This was not Markos on a golf course where only the dark created uncertainty. Here, dark brought companions in its shadow: foliage as tight as rolled wire and sharp as razor blades; uneven terrain pitted with shell made slick by the damp air; insects with radar scopes calibrated for blood; countless creatures that slithered restlessly.
And the lake—a vast pool deceptively still.
Flynn knew this world. Claudia could not even see it.
Counting off breaths, Claudia talked herself down. With a will granted life because her daughter’s was at stake, she reached into the back seat of her car and groped for the jacket thoughtlessly discarded there weeks earlier. It smelled mildly of mildew. The cuffs curled inward. But the jacket was black and Claudia needed its protection. And it dispensed warmth; she needed its heat.
Armed thusly with a gun, flashlight, and jacket, Claudia quietly latched the car door and set off. She mouthed words soundlessly: “I’m coming, baby. I’m coming.”
* * *
After guiding the boat past a clump of water hyacinth, Victor Flynn maneuvered toward a wedge of giant bulrush and sword grass, foliage somewhat flattened by previous visitors to the small clearing. With the announcement of Markos’ drug activity, an enterprising newspaper photographer had thought to memorialize the setting for an accompanying story. Others had followed suit, and Victor had encountered no difficulty in identifying the location while pretending to participate in the day’s fund-raiser.
Now that made him smile. He had actually caught two panfish. Mother appreciated the irony.
Sure-footed and confident, Victor stepped out of the vessel. He flashed the knife at the girl. She clambered out unsteadily, whimpering. Victor made no effort to hide his disgust. Silly vapor-headed ninny. She still didn’t fully recognize a rational number from a real number. She showed absolutely no appreciation for the simple beauty of a Venn diagram. One time he’d actually overheard her giggling to a friend that algebra was the mental equivalent of a hemorrhoid.
Outrageous!
But the girl was not giggling now. Tears streaked her face as he looped cord around her waist and arms, binding her to a tree. She shuddered uncontrollably, wide, hollow eyes turned in appeal toward him.
Victor watched dispassionately. She was of no real concern. He didn’t care if she lived or died. For him, she represented little more than—
Abruptly, Victor crooked his neck, and listened. Now and then he nodded. He smiled broadly, then threw his head back and laughed aloud. What a fine idea! Of course! While they waited for her mother—and yes, yes of course, she would be coming—he would give the girl a quiz. Victor pondered the possibilities. The quiz would be challenging, but not unreasonable. If she passed, he would consider allowing her to live. If she failed, then she would die.
* * *
Despairing, Claudia guided her flashlight over the rentals, trying to remember what Markos had done, trying to remember what Dennis had wanted to teach her and that she refused to learn. The motors were intimidating, bloated boxes of metal made all the more sinister beneath the gleam of the light. If she took one—if she took one and could even get it started—Flynn would hear her coming. In his arrogance, he probably expected it.
She settled on a canoe, an old, aluminum-framed vessel. To wrest advantage from him, Claudia would have to forfeit speed for silence and hope for the advantage of surprise.
The canoe was seventeen feet long, and light. Claudia awkwardly lowered herself into it, gasping when it dipped beneath her weight. Twice before, while in college, she had paddled a canoe with friends. She wasn’t competing. She wasn’t interested in the nuance of how it rode the water, or what paddling method best suited its sleek design. Most of whatever technique she had learned eluded her now.
Cautiously, Claudia knelt in front of the center thwart, her hips uncomfortably perched on its hard edge. When the canoe stopped rocking, she carefully picked up the paddle and dipped it into the lake water. She pulled the oar back and shifted it to the other side, struggling to find a pattern. At first, the boat wobbled erratically and threatened to go in circles. But then, as she experimented, it slowly straightened out. Her breath caught sharply when she realized she had put twenty feet between the canoe and land. What had Dennis said about depth here? Where exactly did it drop off?
With each left-handed stroke of the paddle the revolver rubbed mercilessly against Claudia’s skin. Within minutes of leaving land her knees felt as if they were grounded on marbles. She shut the pain from her mind, thinking instead about what Flynn was doing. And how Robin was responding.
Once, she thought she heard a laugh. It made her flesh crawl.
Claudia pulled harder on the paddle, silently counting cadence. She wished she had talked to Robin sooner. She wished she had belted her. Wished she had anything. Because if Robin mouthed off, Flynn would kill her.
Oh, God, Robin, keep your mouth shut. Please, God, don’t let her talk back. Don’t let her make him mad. Don’t let her underestimate him.
Something splashed in the water close by. Claudia bit her lower lip, resisting the urge to cry out. She stayed close to the banks, rounding the lake and using the shapeless forms against its edges as a guide. Could he see her? Was he watching her approach? Claudia calculated moves, planning and discarding strategy, trying to anticipate the best opening. Her senses were on full alert. Sound suggested distance; scent carried proximity.
He was there in the clearing. She knew it. She knew he would choose a place they could both find. It was part of his game—his mother’s game. Claudia narrowed her eyes, raking memory for the layout. He would expect her to glide into the opening where passage was most manageable. That would not do. No. She would come in on him thirty or forty feet from the left instead, make a loop into the woods and take him from behind.
* * *
The girl wasn’t even trying.
Well, of course, Victor knew she was frightened, and so he had started simply, even giving her a few basic definitions that she should have memorized at the beginning of the school year. But she sat there mutely, sniffling, just staring wide-eyed, her tears still coming and snot beginning to drip from her nose.
Disgusting, absolutely disgusting.
“Listen to me,” he hissed. He pinched her arm. “Listen! I’m going to give you another chance. This is an easy one. List the set of prime numbers less than twenty.”
A second passed, two, three.
“Well?” Flynn demanded. “What’s the answer?”
Robin’s shoulders quaked. Her lips trembled. “I . . . that would be two, three, four, five, six—”
“No!” Victor slapped her once, lightly. “You’re not paying attention! Go back to the beginning and think! Think, think, think!”
When Robin began to sob openly, Victor clamped a hand over her mouth. He said contemptuously, “The answer is two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, and nineteen.”
The stupid little fool. She would never amount to anything. He had gifted her with his expertise for months—even private sessions—and look at her! Pathetic.
“Pay attention, Robin.” Victor slowly took his hand from her mouth. “Answer this one: If ‘X’ plus five equals twelve, what value is ‘X’? A fourth-grader could figure it out.”
Robin swallowed. She blinked back tears. “It’s—it’s ‘X’ equals seven.”
“Well! You got one right! Very good, Robin. Very, very good.” Flynn clapped facetiously. “Let’s try another easy one.” His eyes narrowed, and he spoke rapidly. “True or false, Robin: If every element of ‘A’ is an element of ‘B’, then ‘B’ is a subset of ‘A.’”
Flynn shifted to his knees. “Come on, come on. I’m waiting, Robin. True or false?”
Nothing.
“Answer me!”
“I, um—”
“True or false!”
“True!” Robin blurted. “No. Yes. I don’t know.”
“False!” said Victor, livid. He cuffed her again. “It
’s false, false, false! This is what happens when you don’t listen! You just refused to pay attention in class, didn’t you?”
“I tried, I—”
“Liar!”
Slap!
Robin twisted sideways, trying to shift away from him.
Flynn laughed maniacally. “Are you paying attention now? Hmm? You are, aren’t you? Hmm? Hmm? What’s the matter, Robin? Cat got your tongue?”
Slap!
“Let’s take a little break, shall we? And then we’ll try a few more.”
* * *
Claudia heard the first slaps the moment she stepped out of the canoe and into the water. Her heart lurched. She struggled to keep her footing and dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep from calling out.
The son of a bitch! That goddamned son of a bitch!
The water was deceptively deep, even among the reeds. They caught at her feet like tentacles. Claudia swallowed hard, feeling the water almost at her waist. Had to block emotion. Had to push aside fear. Can’t let him hear you coming.
Horned beakrush snagged her jacket. She pushed the coarse blades aside and waded toward the bank. With nearly every step she had to pause and untangle weeds. Icy water numbed her legs. Her eyes flitted wildly, watching for alligators. Snakes. Every shadow was alive.
Pausing two feet from the bank, she cocked her head and listened, trying to distill sounds. A voice, she could make out a voice now. Low and deep. Flynn’s. And then it was gone. Cattails rustled gently with a breeze. Then, nothing more.
They were close, though; Claudia felt it.
Slowly reaching beneath her jacket, Claudia pulled at the .38, tugging it out. She smelled the leather from its holster; smelled, too, her own perspiration, the scent of fear. Her arms ached from pulling on the paddle, and her hands shook. But she dared not turn on the flashlight.
Insects danced at her face as she moved cautiously onto the bank. She batted at them once, then ignored them. They were part of it, this marshy jungle. She wished for the stealth of a cat. Tried to think like one, imagining their padded feet as she set her own down, following instinct as she thought they might. And slowly, on a crouch, she made progress into the trees, moving resolutely forward, then beginning to circle in.
Come on, Victor, where are you, you lunatic. Make some noise. Step on a branch. Talk to me, you son of a bitch.
As if in answer, Victor moved abruptly, his form suddenly looming in the inky shadow. Robin simultaneously let loose a piercing scream that would travel through Claudia’s nights in an eternity of nightmares:
“Mommmyyyyy!”
Claudia bellowed and thrashed blindly through the trees. She fumbled with the flashlight, and on the run fired once into the air. Panicked birds rose instinctively, their wings beating thunder. The flashlight’s beam arched crazily, touching on Robin long enough for Claudia to see the look of terror starched on her face.
Anguished, Claudia stumbled into the clearing and straight toward her daughter. The blow caught her at mid-section less than a dozen paces away and she went down hard. The flashlight flew left. Its beam spiraled, then vanished in a thicket of weed. The gun thumped against earth.
Pain spasmed through her lungs and into her spine. Claudia gasped, and rolled. She gulped at the air, fearful of blacking out. Tears stung her eyes.
The second blow glanced off a shoulder while she struggled to one knee. Claudia fell to her side and looked around wildly. Four feet to the left she spotted the weak glow of the flashlight. Its beam toiled facedown in the weeds, feeding the clearing with less than the power of a night light. In the next instant it flickered briefly, momentarily cut off by shadow. Claudia scissored to her back, and kicked out savagely. Her foot struck something solid; she heard Flynn grunt.
Biting her lip, Claudia lurched to her feet. She couldn’t make him out, but Flynn’s feral breath assailed her and she swung blindly, clipping material—his shirt, she guessed. Clawing the air, she made a grab for it, snagged something and pulled fiercely.
For an infinitesimal moment, they clutched each other like drunken lovers. Then, with an upward twist, Victor yanked back and pulled free. The bat, the stick—whatever it was—made its round once more. He caught her hard just below the left knee and Claudia spun, yelping. The force of the blow threw her against a tree; she wrapped an arm around it, hiding, catching her breath. Something stung her eye and clouded her vision. She blinked furiously until it cleared.
From less than twenty paces, Robin sobbed raggedly. Claudia yearned to close the distance, to somehow reassure her. The despair in Robin’s voice kindled her own. But she dared not move, not without thinking. Another mistake would be fatal.
Suddenly, Flynn shouted her name. His voice was high and mincing, taunting. He was enjoying himself. He urged her to come out. In the next moment his voice shifted. Now he was talking softly, no longer to Claudia. The words were indistinguishable. Once, she thought she heard him laugh lightly.
Claudia shuddered. She had no light. No weapon. Wasn’t sure she could trust her left leg. Her glasses had been knocked away.
Taking measured breaths, Claudia evaluated her options. There was but one. Because she could not rely on physical strength she would have to lure him out, and soon, before he turned his attention back to Robin.
She had to make him come after his mother. One more time. One final time.
Groping along the trees and using them as a shield, Claudia painfully inched back toward the water. The candle glow from the flashlight gave her perspective. She trained her eyes on it. The leg was bad; she limped, cringing with each step. With effort, she turned Robin’s cries out, putting all of her energy into Victor Flynn.
Become the cat. Smell him. Hear him.
A few feet from the bank, Claudia stopped. She groped for words, then called his name softly. Heard an answering rustle.
“Victor,” she said, “you’re doing it all wrong again. You’re clumsy. Nothing but a fool. You haven’t learned a thing, Victor.”
Silence. Even Robin’s cries had stopped.
Almost on all fours, Claudia crept toward the reeds. She culled words from Overton’s voice on the video. “You’ve proved it again, Victor.” Claudia scoffed. “I’ve been wasting my time with you. You’re nothing. Nothing! You’ll always be nothing.”
Another rustle, but still no reply.
Claudia inhaled silently. Her heart beat rapidly. Something moved across one hand; she recoiled, almost cried out. Her voice sounded ridiculous to her. Fraudulent. He was probably laughing, creeping toward her. Or Robin.
Once more. Give it one more shot.
Claudia tested new words. “The truth is, Victor, without me you’re less than the air you breath,” she bullied. “You don’t have the strength of a puppy’s tail. And I’m tired of you, Victor. I’m bored, and disgusted.” Claudia laughed derisively. “You don’t deserve me. You never deserved me. And I won’t help you anymore.”
“Mother?” The voice was sudden, plaintive and confused. “Don’t say that. Why are you talking like that? I’m a good boy. I’ve done everything you’ve said.”
There! To the left, just twelve feet away. She could see him now, orienting himself to her voice.
Come on, you son of a bitch. Come on . . .
* * *
“You’re not being fair, Mother,” Victor said. “Don’t do this to me, please. Mother?”
The more contemptuously Claudia talked, the more childlike Victor responded. Claudia hardly knew what she was saying. She understood not a word that Victor uttered in return. But he was coming, following the voice.
Snake-like, she crawled closer to the water’s edge, concealed by the tall grasses. He was closer to her than he was to Robin now. Something thorny tore at her hands. She heard him stumbling toward her, faster. She could measure his breaths by her own.
Six paces! She could see him!
Five paces! Three!
NOW!
Claudia exploded from the reeds, faced
Victor Flynn, and pointed a quivering finger at him.
Flynn stopped dead.
Come on, you son of a bitch! Come on, come on!
A second stretched into two, three, four. And then Flynn roared and charged, stumbling in rage through the bulrush.
Just in time, Claudia saw the knife. She dropped low, fear gripping her throat. The knife swooped. It sliced her left hand. Claudia looked up, saw him raise the knife again. She grunted and thrust a fist at his groin. Flynn howled and bent; Claudia swung again, missed. She scampered backward crab-like and pushed to her feet. Pain stabbed at her leg. She winced, clutched at it and slipped on decaying vegetation. Water sluiced over her shoulders, splashed on her face. Something jabbed her side.
Flynn hooted, a vile sound that hammered spikes of terror into Claudia. He straightened and launched himself forward.
In that instant, Claudia remembered. She fumbled for her jacket pocket. Her fingers felt for the fishing lure, still imbedded in the piece of Styrofoam from the day she purchased it. She yanked it out, pinched a chunk of the Styrofoam off.
The knife glinted dully when Flynn raised it and threw himself at her. Claudia desperately drew her own hand up, the lure cupped in her palm, one hook stuck against a finger. She kicked out simultaneously, hobbling him at the ankle. He toppled toward her and she thrust the lure upward. It caught against something soft. Claudia pushed in and twisted.
Flynn let go and bucked, writhing and screeching. He raised his head from the water and clawed at his eye.
Claudia rolled sideways to her knees. She glanced at Flynn, grimaced, then pushed to her feet. Water cascaded from her jacket, weighing her down. Claudia wobbled unsteadily, automatically scanning for the knife.
He wouldn’t be down long. He was hurt, but he would get up. He, too, would search for the knife. Claudia splashed at the reeds, trying to find the instrument by feel. Her hand radiated pain clear through her fingers. She jammed her hand under her arm for a moment, hoping to staunch the blood. Then she looked some more.
Nothing. Nowhere.
Claudia thought that Flynn must be on top of it, or else it was too hidden by reeds to be detected. But if he found the knife first, he would kill her. He would find the strength to kill her, and then kill Robin.
The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries Page 25