Hell's Bay (19 page)

“See what I'm saying, Thorn? She doesn't know what we got, whether we're armed or not. So she can't just come flying back. You need to know, Thorn. That's why I stayed alive, so I could tell you.”

It was important information and I told him so.

“I did good,” he said, staring up at me.

“You did great, Teeter. Now relax, just relax. I'm getting help.”

He smiled, then without a flinch or flutter, his face firmed up, his eyes closed, and he passed beyond our reach.

Rusty groaned and grabbed him around the shoulders, cradling his head against her chest, hugging him hard.

I went over and kneeled beside her, put my arm around her. Rusty's flesh was icy and she was shivering. Tears streaked her cheeks, but she was biting back the sobs. Years of training had switched on. It was a survival skill in her profession”staying cool around the other guides, the tough, stoic gang on the dock.

She lifted her head, her face empty. She seemed entranced by a slash of light angling through the starboard window.

“Listen to me, Rusty. She came back. She's out there off our stern.”

“Who?”

“The one who did this. She's towing our skiffs away.”

Rusty tugged away from me.

“And you let her?”

“Wasn't anything I could do.”

She eased Teeter onto the deck, covered him with the blanket, and rose.

I followed her outside to the narrow walkaround deck. The bass boat was two hundred yards east. The woman had switched off her trolling motor, and she'd moved behind the wheel and was using the outboard, idling away toward the mouth of a distant creek. A large bundle lay beside her on the deck. It might have been a body, but I couldn't imagine whose.

Rusty ducked into the bridge and grabbed the mike for the VHF to hail the park rangers. They monitored channel 18 and there was a remote chance our power-boosted antenna could deliver a signal to their station back at Flamingo. But when she held the mike to her mouth, we both saw the spiral radio cord dangling loose beneath it.

“Pull the anchor, Thorn. We're getting out of here.”

Rusty reached for the ignition, but the keys were gone. I'd already seen they were missing and moved to the drawer where we kept the backups. I rifled through the jumble of tools and notepads and pens, but couldn't find the other set of keys. Then I saw the ignition wires hanging below the console. The intruder had slashed the wiring harness. I knelt down and flipped open the circuit box that controlled the twin outboards. She'd smashed the fuses, stolen the box of replacements, hacked up the contacts. With that much damage, a hot-wire would be a major challenge.

Together, Rusty and I headed for the wall locker where the Sat phone was stowed. She reached it first and whipped the door open. Gone. Black zippered case and all. Two spare handheld VHF's were missing as well. Even our Zeiss binoculars were gone.

“She stripped us bare.”

Rusty wheeled on me and grabbed a handful of my shirt and bulled me backward against the console. I didn't resist.

“What the hell is this, Thorn? You did something. This is about you.”

I said nothing.

She twisted her fist, grinding her knuckles against my sternum, straining the fabric of my shirt. Then little by little her rage smoldered out and she forced down a breath and relaxed her grip. She stepped away and turned her back to me. When a moment or two of silence had passed, I laid a hand on her shoulder and she didn't shrug it off.

“I need to know something, Rusty.”

She bent forward and planted both hands on the console and leaned her weight against them, staring out at the distant creek where the bass boat had disappeared. She looked dizzy and faint.

“Why did Teeter lie? Why did he tell the woman he was me?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I'm trying to understand.”

“It's not important.” She stared out at the empty bay.

“Tell me, Rusty. Why?”

Rusty swallowed and turned her head just enough to bring me into view.

“Teeter worshipped you. He worshipped your fucking sweat.”

“What?”

“He idolized you. Thorn, man of action. It's why he quit his job at Ballyhoo's. When he heard you signed up as my first mate, he gave them notice that same day. It was his big chance to be near you, watch you, learn how to be more like you. It makes perfect sense he pretended he was you. Maybe at the end he was even trying to protect you, take the hit instead of you. Who knows? But whatever he was doing, he was trying to earn your respect.”

I had to blink hard to clear the burn in my eyes.

“Well, he did that,” I said and turned away. “He damn well did that.”

We placed Teeter on his bunk and covered him with the blanket. We stood there for several moments in silence, then Rusty mumbled under her breath, a few phrases with the solemn cadence of a Catholic prayer. I tried to find some parting words for this man who very possibly had given his life for mine. But nothing rose from the dark hollow in my chest.

Rusty kneeled down and kissed him on his broad forehead and swept a hand across his cheek. She pressed the side of her face against his still chest for several moments. Then she rose and headed for the cabin door.

For the next half hour the two of us took an inventory of the vessel, looking for anything we might use in our defense. At one point Milligan tracked us down and informed us that our skiffs were missing. Rusty told him we were aware of that. He demanded an explanation, but neither of us responded. He'd had a few drinks by then, and his eyes were glassed over and his tongue sloppy. His bristling arrogance had subsided, and an awkward whine had crept into his bullyboy bravado like some deposed tyrant who was starting to comprehend his fallen circumstance.

Milligan tagged along for a while longer, badgering halfheartedly, then recognized it was useless and marched back to the salon to join the others.

“We're going to have to level with them,” I said.

“When we've sorted it out.”

Rusty and I were standing on the roof of the ship. Overhead the gray sky seemed within arm's reach, and the wind had swung around and was coming out of the northwest, churning patches of the bay to froth. Up on that top deck there were plastic chairs for sunset viewing and a small table where we had intended to serve happy-hour cocktails. Fastened to the rear railings with bungee cords were a pair of kayaks. I was staring at them when Rusty stepped in front of me.

“Forget it, Thorn.”

I checked the angle of the sun. It was midafternoon, two, two-thirty.

“If I started now, I could make it back to the docks by eight tonight, nine at the latest. With a little wind at my back, maybe sooner.”

She shook her head.

“No way. The bitch would pick you off in a heartbeat.”

I looked out at the empty bay, the half-dozen coves, the sweep of mangroves. The creek mouth where the bass boat had disappeared was about a half mile off the port quarter.

“Here we are,” I said. “Easy targets. No one's shooting.”

Rusty swallowed, eyes scanning the distance.

“Relax,” I said. “She thinks she killed her man, her job's done. She's gone.”

“Why come back and steal the skiffs?”

“To keep us from chasing. Give her more of a head start.”

“I think she's still out there,” Rusty said. “I think this is just beginning.”

“Look, if this woman wanted to murder everybody aboard, she could've started this morning back in the Broad River. She had the drop on us. It was totally isolated. We were defenseless.”

Even as I spoke the words, they sounded hollow. All three of us could have been armed and ready to return fire for all she knew.

“I've been thinking about that line she gave Teeter,” Rusty said. “ 'How long can you hold your breath?' What the hell is that about?”

I told Rusty I didn't know. True enough, though I had a growing suspicion. Since Mona's outburst at the restaurant the night before, I'd been brooding about Abigail Bates's death, imagining the horror of her last seconds, the grisly act itself. Face-to-face, hand to hand, an intimate murder.

In some echo chamber of my heart, I could even hear the killer's taunt.

While I hold you under, I will suffer what you suffer, because I know I can outlast you. I've bet my life you will succumb before I do, because my will is stronger than your will, my readiness to endure pain greater than yours. I am risking everything to watch you die. All so I might be touching your flesh when it happens.

Standing at the starboard rail, Rusty shivered and lowered her head, and I thought she was finally going to surrender to a long heaving cry. But after a moment more, she straightened, drew a deliberate breath, and her eyes followed the flight of a white pelican as it coasted past us on an oblique angle to the wind. She watched the bird sail across the sky until it dipped below the next stand of mangroves a half mile off.

“We should get back inside,” I said.

Rusty led the way. As we backed down the stern ladder, I heard an osprey make three sharp cries, then three more.

Once in the past, I'd felt the wispy prickle of a telescopic lens pass over my flesh just before a slug exploded nearby. But this time I had no premonition, no signal beyond that osprey's insistent cry.

Rusty stepped onto the deck, and just as I jumped down beside her I heard the dry crack of a rifle. Above us, a section of the rooftop railing blew apart and a foot-long section twirled past our heads into the bay. I'd been holding on to that chrome handrail moments before.

At the mouth of the distant creek dozens of egrets and herons exploded from their roosts and sailed in a white thrashing cloud toward the west.

 

 

 

 

Rusty ducked inside the crew cabin and I slipped in behind her and shut the door. The tinted windows were dark enough to conceal our movements from a distance. Just the same, both of us stepped away from the glass.

She took a careful breath, then turned back to the door and reached for the handle, but I grabbed her and pulled her away.

“Got to warn the others,” she said. “They're my responsibility.”

“In a minute,” I said. “Just hold on.”

“What?”

“The shooter's stopped. That wasn't about killing anybody.”

“You're sure about that?”

“She's not still firing, is she? The woman's not in any hurry.”

“What, she's toying with us?”

“Could be calibrating her rifle, or just trying to scare us.”

“Well, she accomplished that.”

“Or maybe it's what Teeter said. She doesn't know for certain if we're defenseless. She can't be sure she didn't miss our weapons stash. We could have our own rifle with a sight. So she takes a shot, then waits to see how we respond. She's probing.”

“Fine, except we
are
defenseless.”

“Not really.”

“What?”

“The flares,” I said. “And there's the Makita, for starters.”

“The reciprocating saw? Christ, Thorn. She's got a rifle, and we're going to defend ourselves with a handsaw?”

“It's something.”

I'd decided to cart along the saw in case we had plumbing issues and needed to plunge-cut into the drywall to access the pipes. It had happened once in the master stateroom head, an L joint coming unglued. The Makita had a six-inch serrated blade and trigger-controlled speed and was a tough piece of hardware.

But Rusty was right. Saw versus rifle, shitty odds.

Without further discussion, we exited the west door onto the deck shielded from the creek mouth and circled the cabins to the stern. With Rusty at my shoulder, I opened the transom tool chest. The killer had missed it. Everything was intact. The battery-powered saw, a crowbar, boxed sets of screwdrivers and socket wrenches, all the Coast Guard safety equipment, including a half-dozen flares, a plastic whistle, an air horn, life jackets for ten.

“Time to lay it out for the others.”

“I'll do the talking, Thorn. This is my show.”

“Tell me something, Rusty. When you were describing the trip to John and Mona, did either of them ask you exactly where we'd be anchoring up? The name of the bay, anything specific?”

“No.”

“You're sure?”

“Absolutely.”

I looked off at that distant creek.

“But Carter Mosley did,” Rusty said. “He wanted the GPS coordinates.”

“Carter Mosley.”

“He said he might fly in, join us for a day or two if he could shake loose from work.”

 

The rest of our group was assembled in the salon. Hushed, calm. Apparently they hadn't heard the rifle shot. Behind the bar, Milligan was pouring a Scotch over rocks. A glass of red wine sat on the table before Mona, and she was skimming her finger around its rim squeaking out a high whine. Cross-legged on the couch in front of the TV, Annette was hunched over her keyboard, fingers flying. Luxury Vacation from Hell, by Annette Gordon. In the galley area, Holland had rolled his white watch cap up off his ears, and it sat high on his head like a hip-hop crown. He stood guard over a plate of muffins and was tearing off the crusty lids one by one, taking wolfish bites, then setting the rest of the muffin aside. His camera hung around his neck, dusted with crumbs.

I placed the saw and crowbar and half the flares on the coffee table. Beside them Rusty lay the air horn, whistle, and the rest of the flares.

No one spoke, but there was a collective stiffness in the group, no eye contact, as if the four of them had been hashing out the situation and had reached a decision. A budding mutiny.

“For the record,” Mona said, “I'm totally against this.”

“Against what?” Rusty moved in front of the TV. Some-one had turned it on. CNN was covering a snowstorm in Colorado, airports closed, highways clogged with abandoned cars. Rusty picked up the remote and snapped it off.