Left for Dead (39 page)

Claire waited until Ron’s taillights looked like red pinpoints in the darkness, then she turned back onto Heritage Way. As the BMW picked up speed, the smoke only grew more dense.

She found it almost easier to navigate by looking at the treetops on either side of the road. Occasionally, the car went over a small branch in her path, and Claire felt her stomach tighten. She kept checking her rearview mirror. How much time did she have before Ron Castle’s Jeep would reappear?

She noticed the town ahead, shrouded with darkness—except for a few tall harbor lights that must have been running on generators. The BMW began to cough and sputter as Claire turned onto Main Street. It seemed to be taking its last few gasps.

Claire finally coasted into an alley, then turned off the ignition.

Abandoning the car, she started on foot. The rain had died down. The Fork In The Road was only three blocks away, and Claire started running for it. She glanced over her shoulder, still no sign of Ron’s Jeep.

She saw the restaurant up ahead. “Oh, no,” she groaned, slowing down. There weren’t any lights coming from the squat, white-brick building. The diner was closed.

Claire stopped and caught her breath in the restaurant doorway. A canopy above shielded her from the drizzle. The center of town looked deserted. It was as if the whole area had been shut down and evacuated.

Suddenly someone stepped out from the restaurant parking area. With the street lights off, she could only see his silhouette.

“Tim?” she said.

He came forward. His face was still swallowed up in shadow. But Claire recognized the stocking cap and army fatigue jacket.

Claire gasped, and bolted toward the street. She started running toward the hotel. She glanced back, and saw the man chasing after her. He darted in and out of the shadows along the store fronts.

Claire kept running. A block ahead, she noticed a car speeding down Harbor View Lane, toward the dock. She screamed and tried to flag it down. Then she recognized Harlan’s Saab.

Claire just froze.

The car turned and headed toward her. Its brakes screeching, the Saab came to a halt only a few feet away from her. Harlan jumped out from the driver’s side. “Claire, oh, thank God!” Opening his arms, he rushed to her.

She started to back away. But Harlan grabbed her, and covered her face with kisses. “Oh, baby, they told me you were…” He shook his head, then kissed her again. “Never mind. You’re okay. Nothing else matters.”

Claire numbly gazed him, then she looked up and down the rain-soaked street. She didn’t see the man with the stocking cap.

“What happened to you, sweetheart?” Harlan asked. “Where were you?”

She caught her breath. “You don’t know? You’re not in on it?”

“In on what?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

A couple of short beeps came from the Saab’s horn. Then Walt stepped out of the passenger side. He was waving his cell phone. “I just called the sheriff to tell him you’re okay, Claire,” he said. “He’s in Alliance. They have Rembrandt cornered in one of the cabins. They could use some help—now.”

“Well, you go,” Harlan said. “I’m not leaving Claire alone. Besides, what the hell could I do?”

“No, they want Claire to help identity him,” Walt said.

Dumbfounded, Claire shook her head. How could the police have Rembrandt cornered someplace on the other side of the island, when she’d just seen him a couple of minutes ago? She was about to tell Harlan and Walt that she never had any contact with Rembrandt, that Ron and Linda had tried to pull off a copycat killing.

“That policeman, Tim Sullivan,” Walt continued. “They think he’s hurt. Rembrandt has him hostage. And your friend, Tess, they’re looking for her.”

Claire felt tears stinging her eyes. “We—we really should go out there,” she heard herself say. She squeezed Harlan’s arm.

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Harlan argued. He pulled her toward the car.

“You heard what Walt said. They need me to identify Rembrandt.”

She knew that was impossible, but she would use any argument she could to persuade Harlan. Her two friends were in trouble, and she had to go to them. “Please, honey, I need to go there. I want to help any way I can.”

Harlan sighed. “All right, but you’re not leaving my side.”

“Let’s get a move on,” Walt urged them. He opened the back door for Claire. “They’re waiting for you.”

As they drove toward the dock, Claire kept glancing out the rain-beaded window for that man with the stocking cap. But she didn’t see him.

In the front seat, Walt was already giving Harlan first-mate instructions for what promised to be a choppy voyage. Claire didn’t tell them anything about her brush with Dr. Moorehead, or what Tim and she had discovered about some of the Guardians. She still didn’t know if her husband and his friend were part of it.

When Harlan pressed her about why she was running down Main Street in the storm, she put him off. “I’ll tell you on the boat, honey. I’m still kind of shaken up. Let me just catch my breath here.”

Once on the boat, the two men worked quickly to prep Walt’s Chris Craft for the short trip around the island. Claire tried to stay out of their way. She sat near the edge of the boat, and gazed out at the dock.

Suddenly, she noticed someone. He was running along the pier—in and out of the shadows.

Claire stood up. He was still following her. She was about to scream for Harlan. But the man in the stocking cap stopped under one of the harbor lights, and she saw his face. His sweet, handsome face.

“Brian?” she whispered.

He quickly darted behind a tall storage box near the end of the pier.

“Brian!” she screamed. The boat’s engine started up, drowning out her voice.

Her son peeked out at her from behind the box.

Claire waved anxiously at him. “Brian! Oh, my God!”

The Chris Craft started moving. “No!” Claire screamed. “No, stop!” She didn’t realize it, but she started to climb over the edge of the moving boat.

All at once, Harlan was grabbing her from behind. “What are you doing?” he yelled. “You want to kill yourself?”

Claire fought and screamed as he pulled her back onto the boat deck. Didn’t he understand? Brian was alive. She saw him on the pier. Harlan wouldn’t let go of her. Claire got more and more hysterical as they drew farther away from the dock. Crying, she slapped and kicked her husband. She couldn’t see Brian any more.

“Get her down below!” Walt barked. “I need your help here!”

The Chris Craft rocked and listed back and forth on the choppy water. Claire couldn’t keep her balance. She and Harlan stumbled on the deck. She still fought him.

“Damn it, Harlan!” Walt yelled. “We’re in trouble here! Put her in the second closet down there. Lock her in!”

Harlan picked her up again. Claire struggled as he dragged her down to the cabin. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked. “Honey, please—”

“Let me go!” she cried. She bit his hand.

“Goddamn it!” he hissed, hauling her toward the closet door. The boat was still teetering.

All at once, Harlan was shoving her in a narrow closet. The door slammed shut in her face. Then she heard the lock click.

“Damn it, Claire,” he said on the other side of the door. “Why did you make me do that?”

“Harlan, get your ass up here!”
Walt yelled from the deck.

Claire pounded and kicked at the door.

“Just calm the hell down, and I’ll be right back,” she heard Harlan mutter.

The boat lurched again, and she stumbled against the closet wall. Claire broke down and cried. She would have collapsed, but there was no room to fall over in the tiny closet. Instead, she sank down and curled up on the floor. Engulfed in blackness, she couldn’t see anything except her son’s face. Brian was alive. They hadn’t killed him.

But they’d murdered Derek.

“It’s not murder,” Linda had told her. “In many ways, it’s like a mercy killing. He’s a potential threat to this community and our children. Really, when you get down to it, we’re saving him from himself. What’s happening here is for the best.”

Claire was in the passenger seat of the Castles’ Jeep. Across from her, sitting behind the wheel, Linda sighed heavily, closed her eyes, and murmured something under her breath. Was she praying?

It was a beautiful, clear starry night. The Castles’ Jeep was one of six vehicles parked at the Silverwater Creek campsite. The cars were lined up with their headlights on—illuminating the meadow in front of them. The small grove almost looked like the setting for a night baseball game. Different men were getting out of their cars, which they’d left idling. All of them carried rifles. All of them were Guardians.

Claire saw her husband among them, along with Ron Castle, Fred Maybon, and some others. She didn’t see Walt. A few of the men had dressed in hunting gear.

Harlan had wanted her to come to this Guardian Assembly. She’d sided with him so many times against her son, Harlan must have thought he was infallible. He hadn’t told her what this special meeting tonight was about.

Claire watched in horror as two Guardians led Derek Herrmann out of the back of a SUV.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Derek asked, laughing.

“He’s sedated,” Linda said solemnly. “Really, this is quite humane.”

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Derek yelled. But he didn’t resist as his two captors started to undress him. Derek even stepped out of his jeans for them.

“They’re not really going to do this,” Claire murmured.

They led Derek toward the illuminated field. They’d stripped the tall, skinny teenager down to his white briefs.

Ron Castle came up to the Jeep with the gun in his hand. He leaned up to Linda. “I’ll pop him one in the head for you, hon,” he whispered.

Claire watched him walk away. He joined six other men, who lined up along the edge of the field.

Derek didn’t seem to notice them. He didn’t seem to notice the two men at his side were leaving him.

“We’re not going to let this happen, are we?” Claire asked Linda, who had her eyes closed. “We can’t just sit here! We have to do something…”

Linda opened her eyes and turned to her. “Pray, Claire.”

Nearly naked, Derek seemed to bask in the spotlights directed at him. He laughed, and blew a kiss in the direction of the cars.

Claire jumped out of the Castles’ Jeep. She started screaming. All at once, Derek’s two Guardian “escorts” grabbed her.

“Derek! Get out of there!” she cried, struggling with the two men. “No, you can’t do this!”

Derek froze for a moment. He squinted toward the lights with a goofy smile on his face. “Hey, Mrs. Shaw. Is that you?”

Suddenly, the shots rang out.

Claire’s heart seemed to stop for a moment.

Then she broke free from the two men, and ran to Harlan’s Saab. The engine was already idling.

She tore out of the lot. All she could think about was saving Brian from the same fate. If her son’s best friend and partner-in-mischief was killed for
“posing a threat to the community,”
then Brian would be next.

Please, Brian, be home. Please, be home.

As soon as Claire came in the front door, she started calling his name. She could hear the music coming from his bedroom downstairs. She grabbed the local Yellow Pages, and tore through it until she found a charter speedboat company in Anacortes. They told her a boat would be at the Deception dock in forty minutes.

Claire hung up the phone, and started screaming down to Brian again.

“Yeah, Mom. What’s up?” he replied, from the bottom of the basement stairs. He was wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, and white socks. He must have just gotten out of the shower a few minutes before, because his light brown hair was in damp ringlets.

Claire raced down the stairs, brushed past him and headed into his bedroom. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked.

“I want you out of here,” she replied. “You need to leave right now.”

“What are you talking about?”

She pulled Brian’s overnight bag from his closet, set it on his bed, then threw some clean underwear inside it. “Start packing,” she said. “You have two minutes.”

Brian kept asking what was the matter. She told him to put his shoes on, and he now had ninety seconds. “Isn’t it clear enough?” she snapped. “I want you out of this house!”

Back upstairs, she took out her checkbook, and wrote her son a check for five hundred dollars. Her hands were trembling as she made out another check for the charter boat company.

Brian came up from the basement with his duffle bag. “I’m not going any place until you tell me what this all about, Mom.”

“I’ll tell you in the car,” she said. “Get your coat.”

She took the long way to the center of town—in case the Guardians were looking for her. All the while, Brian kept protesting. “What happened, Mom? C’mon, talk to me! Why are you kicking me out? What did I do?”

Her eyes fixed on the road ahead, Claire reached into her purse and took out the checks. “One of these is for you, and the other one is for the charter boat,” she explained as calmly as she could. “You’ve run away before. You’re good at this. You even stole a boat the last time, Mr. Gannon’s boat.”

“Mom, what the hell are you talking about?” He stared at the checks, and shook his head.

“You’ll be all right,” she said resolutely. “You know people in Anacortes—and Seattle. Maybe you can stay with someone there.”

“You’re really kicking me out?” he asked, his voice cracking a little.

Claire couldn’t talk past the painful lump in her throat. She just nodded.

They parked down at the dock. Claire was terrified one of the Guardians would see them. She kept looking over her shoulder as she walked with Brian down to the pier. He was angry at her, and sulking. He’d stopped asking for her to explain his sudden eviction.

Claire folded her arms in front of her. She longed to hug Brian, but she couldn’t. She needed to make it so he’d
want
to leave.

She saw a light from the charter boat on the dark, placid water. The sound of its motor grew louder.

“Listen,” Brian said finally. “You’d tell me if you were in some kind of trouble, wouldn’t you, Mom?”