Last Exit in New Jersey

by C. E. Grundler

  “Time to go, dear,” Annabel whispered.

  “No argument here.” He staggered back to the hidden Fairmont. His clothes were soaked and heavy, his brain was screaming, and his heart felt like it had been run through a shredder. He checked his phone. All was quiet in tracking signal land.

  Annabel sighed. “I think I’ve misjudged the situation. This may require a less subtle approach.”

  08:14 SATURDAY, JULY 3

  40°10’49.98”N/74°1’47.35”W

  BELMAR, NJ

  The morning news radio cheerfully rattled off a summary of the tristate area’s madness, mayhem, politics, and sports, followed by traffic and weather, but made no mention of Stevenson or a shooting in Little Ferry. Micah wanted to check the newspapers; Hazel wanted to speak with Chris about her father’s progress. And they needed to stock up on provisions. So they locked up Mardi, still docked in Belmar, and headed out.

  The report from her father’s nurse was positive: he was scheduled for surgery later that morning, and they didn’t anticipate any problems. Chris told Hazel to check back in the afternoon. Next came Joe, who sounded exhausted and had nothing to report. They assured him they were keeping low, staying out of trouble, and absolutely not up to any private investigator bullshit. Then a quick call to Tony at Forelli’s Boatyard, again offering the same lies. The call to Atkins’s cell went unanswered. They left the 7-Eleven, groceries in hand; as they crossed the street back to the docks, Hazel froze, halting Micah in his tracks. Tied up down the dock from Mardi sat Temperance, the boat they’d seen at Gary’s shop, like a little gray cloud in the blue sky.

  “Maybe it’s just coincidence.”

  Hazel gave him a skeptical look.

  “You think Hammon knows we’re here?”

  “Likely.” Her pulse rose at the thought of seeing him again. It was just adrenaline, nothing more. He was working for Stevenson, clearly he was following her; running into him was the last thing they needed. She scanned the area. Was he already aboard Mardi?

  “That bastard just keeps coming. How did he find us?” Micah said. “We left him out cold.”

  She didn’t say it, but Hazel knew the answer: there was a tracker hidden somewhere deep within Mardi. “Head toward the tackle shop. If he’s in there, at least it’s public. If he’s not, we can keep watch.”

  Inside was cool, dark, and vacant other than a weathered old salt behind the counter who greeted Hazel with a broad grin and a wink. She smiled politely and glanced out while Micah pretended to inspect fishing gear. He said, “We’ll never outrun Temperance with Mardi. I think it’s time we ditch the boat.”

  “We have to go back first.” Hazel watched the dock. “Stevenson’s file’s aboard.”

  Across the lot, two men hauling an ice chest between them slowed as they passed Mardi, motioning and joking. A barking melee erupted from Temperance’s cockpit, and they scrambled back in synchronized surprise. Realizing the dogs weren’t jumping ashore, the men laughed off their fright and ambled off to load their gear into a dusty minivan.

  “Gary’s dogs,” Hazel said. “Which means Hammon probably isn’t alone. But no one checked why they were barking or came out to settle them, so I don’t think they’re nearby, at least not aboard Temperance or Mardi. But they left the dogs, so they’ll be back.” She hastily gathered fishing gear, stacking it at the register. “I’ve got an idea, but we’ll have to work fast.”

  Hazel paid, passing Micah their purchases, and they returned to the docks. The dogs spotted them, circling the cockpit, tails wagging. Hazel dug sliced turkey from the grocery bag.

  “Keep watch,” she told Micah as she climbed aboard to an ecstatic greeting. “Hey, boys! Miss me?” She passed cold cuts to her new best friends, then unlatched the engine cover, pulling it forward. The dogs looked on, unconcerned as she set to work. Satisfied, she slid the cowl back in place, scribbled a quick note on the back of her shopping list, and propped it on the throttles.

  “Now we wait and watch,” she said as they returned to Mardi.

  Before long the first victim appeared, coffee in one hand, brown paper bag in the other. The dogs, basking in the morning sun, lifted their heads as he climbed aboard. Hidden on Mardi’s bridge, Hazel and Micah monitored his movements by emergency signal mirror.

  “It’s Gary.” Hazel angled the mirror. “He’s alone and he looks pretty steamed.”

  “Where’s Hammon?”

  “Don’t know. I think Gary’s wondering the same thing. He just checked the cabin, and now he’s even more pissed. He’s checking up and down the docks, and…” She went silent for a moment. “He looked straight past and didn’t give Mardi a second glance. I don’t think he recognizes her.”

  Hazel watched as Gary thumped into the helm seat, opening a coffee and unwrapping a bagel. He looked down at the dogs eyeing him expectantly.

  “Are you guys begging?” Gary’s voice carried over the water. “You know better.”

  Tails flogged the deck.

  “No. Go lay down.”

  Charger flopped down obediently. Yodel yawned, joining him. Gary stared absently ahead then paused, coffee halfway to his mouth.

  “He spotted the note,” Hazel whispered. “He’s reading the shopping list…wait. He just flipped it.”

  “And?”

  “SON’VABITCH!” Gary yanked back the engine cover. “SON OF A BITCH! MY ENGINE!”

  Micah chuckled. “You do such beautiful work.”

  “It represents a desire for security and solitude contrasted against an inner turmoil arising from the fear of nonbeing.”

  “Meaning you break shit so people will leave you alone.”

  “Precisely.”

  Gary knelt beside the destruction and groaned. Heads lowered, the dogs hung back as he glared at them.

  “You two! You’re supposed to be guard dogs. This,” he pointed at the vandalized engine, “is what you’re supposed to guard.”

  Charger slinked up, licking his face.

  “Don’t even talk to me.” He stared at the engine dejectedly, shaking his head and rubbing Charger’s ears.

  “Fuck it all,” he told the dogs.

  Micah leaned over. “Now what’s he doing?”

  “Digging through a locker…wait…he’s climbing into the bilge with a roll of duct tape.” Hazel turned the mirror, scanning the lot and the docks. “I still don’t see Hammon. But this might work even better.”

  Contorted to reach the bottom of the hose, running off four-letter words in various combinations, Gary didn’t even look up as Temperance swayed. Charger and Yodel rushed to Hazel, tails wagging.

  “Don’t talk to them,” Gary snapped as he knelt in the bilge water. “They’re as useless as you. No, at least they stayed aboard. There was a time direct sunlight would keep you huddled in the cabin; I guess love cured you of that. While you were gone, your little angel shut the thru-hulls and sliced the raw water hoses to ribbons. And the goddamned bilge-pump hoses too. She says she wants you to stop following her.” He ripped off another length of tape, wrapping the hose. “What I don’t get is why she left a warning not to run the engine.”

  “Irreversible destruction is an act of desperation,” Hazel said. “Not to mention it’s a nice boat. I may want to steal it.”

  Gary spun and stared up in shock. Charger leaned against her, and Yodel lay at her feet. Micah stood on the dock holding Hammon’s colorful “water pistol.” “I’ll be damned. You’re real.”

  “As are you.” Hazel said. “With Hammon, it’s hard to be sure. Gary, right?”

  He nodded, studying her outfit uneasily. Over her tank top and cut-offs, she wore baggy hip waders and rubber work gloves. Her gloved hand held a thirty-amp shore power cord, the end stripped to bare wires. Micah grinned, plugging the other end into the dock receptacle. Gary looked down at the salty bilge water around his ankles and Hazel slowly smiled.

  I’LL BE DAMNED!

  Hammon limped along the docks, indifferent to the blue sky. Withou
t his coat to shield him from the bombarding radio frequencies, he was completely exposed, but he was too numb to care. After the last few days, satellites were the least of his worries. He was missing something obvious. The signal had flickered briefly, right there in Belmar, but by the time they’d arrived, Revenge was nowhere in sight. And considering last night’s events, he could only imagine the worst. His quest to help Hazel was an epic fail.

  He watched with detachment as three sunburned friends cheerfully jammed thirty feet worth of gear onto nineteen feet of precariously overloaded Bayliner.

  “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” joked the fellow loading tackle boxes and coolers even as the boat settled lower in the water, threatening to sink at the dock.

  “Yeah right,” replied the one at the stern. “The wife nearly divorced me for buying this one.”

  “No. Check it out.” He pointed toward the black boat docked behind them. It looked like it had been painted with house paint, and not very neatly at that. A mast and boom towered high over the cockpit, and weathered rope work covered railings from bow to stern, creeping like ivy up the ladder to the bridge. “It’s the boat from Jaws. It’s got that lookout tower and everything.”

  “Can’t be. The boat in Jaws sank in the end. For real, not just in the movie. Not like that piece of crap doesn’t look far behind. And where’s the shark barrels?”

  The debate continued as the fishing buddies ambled down the dock, checking for shark jaws mounted on the bridge, unaware of the invisible vision following them, equally intrigued by the weary old boat.

  “No way!” Annabel cheered, bouncing with delight.

  “What?”

  “You don’t recognize her?”

  Hammon studied it. “Yeah. It was in the shed at Forelli’s. Amazing what you can accomplish with enough Git Rot and Marine Tex.”

  “It’s scary how dense the brain I occupy is at times. That’s Revenge.”

  “And you say I’m nuts.”

  Annabel huffed. “Look past the colors and the sloppy paint. Ignore the bridge, that’s been changed. So were the rails. And they added the mast, strakes, and the pulpit. They even plumbed the bow, but look at the shape of the transom. I’m telling you, that’s Revenge.”

  “Impossible.”

  Then Hammon noticed the cockpit freezer, now painted black. The cockpit door, hatches, and drains were identical to Revenge’s, and there was his bucket, the one he always propped against the cabin door.

  “I’ll be damned…”

  08:32 SATURDAY, JULY 3

  40°10’49.98”N/74°01’47.35”W

  BELMAR, NJ

  Gary crept backwards, trying to climb clear of the wet bilge.

  “Stay where you are, and we’ll both be happier. I don’t want to kill anyone, but I’ll do what I have to.” She held up the power cord. “Fascinating how lethal standard alternating current is. Muscles contract and freeze, you can’t scream or move, and your heart just stops. Cardiac arrest, then death. Quiet, neat, and simple.”

  “Yeah, aside from the burn marks and the sizzling flesh,” Micah added helpfully.

  “What do you want?” Gary mumbled.

  Hazel swung the cord in a lazy arc. “Answers. Starting with: where’s Hammon?”

  “I don’t know.” Gary glanced from his wet feet to the cord in her insulated hand. “He disappeared. He does that a lot.”

  “What was Stevenson trying to pull last night?” Micah asked.

  Gary looked from Hazel to Micah and back. “What happened last night?”

  Hazel sighed. “Hammon didn’t tell you? Stevenson claimed he had our truck, but it was just a look-alike.”

  “What truck?” Gary’s eyes followed the exposed wires. “Don’t take this wrong, but I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Micah leaned forward. “Look, we know Stevenson sent Hammon after us. Why?”

  Gary shook his head. “Hammon hasn’t spoken to Stevenson in years.”

  “Really? Then explain this.” Hazel pulled the envelope from her pocket, holding it out for him to read. “There’s over seven grand in here.”

  “Yeah,” Micah said. “And according to your computer, Stevenson’s put a lot of cash into your business.”

  “You were in my office?” He glared at the dogs. “Why do I even feed you two?”

  “So what’s your dealings with Stevenson?” Micah said.

  “He’s a customer…with lots of money to spend.”

  “And what about Hammon?” Hazel asked.

  Gary slumped back, looking uncomfortable with the question. “It’s a long story, and it doesn’t make any sense.”

  Hazel glanced at Micah, who looked around and nodded. “We’re listening.”

  Gary shrugged and shook his head in defeat. “Five years back I’m working at this boatyard, and I find the kid holed up aboard a derelict boat. He’s a mess, all scarred up, afraid to let anyone look at him, he won’t even come into the light. I figured he’s some runaway. I tell him he can’t stay there but he won’t leave. He says if he buys the boat, then could he stay. I tell him the boat’s wrecked, it’s too far gone to bother fixing. I give him half my lunch and try to find out who he is.

  “Next morning he’s still there, but now he’s got papers showing fifty grand wired into my bank account. Payment in advance, he says, for fixing the boat. Says if I need more, he’ll get it. I don’t know how the hell he got my bank account, but he knew everything about me. Then I get a call from someone named Stevenson. You know what he says? Fix the boat. He says if I need more money, just call him, but whatever I do, don’t tell the kid. Hammon says the money’s his, Stevenson stole it, and he’s just stealing it back. No explanation, no clarification. Ask him, he shuts up for days.”

  Gary sat back across the engine, rubbing his forehead. “You got to understand, the kid’s not all there. He thinks people are tracking him with microchips. He hears voices, he sees…” Gary looked at Hazel. “He’s got this hallucination he calls Annabel. That’s why he was on the boat to begin with. He’d never been on a boat in his life; he can’t even swim, but Annabel told him ‘go to the boats.’ He does whatever Annabel tells him. He says you’re identical to her, and that’s another part of the conspiracy.”

  “He may be more right than he realizes,” Hazel said. “Stevenson said something about someone named Annabel. I had no idea what he was talking about and I didn’t ask.” And suddenly her first conversation with Hammon, when he refused to believe she was real, made so much more sense.

  “He says you’re in danger and he wants to help you.”

  “He said he wants revenge,” Hazel said.

  Gary almost laughed. “That’s his goddamned boat. The one I found him on. The boat you stole. That’s Revenge.”

  Micah said, “And the tarp and shovel in his trunk?”

  “That’s Annabel again. She can’t deal with dead animals in the road, says they deserve proper burial. Look, I know the kid’s got some serious mental problems, but he’s not violent or dangerous.”

  “He killed Stevenson last night,” Hazel said.

  Gary looked like he’d been struck; it was obviously news to him. A boat motored past and small waves slapped the hull while Hazel waited for a reply. It came in the form of a soft hiccup.

  “One, I didn’t do it, and B, he’s not dead.” Hammon gave Micah a quick salute as he limped toward the boat.

  Hazel started to speak but found herself without words. The last twenty-four hours had taken a heavy toll on Hammon. In direct daylight he looked less like a boy scout and more like an escaped psychopath. His clothes were wrinkled and stained, his hair wild and tangled, his breathing quick and shallow. But beneath the strain, Hazel could still see sadness in his gray eyes.

  “Last night,” he began, swallowing nervously as he stood beside the boat. “I…uh…I didn’t…I wanted to tell you…” He blinked, eyes wide as he struggled for the right words. “I had to…” He stared at her helplessly. “I…
I’ll…”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and took a slow, deep breath, pressing his palm to his forehead.

  “Last night,” he said again, each word slow and deliberate. His eyes opened, locking on Hazel with unnerving intensity, and he pushed his hair back, tucking it behind a disfigured ear. “I didn’t shoot him and he isn’t dead. Even if he wasn’t wearing Kevlar, he’d need a heart to hit in the first place.” He sat on Temperance’s gunwale, swinging his bad leg over as he climbed aboard. The corner of his mouth curled upward as he approached Hazel.

  “I missed you,” he told her, his voice low and steady. He stopped, inches between them, eyes practically aglow. His hand came up, fingers gently tracing across her cheek, sending a strange thrill surging through her. “I can’t tell you how worried I’ve been. I had to see you again.”

  “Uh…Zap,” Gary said. “You might want to stay back. She’s sort of armed.”

  Hammon regarded the power cord and grinned. “She’s bluffing. She wouldn’t do it.”

  Hazel glared at him, color rising in her face. “Don’t test me.”

  “I’m not. You wouldn’t risk hurting the dogs.” His fingers moved down to her throat. “You know, my dear, last time I saw you, I didn’t get to say a proper good-bye.” His other hand slid back around her waist, pulling her against him. “You’re trembling,” he whispered, his hand lingering along the small of her back.

  “So are you.”

  “You do that to me.” His hand slipped beneath the waders. “By the way, now you’re grounded.”

  Her eyes narrowed defiantly. “You like living dangerously.”

  “You have no idea.” His fingers followed the curve of her throat. “And besides, the circuit’s off.”

  Heat rose in her face. “What makes you so sure?”

  “The plug glows when there’s current. I like what you did with my boat. She was right there in that shed, and I never even realized. I found Revenge and I found you. I missed you so much, Hazel. Did you miss me?”