Hit Them Fast Hit Them Hard – Dan Ames

He had on a black t-shirt and swim trunks. He was bigger than Camp. He, too, had a shotgun. This one was a pump action, black, with a short barrel. Camp lifted his shotgun and rested it against his shoulder, the muzzle pointed toward the sky. He walked out toward Neagley and the man in the black t-shirt followed, keeping five paces back. A bodyguard, Neagley assumed. “You couldn’t call? Or email? You show up on a boat, pretending to look at the lot for sale next door?”

Camp asked. “Come on, we aren’t stupid.” “I was in the neighborhood,” Neagley said. Camp didn’t seem amused. “Let’s see it.” Neagley turned her wrist to give Camp a better look. “Blancpain, Fifty Fathoms,” Camp said. “The ultimate dive watch. Very nice.” Neagley slipped it from her wrist, looked at the back of the case.

“Says here, J.H.” “Oh yeah?” “Any idea who those initials belong to?” “Nope. Do you?” Camp asked. “I sure do. A friend of mine who never would have parted with this watch of his own volition.” “Whatever you say. Look, I’ve never seen that watch before and I’m going to give you thirty seconds to get off my property.” It was clear to Neagley that Camp was lying.

“He would never have given this watch away. And the guy is not to be messed with. We served together way back when.” “Am I supposed to be impressed?” “No, but I can tell you are.” Camp said nothing. The bodyguard shifted his shotgun ever so slightly. “I’m just trying to track down an old friend. We have a mutual friend, Mickey, who gave me this watch.

Said he got it from you.” “Mickey’s a liar.” “Probably. But I think he’s telling the truth on this one.” “Like I said, I’ve never seen the watch before and I think you’re out of time.” In the distance, Neagley heard a boat motor. It was coming closer. Camp didn’t seem to notice. “Why don’t you come inside and we can talk about it?” He smiled at her, and it was as phony as the hair follicles someone had implanted into his scalp.

Neagley smiled. The question came out of the blue and made no sense. Unless Camp wanted her inside for some reason. Perhaps to stall until help arrived. “You’re going to tell me where you got his watch,” Neagley said. “One way or the other.” Camp took a step back. “Doubtful.” Neagley watched Camp and his bodyguard walk away, and then she turned back toward the sandbar. She walked quickly. And when she came around a slight bend in the beach, she saw his boat still anchored.

Next to it was a second boat. There were two men on board. “Nice boat,” one of them said, with a clear southern drawl.

he body was seared by the sun. Exposed flesh had burned red, oozing blisters glistened like freshwater streams and the blue water faded to pinkish white, as if the ocean had cast a shroud around the girl. From the helm of his dive boat, John Heller could see the long blonde hair. It fanned out around her head like a halo, transparent and shimmering in the late afternoon light.

Heller thought she might be a big girl as the gentle rolling waves lifted and shifted the body. As he steered his dive boat closer, he began looking more closely at the water around her. He could see there was some activity, small fishes nipping at the exposed body parts. A few strands of kelp tangled in her hair and wrapped around her shoulder. There were no sharks. At least not yet.

That was most likely the biggest indicator of a timeline; Heller figured if the sharks hadn’t discovered her yet, she’d only been in the water a few hours, at the very most, half a day. Then again, he wasn’t entirely sure how much blood, if any, had made its way into the water.

The sores on her skin would certainly attract a large scavenger, but as of yet, he hadn’t seen any making an appearance. In his mind, he was already working through the logistics. He would have to bring the body on board. It wouldn’t do to send out a distress signal and babysit the body in the water.

If a tiger shark found her before the nearest authorities arrived, even in a speedy cutter, there would be little left to investigate. Which meant it was up to him to bring her onto the boat. Once he did that, he would have to wrap her in one of his blankets, and make his way back toward the nearest land, which for him, was his current location in southwest Florida. Maybe the Coast Guard would find him sooner, maybe not. If they didn’t he needed to get to a place with an actual police department.

Long ago, in a different life, he’d been an investigator. He knew the drill. There would be lots of questions and even more paperwork. He would be a suspect, initially, before the detectives did their job and found out the truth in terms of how she ended up in the water, and how she ended up dead. He thought again about the timeline and knew he was quite a way out, though.

He could make it to Florida, the Keys, Cuba or even the Yucatan Peninsula. Which really bothered Heller. Not his location.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: db97ed034fb8a0a6
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 653,534 bytes (0.623 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 134
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 137.91 minutes
• Total Words: 27,581
• Total Characters: 152,106
• Average Words per Page: 205.83
• Average Characters per Page: 1135.12

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