by Lis Wiehl
According to the app he was very close, but still there was no one around. The only sounds were the soft lap of the waves and the crows and seagulls calling overhead.
His dot and Mia’s now overlapped. He was right where the phone showed her as being.
Or as having been. Because as he watched, the display changed to: “Old location. Currently unavailable.” He pushed the refresh button, but the words didn’t change. And his dot was right on top of her last location.
He was at the end of the pier, right next to an empty space. He squinted and looked out over the water.
A boat. Heading out into the sound.
Not just a boat. A yacht. White. Gleaming. Sleek. And fast.
Very fast.
CHAPTER 64
Vin scooted closer to Mia, close enough that she could smell him, sweaty and sour.
“Get out. Slowly. Stay right by the car. Don’t try anything. I’ll have a gun on you the whole time. A bullet can outrun you.”
Mia did as she was told, but as she put her feet to the ground, she tried to position herself to slide around to the far side of the door. Maybe she could slam it closed on him. But Vin was as close as her shadow, his breath hot on the back of her neck. “I told you not to try anything.”
Mia didn’t bother denying her half-formed plan. She was already trying to figure out what she could do next.
“Okay, we’re going to take a little walk. And if we meet anyone, you’re not going to say anything. Or both you and them will die.” Vin grabbed her arm with iron fingers and pressed the gun into her side. If she managed to live through this day, her body would be pockmarked with bruises.
“You’re taking me to Gabe?”
“Not if you keep asking questions. Not if you don’t do exactly what I say.”
Vin might be marching her forward, but he couldn’t stop her head from turning. Couldn’t stop her eyes from searching. Surely there had to be someone here who could help her. Or maybe not help her, but at least call the police. But there was no one. The only sign of life was the birds crying overhead.
They walked down a ramp, past boat after boat. All of them, on this blustery afternoon, empty. She kept wondering when he would tell her to stop. Was he planning on marching her into the ocean? Then they reached the last yacht.
And there was Oleg Popov. Not Kenny Zhong. Oleg. Mia tried to recalculate.
“Come aboard, my dear,” he said.
“Where’s Gabe?” she demanded as she climbed aboard. “I need to see my son. Now.” Was he tied up below? There was nothing on the deck but a stack of concrete blocks.
He gestured. “Come down below.”
They went down into the yacht’s living quarters. Vin shadowed Mia’s footsteps, his gun still inches away from her. Everything was compact and immovable. The highly polished table was bolted to the floor. For seating there were leather banquettes and two fixed swiveling chairs. Even the art on the walls was screwed down, reminding Mia of the mental hospital where they had talked to Manny.
“I’m afraid your son is not here,” Oleg said.
“What?” Mia put her hand on her chest. What was he saying? Had something even worse happened to Gabe?
“I knew you wouldn’t go with me unless you thought it would help one of your kids,” Vin said.
Mia’s knees sagged. “They’re safe, then?”
Vin shrugged. “I don’t believe in visiting the sins of the fathers on the children. Or the wives. But you—you gave us no choice.”
Oleg put out his hand. “Please give me your purse.”
Mia tried to think of something to do with it—could she swing it at him?—but in the end, she simply lifted the strap over her head and shoulder and handed it to him. After rummaging through it, he found her phone and turned it off, then set it down on a banquette. He also found the ring box, looked at her for a long moment, then slipped it into his pocket. He walked over to the helm and, after flipping a few switches, started the engine.
“What are you going to do to me?” She had to raise her voice. Vin watched her. He held the gun easily, as if it were a tool he used daily.
“It is a sad story really, Mia,” Oleg said. “You killed yourself. Drowned yourself in the Sound.” The yacht began to move forward.
He was speaking as if it had already happened. As if she were already dead. Mia held herself very still. She would not let them see how afraid she was. “Anyone who knows me will know I would never leave my children.”
“Ah, but you’ve only recently discovered that your husband had a mistress. In fact, you tracked her down over the weekend and killed her.”
They were outside of the harbor wall now. Bile flooded her mouth. How deep was Puget Sound? Surely hundreds of feet.
“Vin is going to go back and move your car next to the water. On the seat, they’ll find your purse and your keys. On top will be the gun you used to kill the poor girl. Her name was Elizabeth Eastman.”
She didn’t have time to think about the girl being dead. “Everyone knows I hate the water.”
He smiled, and her blood turned to slush. “What better way to punish yourself for what you have done? However, I am afraid we are going to have to tie you to those cement blocks outside. I am sorry, but it must be done.”
“How are you going to explain away the cement blocks? That certainly won’t look like a suicide.”
“We will not need to. The blocks will ensure that they will never find your body.”
Her heartbeat was slamming in her ears. “Don’t do this. If you have a soul, don’t do this.”
“You forced my hand. You would not stop asking questions. You would not let the dead bury the dead.” He made some adjustments to the instruments, and the sound of the engine changed. Mia could feel the yacht slow and then stop. The engines idled.
At a nod from Oleg, Vin prodded her with the gun. “We’re going back up now.”
Oleg nodded. “My advice would be not to fight this. Vin will shoot you if he has to. I do not want him to—it will make a hell of a mess.”
Mia’s tongue was a piece of leather in her mouth. “It would be faster for me, though.”
Vin laughed without mirth. “There’re plenty of places to shoot you that will only leave you disabled and in a lot of pain. But all you have to do when you go into the water is take a nice deep breath and it will all be over.”
Mia looked around for something she could use to fight back, but there was nothing extraneous, nothing loose, nothing that could tip over or come loose during a storm. When Vin poked her again with the gun, she climbed the stairs and went out onto the aft deck. The ocean was all she could see, stretching all the way to the horizon on every side. So many of her nightmares had been just like this.
Oleg took a piece of wire and began to thread it through a block. Wire. Not rope. Nothing that she could hope would stretch once it was wet. If anything, it would cut into her skin.
Mia did the only thing she could think to do.
She leaped over the side and into the water.
CHAPTER 65
As Mia leaped off the yacht, time slowed down. While still in midair, she uttered the oldest prayer of all. “Help.”
The shock of the icy water stole all the breath from her body. She sank through the gloom. Her lungs demanded air, but she denied them until they turned hollow, until they felt as if they were turning inside out. She heard the muffled sounds of bullets stitching the water.
Her eyes were open, but it made no difference. She was no longer sure what was up or what was down. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t focus. She was going to die here in the dark, and then drift slowly down, down, down until the pressure crushed her bones.
No! Mia began to thrash blindly, her arms and legs flailing at the water. Finally her head breached the surface. She drew in a ragged breath that was a painful mix of air and water. Salt water burned her nose and throat. The light was bleeding from the sky.
Where was the yacht? She do
g-paddled in a frantic circle. There it was, about forty yards away. As fast as she could, she swam away from it. A spot between her shoulder blades itched. Any moment she expected a bullet to punch through her. Did she need to dive down again, to avoid being shot? Or was it more important to gain distance? She chose distance.
When she snatched a glance over her shoulder, the yacht was about a hundred yards away, and Vin and Oleg were turned away from her, looking into the distance. Were they worried that the sound of their guns had carried? Or maybe they had decided that there was no point in trying to kill her if the water would take care of things soon enough.
No matter what the answer was, they had stopped shooting at her. She thought it likely she was now out of range. And Mia was already tired. So tired. She arched her back and tried to float. But water sheeted across her face, filling her mouth with the ocean’s briny, bitter taste. Coughing, spitting, and snorting, she instinctively jerked up as if she could somehow sit up, sit up on top of the ocean. Instead, she began to sink again.
The panic surged back. She fought the water that burned her nose and throat. And suddenly she was vomiting into the ocean, vomiting ocean water and her lunch and, it felt like, even her breakfast and last night’s dinner. Her arms and legs were churning, keeping her afloat, but she was moving too fast. There was nothing to hold on to. The only way she had managed to learn to swim as an adult was by reminding herself that the water was contained with a pool, that the pool was finite, that she could always make her way to a point where she could stand up, or to a ladder she could climb up, or to a lip she could cling to. Even then, she had always picked an outside lane for practice. Now there was nothing for miles. Nothing but water.
She knew the sea couldn’t be sucking her down, but it felt like it was. And soon it would win.
No! Mia told herself. She could not afford to panic. She could not afford to lose her strength. She continued to move her arms and legs like eggbeaters, but she deliberately slowed down, trying not to waste energy.
Last year Mia had seen part of a special on drowning. She caught it as she was flipping through channels and then watched the rest, horrified. In one home movie, shot by someone unaware that he was also filming a death, children played in the waves, splashing and frolicking while a man just a few feet behind them drowned.
It wasn’t like it was in cartoons, when the victim called out or waved for help before going down for a third time. The man’s head had been low in the water, unmoving. Even so, his mouth was open, a small dark dot. His hair hung over his eyes. One hand appeared for a second, then the other.
“The victim,” the announcer intoned in a sonorous voice, “is using all his energy and oxygen just to keep his mouth above water. As is common in these types of cases, he appears to be climbing an invisible ladder. He doesn’t have enough air to call out. He doesn’t have enough energy to swim toward shore or to wave for help. All he has is less than a minute before he goes under—for good. The last thing that will happen is he will lose consciousness and make a final effort to breathe. This is known as the terminal gasp. Water will then move passively into the airways. Death will follow.”
That documentary had featured prominently in Mia’s nightmares for months.
Now she was living it.
If only something would float by that she could cling to. Wasn’t the ocean supposed to be filled with garbage? Where was some when she needed it?
If only she had a life vest.
Although that’s stupid, she berated herself. Why not wish for a helicopter with a guy from the Coast Guard in the basket?
Her arms and legs were even slower now, and not by her choice. Slower and heavier. Heavy as lead yet limp as noodles. She told herself she was conserving energy.
What good had jumping off the yacht done her? No good at all. She was alone in the middle of Puget Sound. Pretty soon she would stop being able to tread water and she would die here. Would it be a calm death? she wondered. The way Vin had half promised? Or would she be panicking to the last, even if she was too weak to show it?
Maybe when the end came, it would be easy to let go. To take that last breath.
Then she pictured Gabe’s face. The face he wore when he forgot that he was supposed to be a surly teenager. Forgot that he was supposed to be the man of the house. When he showed that he was what he was—still a boy, a boy mourning his father. A boy who needed a steady adult to guide him.
And Brooke? She was only four. Scott had almost faded from her memory. Mia certainly hadn’t had enough time to shape her, to teach her, to love her.
She had to figure out a way to live. If she could make it to sunrise, maybe someone would venture out, a fishing boat or even a pleasure craft, and spot her. She thought longingly again of life jackets. Remembered the last time she had flown, the flight attendants going through their spiel about slipping the vest on over the head and blowing into the tubes on either side.
And that gave Mia an idea. Her raincoat! She shrugged out of it, her head dipping below the water each time she pulled an arm free. She knotted the two sleeves at the end, then managed, after a long period of fumbling with stiff fingers, to refasten the zipper and pull it all the way up. As if it were a life jacket, she stuck her head between the tied together sleeves, with the knot resting against the back of her neck. Then she took the bottom edge of the coat and spread it open with her hands. She lifted it high overhead, legs still kicking, and slammed it down toward the water, bagging air.
It worked! The body of the coat was swollen with air. She laughed in triumph. She had done it. She had created a makeshift life vest. Holding the bottom of the coat tightly closed, she let herself rest on top of the air trapped inside.
Only then did she realize that her toes were going numb from the cold.
Mia wasn’t going to die from drowning. She was going to die from hypothermia.
CHAPTER 66
Staring after the yacht, Charlie berated himself. He had come too late. He had come too late and now Mia was in the hands of killers and he had no way to follow her. His voice tight with urgency, he radioed dispatch. “Tell Harbor Patrol I need that unit to meet me on the northernmost pier. We have an active kidnapping situation.”
He was still releasing his thumb from the button when he heard footsteps pounding toward him. Sucking in a breath, he pivoted while grabbing for his gun. A man was running toward him, swinging a long metal boat hook.
Charlie was aiming for center of mass when he realized who it was. Eli Hall. He let his arm fall by his side. Panting, Eli dropped the hook. Then he leaned down and braced his hands on his knees.
“You’re too late,” Charlie said. “They’re gone.” He gestured at the sleek white yacht, which was speeding out of the harbor. “And they’ve got Mia.”
“You’re the one who told me to keep back,” Eli said between gasps. “By the time I got here that guy was marching her down the ramp and into the yacht that used to be here. I went to find something to use as a weapon.” He lifted his head to glare at Charlie. “If I hadn’t listened to you, I might have made a difference.”
“You also might have got Mia killed,” Charlie said. Then he realized how stupid it was to stand here arguing. “Did you get a name or a number off the yacht?”
Eli shook his head. “I didn’t get close enough.”
They both turned at the sound of the Harbor Patrol. It was a sleek aluminum craft, the high bow cutting through the waves, the word POLICE written on the side in four-foot-tall black letters. It entered the far side of the harbor and raced toward them, sirens sounding and lights blazing. As it got closer, Charlie could see two cops on board.
Instead of stepping back, Eli was sticking right next to Charlie. Acting as if he had become part of things. Charlie shook his head. “Oh no. You’re staying here.”
“No, I’m not.” Eli was just as adamant. “And you don’t have any time to argue with me. We don’t have time to do anything but go after her.”
Charlie’s o
nly answer was a growl, but Eli was right. There wasn’t any time to waste.
The cop at the helm, a tall black guy, cut the motor and expertly glided in next to the end of the pier. The other cop, a redhead with masses of freckles, leaned forward to offer Charlie a hand.
“Charlie Carlson, Homicide,” Charlie said as he clambered aboard with Eli right on his heels. Eli even introduced himself as if he were central to the process. The first cop was named Johnny Crashaw and the second Gordon Ploughman. The four of them moved into the bow of the boat. Charlie pointed out across the water. “A yacht just left here. There’s a hostage on board. She’s a King County prosecutor. And there are two suspects with her. Maybe more.”
“And at least one of them is armed,” Eli added.
“Who is this guy exactly?” Gordon asked Charlie with a frown, staring at Eli.
“Eli Hall. He’s a witness,” Charlie said. What Eli really was, was a nuisance.
Eli said, “I’m also the hostage’s boyfriend.”
“What?” Charlie jerked his head around. Was Eli serious? There hadn’t been any hint of a relationship between them when they interviewed Jackson. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. There was no time to think about what Eli had just said, or about why his own first reaction had been jealousy. For right now, he had to keep his feelings about Mia compartmentalized or he wouldn’t be any good to anyone.
They were now out of the harbor and in the open water of the sound. The boat skipped over the waves, the powerful engines thrumming.
Charlie squinted. “There it is.” The police boat was so fast it made the yacht look like it was standing still. Then he realized it really was. Two men were standing on the back deck, but Charlie didn’t see Mia, and the portholes were too small to reveal anything.
He was so focused on finding Mia that at first he didn’t notice that the two men on the yacht both had guns in their hands. At the sound of the Harbor Patrol’s approach, they turned and began firing.