Sail Read Online Free

c’mon, I’ve got a boat to catch.”
    Chapter 6
    STANDING no more than a couple of hundred feet from
The Family Dunne,
dressed in a teal Brooks Brothers polo shirt and tan Tommy Bahama shorts, another Newport boat person was busy hosing down the deck of a sleek Catalina-Morgan 440.
    Except this man wasn’t actually from Newport.
    In fact, this wasn’t his boat.
    Gerard Devoux was simply “borrowing” it for a while so he could blend into the Newport scene, as it were. To anyone who might look his way he was just another multimillionaire pampering his baby.
    But no one
was
looking his way. So good was Devoux at not being noticed, it was almost as if he weren’t there on the dock.
    A trick of the mind, he knew.
    An illusion that he was very good at creating.
    No wonder his nickname for himself was the Magician.
    Through dark Maui Jim sunglasses—another prop borrowed just for the occasion—Devoux watched as the Dunne crew prepared to set sail. One by one he checked them off in his head, a mental roll call to make sure all were present and accounted for. That was important, of course. Devoux was in complete control of every aspect of his working plan save for one thing:
attendance.
    But there they were—the pretty M.D. mother, the equally handsome but petulant kids, ranging from eighteen to ten, and the rebellious uncle who looked like George Clooney in docksiders.
    Oh, and let’s not forget the loving new husband, the fancy-pants Manhattan lawyer. What’s the matter, Peter Carlyle—don’t you like to sail? Afraid to get your hair messed?
    Devoux smiled to himself. This was usually a part of his work he didn’t care for—surveillance duty. Totally necessary, yes, but also boring to him; a waste of his impressive skill set, as far as he was concerned.
    Only today was a little different. Devoux was actually having a decent time, reveling in the moment and, more important, in what was to come. And he knew exactly why.
    This was no ordinary job; it was his biggest, boldest, most challenging undertaking yet. It brought all those impressive skills of his to bear, and then some. In short, this had the potential to be a masterpiece of planning and expectations fulfilled.
    Devoux glanced down, checking the time on his brushed-steel Panerai watch. Submersible to a thousand meters, it fit right in with the rest of his nautical costume. However, it was the one thing he actually owned. Devoux loved watches but only the very best of the best. He bought them like Carrie Bradshaw bought shoes in
Sex and the City.
Ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand dollars—the cost didn’t matter. What mattered was the precision, the perfect orchestration of many different complex movements resulting in unyielding accuracy. There was no greater beauty than that. None that he had discovered, anyway.
    Two oh one, declared the Panerai. Precisely.
    Soon Devoux would slip away from the marina, vanishing, not unlike the noontime fog. Until then he would stand his post and keep a watchful eye, waiting for
The Family Dunne
to head off over the horizon.
    Never to be seen again.
    Because Gerard Devoux, aka the Magician, specialized in one trick and one trick only.
    He made people disappear.
    Chapter 7
    I STAND at the tip of the bow, like Kate minus Leo in
Titanic,
and take a deep breath, sucking in all the fresh air that my lungs will allow. Then, with my lips pursed, I let go of it gently, as if I’m blowing out a candle in slow motion.
    I am getting thoroughly drenched, but that feels pretty damn good.
    In fact, so far—amazingly—this entire trip feels pretty good. Who would’ve thunk it? Maybe I’m not so crazy after all. Or maybe I’m simply getting too much oxygen. An “ocean high,” as the boating crowd calls it.
    We’ve been at sea for only a little while, but with the land fading away at our windblown backs, I’m filled for the first time with a very strange feeling about this trip.
    I think it’s called hope, and it’s