“Yes, sir,” Walt said, handing over both his American driver’s license and his passport.
The captain took the documents and secured them under the clasp of his clipboard. He scribbled information from Walt’s ID onto the delivery slip, checked a few boxes, and handed everything back to Walt.
“Signature at the bottom.”
Walt signed.
“Let me go over a few things about the boat. Nothing major, but there are a few mechanical issues that will need attending to. Nothing structural. She’s a beast, that’s for sure.”
“Good to hear,” Walt said, as if he had any idea about what made a sailboat a beast or a burden.
For twenty minutes he followed the captain around the boat and nodded as the man inspected the sails, the winches, and the topside equipment. Walt followed him into the engine room and pretended to comprehend the things that were mentioned about the fuel pumps, the propellers, and the drive system. There was a glitch in the electronics, Walt was told. He made a show of making a mental note of it.
“We made a list as we traveled,” the captain said. “I know I’m cruising through a lot of things, but our flight leaves in three hours.”
Walt waved his hand. “As long as you made a list, I can go over everything after I get you guys to the airport.”
Two hours later, Walt dropped the four men at the airport in Montego Bay. As soon as they disappeared into the terminal, he shifted the Land Cruiser into drive and headed toward Negril.
CHAPTER 75
Negril, Jamaica Friday, October 22, 2021
AVERY FELT THE THICK HUMIDITY OF THE CARIBBEAN AS SOON AS SHE stepped onto the tarmac. Her flight was six hours, direct from Los Angeles into Montego Bay. She made it through customs and wheeled her suitcase outside. The airport was busy with tourists waiting in long lines to pour onto buses and vans that would deliver them to the island’s beaches, where they would drink rum and try hard to bronze their pale skin.
Avery walked out of the terminal and heard a horn beep twice. She made her way through the crowd and saw Walt standing in the crook of the open driver’s side door and waving to her over the roof of the Land Cruiser. It was the same vehicle, Avery knew, that her brother drove three months earlier when he first arrived in Jamaica. Avery hustled over and climbed into the passenger’s seat while Walt threw her bag in the trunk.
“How was your flight?” he asked as he pulled out of the terminal.
“Long. How is he?”
“Settled and enjoying island life. I may or may not have turned him on to single batch Jamaican rum.”
Avery smiled.
“He’s really anxious to see you.”
“Did the boat get here?”
“Yesterday, right on schedule. Christopher wanted to inspect it, but I told him we had to wait for you.”
“How did it look?”
“The boat? Great, but I don’t know anything about boats.”
“It’s a beautiful boat,” Avery said, remembering the day in June when she and Connie Clarkson had taken it for a sail through Green Bay. That morning’s sail had been a final inspection during which Avery made sure the vessel could do what it needed to.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Walt said.
Then, it was quiet for a long time as Walt navigated out of the airport and onto the main highway that would take them to Negril. He finally spoke after thirty minutes.
“I missed you,” he said.
Avery looked over at him. “I still think you’re an asshole.”
“No argument from me on that front. Just know that I’m working really hard on changing that.”
A minute of silence passed before Avery spoke.
“I missed you, too.”
“I’ll take that,” Walt said, keeping his eyes on the road. “I’ll take that any day of the week.”
Walt reached over and took her hand. She didn’t resist.
*
Most of the drive to Negril was on the main road, which was populated with tour buses, vans, and motorcycles that slithered in and out of traffic. The ocean was to Avery’s right. The water was crystal clear nearer to shore, offering a glimpse of coral deep beneath its surface. Farther from land the water turned a rich cobalt. Palm trees were everywhere. In the city of Negril they exited the main road and headed toward the interior of the island—away from the tour buses and far from the ocean and beaches. The roads on this leg of the journey were narrow and shaded by heavy foliage. In some spots the road was so slight that Walt had to pull to the side to allow oncoming traffic to pass.
The further into the rain forest Walt drove, the more excited she became. She didn’t speak for the last thirty minutes of the trip. All Avery wanted was to get there and see him.
“Five more minutes,” Walt said.
Those minutes felt like hours until Walt finally slowed the car, made a right turn, and pulled up the driveway of a well-kept blue house tucked into a nook of mangroves and palm trees. The closest neighbor was two acres away and very much out of sight. This had been the perfect place for Christopher to stay while Avery finished the last of her plans. Walt had promised that it would be.
“Thank you,” she said.
Walt nodded, and then pointed at the house. “Get in there.”
Avery opened the door and stepped onto the pebbled driveway. A dog ran down the driveway to greet her. The front door of the house opened and Christopher walked onto the front patio. Avery ran for him.
CHAPTER 76
Negril, Jamaica Friday, October 29, 2021
CHRISTOPHER MONTGOMERY WAS THREE YEARS OLDER THAN HIS LITTLE sister. Age, however, provided little leverage and no advantage. Avery was better than him at most things—she had been a better student and was a better sailor. She was more charismatic and outgoing. She could likely, if things ever got out of control between them, overpower him in a wrestling match. But there was one thing Christopher beat her at. Math. He was a savant when it came to numbers. Math and all its derivatives came easily to him. In fact, he had never felt the need to learn the subject. The knowledge was somehow already in his brain. He was born with it. All he had to do was organize the information and apply it to any version of math. In college, he majored in mathematics. After college he earned a master’s degree in applied and computational mathematics. If he had had a normal father, perhaps Christopher Montgomery would have become a professor or an actuary for the insurance industry. Instead, he took his mathematical brain to Wall Street and joined Montgomery Investment Services as an analyst.
Christopher applied himself to studying the market and determining the probabilities and statistical analysis of making money by trading stocks and commodities. Surprising to no one, he was very good at it. So good, in fact, that he rose to the top of the food chain at his father’s firm and was soon offering his advice not just to his father, but to every partner, about which industries to place the hedge fund’s assets into. Christopher became so lost in the statistical analysis of the firm’s funds that he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Until one night when he was alone and working late. His mind functioned best when the offices of Montgomery Investment Services were empty. That was when he first began to unravel the fraud that was taking place. It took him weeks of working through the night to dissect the firm’s financial misdeeds.