by Scott Blade
I stepped out first and looked over the parking lot for the old boat harbor.
There was a couple of beat up pickup trucks, three different old model Jeep Wranglers, and a black Ford sedan that stuck out because it was fairly new, compared to the rest of the vehicles in the lot.
The rest of the parking lot was abandoned.
“Where to?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Talbern said. “I’ll look it up. Gotta be in our records somewhere.”
Marksy walked ahead, said, “No. Need. I’ve been here. Remember?”
Talbern nodded, slumped her shoulders. I could see that she felt bad about forgetting. It was on the Dayard boat that Marksy’s husband was shot and killed.
The old Portland Harbor was quite large. It had several grids of piers that went out and mazed back, interconnecting.
I tried to lighten the mood and said, “Could be worse.”
Marksy looked back over her shoulder at me.
“Could be raining still,” I said.
She didn’t respond, just looked forward and scanned the boats. She said, “This way. It’s at the end.”
We followed behind her.
I walked close to Talbern and said, “We never got me a gun.”
“Think you’ll need it here?”
“Probably, not. Better safe than sorry.”
“I have a gun and Marksy is armed. I’m sure we can cover you against a phantom.”
I smiled.
I walked close to Talbern the whole way. We followed Marksy in a straight line until the shoreline of the harbor circled. Then we curved with it, passing boats as we walked.
The sea was rough and choppy, even this close in. Dozens and dozens of boats of all sizes, swayed and rocked on the water.
City lights bounced off the water. I heard a far-off bell ringing from a buoy in the distance.
There was the faint sound of music and lights coming from one of the boats in the middle. Someone was home, watching TV on it.
The last section of boat slips was also the richest section. That was obvious because the boats in this part were far bigger than the earlier ones.
There were old, but well-kept sailboats and yachts. Nothing giant, but all pretty big.
We walked down the walkway toward the end.
Marksy stopped about three boats from the end. She shot her hand up, signaling us to stop. She drew her weapon, looked back at Talbern.
Marksy had the same model Glock that Talbern carried.
Talbern drew hers and put her hand out to me.
“Stay back,” she whispered.
I nodded, with no intention of doing that.
Marksy lowered her stance. She started to approach the Dayard boat.
I had never seen the boat before, but I knew it was the last one because Marksy was locked onto it. Her eyes stared dead on at the boat’s bow.
I couldn’t tell if there were lights on it or not, but I was guessing that something made her draw her Glock.
Talbern and I stayed close behind and approached the sailboat, low.
As we got up on it, Marksy seemed to relax a bit. She stepped across the water and onto the deck. We followed.
“Keep back, Widow,” she barked at me.
I crouched low to the deck and stayed where I was.
Marksy and Talbern checked out the rest of the deck and then Marksy disappeared down below deck. They both clicked on flashlights. I saw the thin, bright beams pierce through a small window on the deck.
I stayed where I was.
Lightning crashed, again. This time it spiderwebbed across the underbelly of a huge system of storm clouds.
Then I heard something. Something faint. I turned back, stared down the pier. I heard a creak.
There was nothing there. The low DING of the bell from the buoy sounded over and over, slow and rhythmic.
The waves chopped and rushed below us.
I looked back at the flashlights, below deck. Marksy and Talbern were still clearing the boat, making sure that it was safe and empty.
I should’ve insisted on a gun, I thought.
What if John, Jr. was alive?
What if he was here? Waiting?
For some reason, the animal brain part of me thought back to the parking lot.
The parking lot.
I thought about it for a moment and then dismissed it. But again, my instincts nagged at me.
That black Ford. It was new. It didn’t belong.
I closed my eyes tried to picture it. I looked inside through the front window. Two bumps from the front chairs, a rearview mirror, and nothing else. Right?
I checked the car before we came down here to the boat.
Didn’t I?
Wait! I barely checked it out!
I remembered looking as we passed through the parking lot, but I didn’t look close enough. I closed my eyes tighter and tried to recall the car.
I opened my eyes wide.
Someone was in it. I remembered it now. I had seen the backs of the front chairs, but there were three, not two. Like someone had been slumping down in the middle.
I turned to look at the entrance leading below deck. I had to get Marksy and Talbern.
Then, I heard the creak again from the pier. It came from behind me, but it was much, much closer.
I spun around and saw a man standing there, on the pier. He was right behind me.
He wore all black. Black trousers. Black shirt. It was a good shirt, like mine. It was short-sleeved, like mine. But he wore a clip on black tie. And he wore black leather driving gloves.
The guy had a SIG Sauer P229R tucked into the waistband of his trousers. And he was holding a Remington 870, which is a serious shotgun, trusted by the US Secret Service, among other international outfits.
The guy was tall. Shorter than me, but not much. He was lean, and I could see that he had serious, hard muscles from his exposed arms.
Even knowing that he had two serious guns and that I never did get one. The thing about the guy that raised the hairs on the back of my neck, was that I couldn’t see his face.
I couldn’t see the guy’s face because he wore a used, frayed black ski mask.
CHAPTER 37
THE MASKED MAN spoke like his voice was ruined from throat cancer. It was dark and rough, like a heavy smoker. Which I figured was fake.
He said, “Raise your hands! Turn around! Slow!”
I did as he asked. Raised my hands and turned, slow.
He shoved me onto the deck of the boat.
“Lie down! Flat!”
I plopped down on the deck, landed my knees as loud as I could. I tried to make noise so Talbern and Marksy could hear me.
I had planned to slam the palms of my hands on the deck, but before I could I felt a sharp, blunt pain in my back. The masked man had kicked me.
I turned my head to look through the window, leading below deck.
I saw the flashlight beams moving around still. They hadn’t heard a thing.
Lightning crackled again in the distance.
I saw in the reflection of the glass that the masked man was about to kill me.
He stood above me. He pointed the shotgun at the back of my head. He stayed there like he was waiting for something. And he was.
Lightning whipped and cracked again and thunder rolled, loud. The flash of lightning rippled across the sky. The sounds of the thunderclap echoed across the sky.
However, I didn’t hear any of it because just then, the masked man used the loud sounds to drown out the sound of the shotgun blast.
He fired the shotgun, right into the back of my head.
And everything went to black.
CHAPTER 38
I HAD BEEN SHOT BEFORE.
I had three scars on my back from being shot. Truth was they looked worse than they were. I had been wearing Kevlar when I was shot in the back. But the bullets pierced through enough to leave me with three wicked scars.
I knew what a bullet felt like
. I had never been shot by a slug from a shotgun or birdshot or a magnum round. And luckily, I still have not.
The round that shot me in the back of the head wasn’t any of those.
I had been shot by a rubber bullet once. That hurt all kinds of serious pain.
This was similar, but it wasn’t a rubber bullet either. A rubber bullet at that close range, back of the head, I might’ve been killed pretty easily.
The masked man had shot me with a beanbag round.
I woke up with the worst headache I had ever had. And I knew that I was bleeding because I was lying in a pool of blood. I could taste it. I assumed that it was mine because of the pain. And there was a long streak from a blood trail leading from me, up a tile floor that I had never seen before and it led up a small staircase.
At first, I thought that my head was pounding, but another minute went by and I realized that it wasn’t my head. I was below deck on the Dayard sailboat. I knew that because the rocking was the boat.
My vision wasn’t blurry like you would think. But it was not perfect twenty-twenty vision either.
My head hurt worse, if that was possible.
I realized that I might have a concussion or worse. I didn’t have time to think about the worse part.
I tried to look around, slowly. Then I realized that even though my eyes were fine, my hearing wasn’t.
I heard something, but it was muffled. Everything sounded underwater. I probably had two busted eardrums. I probably had blood seeping out of my ears.
I tried to raise my head. Then I realized that my nose was bleeding. It wasn’t broken, but when the beanbag slugged me in the back of the head, my face slammed into the deck, hard. I dropped my forehead, let it rest on the tile.
That damn rocking was driving me nuts. I could feel my brain slamming into my skull.
Everything hurt.
I tried breathing. Concentrated on that and nothing else for a long moment.
Then I heard the muffled sounds again.
There was movement off to my right.
I waited there for another long moment. Tried to breath and not worry about anything else.
Finally, I rolled over onto my back.
I saw the masked man. He had his back turned to me.
He was holding someone up with his hand. I couldn’t see what he was doing to her.
Talbern, I thought.
I tried to move. Tried to get up.
I couldn’t!
Everything hurt!
I felt my hair. It was wet, which I figured was from the blood. Then I smelled something. My sense of smell must’ve been returning because the smell was faint, at first. And then it got stronger.
I smelled gasoline.
I craned my head and looked down at the floor. It was covered in gas.
I looked back at the masked man.
He had tied Talbern and Marksy to two wooden chairs at a small breakfast nook. He held something over his head.
My vision blurred. No not blurred. It was the rocking of the boat. I couldn’t quite focus.
I looked again.
The masked man held up a plastic red can over his head. He was dumping the contents out over the women.
It was gas.
I tried to get up. Tried to push myself up. But my head hurt. I tried to sit up. I made it halfway. Then I felt a rush of blood to my head and I felt feverish. Then I fell back.
Everything went to black…again.
CHAPTER 39
THERE WAS A QUESTION that I had wanted to ask Marksy. I had wanted to ask her if it was true that she put the witness up to pointing the finger at James Dayard.
Part of me wondered if she had seen John, mistaken him for his brother.
It was apparent now that she had. Either way, that question was no longer important. But for some reason that was the first thing that I thought of when I awoke the second time.
I had no idea how much time had passed since I blacked out again.
But I knew that something awful was happening because I woke up to someone screaming. It was a gut-wrenching scream, the kind that I haven’t heard since the last time I was on a mission with the SEALs in the Middle East. The exact mission and time period in my life, I couldn’t remember.
The screaming rang out and echoed through the cabin like a fire alarm sounding.
I was staring at the roof of the cabin. And the first thing that I noticed was that we were no longer in darkness. The cabin was lit up in a bright orange and red light.
Then I smelled it.
The air was full of smells of gasoline and charring meat.
Suddenly, I felt adrenaline burst through me. I rolled over to my side and pushed myself up. I got on my knees.
I turned to look. I saw Talbern was crying and screaming at the top of her lungs. The masked man stood back away from the table.
They were both staring at Marksy.
FBI Agent Marksy was on fire. She was blazing.
The masked man had set her ablaze and was now standing back and watching.
I looked at Marksy. She was still alive. She was shaking and dancing violently against her restraints, trying to free herself. Trying to run to the water. But she couldn’t move.
I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was in there somewhere.
My head continued to hurt. No time for that.
I jumped to my feet, almost falling right back down.
The masked man didn’t hear me. He was staring on at the flaming FBI agent in what looked like a state of ecstasy.
I tried to rush him. But my feet didn’t cooperate with the commands from my brain.
I fumbled into the kitchen counter, knocking over objects that I couldn’t identify. Not then.
I put my left hand on something and I was certain that it was a bag filled with bones. I stopped and stared at it. I couldn’t take my mind off it for a brief moment. I was sure they were human bones.
Suddenly, Talbern screamed at me.
“WIDOW! LOOK OUT!”
I stumbled backward, not out of a reflex to her warning, just out of sheer luck.
There was a loud gunshot. And then another. And another. And another. Four gunshots boomed and echoed into the cabin.
Smoke filled the air.
I flew back on my ass. I stared up at the masked man. He was firing at me with his SIG SAUER.
My vision returned to around ninety percent and I saw his eyes. He aimed at me. He had me dead to rights, but he hesitated.
I waited. I was sure that he was going to shoot me dead, right there. But he didn’t.
I looked down at my hand. It was wet again.
The gasoline. He didn’t want to shoot at it.
I looked back up at him. He stuffed the gun back into his waistband.
He reached behind him and slid a carpenter hammer out from nowhere. It must’ve been stuffed into the back of his pants.
I stared at the end of it. It was clean, but dark. Like it had seen a life of bludgeoning those women and it was ready for another use.
I pulled myself up to my feet.
Talbern was still screaming.
Marksy had completely stopped moving. But the flames were sparking and dancing and shooting off toward the breakfast table.
We didn’t have much time. The flames would spark far enough to hit the gas on the floor. Or hit Talbern, who knew it.
She pushed with her feet and scooted as far back to the wall as she could.
I saw the shotgun. It was tossed on the bed, across from Talbern. But I had no chance of reaching it.
The masked man stood between me and Talbern and the shotgun.
“I hope you’re ready to die, Widow!” he spoke. Still using that raspy voice.
The masked man ran at me, hammer out. He looked like a madman. Like an apparition from out of a nightmare.
I needed a weapon. I knew it.
Behind me was a kitchen. Maybe I could’ve found a kitchen knife or grabbed a frying pan.
I didn�
�t do any of that.
I slammed my hand into my front pocket, grabbed the head of the toothbrush I swiped from the hotel, and jerked it out of my pocket.
Dizzily, I half sidestepped and half slid to my right.
The masked man swung down with the hammer. It swung and barely missed my left shoulder.
I wrenched my elbow back as far and as fast as I could. I jabbed forward with full force and I stabbed the handle of my toothbrush right through the masked man’s neck, left side.
I pushed it all the way to the hilt.
Blood rushed out like water spraying out of fire hydrant.
The masked man went straight down like a ton of bricks. He dropped the hammer and a lighter slid out of his pocket.
He grabbed his neck wound and wrapped his fingers around the toothbrush. He jerked it out and screamed. Only no one could hear his scream because his voice box was severed or busted.
I could barely hear him because of my eardrums. Plus, Talbern was still screaming at the top of her lungs.
The masked man scrambled and snaked around on the floor like he was dying a million, agonizing deaths, which made me smile.
I left him and scrambled over to Talbern.
“Hurry, Widow! Hurry!”
“Hold still,” I said.
I took a look at her restraints. She was ziptied. Not a big deal. I scrambled back to the kitchen and found that knife I had thought of earlier. I went back to her and cut her free.
She ran from the smoldering dead body of the woman that she had once known and picked up her Glock from out of the kitchen sink.
The masked man must’ve thrown it in there. I hadn’t even seen it.
She picked up Marksy’s as well and tossed it to me.
She turned and pointed it at the masked man. She was going to shoot him.
“No!” I shouted, partially because I still couldn’t hear very well.
“Why not?”
“Let him suffer.”
I ran to her and took her hand. I pulled her nearly off her feet and led her up the stairs and onto the deck. We scrambled off the boat.
We turned and watched the lower deck filled with orange and red fire. Suddenly, a huge fireball erupted and tore a hole in the roof.
Talbern stood there and watched.
I held onto her, tight, until my adrenaline started to wear off. Then I leaned on her for a long moment as we watched the Dayards’ sailboat burn.