A Snippet from Wendy and the Lost Boys

Chapter Forty-Five

             I stood alone at the rail staring at Nevis Island.

“Wendy!” The voice was vaguely familiar.

Looking around, I saw no one.

“Wendy! Down here.”

I leaned over the side. Croc was dangling from the rail wearing a white scuba suit. He was all but invisible against the white hull. “Is anybody on the deck with you?”

“Now what?”

“We’re going to throw you some lines. Get them anchored on the cleats.”

I hate it when he bosses me. “This is a super yacht. It doesn’t have cleats.” I was arguing with my crazy ex-husband who was hanging from the side of the ship like a marshmallow on a string.

He staged-whispered and it came out a breathless squeak. “Of course it has cleats. All boats have cleats.” The wind caught him and the rope swayed. A Zodiac full of hedgies in white bobbed below him. It was a chilling lack of sophistication that allowed a bunch of hedge-fund managers to find and board an invisible ship.

“Wendy, your life is on the table. Do you want to be rescued? Hook is going to kill you once he fences his treasure. Trust me.”

“I did trust you, once. That’s why we’re divorced.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve been chasing your Peter Payne pendant all over Georgia. I gave it to you so I could follow you, trace you, protect you.” He swung against the hull with a thud. “Why did you give it to some drunken punk?”

“You put a tracking gadget in my locket?”

Croc’s face was red from exertion. Hanging there was probably more exercise than he’d had in his entire life. “Yeah. GPS from Amazon.com so I would know where you were at all times…” he gasped like a fish out of water. “I spent days following that damn locket and ended up in a reggae bar in Atlanta.”

I looked down at him remembering all the grief he gave me during our brief marriage. “Please…! You aren’t trying to save me. You’re just after Hook’s treasure.”

“Wendy, darling… I want to parlay.”

“What?”

“That’s pirate for ‘talk.’ Let’s talk. Help me up.” Twirling in the breeze, he kept banging his butt on the hull.