“Hey, I know you?” Roland said to Malloy and I saw a disaster in the making.

I got between them and faced Roland. “Forget him. Who’s coming?”

Alarm flashed in his eyes and he grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the steps. “I don’t know but they look like they mean business. Probably some of his friends.”

“Not that way!” Malloy hissed at us. I turned to see him halfway up a ladder propped against a window open to the bow of the boat. Leave it to him to have an escape route in case things went south.

Roland lifted me and practically threw me up the ladder. Malloy had already disappeared through the window, and by the time I scrambled out onto the bow he had jumped to the next boat and vanished from sight. For a small guy he was pretty damn fast on his feet. I turned to see Roland coming through the window behind me just as footsteps pounded on the dock. Peering around the wheel house I saw three large muscled men who looked like they should be guarding some foreign diplomat. The one in the lead was well over six feet with short spiked blond hair. Behind him were two darker complexioned men with short black hair. The looks of determination on their faces as they approached the boat scared the crap out of me. What the hell had Malloy gotten me into?

“What are you doing?” Roland whispered hoarsely as soon as he was out. “We need to get to the other boat like he did.”

The men were a boat length away. “It’s too late. They’ll see us.” I looked around and quickly saw that there was only one avenue of escape. Roland wasn’t going to like it.

“Come on.” I grabbed the rail at the end of the boat and lowered myself over the side, gasping as freezing water lapped at my legs.

Roland’s eyes widened and he latched onto my hand before I could let go of the rail. “You’re going in the water?”

“Yes,” I whispered urgently. “Now get your ass down here before they find us!”

He let me go and I let my body sink up to my neck in the frigid sea water. The cold punched the air from my lungs and I took in a mouthful of water before I got my balance. The tide was out but the water was still over my head and I had to thread my feet to keep from going under.

Roland hoisted himself over the rail. “Oh man, I knew I should have switched places with Pete,” he moaned as he joined me with a small splash. “Fuck this is cold!”

“Shhh,” I whispered. The men were at the Mary’s Hope and the boat rocked as they climbed aboard. We were tucked out of sight beneath the front of the boat but it wouldn’t take them long to figure out where we’d gone. Voices and footsteps came toward the bow. If we didn’t move in the next thirty seconds, we’d be caught.

“Follow me,” I mouthed through chattering teeth. Roland nodded miserably and I quickly but quietly moved toward the dock. The pilings were slimy and I lost my grip on them several times before I managed to pull my body between them. Roland did not hesitate this time and he was right behind me when I turned to look back for him. I put my finger to my lips and pulled us into the deeper shadows beneath the dock.

“They can’t have gone far,” said a deep voice in halting English. He sounded German.

“He will not be pleased if they get away, Gerhard.” The voice was clipped and cold with a Middle Eastern accent. “I told you to grab the little man as soon as he arrived.”

I knew it – they were after Malloy. I gritted my teeth. If we got out of this alive, he was going to hear it from me.

“Split up and check every boat,” ordered the Middle Eastern man. “And have Cesar watch the entrance.”

“Why don’t we have the witch find them for us?” the German man named Gerhard asked.

His companion’s laugh was colder than the water lapping at my chin. “He’s already doing his thing. They better pray we find them before he does.”

Roland and I stared at each other with frightened eyes and he mouthed, “Witch?” I shrugged. What kind of mess was Malloy in? Whatever it was, we were not going to stick around to find out. I had enough to deal with without adding witches and a bunch of thugs to the mix.

I waited until I heard the men move to search the surrounding boats then I pointed to the long tunnel of darkness beneath the dock that led to the cement pier. Roland nodded and followed me as I moved through the water with agonizing slowness. My hands grabbed at the cross beams under the dock to pull myself along but my fingers were too cold to hang on. If we didn’t get out of this water soon, the men pounding on the dock above us would not be our biggest problem.

Roland stayed so close behind me I could feel his reassuring bulk every step of the way. It seemed to take hours to travel a few yards even though I knew it was only minutes. We did not speak but I feared my thumping heart or chattering teeth would give us away any second. Every now and then footsteps moved over our heads and we froze in place, expecting a shout and a muscled arm to reach underneath the dock for us. Then they moved on and we started breathing again.

When my feet hit bottom, I knew we were making progress finally. It was hard walking through the water but a lot easier than trying to keep afloat. Soon I felt rocks under my feet and I saw the slope of rocks that marked the end of the dock. Once we reached it, the tricky part began because there would be no more dock to hide beneath and the only way to shore was across the pier or circling it. We might be able to keep low enough to avoid detection, especially if the men were still busy with the boats. We’d just have to deal with that when we got there.