O. Dark Cover-up: A Ryan Weller Thriller 14 Paperback

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CHAPTER 1
Ryan
Lone Palm Beach Bar
Hollywood, Florida

Whoever coined the phrase “dead men tell no tales” obviously didn’t know about forensic science.
Ryan Weller had been chewing on that statement for a while. He didn’t know if someone had actually said it or if he’d just come up with the analogy on his own. He was sitting at an outdoor table at the Lone Palm Beach Bar on the Hollywood Broadwalk, so named in 1924 when Hollywood’s chief developer, J.W. Young, had constructed the original walk from coral dredged from the Intracoastal Waterway. Some claimed Young had once said, “Boardwalks belong in New Jersey,” but Ryan didn’t know if that rumor was true, either.
One of the Lone Palm’s infamous “5 O’clock Somewhere” boat drinks sweated in the shade of the table’s umbrella near his right hand. They were damn good cocktails, but three of them would loosen Ryan’s inhibitions enough to start heckling passersby. At five, and someone would have to drive him back to his boat.
On the table before him was a thick file folder held closed by a rubber band, lest the constant ocean breeze scattered the documents inside. He eyed it with suspicion. Sitting across from him was the woman who had delivered the file—the mother of the deceased.
In her mid-fifties, Josephine Macklin looked very prim in her black sheer cover-up over a black one-piece swimsuit with gold piping on the straps and around the bust opening. On her head was a black straw wide-brimmed hat. She had removed her oversized Gucci sunglasses and laid them on the table so she could give him a penetrating gaze with her doe brown eyes. Despite the hat, the wind kept blowing wisps of her chestnut brown hair across her face.
The contents of the file were not Ryan’s forte. He was not a trained investigator, nor was he a cop. He wasn’t even a former cop.
He could, however, disarm an underwater mine in pitch-black water. He could weld oil string at three hundred feet below sea level. He could lead a team of private contractors to extract hostages.
But what, he wondered, qualifies me to investigate the mysterious death of a young woman?
Penny Macklin had been dead for six years. The police investigation into her death had filed no convictions and recorded no new leads.
It was definitely a cold case.
Ryan ran a hand through his brown hair and tried to focus his green eyes on something other than the picture of the dead woman beneath the rubber band, staring up at him with her perfect, laughing smile.
“I just don’t see how I can help you, Josephine,” he said, guilt gnawing at his intestines.
Ryan looked more closely at the woman across from him. Josephine showed a lot of pearly white teeth under prominent cheekbones when she smiled, but that smile had faded the moment she’d begun quietly speaking about her dead daughter. She’d spent most of their conversation frowning at Ryan because he seemed so hesitant to help her. Worry lines marked her forehead between her eyebrows and radiated from the corners of her mouth.
“I read about you in the newspapers after you helped rescue those hostages in Haiti,” Josephine replied. “I know you can do something for my daughter. You’ve come a long way since I last saw you.”
When she’d first contacted him about the meeting, Ryan had no need to do the usual homework he’d conduct before agreeing to work with a potential client. Not only did he know that Josephine, the daughter of a hedge fund manager, had grown up in New York City and that she’d attended college at Vassar before marrying Cory Macklin, a real estate mogul from Palm Beach, but Ryan also knew plenty about their daughter, Penny.
He remembered her all too well.
Penny had inherited the same doe brown eyes and wide smile from her mother. Everyone smiled a lot when Penny was around.
“Have you talked to the police?” he suggested. “They have detectives who specialize in cold cases like this.”
“I tried,” Josephine replied, her shoulders sagging slightly at Ryan’s choice of words. Referring to Penny as a “cold case” was clearly hard for her; a distance most people could place between themselves and her death that Josephine would never accept. She pushed a loose strand of hair from her face as she glanced around. “This is an unusual meeting place.”
“Welcome to my office,” Ryan said, trying to softly inject some humor. “As you can see, I’m not pretentious. The only suit I own is a wetsuit.”
Her expression was blank, her brows slightly furrowed as if she had no clue what he’d just said, and he wondered if she was remembering Penny in a wetsuit, coming out of the water, carrying her surfboard.
“Can I get you a drink?” Ryan asked.
“I think one would be appropriate,” Josephine replied, seeming more deflated than before.
Ryan signaled Megan, the waitress. The young woman had an understated Goth look about her, with her dyed black hair, sleeve of tattoos, and black nail polish. Josephine ordered a glass of white wine.
“Anything else for you, Ry?” Megan asked. “Some chicken tenders to soak up that alcohol?”
“I’m good,” he said.
When Megan was back behind the bar, Josephine asked, “Are you having trouble handling your liquor?”
“Not at all.”
“Good―because that would be a shame. You look well.”
At six feet tall, Ryan was in great shape, with an athletic build made for covering long distances. He wasn’t overly muscular, but he had definition. The gym was not his playground; the natural world, with its endless dirt paths to run and limitless horizons of water to swim in was more to his liking. Those traits had come in handy when single-handedly sailing around the world or working for the U.S. Navy as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal tech. His career had shifted to commercial diving, then to private military contracting, and now he acted as a freelance troubleshooter, offering his services for anything from rescuing hostages to expert underwater salvage work.
But homicide investigations? Ryan was more familiar with killing in the line of duty than he was with solving them after the fact.
Ryan tapped the file in front of him. “What do you want me to do with this, Mrs. Macklin?”
“I want you to find my daughter’s killer.” Josephine laid a hand on his. “For Penny.”
Ryan ignored her plea. He’d ignored a lot about the case. He wanted to keep on ignoring it.
“What about the FBI? Did you talk to them?”
“We did,” Josephine said. “But as you know, they declined to investigate. They said Penny’s death was not in their jurisdiction and let the local police handle it. After seeing the results of their investigation, I think the cops in the BVI are highly incompetent, but that’s my motherly opinion.”
“You’re not wrong,” Ryan added. He knew many Third World police forces were easily bribed, but that wasn’t the issue with this case. “Mostly, the island police deal with petty crimes and drug gangs. They don’t see a lot of murders, so they don’t always have the experience needed to solve them.”
“So, you see my problem,” Josephine stated bluntly. “Incompetent police and a lack of knowledge.”
Ryan had been to the British Virgin Islands many times and even had a good friend who ran a bareboat charter business from ¬¬¬Jost Van Dyke. Thinking about it now, it would be nice to see Mango Hulsey and his wife, Jennifer, again. Maybe he could take his wife, Emily, along and they could rent one of Mango’s boats, since Ryan’s own Fountaine Pajot Saba 50 was moored across the Intracoastal Waterway at Hollywood Marina, collecting barnacles. He and Emily seemed to be making Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale their home port, as more of their world revolved around the friends and family who had settled there.
“What are you thinking, Ryan?” Josephine asked after Megan had brought her glass of wine and she’d taken several sips.
“I don’t think there’s much I can do, really,” he said. “But I am sorry about Penny’s death. It was so senseless.”
“Do you have children?” Josephine asked. “I always assumed you would.”
Ryan sipped his margarita, the liquid sloshing in his empty stomach. “No.” He and Emily had talked about kids when they’d first gotten married but hadn’t since, even though Ryan was beginning to suspect she would like to have a child in the near future.
“Then I don’t expect you to understand,” Josephine stated flatly. “When I became a mother, there was nothing more important than the safety of my child. I sent Penny to the best schools, had her learn karate for self-defense, and then she went off to college. She became my bright star. I loved that she had found her path in life as an artist, but now, despite my best efforts to protect my daughter, she’s dead.”
Josephine stared out at the water, a sparkling blue blanket undulating in the eastern wind. Two-foot waves crested on the sandbar farther out, then piled up on the beach while little kids and adults ran in and out of the surf.
Ryan sipped his drink and watched the people strolling along the broadwalk. This place was magical to him. He could see every slice of humanity there was, from the homeless to the rich in their newly constructed houses, from the pickpocket to the police officer, van-dwelling jugglers, overweight mothers, wannabe surfers, and scuba divers trotting along in full regalia, heading for what the locals called “The Yellow Brick Road,” a row of cement blocks thirty feet wide and some eight hundred feet long, laid over a former sewage and wastewater outfall pipe. The “road” led to a broken reef that ran north and south, parallel to the beach. Ryan had sourced quite a few lobsters from the reef’s nooks and crannies over the past couple of months.
Once Josephine had collected her thoughts, she turned back to Ryan. “I’m sorry. I get emotional when I talk about Penny. It’s been six long years and I still can’t believe she’s gone. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like she’s going to text me at any moment.”
Ryan might not have been a parent, but he knew all too well about dead friends. Their smiling faces and unfulfilled ambitions haunted his dreams.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Ryan said, trying to placate her.
“My daughter is dead,” Josephine replied sharply. “And no one seems to care about finding her killer. I’m sorry I wasted my time.” She stood, reaching across the table for the file. “I thought you of all people would help.”
Ryan put his hand on the file. “Please sit, Mrs. Macklin.”
Josephine’s narrowed brows relaxed and the deep worry lines around her mouth eased. Slowly, she sank back into her chair.
“I’m not a trained investigator, Mrs. Macklin. I can’t make you any promises—but I will look into Penny’s death.”
The muscles beneath Josephine’s cheeks bulged as she ground down on her molars, contemplating Ryan’s statement. At length, she sighed and said, “That’s all I can ask.”
“You’ll need to cover my daily rate plus expenses.” Ryan figured if he agreed to her request, he might as well get paid.
Josephine nodded. “I understand. I can write you a check now if you’d like, but I thought you might do this one pro bono. You do owe me, remember?”
“Of course I remember, Mrs. Macklin.”
“I’ll deduct what you owe me from your fee,” she replied. “We’ll settle up after you’ve found Penny’s killer.”
Ryan knew she had him over a barrel, but he still wanted something out of the venture. There was no guarantee he would find whoever had killed Penny. “I need two plane tickets to Tortola to start with and a hotel reservation in Road Town.”
“You can stay at Surf Watch. You remember our place by Brewers Bay?”
Ryan nodded, all too familiar with it.
“But why two tickets?” Josephine asked.
“I’m taking my wife,” he said.
“This isn’t a paid holiday, Ryan,” Josephine admonished.
Ryan smiled warmly. “Emily holds a private investigator’s license here in Florida. She’ll be a valuable asset to have along.”
Josephine smiled tersely. “Good. Maybe the two of you can finally make some headway with tracking down whoever killed my daughter.”
“We can only go where the clues lead us, Mrs. Macklin.”
“I’ll be in touch once I’ve booked the tickets.” She put a hand on his again. “Find Penny’s killer, Ryan,” Josephine ordered. “I’m counting on you.”
Ryan watched the distraught mother leave the table and walk down the broadwalk. He’d seen parents lose all sense of purpose or sanity after losing a child. Once, he’d had to break the news to the parents of a teammate who’d been killed in action. The mother had fainted, falling off the couch and striking her head on the floor while her husband sat stoically staring out the window. Ryan remembered kneeling beside the unconscious woman, holding her hand and patting her cheek to revive her. Once she came around, she was inconsolable, and her husband seemed of little use. Ryan had been more than glad to leave that house, thankful no one had to tell his parents he was dead.
Josephine Macklin, on the other hand, had turned into a crusader. She wanted someone to find her daughter’s murderer—and now, she’d dumped the case into Ryan’s lap.
He still didn’t know why he’d agreed to it. Maybe it was the way Josephine had looked at him with hollow, glassy eyes or the way she had choked up when trying to convince him to renew the search. Or maybe it was because he had known Penny personally. Ryan had always wondered why her killer had never been found, and now he had the chance to do something about it.
In Ryan’s experience, the past didn’t always stay as buried.
And he did owe Josephine Macklin.
Megan brought Ryan a fresh drink and cleared away the half-empty wine glass. Ryan removed the rubber band from the folder and tried to read some of the pages, but the wind threatened to blow them away. After wrapping the band back around the thick stack of papers, he stared at the great expanse of water before him and slowly drank his boat drink, oblivious to everything going around him.
Tomorrow, he would be on a plane to the BVI. With that in mind, he knew he ought to go back to Huntress and read the file, but instead, he ordered a fourth 5 O’clock Somewhere.
He knew Penny Macklin’s case all too well.
He had lived it.
“Are you okay?” Megan asked.
“Not really,” Ryan admitted.
Megan put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I think you should hold off on the drinks and go home.”
He smiled at her. They’d met at the bar over a year ago. Since then, he’d ordered a lot of drinks from her, talked about her tattoos and their significance, chatted about the weather, the tourists, and whatever else they could squeeze in during her brief stops at his table.
“That’s sound advice, Meg, but I’ll have another.” Ryan peeled two twenties from his wallet and handed them to her. “That’s a tip. Keep ’em coming.”
Megan shrugged and headed for the bar, leaving Ryan alone with his drink and his file.
Thoughts of Penny, long dead, had brought back memories of his other dead friends, and Ryan wanted to hoist a few in memory of all of them. And to kill the moroseness in his soul.
Megan brought him his drink, noticeably lighter on the rum and tequila than the previous ones had been. Ryan started on it immediately, tasting the coolness of the liquid as it slid down his throat.
He knew—had known—Penny in every sense of the word. At times, he’d wondered if her death would have happened at all if he’d been with her that fateful night.
He glanced up to see a woman passing by in a big black hat, a black one-piece bathing suit, and a black sarong. He could have sworn it was Josephine, but he was too drunk to be certain, but he knew she would never just parade up and down the broadwalk like some bawdy tourist.
The last time Ryan had seen Josephine Macklin, he’d spoken to her from behind the steel bars of a Road Town jail.

*
Megan had seen Ryan Weller put away a lot of alcohol in the past year he’s been stopping by the Lone Palm Bar, but she’d never seen him go six drinks deep.
Worried about one of her favorite customers, Megan called the one man she knew who frequented the bar with Ryan. She had his phone number saved because they’d gone on a date once, and she hadn’t deleted it because she liked to keep watch over Ryan when he visited her place of work. He seemed like a man who often carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the number was her “in case of emergency” option. Megan held the phone up to her ear, thinking this was such an emergency, and silently counted three rings before a man picked up.
“Megan Dusky, how are you?” Scott Gregory asked in greeting.
“I’m good, Scott. Are you in town?”
“Why? You want to go out again?”
“That’s not why I’m calling. Ryan is at the bar. He’s on his sixth drink and asking for another. He met with some lady, an older woman who gave him a file. I overheard them talking about her dead daughter. It’s really affected his mood.”
“Feed him some chicken tenders and water down the tequila,” Scott replied. “I’ll be there in thirty.”