knee on the back of his shoulder.

  “What the hell? You said you weren’t going to shoot!”

  “You twitched.”

  “Twitched? I didn’t twitch. And if I did, it was nerves.”

  “My bad.”

  She got on the radio and called for the others to move in. In a matter of minutes they had him up and in custody and Scot stood there, shaking his head. “You want to tell me how he ended up with a bullet in him?”

  “I think it involved me squeezing the trigger.”

  He eyed her like a frustrated parent and she smiled as she walked by him.

  “You know the amount of paperwork this is going to mean?”

  “What? He shot at me.”

  “Before or after we walked away?”

  She was about to fire a snappy comeback when her phone rang. She fished into her upper pocket and pulled it out. It was Doug Stevens, one of the other Marshals on team B that was dealing with a raid on the east side. The same team that her boyfriend Alex was on.

  “Stevens, I hope you are not going to grill me over a wedding invitation, Alex should have given you one.”

  “Skylar.” He cleared his throat. “It’s Alex.”

  “What about him?”

  There was a long pause. “He’s dead.”

  The world as she knew it ceased to exist with those two words. She didn’t drop the phone, nor did she crumple to the ground but from that point on, all she heard was snippets. Something about them entering a building, an explosion and six dead and four injured. Scot looked at her, and must have seen the shock on her face. They’d worked together for eight years and been through all manner of situations. Every member on the team knew each other’s nuances; they trusted the others with their lives. He stepped forward gripping her by the elbow, more words mixing with those on the phone.

  “Skylar!”

  Chapter 1

  CARRABELLE, FLORIDA

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  A warm band of sunlight bathed his cheeks as he groaned in agony. Lieutenant Harvey Baker could see it as clear as day. Any second now, he was going to lose his balance and face plant. He’d be spitting grass while they were in fits of laughter. How could he be certain he’d fall? He’d already done it four times over the past thirty minutes.

  “And… hold that pose. Breathe in, breathe out. Very good, Mr. Baker.”

  The annoying, high-pitched, overly enthusiastic voice of Barbara Ratlin jerked his chain nearly as much as her eyesore pink spandex that made her look like Jane Fonda, minus the good looks.

  He squinted staring up at the deep blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. It would be another gorgeous day and his first day back at work after suffering a gunshot wound and being hospitalized. The whole event had rattled his nerves. Twenty-one years on the job, working in the sleepiest part of the Florida Panhandle and he gets shot just as he’s considering retirement. The doc told him to take it easy, and by easy he assumed that meant laying back in a recliner on his porch, sipping on a Red Stripe beer, reading a gritty crime novel and watching puffy clouds go by, not trying to hold a half-moon yoga pose at six-thirty in the morning. But no, this was Elizabeth’s cockamamie idea.

  “Relaxing, you said. Easy, you said. A piece of cake, you said,” he muttered as his muscles trembled and threatened to collapse.

  “Honey, you’re fifty, it’s to be expected,” she said performing the move like an expert. Elizabeth was a dark-haired beauty, with an athletic figure. They’d been married almost as long as he had to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department. She worked at an antique shop in town.

  Sweat dripped off his brow, and it didn’t help that their two teenage kids Michael and Payton were standing on the deck tucking into a large bowl of melon. Every few minutes, Michael would tease him by lifting up a piece and then gobbling it up. All he wanted to do was go take a shower, have a hot cup of coffee and get ready for work.

  Two weeks of yoga in the morning was starting to make him feel like a pretzel. He ached more now than he had before. As much as he didn’t want the additional embarrassment, he decided to let himself collapse.

  “Oh, Mr. Baker, and you were so close.”

  “To death’s door? Yeah, I was beginning to see the light,” he said getting up and brushing himself off. “Actually it was a bee, it was buzzing around my face,” he said, coming up with another excuse.

  “Well there is always tomorrow,” Barbara said, hopping up and bouncing around like a jack-in-the-box. Elizabeth grinned, she knew he was lying.

  “I’m gonna take a shower and get ready.”

  “Are you sure it’s wise to go back? The doctor said a few more weeks, if you want.”

  “It’s all healed up. Besides, I’m getting physical therapy.”

  She got up and looped her arm around his. “Thanks, Barbara, see you next week.”

  “You don’t want me here tomorrow?”

  “I think Harvey here needs a few days off.”

  “Alright,” she said grabbing her bottle of water and slinging a towel over her shoulder as she waltzed off, singing some peppy tune about life being beautiful. As soon as she was out of earshot Elizabeth continued.

  “Now you know the doc wasn’t referring to the injury,” she said touching the area near his left shoulder. “He’s worried about your state of mind.”

  “And I’m worried about his,” he said joking as they climbed the wood steps up onto the back porch. “Besides, I’ve plowed my way through every book in the house, and we need the overtime money I’m not making.”

  She scoffed. “We’re fine for money.”

  “For now, but the kids will be off to college soon, and…”

  “Stop. You’re going to get your heart rate up and you remember what the doc said about your stress levels.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I know, I know.”

  “Even more reason why you should stay home a few more weeks.”

  “Weeks?”

  “Harvey, how many days off have you tak
en since you’ve worked for the department?”

  He shrugged, snagging one of his kids’ pieces of melon and then winking at Michael. “Plenty.”

  “A week here or there for vacation, but no sick leave, except four days when you had the flu.”

  “It’s a small department, and criminals don’t let up. In fact they are supposed to be hiring someone to help out with the load. So I better get in there before they decide they don’t need me.”

  “But you need to take care of yourself. You’re important too, just as much as those residents out there.”

  He slipped his arm around her waist and brought her in tight. “Important? Well, maybe you can show me how important by joining me upstairs in the shower.”

  “Harvey,” Elizabeth’s eyes widened as she tapped his arm playfully. “There’s kids.”

  “Oh, seriously, Dad!” Payton said.

  “That’s gross,” both kids said in unison.

  ***

  Five minutes south of River Road, in the heart of the Moorings of Carrabelle, Skylar’s eyes fluttered open to the privacy of the 50-foot catamaran. The drone of the air conditioning masked the early morning activities of the outside world. Though the boat had three cabins, with a double on the left, twins on the right and a double upfront, she’d only slept once on the full-size bed in the stateroom. Since arriving in Florida, she’d seen very little of the town. The dark curtains blocked out the intense sun and the prying eyes of people on neighboring craft.

  Several bottles of open rum were on the counter, along with beer. Her clothes were sprawled across the salon or what she preferred to call the living area as that’s essentially what it was. She was lying back with nothing on except a pair of panties and bra. Her long black hair draped over her face. The taste of the previous night’s beer mixed with the feeling of nausea was becoming all too familiar.

  Skylar rolled off the settee bench seat and reached over to catch a glimpse of life that continued to go on. Bright light burned her eyes, and she squinted before reaching for a half-drunk bottle of beer and taking a swig. A quick glance at the time and she contemplated going back to sleep, and repeating the cycle she’d been in for the past six months since losing him, before her superiors stepped in and reeled her in. The words echoed in her mind.