Duplicate Daughter

by Alice Sharpe

  Eventually, Katie’s search led her down the ramp to the bottom deck. Nick had reached this point before her and stood by an orange cone. The look on his face was enough to tell Katie he’d been no more successful than she had.

  “My hand is frozen,” she said.

  “Mine, too. Let’s take the outside lanes first.”

  Katie nodded and started along the starboard outside lane, once again running her numb fingers up inside the metal rail, feeling for anything unusual. She could scarcely believe it when her fingers bumped into something.

  Bending over, she pried at the lump with frozen fingers, hoping it wasn’t gum or something else disgusting. She couldn’t bend low enough to look back up inside, but there was something there.

  She tore off her left-hand glove and felt around with marginally warmer fingers.

  A wad of tape. Edges thick, fraying, a little gummy. Not much of it. Disappointment flooded her.

  She continued searching until she was ten or fifteen feet away when she had second thoughts about abandoning the tape and walked back to where she’d found it.

  This time she dug in her shoulder bag for something to use to pry at the tape. No nail file, but she did come up with her apartment key and used that.

  Eventually, she was able to lift away a corner and thereby grasp the tape between her fingertips. Exerting a steady, gentle force, she felt it give way.

  A little thrill ran up her spine as the tape fell into her hand. It weighed far too much to be tape alone. Holding it toward the closest window, she found embedded in the rectangular piece of gray duct tape a small metal object wrapped in plastic. Digging at this a little, she uncovered enough of what was inside the plastic to know she’d struck pay dirt.

  What she held was a black-and-silver item with a sliding cover. It was about half the size of a pack of gum and she knew instantly what it was.

  Nick’s father had mumbled “thumbnail.” Her mind had leaped immediately to tales of ghastly torture before she pushed the word and the images it conjured as far from her mind as possible.

  Not torture. This little thing. A flash drive, or thumbnail drive as it was sometimes called. Plugged into a computer, the operator could download just about anything into its memory. Things like crooked mob ledgers, for instance. The device could be locked, strung on a lanyard and carried around the neck or dropped in a pocket, toted off to a different computer, plugged in and called up, revealing everything stored in its memory.

  Nick’s father’s life-insurance policy.

  She had to find Nick. Closing the taped, crusted thumbnail drive in her hand, she took a step, then stopped abruptly.

  A man had materialized from behind a nearby car. He pointed a gun at her. “I’ll take that,” he said, stretching out his free hand.

  He was tall with oversize features and gaunt cheeks. Wiry black hair stood straight up in the damp weather. He wore a tan trench coat belted around his waist and held the gun, fitted with a silencer, as though he was used to holding it, as though it was an extension of his hand. His black eyes were as flat as snake eyes.

  Katie barely registered these quick impressions before she turned and ran.

  She heard a popping sound and the ping of metal behind her. She ran faster, toward the stern of the boat, away from death. Another popping sound.

  “Nick!” she screamed as she ran onto the open stern of the boat. A length of heavy chain was secured across the back opening. Katie jumped over it, landing on her right leg which immediately gave way. She sprawled on the deck for just a moment, pain surpassed by fear as she scrabbled to her feet. It was either run back toward the gunman, leap into the water, or fling herself onto the slippery narrow deck that ran alongside the ferry sides.

  Not one good option among them.

  She stepped onto the deck, holding onto the tiny rail attached to the steep ferry side, her feet sliding. Flattening herself, she sidled along a few steps, her gaze drawn down to the opaque, churning water just six or seven feet below her. The wind whipped her scarf from her head and she watched as it flew off into the fog.

  Who was this man? He had to be connected to Nick’s father or the mob. Obviously, he wanted the thumbnail drive she still grasped in one hand. He had to have been aboard the ferry since they left Seattle; the attack had come after she found what they were looking for.

  If push came to shove and she had to choose between saving Nick and holding on to the one thing that would save her mother, what would she do?

  Where was Nick? Had the gunman shot him before he came looking for Katie? No, no, of course not. Nick couldn’t be hurt. She wouldn’t let him be hurt. Men like Nick didn’t get hurt.

  Sure they did…

  The gunman finally caught up, skidding to a stop just shy of the chain, limping badly and breathing heavily. He stared toward the open back of the ferry. Did he expect to see her head bobbing in the wake? What could anyone see out there in that fog-covered water? She shrank against the side of the ferry and watched as he stepped over the chain, still holding the gun, though now the wind blew his trench coat open and it flapped around behind him, half hiding the firearm. All he had to do was turn around and he’d see her. She didn’t dare move an inch.

  She heard a sound coming from the deck above. Was Nick up there? Could he see the gunman standing out in the fog? Could he see the man was armed?

  The engine noise plus the sound of the water at the stern must have obscured the sound Katie heard overhead; the gunman seemed oblivious to it. Once he turned around, however, he would face the ramp on which Nick—if it was him—would appear. And he would see her.

  She crept back toward the stern, expecting at any moment for the man to hear her approach. But he kept staring into the water. Katie inched along, intent now on getting close enough to stop him…

  The gun came up as Katie launched herself at his knees, knocking them both to the deck, the shot going wild as they both rolled close to the edge. He recovered first, catching her by her hair, yanking her toward him, the gun pointed at her throat. She flung her hand over the stern, opening her palm enough for him to see the taped mass that held the thumbnail drive. “I’ll drop it,” she said, gasping.

  He yanked her hair again, grinning down into her face as the gun now dug into her back. “Go ahead,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind about that thing. Who cares what Benito wants? I’ll settle for you.”

  “Me?”

  “You,” he said, laughing softly.

  “You tried to shoot me—”

  “This is better,” he said. “Now all I have to do is wait for Nick Pierce to show up. What do you think, sweetheart? Think he’ll turn over his old man and a million dollars in exchange for you?”

  “Nick isn’t the kind of man to trade one hostage for another,” Katie said brazenly.

  “Even if it means losing his woman?”

  “His woman? I’m not—”

  “Shut up,” he snapped, the gun jabbed fiercely into her spine. “You better hope you’re his woman or you’ll end up as dead as his wife.”

  His wife! What did this man know about Nick’s wife? She had to know. She said, “Patricia died in an accident. She—”

  He leaned close and whispered in her ear, his voice full of malice. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that accident,” he said. “Nick Pierce’s wife was in the wrong place at the wrong time. An innocent bystander,” he added, laughing deep in his throat. “Kind of like you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  With his back against the bulwark, Nick inched his way down the car ramp toward the stern of the boat. The fog was worse than ever but, through a window, he could see Katie standing ramrod straight in front of a man with bristly black hair.

  He recognized him from the attack of the day before. Carson.

  How had he gotten here?

  Nick had already drawn his gun. He’d heard Katie scream his name and the sound of her running.

  His mind whirled with unanswered questions, but none of that ma
ttered. The boat would soon begin slowing down as it prepared to dock in Bremerton. People would show up. Katie was bait, he knew that, and probably expendable bait. As soon as Carson was reasonably sure Katie’s survival was more of a liability than a benefit to him, he’d likely kill her and disappear.

  Nick sneaked a little farther down the ramp and took aim. But the fog was too thick and Carson held Katie too close, shielding himself with her body. He’d even tucked his head close to hers, his free hand tangled in her hair. Nick couldn’t take a chance he’d hit Katie.

  Still holding the gun, he walked down the ramp like a man instead of a mouse. Easy to be brave when you had no choice.

  His eyes met Katie’s as she turned toward his advance. No smile this time, no light in her eyes, only terror.

  Fire raged in Nick’s gut. Carson would pay for doing this to her.

  “Let her go,” he called.

  Katie cried out as Carson jerked on her hair, exposing her long throat. She appeared ready to faint, but the moment she managed to meet his gaze again, he saw a spark ignite her eyes. In the space of a heartbeat, he went from worrying she was about to collapse to worrying she might do something rash.

  Carson smiled, shouted, “I’ve been in Seattle twenty-four hours waiting for you, Pierce. Have to admit I was kind of hoping your dad might be along for the ride.”

  Nick stopped on his side of the chain. “He wasn’t feeling up to the trip. How about you? Looks as though your thigh is bleeding where I shot you the last time.”

  Carson shrugged. “I ran on it, what can I say? Your little friend here is faster than she looks.”

  “So, what do you want from me?” Nick said.

  “Your gun for starters,” Carson said.

  “Seems unlikely I’d just hand it over.”

  The muzzle of the silencer was suddenly pressed into Katie’s throat. “Maybe not,” Carson said.

  Nick lowered his gun, clicked on the safety and threw it off the ferry.

  Carson laughed. “Good.”

  “Now what? The money?” He slowly put his hand in his jacket pocket and took out the CD. “How about we trade? Me and the money for the woman. She has nothing to do with this.”

  “Too late for chivalry,” Carson said, his eyes glued to the CD like a hungry man focused on a juicy steak. “But your cooperation will mean she’ll suffer less in the end.”

  Katie opened her mouth to speak. Carson pulled her hair again. Her eyes watered as she cried out.

  “Take it from him,” he growled into her ear and loosened his grasp on her hair. She bent forward, hand extended.

  As Nick handed her the disk, she winked at him. Before he could frown a warning for her to bide her time, she threw her head back, hitting Carson’s nose, twisting her body at the same time. Her sudden struggle was so quickly and forcibly done and Carson’s attention so riveted on the CD, that it actually worked. She was free of him. Nick kicked Carson’s gun arm, the gun flew. Katie scrambled to retrieve it as Carson started to back up.

  Blood streaming from his nose, Carson reached into his pocket. Nick saw the flash of another gun and knew this was it. He dove at Carson’s knees at the same moment he heard a muffled shot. The tall man fell backward off the boat into Puget Sound, disappearing under the churning wake.

  Nick jumped to his feet and turned to find Katie standing with Carson’s gun in her hand. She was staring at the ferry wake. Nick scooped up the small gun Carson had been about to use to kill him and had apparently dropped before going overboard. He deposited it in his pocket, along with the CD he still grasped in his hand. Katie didn’t say a word.

  The sound of the boat engines changed. People would be showing up any moment. Fitted with a silencer, Carson’s gun was unwieldy and heavy, yet Nick had to pry Katie’s fingers from the grip. Throwing his arm around her trembling shoulders, he tossed that gun into the deep, gray water.

  The two of them stared aft until a ferry employee finally showed up and demanded they get back on the right side of the chain, shaking his head at their foolishness.

  Katie didn’t seem to have the will or the strength to move. He gently lifted her in his arms, stepped over the chain and carried her toward their rental car.

  “Nick?”

  “It’s okay,” he told her, looking deep into her eyes, trying not to think about that moment when he’d thought for sure he’d never hold her again.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before.”

  “It’s okay,” he repeated.

  But he knew it wasn’t.

  Not yet.

  CAROLINE CLOSED her eyes.

  The flashlight was long dead. The apples were gone. She had no idea how long she’d been trapped in her increasingly horrible underground cell. The air wasn’t too bad, thanks to the tiny ventilation pipe, but it was cold and dismal and scary and she’d had about as much as she could take.

  Part of her doubted anyone would ever come. She shied away from thinking about her earthly remains lingering for decades until she was finally found and became the subject of one of those cold-case files on television.

  She amused herself for a while picturing who they would get to play her. Some fading middle-aged actress, she decided, the one whose name she couldn’t remember. Yeah. She’d be perfect. Jacqueline something, right? Or was it Rachael?

  Never mind.

  They’d include scenes from her past, of course. It was always interesting for the people sitting at home in easy chairs to speculate on how a person came to die in such a terrible, lonely way. Matt, her first husband, might tell them a thing or two—if they ever found him. Tess didn’t know her father’s name. Caroline had tended her secrets with care, keeping them close, keeping Tess safe. And Katie—well, she didn’t know her mother was alive, not unless Matt had told her and they’d sworn they would never, ever say a word.

  Caroline sighed deeply, then coughed. The cough had come on within the past few hours. It was deep and wet and it hurt her chest. Chills came with it, the kind that shuddered to the surface from deep within your body. She tried to get comfortable.

  As soon as her eyes closed, she was back to the point in her past when monumental decisions had to be made, decisions everyone she cared about would have to live with forever. She wanted out of her marriage, but she didn’t want to be alone. Matt refused to let go of his daughters. In the end, they’d made an agreement with the devil. The girls were very young, just six months old. They’d each take one and raise her as a single parent. They would never breathe a word about it to anyone.

  Luckily, there was no one to ruin this plan. She had abandoned her family the moment she married Matt and had had no contact with them since then. Matt had no living family. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles, not even a stray cousin. No one to spill the beans.

  And so they separated, Matt producing a pair of dice, her rolling snake eyes, so numb to life by then that she didn’t even grasp the irony of gambling, the very thing that had eaten away at their marriage being used to decide something as important as which adult took which baby. It just hadn’t mattered. Matt had held on to Katie and she’d scooped up Tess, moving far away. Starting over.

  And now, twenty-six years later, here she was, sitting in a hole, lost and dying.

  Wasn’t life odd?

  Why did people cling to it when all hope was gone? But they did, because all hope wasn’t gone until the last breath. Tears streaked her dirty cheeks.

  She folded her knees against her chest and waited for the end.

  AT NICK’S INSISTENCE, they bought a prepaid cell phone at a drugstore outside Bremerton.

  “I don’t want there to be any way to connect the call back to us,” he told Katie when she pointed out she had a perfectly good cell phone in her suitcase, one that finally showed a signal. “Never forget this is organized crime we’re talking about.”

  It took longer to drive back to Seattle than go by ferry, but Katie couldn’t face another journey on the boat. She kept waiting for someone to
nab her and accuse her of murder. Nick seemed to understand.

  Murder. Never in her wildest dreams had she ever thought she would shoot a man dead. And yet she hadn’t hesitated. She’d seen Carson reach into his pocket and that was it. She’d reacted as fast and as dispassionately as a lightning bolt. The creep was going to kill Nick, kill Lily’s father. No way, not when she could stop it.

  And now Carson was dead, spiraling to the bottom of the sound, and she was shaking inside. Quaking.

  On their way back to Seattle, Nick pulled into an empty parking lot of a closed-down lumber mill and they both got out of the car.

  “It’s time we made the call,” he said. “Okay with you if I do the honors?”

  “Go ahead,” she said as she leaned against her side of the car, her back to him, staring ahead. The fog was getting to her, reducing the size of the world to a few feet in any direction, damp and cold and oppressive.

  Nick came around to her side of the car, putting his hands on either side of her, leaning close. “Thank you,” he whispered, looking into her eyes.

  She knew why he was thanking her. Not for letting him make the call he was far more qualified to make than she was, but for his life. For doing something he knew she hated in order to save him. She flung herself against him and he folded his strong arms around her. He held her like that for several moments, rocking her, and she felt comforted in a way she hadn’t for a long time. He’d been gentle on the ferry, carrying her when she couldn’t walk, talking to her in a soothing voice she could barely hear over the roar in her head. She’d been numb with shock.

  But she wasn’t numb anymore. Quite the contrary. She was acutely aware of every inch of his hard, lean body as it pressed against hers. Of his hands gripping her back. Of his warm breath caressing her neck, of his broad chest upon which she rested her head.

  He couldn’t be comforting to her, not really, not for long. He wasn’t her father. He was a man she wanted to want her. Having his kindness was nice, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.