Seven Days Prior Chapter 5: Day 5, a picket fences fanfic

Day 5

"How long are we going to sit here for?" Max asked hoarsely, as they watched the fire continue to burn, as the sun began to appear over the horizon.

"I was hoping you would sleep," Kenny said, knowing that her body didn't relax at all in his arms over the course of the night, "I was waiting for the sun to come up. I don't know how to drive a boat in the daylight, so driving in the dark might be a problem."

Max snuggled closer to him, and felt some comfort in his arms, "Maybe someone will see the fire from the mainland?"

"It's still 98 miles to Chili," Kenny said slowly, "Max, I've been looking at the map."

"And?"

"We have half a tank of fuel, and that is how much it takes to get back. Most likely where the mob is waiting, or the authorities to pick me up. I found this disk, at Tom's apartment. I'm thinking whatever he was running from is probably on it."

"And you want to figure that out before we go back," Max finished for him, "And it should clear you from all the allegations about being in the mob."

"Something like that, and I don't want to take you back any place where you'll probably be killed."

Max looked toward the backpack, "We do have a briefcase of money, and people think I'm dead."

"They'll figure out I rented a boat and came here. Then with this one that exploded, we have to figure this thing out, Max."

"Where are we going?"

Kenny pointed to the map, "Look. If we go down the coast, until Punta Arenas, ships dock there. Cruise ships."

"You want to stow away on a cruise ship? I don't even have a passport."

"Your biggest concern is not having a passport? In all of this?" Kenny asked, as he rummaged through his pocket, "Here. I got a fake one before I left the country, and I got you one too. Just in case. We're not going to stow away. We're going to be passengers. Who will look for us there?"

"Cahli Vangas?"

"Tobias Vangas."

"So I'm supposed to be your wife?"

"Come on, Cahli. What do we have to lose?"

"Not much, considering," Max trailed off, as the absurdity of everything hit her, "Ok, Tobias. Let's go."

"There was a boat explosion, about two miles off of Tom's island," Skeeter said the next morning.

"What?" Jimmy said.

"Four people were on board," Skeeter trailed off, "Authorities went to the island, and found three more on the beach, and a Tom Millani shot dead in the house there. No sign of Max."

"Tom didn't die in the explosion here?"

Skeeter shook his head, "Apparently not. I talked to a Captain Vasquez."

"And?"

"He found handcuffs attached to the bed posts, and some womans clothes too. A safe, with some fake identification."

"For Tom and Max?"

Skeeter nodded, "Yeah. If Tom is dead, and she didn't take that . . . Where the hell is she?"

"With Kenny," Jimmy said slowly, "He took a boat out there . . ."

"Hypothetically, killed Tom because he was keeping Max prisoner. Then the second boat showed up, with Morell? And killed the crew of Kenny's boat?"

"Uh huh. Then Kenny and Max sped out on the first boat."

"The other followed."

"And one exploded."

"Which one? Who is dead?"

"Four people?"

"What if they were being held hostage on it?"

"We need to go to Chili."

"Land," Max cried, "Oh, Kenny. We did it."

"You want to drive us in?"

She looked up at him, "Is that what we're going to do? Just drive up to the harbor? Won't that be a little suspicious?"

"And your idea is? You want to swim in?"

"Of course not," Max trailed off, "Well maybe a little bit. What if we anchor the boat off shore, and take the rubber life raft in to the rocks over there? Or let the boat drift off? We don't want anyone to know where this boat came in, and they are going to be looking for it."

"You're brilliant," Kenny said softly, kissing her forehead, "You want to blow this one up too?"

Max shot him a mock glare, "No. I don't like to blow things up."

"Yeah, well it beats being shot in the head," Kenny countered, as he steered their boat away from the small harbor and around the bend, "How about this?"

Max nodded, as they loaded their meager supplies into life raft, "Why don't we get this over with?"

"Chili?" Skeeter asked, "We don't have any jurisdiction down there, and there is a good chance that they are both dead."

"I'm not believing that yet," Jimmy snapped, "If Max didn't die in the explosion here, I refuse to believe that she died in one in South America."

"At least eight people died either on the island or on the boat. The chance of Max not being one of them, well it's slim, Jimmy."

"Do you want to call the airlines, or should I?"

"We're leaving in two hours," Kenny confirmed, as he met Max on the street corner across the street, "I told the travel agent that it was our honeymoon, Cahli."

She shot him a mock glare, and handed him the shopping bag, "I bought you some clean clothes, Tobias."

"You could use a shower, Cahli," he said, stressing her alias, "The best part of this cruise is that it docks in Miami."

"And how long does that take?"

"Two weeks."

"Somehow I don't think we have that long."

"We'll take it one day, hell, one hour at a time," Kenny said quietly, "I promise you that we're both going home."

"I believe you," Max said, as she found it difficult to turn away from his blue gaze, "Do you think we should clean up before we get on this ship?"

"Come on. I saw a public bathroom around the corner."

"Jimmy, this is insane," Skeeter said, "We need to let the F.B.I. handle this."

"You mean Morell?" Jimmy asked, "What do you bet he was on that boat?"

"He could have been tailing Kenny."

"Read this."

"You look beautiful, Cahli," Kenny said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

"Hmm. It just feels good to be clean," Max replied, as they made their way up the gangway, "I can't believe that we're doing this."

They followed the room steward down the hallway, and collapsed onto the bed after he left. Max looked around cabin, before turning to look back at Kenny lying beside her.

"What?" he asked, as his fatigue hit him.

She smiled sleepily, "Thank you for rescuing me."

"You would have figured it out on your own."

Max shook her head, and struggled to stay awake, "Only you would have done this. Thank you."

Kenny pulled her closer to him, and studied her thoughtfully, "Max?"

"Hmm?" she mumbled, as he tilted his head down to hers, "Kenny?"

He pressed his lips to hers, in the mere whisper of a kiss. Max cracked her eyes open at the contact, and brought her hands up to his chest.

Not feeling her resist, Kenny deepened the kiss, and pulled Max closer to him. He slipped his tongue into her mouth, and marveled at the softness of her skin.

Max groaned, and wrapped her arms around his neck, and lost herself as she felt Kenny's hands trail down her body and trace the outline of her breasts. Tilting her head back, she explored his mouth with hers, and ran her fingers up his chest.

"Max," he gasped, a bit shocked at the turn of events, "Max."

"Kenny," she whispered, as she felt him grow hard against her.

"Oh! So sorry!" a voice came from behind them, "I bring bags! So sorry!"

"Uh, it's fine," Kenny said, releasing Max and sitting up, "We're, uh, newlyweds, so yeah. Thanks for the bags."

Max sat up too, and straightened out her shirt, "Um."

Kenny reached out and took her hands in his, "What did we just do?"

"I don't know. Well I know, but . . . this situation . . . Kenny. We don't need to complicate this any more than it already is," Max blurted out.

"Well, you are supposed to be my wife," he said.

"Pretend wife."

"So what the hell just happened?"

Max shook her head, "I don't know! One minute we were falling asleep, then the next . . . It felt good."

"It felt fantastic," Kenny argued, "Max, we just went through something huge."

She nodded, "I think there is a lot more to come. Can we . . . put what happened on hold?"

Kenny nodded, "I can live with that. You still want to take that nap?"

"Marcus Morell," Skeeter read aloud, "His sister is Carmen Sardelli?"

"He was following Kenny. Why? To find Max and Tom? If Kenny could find them, Tom must have left some sort of trail."

"What if Kenny found something in Tom's apartment everyone else missed?"

"And it led him to Max?"

Max opened the briefcase, and pulled out the paper with the numbers running across it, as the ship sailed out to sea, "What do you think this is?"

Kenny sat cross legged on the bed across from her, "I don't know. Some sort of code? Bank account numbers? Speaking of that, how much cash is in that briefcase?"

"A lot. Half a million."

"Tom didn't travel lightly."

Max shot him a dark look, as her stomach growled, "You want to order room service? I'm starving."

Kenny nodded, "Yeah. What do you say we go find a computer too? Find out some more about the Millanis, and see if your code over there does anything for this disk. What do you want to eat?"

Max nodded, as Kenny dialed room service, "Anything. Plus some beer. I have a strong need to get myself drunk."

Kenny smiled to himself, as Max collapsed back on the bed next to him. He finished the order and turned back to her, "You're not the only one. They'll be here in a half an hour. You okay?"

Max sat up, "My parents. I know I never really got along with them, but this has got to be killing them. Tom wanted to just disappear at let everyone think we were dead."

Kenny hesitantly brushed a lock of her hair off of her face, "You had problems with that."

Max nodded, and blurted out the helicopter story, "I should have shut up. He shouldn't have died."

"Max," Kenny said quietly, "You didn't kill him. He set himself up for that long before you even knew him."

"Look at all the bodies," she said, "The four on the boat, the three on the beach . . . who was in my apartment? There were bodies?"

"I don't know."

"How could anyone think that you did this?"

Kenny sighed and filled her in on everything, until she had almost shot him, "You know you only missed me by about three inches."

"Sorry."

"Forget it all for now," Kenny said, as he realized how much he wanted to kiss her again.

"I think our food is here," Max said softly, as Kenny stood.

"So what did Kenny find? Plane tickets? Reservations? What?"

"Maybe he left something behind for the people he was working for? The missing information from Varitek?"

"He would have to leave it in some sort of code. What about latitude and longitude?"

"Come on," Kenny said, "We'll save the alcohol for later."

Max nodded, as she let him pull her up, "Do you really think that whatever is on that disk will help us out? Wait."

"What?"

Max retrieved the keys from the duffle bag, "I almost forgot. Tom had these on him. One was to the house, one looks like a boat key, one fit the briefcase and the fourth is a safe deposit box key."

"And you're just telling me this now?"

"It's been a long two days."

"Anything else?"

Max paused, "Um, he mentioned something about Swiss bank accounts."

"One thing at time," Kenny replied, "Shit. My turn. Morell was on my plane on the way down here."

"F.B.I. Agent Morell? Here?"

"I lost him Max, but he had to have been looking for you, me, Tom, anyone involved in this."

"One thing at a time, right?" Max asked, as she opened the door, "Maybe we won't have to worry about this for much longer."

Kenny followed her down the hall, and toward the internet café, "Hey, it'll be an adventure we can tell our grandchildren about."

Max smiled, as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, "I think it might scare them off of ever dating anyone, ever."

"You do know how to pick them," Kenny said, as she leaned in closer to him, "I'll have to consider a cruise when I really go on my honeymoon."

"Mmm," Max agreed, as they came to the café, "It's good way to travel. We're here."

Kenny slid the disk into the computer, "Here we go."

Max pulled up a chair next to him, and pulled the paper of code out of her pocket, "I don't even know what we're expecting to find."

Kenny nodded, as the coded data popped up on the screen, "What do you think?"

"Here," she said, opening the file and typing the code in, "Maybe this will work?"

He leaned over her shoulder, "Max? Why wouldn't he have taken this with him?"

She shrugged, "I don't know who trusted enough to leave it for. Someone in his family, although he said he didn't want anything to do with them."

"Could he have just been saying that?"

"Anything is possible . . . What about Morell? If he was following you, maybe he knew that you already found what he was looking for?"

"There are a lot of what ifs," Kenny replied, as the information reappeared, decoded, "Shit, Ma - Cahli. Look at this."

"I see it Tobias," Max replied, "Um, why don't we print it out?"

"All the people on the boat that exploded were men," Skeeter said, "The bodies were thrown free, and well they were. Three men, who were locals, and an American."

"Kenny?"

"I don't know. I think he and Max escaped together. What happened to the other boat?"

Jimmy stood, "The local authorities in Chili are looking for them, and their pictures are all over the news. Somehow we're going to make contact."

"Do you still want to fly to Chili?"

"We're flying out in two hours."

"What next?" Max asked, "We dock in Arica in two days."

"We have to fly there," Kenny replied, as they studied the print out tomorrow, "All that coding for a location? What the hell are we looking for?"

"He had back accounts there," Max said quietly, "So why wouldn't he have a safe deposit box in Switzerland?"

"Zurich," Kenny stated, as he took another swig of his beer, "Jesus. I've done more traveling in the last three days then in my entire life."

Max giggled, as she and Kenny finished off the beer. She fell back against the pillows, and dropped her empty bottle onto the floor.

"You're drunk," Kenny declared, as he fell on the bed beside her and was happy to focus on something else, "Maxine Stewart does not get drunk."

"Yeah? I guess Cahli Vangas does."

"You know, I really like Cahli Vangas."

Max rolled on her side, "You have two heads."

"I wish I had a tape recorder."

Max giggled again, and knew she was losing complete control of herself, "So you like me?"

Kenny pulled her closer to him, "Of course I like you. Go to sleep, Max."

"I'm not Max. I'm Cahli."

Kenny tossed a blanket over her, and flipped the light out, "Come on. Humor me. We've had a long day."

"Will you stay?"

"Hey we're stuck with each other for awhile. Sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

Jimmy and Skeeter boarded the plane in Greenbay silently.

"Uh, how is Jill taking this?" Skeeter asked.

"She understands," Jimmy lied, "It's my job. We have to find out what happened to them."

Skeeter nodded, "When we get to Santiago . . . What are we going to do?"

"We have a long flight. We'll figure it out on the way."