Caribbean Rim (A Doc Ford Novel, Band 25) - Hardcover

Buch 25 von 28: Doc Ford

White, Randy Wayne

 
9780735212787: Caribbean Rim (A Doc Ford Novel, Band 25)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0735212783 ISBN 13: 9780735212787
Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Murder, sunken treasure, and pirates both ancient and modern send Doc Ford on a nightmare quest in this New York Times bestseller in Randy Wayne White's thrilling series.

Marine biologist Doc Ford has been known to help his friends out of jams occasionally, but he's never faced a situation like this.

His old pal Carl Fitzpatrick has been chasing sunken wrecks most of his life, but now he's run afoul of the Florida Division of Historical Resources. Its director, Leonard Nickelby, despises amateur archaeologists, which is bad enough, but now he and his young "assistant" have disappeared--along with Fitzpatrick's impounded cache of rare Spanish coins and the list of uncharted wreck sites Fitz spent decades putting together. Some of Fitz's own explorations have been a little...dicey, so he can't go to the authorities. Doc is his only hope.

But greed makes people do terrible things: rob, cheat, even kill. With stakes this high, there's no way the thieves will go quietly--and Doc's just put himself in their crosshairs.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Randy Wayne White is the author of the Doc Ford novels, the Hannah Smith novels, and four collections of nonfiction. He lives on Sanibel Island, Florida, where he was a light-tackle fishing guide for many years, and spends much of his free time windsurfing, playing baseball, and hanging out at Doc Ford's Rum Bar & Grille.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Marion Ford spent Friday battling traffic, romantic issues, and writing automated replies to thwart future intrusions, and by Tuesday was in the Bahamas distanced by a turquoise sea.

Isolation. He craved it at junctures, the skin-on-bone reality of a tent, zero electronics, miles of beach to run, the indifference of saltwater, tide, wind. Two books, minimal supplies, a fire starter for abundant driftwood. The process, not time, was spatial. Whatever was enough to quell his own sense of drifting, the weakness granted to sloth, pointless emotion, guilt. Love, too-if "love" existed beyond the chemical bond that, in his experience, clouded reasonable behavior.

Family was different. Those bonds were inviolable. The same was true of friendship-a select few.

After a week, he packed his seaplane, a Maule four-seater, and returned to Andros Town not refreshed but newly focused. Luck is an illusion embraced by those who are unprepared. Ford seldom was. Two days later, he struck the trail of the man he wanted to find but had no reason to hurt, let alone kill.

Someone on the island, he discovered, possibly did.

The man, a professor turned bureaucrat, was too caught up in Lydia, his former student, to give a damn about being followed, or anything connected with the past. To hell with the past. To hell with bills, his job, his unhappy wife, and the new boss, too, a supercilious business grad-not a qualified maritime archaeologist-who wore Polos to show off his tattoos, for Christ's sake, and was ten years younger.

"There's nothing wrong with a tat or two," Lydia, no longer a student, had counseled, "or smoking weed, for that matter. You can't smell it on his clothes? I did when I came to your office yesterday to apologize. The real problem is, he's just another ambitious shark. They scare people like us. Admit it."

This was eight months ago after he'd almost had her arrested for using a metal detector in Ocala National Forest. And he would've done it, called a ranger, if she hadn't . . .

Well, there were a couple ways to explain why he had fallen under her spell. He remembered her from Advanced Anthropology, a night course for working students. Lydia, bland-faced, thin, always on time, always in the back row, off by herself. They were alike in that way-outsiders, solid, responsible, both subdued by what the mirror had failed to promise every morning since puberty.

He was five-eight and bald. Lydia, an introvert, averted her eyes while speaking. A slow, voltaic awareness evolved.

The girl often lingered long enough in the parking lot to call, "Good night, Professor Nickelby." And twice had waited with him for Triple A to jump-start his pathetic old Volvo. Their clumsy small talk was memorable only because she hadn't brought up Indiana Jones. Lambasting Hollywood was how the socialite types denounced a fantasy that had, in fact, flooded archaeology with their kind.

Not Lydia. The notebook she'd turned in was fastidious. Legible cursive with footnotes in fine block print. No copy-and-paste plagiarism, the new academic norm. And not a single goddamn emoji or doodled happy face.

One exchange was memorable. The Triple A guy had been busy with paperwork when, out of the blue, she'd asked Nickel by, "Do you ever wonder if things might be fixable? Like your timing's totally off and it's up to you to change, to . . . I don't know, do the unexpected. Something totally . . . risky."

"I can't afford payments, so I'm stuck," he'd replied. "The timing belt was serviced at seventy thousand, just like the manual says, and, safety-wise, I did the research. Volvos are the least risky when it comes to . . ." He'd rambled on in lecture mode even after realizing he had totally missed her meaning.

The silence that followed lasted seven years. He married. He changed jobs, although remained an adjunct professor because the State of Florida didn't pay crap. More than once, alone in the stucco confines of a home he couldn't afford, he had replayed that conversation in his head.

Do you ever wonder if the way things are might be fixable?

Jesus Christ, he'd been an idiot. The Volvo's timing belt had nothing to do with it. The girl had wanted to explore bigger issues. Archaeology as a profession, possibly. Or she was talking about life. Her life, his life. All screwed-up lives.

It's up to us to change. To do something . . . risky.

This was a tantalizing fragment. Had she been addressing their age difference? Him close to tenure, her not yet twenty years old. If so, my god, it was the way a shy student might attempt to seduce an older man without compromising his career.

That brief voltaic awareness took root as his marriage crumbled. Humiliations he suffered in the bedroom sought refuge in fantasy. The girl, rather cute, not bland at all, came alive in his mind. She had glistening brown hair, a thin body, but not so thin her clothes-jeans and tank tops often-didn't reveal taut hips and small stiletto breasts. Sloped valleys, too, one night in the parking lot when she'd knelt to retrieve a book, then stood as if to prove he was taller.

The fantasy motivated him to finally do the legwork.

Lydia Johnson had dropped out midway through her sophomore year. She had forfeited an academic scholarship and a housing grant based on economic need. It made no sense. A straight-A student on the fast track who also had minority status-an unexpected twist. DNA results proved she was nine percent Native American. Documentation had been provided after acceptance.

This was an eye-opener. Sweet, shy Lydia was also damn savvy. In academia, minority status was the golden umbrella. So why the hell had she left all those perks behind?

He dug deeper, and it all began to unravel.

Campus police and a court hearing had been involved. No details. Her record, if any, had been expunged, and the file sealed. A theft of some type, possibly, but more likely drugs-selling, not just using. The dorms would be empty otherwise.

Fantasy could not tolerate the realities of Dr. Leonard Nickelby's respectable, stuffy world.

Seven years passed. When he thought of Lydia, which wasn't often, he winced at what might have happened that night in the parking lot. Then, a year ago, there she was in Ocala National Forest, wearing earphones, sweeping a path with a metal detector. He didn't recognize her at first. Not consciously. Then she turned and flipped him the bird in response to what he'd yelled, which was, "That's a felony, you idiot. Don't bother running, I've got you on video."

It took her a long moment, too. "Professor Nickelby?" The way her face lit up caused him to fumble his phone. Thank god, because he had park headquarters on speed dial. He wouldn't have heard her add, "You have no idea how many times I've thought about you."

He'd stammered something pompous about switching jobs, and she should consider herself damn lucky to be his former student. Five minutes of talk was all he could spare. Steaks were on, and a group of lobbyists awaited him at a nearby pavilion-a picnic intended to win the ear of government officials.

"A meat eater," she'd chuckled. "I used to wonder if anyone else saw that side of you. Congratulations. I always knew you'd be a big success."

Huh?

The fantasy could not end with another question mark....

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Verlag
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Erscheinungsdatum
2018
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0735212783
ISBN 13 
9780735212787
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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ISBN 10:  0735212791 ISBN 13:  9780735212794
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2019
Softcover