Death Comes Ashore

by Corinne O'Flynn

  “How long until it’s done?”

  “I finished it last night. The part came in and the dude, he wanted it fixed right away. Took me all night. He paid double, though, and tipped me fat. Sat next to me the whole time I was fixing it, too. Watched me like a hawk.” Damien shrugged. “Dude’s a freak about that boat. I doubt he’d let anyone take it out, even if it was running.”

  Corey glanced over at the Penumbra and pictured the owner, Marcus Wingate. She remembered the slender, older man with the salt-and-pepper hair. The Coast Guard said they had the boat towed in, but the report didn’t have any details about who was on board. Her scalp prickled. “You think he could have taken the boat out on Wednesday?”

  “Sure, why not? The sails work fine, as far as I know. It was plenty windy that night. It’s got a small outboard. He could have used that to steer through the harbor. Then used the sails once he was out.”

  Corey didn’t sail, and she had no idea how difficult that task might be. “Even in the storm?”

  “Dude sails all over the world. Don’t let his age or that limp fool you. You should hear some of the stories he tells once he starts drinking. Totally intense.”

  “Huh. Guess I should go talk to him again.”

  Damien stood and stretched. “If he isn’t there, he’ll probably be back soon. Said he was going into town to get supplies once the grocery store opened. He’s leaving today.” He looked at his watch. “Crap. I have to go. Got a repair up in North Lynn at eleven and I have to pick up some parts on the way.”

  “Hey, you okay to drive?” Corey asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t drink in the day. I’m hungover, but I’m sober, promise. Like I said, I’m on probation. I don’t play around with that shit.

  Corey waited in the Toyota, tapping the steering wheel, watching. A few minutes later, Damien climbed the steps that led from the boat slips to the parking lot and hurried to a small white pickup truck parked near the harbor office. He hefted a tool box into the back, tossed a backpack onto the passenger seat, and drove away.

  She ducked as he turned the pickup her way, but he wasn’t watching for her. His mind was on other things. Nikki and the appointment in Lynn, perhaps. Corey had her own appointment at ten this morning, but the station was much closer. She still had some time.

  She watched the pickup make the turn up the road leaving the harbor. Once he was gone, she stepped out of the truck and walked back to the slips, stopping when she got to number ninety-five. She walked down the narrow dock that ran along the length of the boat until she reached the stepladder.

  Every nerve in her body zinged to attention. Since learning about the sex trafficking aspect of this case, it seemed like she was even more connected to it. The pain of her own history hardened her to the realities and what was at stake. Nothing mattered more than getting Alicia back. Well, that and making them pay.

  Corey ignored the alarm bells ringing though her head. She couldn’t listen to the warnings that made her want to run back to her truck and drive away. It would be easy to hand the case over and let someone else face this darkness. But she knew she couldn’t do that.

  Not now, not ever.

  She took a deep breath as she climbed the ladder and boarded the Penumbra.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The harbor seemed even quieter on board the boat. Corey glanced back over her shoulder, checking the boardwalk. All clear. Her watch said nine-fifteen. She had plenty of time for a look around before she had to get back to the station to meet Special Agent Fox. If nothing else she could close off this additional piece of the investigation for the PIO.

  She stepped along the deck toward the rear of the craft, careful to avoid the ropes and poles secured to the decking and the exterior cabin wall. The window shades inside the cabin were fitted to the exact shape of the glass, obscuring any view she might have of the interior space. Inching her way toward the wide seating area in the boat’s stern, Corey checked the couch cushions and opened several storage panels. Nothing was out of order.

  A muffled bump sounded from inside the cabin. Corey froze, unsure what she’d heard. Another bump sounded, definitely coming from somewhere toward the front of the boat. She approached the cabin door and stopped on the top step, listening, replaying the sound in her mind. Had she really heard something? Could it have been outside? Could it have been the boat moving against the bumpers on the dock? She crouched and turned her ear to the door.

  There it was again. A muffled bump, followed by a soft moan. There was someone inside the cabin. A woman.

  Adrenalin surged through her, lighting up every nerve. “Hello?” Corey called softly. She knocked on the door. “Alicia? Are you in there?”

  Another moan, as if the woman inside were dazed, waking from a deep sleep, or perhaps a drug haze. Corey’s focus honed in as her training took over.

  She pulled out her phone, dialed Young. The phone beeped without placing the call. No signal. She slipped her phone back into her jeans and stepped down to the small entryway, taking each of the three steps slowly, one at a time. Corey stood on the narrow landing in front of the door. She tried the doorknob. Locked. She pressed her ear against the wooden door.

  A small bell chimed in the doorway, a tiny electronic peal. Corey glanced up at the wood paneling around the door and inspected the small framed awning, searching for an alarm or a camera that she might have activated. A popping sound filled the air and white points of pain burned the back of Corey’s legs like bee stings. She bent to look and saw four small darts poking out from her calf muscles through her jeans. She bent to pull them out but blood rushed to her head and she lost balance. She leaned against the door to remain standing. Her knees softened against her will.

  Heat exploded in her belly and pushed through her body in a rush. It was like fire had flared and was racing through her blood vessels, searing through her heart and bursting behind her eyes. No. No… she couldn’t lose her shit now. Keep it together, Corey.

  Her body crumpled into the stairwell. She pulled the darts from her skin and held them up to the sunlight. The syringes were empty of whatever fluid they had contained and glowing fumes wafted around the needle points. Corey shook her head to clear it.

  Lines of heat seared up her legs as her mind floated. She stared as gold and orange orbs floated around her body, moving upward as she watched. The lights pulsed and flashed, and when one went out, another burst to life heating her skin whenever they got close. As the orbs circled her, she felt the fire inside her push against them as if trying to push them away.

  “No. No.” Corey’s tongue was thick in her throat. The heat in her belly was rising and threatening to overtake her completely. “Settle down, Corey.” Her words were slurred and came out more like sell don cree. Her vision narrowed.

  She had to get out of here. Drive inland until she got a signal. She needed to call Young. She needed backup.

  Corey crawled up the stairs, made her way to the U-shaped seating area near the steering wheel at the back of the boat. Her skin pulsed and tingled in time with the lights that followed her and enveloped her. Her hands felt as if she were wearing thick mittens. She swatted at the couch, missed. Moved closer. Grabbed the wooden frame of the bench and pulled.

  She flopped on to the couch, leaned back into the cushions, her vision rolling. A seagull swooped overhead, the movement leaving a trail in Corey’s vision. She blinked once, then again. Her eyelids felt like weights, willing her to just let them close for a while.

  Music wafted through the air, growing louder. Corey turned toward the sound. No, not music. Whistling. On the boardwalk. Someone was coming.

  Corey heaved herself to a sitting position, her head swimming and woozy. The whistling grew louder, closer.

  The woman in the cabin cried out, her weak voice drifting away on the breeze.

  “I’m here, darlin’. Don’t you worry.” Marcus Wingate’s salt-and-pepper head appeared as he stepped onto the ladder and pushed two brown paper bags onto the de
ck. Corey watched him, as if from outside her body, taking in small details as the man eased his way on board. The way the wind caught his hair, making it stand up on one side. The beads of sweat that stood out on his forehead. His brown leather sandals, they looked soft and worn with age. She watched as he picked up the bags, turned toward the rear of the boat, and stopped moving.

  His blue eyes locked on Corey’s as he took in the scene.

  Corey willed her hand to grab her gun. Her hand glowed bright white as her arm flopped off her waist and onto the couch like a useless piece of meat.

  Wingate’s eyebrows rose as a wide smile spread like oil across his thin face. “Why, Inspector. I had no idea you had it in you. You don’t belong here.” His voice sounded watery in her ears.

  Corey’s vision blurred and grew dark. Wingate placed the grocery bags on the deck at her feet and sat next to her. She tilted into him as his weight shifted the cushion beneath her. She couldn’t pull away. Wingate’s musk cologne filled her senses. He grabbed her wrist, checking her pulse. He moved his hand under her neck, pressed his fingers into her carotid artery.

  He tsked. “Well, you’re one lucky lady, Inspector. It appears I have returned just in time. Now, the question becomes whether or not I should provide you with a little boost or allow the potion now coursing through your system to finish its work. What do you say?”

  Screw you, asshole, she thought. She moaned. She couldn’t turn the thought into words. She could no longer move. Her breathing had become shallow. Her vision tunneled. Wingate reached behind her neck and eased her head down onto the couch. His hands felt cool against her neck. He lifted her feet and moved her legs around until she lay entirely on the couch. Her feet felt like stones at the same time her body wanted to float away on the light.

  Wingate walked away, out of view. Panic rose in her chest as heat exploded inside her. She fought it. This was no time for a panic attack. She forced her attention on settling her nerves. Her breathing slowed even further. His footsteps returned and he bent over her, his blue eyes the last thing she saw before everything went dark.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The heat and absolute darkness were disorienting. The drug hangover left Corey’s head full of cotton and her mouth feeling like she’d eaten chalk. She lay on her left side, wedged into a narrow space, unable to move. Her forehead pressed against a rough wooden wall, her back against another. She tried to roll the ache from her shoulders, anything to ease the tension, but they wouldn’t budge. Her wrists were bound but she could move her hands a little.

  She swallowed the terror creeping up in her mind. Sweat dripped sideways across her shoulders as she explored with her fingers. She touched her bare legs — someone had removed her jeans—and found a thin chain running through a metal loop, continuing down toward her feet. She bent her elbows and pulled her hands up.

  The chain tugged on her ankles, pulling them upward, forcing her knees further into the wall. The entire space rumbled in a constant hum, the vibration carrying through the floor and the walls and into her bones.

  She took a deep breath, forcing herself to focus, to figure out where she was and to find a way out.

  The rumbling changed, grew slower. It was an engine, a motor. She was on a boat. Marcus Wingate’s face flashed through her mind in a rush of memory. She was aboard the Penumbra. She’d heard a woman cry out. And then she’d been shot with some kind of magical tranquilizer. She thought for sure Wingate would have let her die.

  The drugs slowed her breathing so much, it wouldn’t have taken much longer. She guessed he had opted to give her something else, something to counter the sedative. She gave the chain another small tug but got nothing for it. She was trapped. Panic swelled inside her throat.

  Was Wingate a witch or wizard or something? What had he injected her with? The thought of something foreign running through her body made her want to retch.

  She closed her eyes, which felt better than looking into the blackness. “Come on, Proctor,” she whispered, “Settle down. Settle down.” Her voice filled the confined space.

  “Nikki?” A woman’s voice came to her through the darkness. She was very close by, behind her. It was hard to make out the size of the space over the engine noise.

  Corey took a breath, forced herself to relax, tried to push away the lingering effects of the drugs. “Alicia? Is that you?” Her head swam.

  The woman gasped. “Nikki! Oh my God, how? I thought… Oh, God…what’s happening?” Her words trailed off as she cried. “Nik, I thought you died.”

  “I’m not Nikki, Alicia.” Corey swallowed, tried to shake the groggy lag from her mind. “It’s Corey. Inspector Proctor. I’ve been looking for you.”

  “What?” Alicia was silent for a moment, as if trying to piece this new information together. “Inspector Corey? How? What happened? Why am I still tied up if you’re here?”

  “We found Nikki Soto. Her body. On the beach.” Corey pinched the flesh just above her knee, the shot of pain helping her stay alert.

  “Then she’s really? She’s really gone? I thought maybe… I thought I dreamed it.” Alicia sniffled and caught her breath. “You have to get me out of here. He’s crazy. I think I am going crazy. Corey, please. You have to…”

  “Alicia, are you okay?” Corey asked.

  “He keeps giving me something. I don’t know. Those needles. There are these weird lights and then the whispers…” Her breath stuttered as her crying intensified. “He made me… He made me help him. After Nikki died. He couldn’t lift her. I don’t know what he wants.” She started crying again.

  Lieutenant Halloran’s words echoed in her mind. Cutting away magical souls. Human trafficking. Kidnapping. Drugs. Sex slaves. There was no point in telling Alicia any of that. Not yet. That knowledge would only freak her out, make her panic if she didn’t already know. Corey took a deep breath, gathering her calm around her like a cloud of cool mist. She imagined it against her skin, relaxing and serene. She had to get through this, and for that, she needed her strength.

  “You have to help me, Corey. You have to. Please.” The helplessness in Alicia’s voice was absolute.

  Yeah. Only problem was she needed to help herself too. “We’re going to get out of here, Alicia.”

  The engine noise cut off, waking Corey. She had no idea how much time had passed—could be hours, could be days. One thing that was different now: she was awake and alert. Cold sober. The ceiling of the confined space rattled and a sliver of light cut through the black. Then the ceiling was gone and everything was too bright, too cold. Her sweat-drenched scalp chilled as the warm air was sucked from the space. Her skin contracted into gooseflesh. She squeezed her eyes shut and let them adjust to the light as she inhaled huge breaths of fresh air.

  “Alicia?” she whispered.

  “Wake up little ladies, rise and shine.” Wingate’s lilting voice had a sing-song quality to it that made Corey’s skin crawl. The guy oozed sleaze.

  Hands touched her arms. She flinched, but couldn’t pull away.

  “Simmer down. I’m releasing you from your bonds, Inspector.” He undid the chain that ran through a metal ring connecting her wrists to her ankles. He left the handcuffs on her wrists.

  The tension left Corey’s ankles and shoulders as her blood returned to her muscles, filling her body with the sensation of pins and needles.

  He reached under her armpit, lifting her. “Up you go, that’s right.”

  Corey allowed him to guide her to her feet as her vision adjusted. The shades in the cabin were open. She looked outside the windows. It was early in the afternoon. They were aboard the Penumbra, and they were out to sea.

  “Corey!” Alicia cried. “Where are you taking her?”

  Wingate’s hiding place consisted of a pair of wooden compartments built into the storage area under the bed. The mattress sat on a platform with a handle that let him lift it open like a clam shell using a heavy brass hinge built into the frame on one side. Alicia lay on her side,
with handcuffs on her wrists and ankles, connected by a chain that functioned as a sort of forward-facing hogtie. Just like Corey, if she moved at all, the chains wedged her harder against the walls or caused the cuffs to dig deeper into her skin.

  He rolled his eyes. “Now, now, young lady. I thought we agreed that I would refrain from using a gag so long as you were quiet in the box.” He winked and turned to Corey. “I don’t expect you to understand the rules, Inspector, but let’s just say that when you’re confined to my little hiding spot, you have the right to remain silent.” He chuckled at his attempt at police humor, pulled Corey to sit on the edge of the box, and swung her legs out. Once she was standing outside, he looped the chain around her handcuffs. “Bend over, please.”

  Corey tensed and tried to pull away.

  Wingate waved a small syringe of clear golden liquid in front of her face. Tiny dots of light swirled inside the chamber. “It is an absolute bear to move you when you’re unconscious. Please, allow me a small reprieve from the heavy lifting by touching your toes.”

  She needed to avoid another dose of anything. Corey bent forward and Wingate pulled her wrists down, forcing her to bend her knees and squat on the floor.

  “I am sorry about the box,” he said. “I have to keep you girls out of sight while we’re near other vessels. Prying eyes… you understand.” He looped the chain around Corey’s ankle cuffs, then through a metal loop in the decking next to the bed. He clicked the lock in place, forcing her to sit on the floor in a frog pose with her knees bent up and her hands bound between her feet.

  Wingate stepped over to the cabinet and opened a small refrigerator built into the bedroom wall. Icy fog wafted from the compact space, drifting out and revealing shelves of tiny glass vials of drugs. He placed the syringe on the shelf inside and closed the door.

  Corey wondered how many women had been in this exact position before her. Drugged and tied, locked up and then stripped of their magic and sold into a life of forced addiction and prostitution. There were enough of them that they had a name: Half Moon Girls. Enough of them to be just a mass of victims, faceless collateral damage, written off by the same people working to stop all of this.