While Carter was quickly trying to explain the situation, I was trying to give myself a quick refresher course on the finer points of riding a Jet Ski. It had easily been more than twenty years since I"d last been on one.
Just like riding a bike, right?
I turned the key, punched the Start b.u.t.ton, and jammed the throttle. Then I held on for dear life. Speedo had a head start, but he hadn"t lost me yet.
"Go get "em!" I heard Carter yell.
For the love of James Bond, how do I get myself in these situations?
Chapter 18
I WAS STRADDLING the seat, bouncing up and down with the waves, catching far more air than I cared to. Every time I jumped over a whitecap, the water would splash my face, the salt stinging my eyes. The engine had hit the redline. My hands and feet were shaking to the point of numbness from all the vibration.
Hey, who"s having fun yet? Definitely not me. Maybe Speedo was having a blast.
Speeding after the Frenchman, I wondered where he was leading me-or whether he had even thought that far ahead. About a hundred yards separated us, and I was desperately trying to close the gap.
It wasn"t happening.
If anything, I was losing ground. But as long as I could still see him, I had a shot. He couldn"t drive his vehicle forever; eventually he"d have to head to sh.o.r.e. I saw a footrace in my future.
Then I saw something else.
Off in the distance there was a series of rock formations jutting up from the water. They looked like little black chess pieces in a game that was about half over.
Speedo was heading right for them.
Before I knew it, he"d disappeared.
He was using his home field advantage, and suddenly I felt like I was being played. But there was no time to slow down and think things over.
I kept the throttle cranked and stayed on his tail, swerving left, right, then left again through the maze. I was drenched, exhausted, and coming way too close to these rocks. Jet Skis don"t come with air bags, do they?
Finally, I was out in the clear again. To my amazement, I"d even made up some ground.
Speedo was only about fifty yards ahead now, and looking nervously over his shoulder at me. For the first time, I actually took one hand off the handlebars.
And waved.
I was starting to get the hang of things, using the swells to propel me even faster. Keeping up? h.e.l.l, no, I was catching up!
Then Speedo made a sharp right.
He was aiming toward sh.o.r.e. I looked ahead and saw a stretch of beach in front of another resort. Which way would he run?
Soon I saw that running wasn"t part of his plan.
Suddenly I saw a series of red markers in the water spread out in a large circle. All around the perimeter were the heads of snorkelers, their neon-colored breathing tubes bobbing up and down. But no one was in the circle.
Except Speedo.
And then me.
Immediately, he started swerving again, as though we were back among those jutting rocks, only I didn"t see any rocks.
Until it was too late.
Thump! Bam!
I came flying off a swell only to see the water disappear beneath me, a jagged patch of rock and coral taking its place. That explained the markers.
My knees buckled as I landed, the vehicle careening hard to the right as I tried to hold on.
I couldn"t. I flew over the handlebars, somersaulting through the air, head over heels, like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.
That"s all I remember.
Chapter 19
THE GOOD NEWS was that I wasn"t dead.
"Now do you want the bad news?" asked Joe Eldridge. "Because I do have some bad news."
He was standing at the foot of my bed, his expression teetering somewhere between pity and annoyance. Surely the police commissioner didn"t expect to see me again so soon, let alone laid up in the Grace Bay Medical Centre with a couple of cracked ribs and a mild concussion.
"What I really want is some more painkillers," I said.
I wasn"t kidding, either. My head was pounding. h.e.l.l, my whole body was pounding. It hurt just to blink.
As Eldridge explained, the bad news wasn"t that Speedo got away. It was that his real name was Pierre Simone, and that he was a con man and a poker cheat.
But nothing more.
"I wouldn"t let him babysit my kids," said Eldridge. "But he"s no murderer. He"s not violent."
"How can you be sure?" I asked.