Free Beyond Fearless by REBECCA YORK Page A

where Foster set Zach up with a boat of his own in exchange for 25 percent of the profits. Zach worked under that arrangement for four years, until he had enough money to buy his own rig. By that time, he’d also acquired a reputation that led to a string of customers lined up to hire him for jobs.
    He’d dived for ancient treasure and modern wrecks. And in between, he sometimes took tourists out on diving expeditions.
    The salvage jobs had led him to Grand Fernandino. Maybe he and Anna had both arrived here about the same time. He didn’t even know her last name or where she was staying. And maybe that was good.
    Last night he’d been under the spell of Magic Anna. Now that he was thinking more clearly, maybe he should go back to his hotel, get his gear, and leave the island. Before he got into serious trouble.
    Or maybe he should stop focusing on Anna and start trying to figure out who had put that image of Pagor on the Blue Heron .
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    NADINE Linzer opened her eyes. Slowly she turned her head. When she saw that Raoul was gone, she breathed out a little sigh. She had the house to herself for the rest of the day. Maybe the rest of the night. Or he might not be back for a few days. Sometimes he’d drop in unannounced. Other times, he’d send a message. Like yesterday evening. So she’d washed her hair and made herself pretty for him.
    She stretched, her muscles sore from the kinky sex of the night before.
    After the man had rescued her from what amounted to slavery, she’d been grateful. Then as she’d gotten to know him better, she’d wondered if she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
    Raoul had set her up in this nice little house, and she’d thought all she had to do to earn her keep was make love with him. It was a couple of months before she found out what was in the locked room down the hall.
    Her benefactor had strange tastes, starting with his tattoo. And progressing to fucking and sucking on a table in what looked like a religious shrine. She’d come to realize that he was serious about what they were doing in there. The sex was part of worshipping his goddess, Ibena.
    At first that had creeped her out, but she’d learned how to deal with it. And they usually ended up in bed, where they could finish off with his doing something spectacular to her.
    She got up, pulled on a silk dressing gown, and padded down the hall to the kitchen. He’d made coffee and left a pot on the warming pad in the coffee machine. She sniffed the dark liquid. French roast. The good stuff.
    She poured herself a cup and added cream and sugar, then thumbed through the stack of cash he’d left on the counter. A hundred dollars. Not as payment for the sex, but for the household expenses.
    As she showered, she planned her day. She’d go to the market and buy some supplies. Fruit. Cheese. A chicken. Alive and flapping a minute before they wrung its neck.
    Since she’d learned to shop the way the island women did, she’d put away at least thirty-five or forty dollars out of every hundred. Her little stash was adding up. And she had more money, too. Money Raoul thought he’d hidden under a floorboard behind the sofa.
    She knew where it was, and she had no compunctions about using it. Raoul was using her. That was the ugly secret of their relationship.
    He thought he was in control. But if she needed to get away from him, she had the money to do it. Not just travel expenses; enough to live on while she found a paying job.
    Transportation was a problem, though. She’d have to find someone willing to take her away. Someone who wasn’t afraid of Ibena and Pagor and the other saints Raoul worshipped.
    Meanwhile, she had a pretty good deal with Raoul. Except that the bastard wasn’t satisfied with a mistress; he wanted to add a wife to the mix, and she knew the kind of woman he wanted. Someone with psychic powers to juice up his mojo.
    He strutted around,