Free Secret Assignment by Paula Graves Page A

seen,” he said vaguely. “I’d better shove off. Thanks for the coffee.” He pulled out his billfold and started to place a five on the counter before he realized he was playing the role of a yacht owner. He made it a twenty. “And the conversation.”
    He could tell she’d like to extend the conversation, but he didn’t have the time nor, to his surprise, the inclination. His thoughts were occupied already by the women he’d left behind him, unguarded, on Nightshade Island.
    He walked out of the open-air bistro and headed to his right, thinking about everything the young bartender had told him about the Azimut. Blue and white—standard color pattern, she’d called it, which meant it was probably mostly white with blue trim work or detailing.
    Behind him, the barista called out, “Did you get turned around? Your slip’s back that way.”
    He turned to look at her, pasting on what he hoped looked like a sheepish smile. “New marina,” he said with apology and reversed course, heading back toward the southern end of the marina.
    He passed the entry pier, where he’d been already, and started looking for an Azimut. He could hardly have asked her for size specifications, but he imagined it would have to be fairly large for the barista to call it a nice yacht. Eighty-feet long or larger.
    He spotted a likely prospect in one of the outer slips. Tugging his baseball cap lower over his eyes, he walked unhurriedly down the pier toward the yacht. It was a ninety-footer, probably twenty years old but still in good shape. White with navy trim and, more to the point, a Zodiac Bayrunner suspended from davits at the back of the boat.
    Walking past the blue-and-white motor yacht slowly, he searched for signs of occupancy without being obvious about it. He saw no one on deck, but there was a lot of yacht not visible from the outside.
    He glanced idly at the back of the boat. Plain blue letters spelled out Ahab’s Folly, and beneath that in smaller letters, Galveston, Texas. The letters all looked new, as if the boat’s name had been recently changed.
    There was a green patch on the Zodiac’s port buoyancy tube. He tamped down a smile of triumph.
    If there was anything he knew how to do, it was reconnaissance. And sometimes, that meant hunkering down for a while and just watching to see what developed. Three slips down, there was another small pier-side shop, this one a video arcade with an attached soft drink bar. He entered, noting there were almost no teenagers inside, as there would have been when he was a kid. Kids today all had smartphones with the games built in. Instead, most of the dozen or so game players thumbing the buttons on the video games were men and a few women in their late twenties and early thirties, reliving their youth with each digital explosion and high-pitched beep and chirp.
    Gideon stopped at the bar and bought lemonade from the bored counter clerk. He didn’t bother to try to worm information out of the kid, who looked as if he’d prefer to be anywhere but the arcade. It wasn’t likely the boy had looked up from his own smartphone long enough to notice any comings or goings around the Azimut.
    There was a bench just outside the video arcade, sheltered from the late-morning sun by a large red awning. Gideon settled on the bench, sipped his lemonade and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, dialing the Stafford House landline. Lydia Ross answered on the second ring.
    “I thought I should check in,” he said, not wanting to get her hopes up or worry her further. “Is Shannon around?”
    “Of course.” There was a smile in Mrs. Ross’s voice. Seconds later, Shannon came on the phone.
    “Still alive?” she asked in a dry drawl that made him smile.
    “So far,” he answered. “I think I’ve found the Zodiac. And the boat it rode in on. But don’t let on to Mrs. Ross. I don’t want her to worry about me while I’m figuring out what to do.”
    “Okay,” she said slowly. “What options