Crystal Blue (Buck Reilly Adventure Series Book 3), John Cunningham [top fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

Other books in the BUCK REILLY ADVENTURE series

by John H. Cunningham

Red Right Return

Green to Go

Praise for John H. Cunningham

and the BUCK REILLY ADVENTURE series:

“Red Right Return is a high-energy romp through the streets of Key West and the skyways of the Florida Straits. Cunningham’s treasure-hunting, amphibian-flying hero, Buck Reilly, could be a reincarnation of Travis McGee with wings. RRR is the first in what will surely be a series of classic Florida adventure novels. Great fun, highly recommended.”

– Robert Gandt, author of the Brick Maxwell series

“Green To Go is a rip-roaring, lock-you-to-your-seat adventure that careens through the Caribbean with the momentum of a crash landing. Great characters, excellent suspense, just enough romance, and lots of action, all bound together with the author’s crisp writing style.”

– Michael Reisig, author of The Road To Key West

“John Cunningham’s Crystal Blue will make you a Buck Reilly fan, if you’re not already. Cunningham’s ability to take tropical Caribbean islands and turn them from sandy beaches and bars of Paradise to a precarious locale whenever Buck Reilly shows up is unique. Along the bumpy and exciting ride, you can expect Reilly’s eclectic group of friends and miscreants to show up, along with his nemeses FBI Special Agent T. Edward Booth—who is not above blackmailing Reilly to get what he wants.

“Of course, Reilly ends up in a misadventure that threatens his life, his seaplane, a charity rock concert and a beautiful woman. As he tries to sort out what’s happening, deal with Booth, and protect his plane, Reilly has to say alive to accomplish it all. He finds out it’s not as simple as sippin’ a mojito on a barstool in Key West. You’ll be reading all night because the page-turner of a book will keep you wondering until the last pages.”

– Michael Haskins, Author, Mick Murphy Key West mystery series

CRYSTAL BLUE

Copyright © 2013 John H. Cunningham.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Greene Street, LLC

Book design by Morgana Gallaway

This edition was prepared for printing by

The Editorial Department

7650 E. Broadway Blvd.

Suite 308

Tucson, Arizona 85710

www.editorialdepartment.com

Print ISBN: 978-0-9854422-4-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-0-9854422-3-1

The events and characters in this book are fictitious. Certain real locations and public figures are mentioned, but have been used fictitiously, and all other characters and events in the book have been invented.

www.jhcunningham.com

For the peacemakers

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Matt Hoggatt who wrote a great song and got a record deal on Mailboat Records, followed me on Twitter and we struck up a friendship and have co-written a song together. He also introduced me to Mike Ramos (where’s the hidden track?) who connected me with Nina Avramides of HK Management, who kindly got me permission to feature Jimmy Buffett in Crystal Blue. Where and when? Read on and find out.

Songwriter and friend, Dave Miller, who connected me with Thom Shepherd, who along with Key West-based musician, Scott Kirby, both agreed to appear in this yarn.

For their help in scouring the Virgin Islands for great locations and facts to include in the story, thanks to Valentine Hodge on Tortola (who agreed to have his name used, but everything else about him, or his family in Crystal Blue, is pure fiction), and Captain Jay Rushing of St. John.

John Thedford, thanks for your support of Foxcroft School by bidding on and winning the use of your name in a Buck Reilly Adventure.

Thanks also to my publicist, Ann-Marie Nieves of GetredPR, Tim Harkness, illustrator extraordinaire, the team at The Editorial Department: Renni Browne, Ross Browne, Peter Gelfan, Shannon Roberts, Morgana Gallaway, Jane Ryder and Chris Fisher. Also to John Wojciech of C-Straight, my webpage designer, webmaster, Internet guru and all around solid dude. Thanks to Darcy Woessner for her research into adoption, unplanned pregnancy and the subsequent choices. The Seaplane Pilot’s Association and Captain Chester Lawson, technical advisor on Grumman amphibians, world renowned seaplane instructor and owner of the beautiful 1946 Widgeon I’m leaning on in my picture on the back of this book.

And as always, to my lovely ladies Holly, Bailey and Cortney; my brothers Jim and Jay and their wonderful families.

Never give up on your dreams, some day they may actually come true…

The world breaks everyone, and afterward,

some are strong at the broken places.

Ernest Hemingway

Contents

My Inner Voice is on Mute

With Friends Like These…

Next Time Skip the Reunion

Adios to Jost

THE AIR WAS TURBULENT over the lower keys, both in and outside the Beast. Towering cumulus clouds had built throughout the day, and now squalls caused me to zig and zag my way toward my charter customer Goodspeed’s destination of Fort Lauderdale.

“When I heard you were running a charter service in Key West,” Goodspeed said, “I expected something first class. With as much money as you ripped off at e-Antiquity, I figured you’d be living large.”

I bit my lip.

He’d started the verbal attack right after we took off out of Key West. Rather than watching the turquoise water and islands pass under us like most charter customers, he stared right at me.

“Hell, the engines don’t even match the wings. What’d you do, build this thing out of scrap?”

He was a big man, probably a former high school or university sports star who’d gone soft but still had the big frame. A bully all his life, I’d bet on it. He had money—or at least he dressed to make sure you thought he did—and wore his generation’s symbols of prosperity: golfer’s tan and a bulky gold watch. Judging by the wrinkles around his downturned mouth he’d never had a kind word for anybody, certainly not me.

I gripped the wheel and glanced down to my left. The seven-mile bridge was below. On and on he yapped.

“Are you going to keep this up the whole way to Fort Lauderdale?” I said.

Goodspeed smiled. “I’ve