by Susan Wolfe
“This one what?”
“Company, of course. Your beloved Lumina Software. You see, I learned a long time ago that making a business succeed is a lot more complicated than you might expect, and most executives just made it harder. Some of these people couldn’t do more damage to their companies if they tried, and that’s been my perfect camouflage. Making a business succeed is hard, but it’s easy to get a good Change of Control Agreement and then help the self-dealers and dumb guys in the company drive it into the ground. Nobody suspects a thing, because all I do is exploit the plentiful stupidity of the average executive.” He barked a laugh.
Ken didn’t respond. She decided to chance it, peeked in the window and saw with horror that Ken’s head was slumping forward. Then he lifted it. “You know, I’m not getting enough air down here. I just have to . . .” He stood up and then sank to his knees. Roy had his back to her.
“Whoa there, Ken, think you better wait till your head clears, don’t you? Here, let me help you lie down.” He helped Ken to his feet, and maneuvered him over to the bed. “You didn’t ask me why Drummer never reaped the benefits of his knowledge. Turns out he had a boating accident. He was down in the cabin of my boat, sort of like you are now, while I was up on deck, steering. I was running my engine to charge up my second battery, and there was an undetected hole in the exhaust hose.” As he spoke, Ken staggered to his feet again and over to the stairs, where he collapsed and stopped moving. “So carbon monoxide was filling the cabin without Drummer realizing it, and by the time I found him and dragged him up on deck it was too late. Or so the police concluded.”
Georgia groaned. Why on earth had she assumed a ‘boating accident’ meant drowning? He had drugged Ken to keep him in the cabin until he suffocated, and she was just standing up here recording it. She dropped her iPhone and recorder into her windbreaker pockets, and slid the Mace quietly from its holster as she crept around toward the cabin entrance. She had to get Ken out of that cabin now.
“. . . don’t like having the same accident twice, of course,” Roy was saying, “but you came on me so suddenly I didn’t have time to invent a new one. And anyway, the other one was back east, and quite a few years ago. I think we’ll be all right. We do need to get you off these stairs, though, so I can get up. I’m getting a little drowsy down here myself, even without the ginger ale.”
She heard a thump. Ken being dropped onto the cabin floor?
“I’ve been pretty clever all these years, don’t you think? And now you’re forcing me to be clever again. Rotten luck, really, that I have to waste my time being clever about this. And you told Laura, which means I also have to deal with her in very short order, and won’t that be a helluva coincidence? I wonder why you couldn’t leave well enough alone. Well. See you in an hour or so, though of course that won’t be mutual.”
She heard Roy start up the stairs as she retreated back out of sight around the corner of the cabin and brought the Mace canister up slightly above her head, her finger on the spray button. Would his glasses block the spray from getting in his eyes?
She heard him walk onto the deck, close the door and fumble the hasp. She could not let him lock Ken in that cabin. She stepped out, and he looked at her with startled incomprehension as she sprayed the Mace into his face, shifting the can to spray over and then under his glasses. He bellowed, clamped both hands to his face and staggered backward. She snatched up the padlock and hurled it overboard, then ran downstairs to where Ken lay splayed, face-up on the cabin floor, his head a few inches from the bottom step. She sat on the next-to-bottom step, slid her forearms under his armpits, and started dragging him up the steep steps, one thump at a time.
She might as well have been hauling a boulder. In less than a minute she was losing the battle to get enough oxygen, and she rested her butt briefly on each step before bracing her feet against the stairs and straining to pull him upward, afraid she would pass out and pitch forward on top of him. As she hoisted her butt up to the third step from the top, she saw a faint shadow fall across Ken’s body, and heard rasping, uneven breathing above the sound of the engine. Roy was standing behind her in the doorway, waiting to shove them both back down the stairs and lock them in.
She’d never get Ken up those stairs again.
Keeping her back to Roy, she suddenly rose straight into a standing position and reached both arms back over her head to yank him off balance. He tumbled into her, knocking her legs out from under her so that her left ear landed hard against the step, and all three of them began sliding down the steps together in a tangled clump.
No. No way.
She found traction for her feet against a step, planted her palms flat on the step under her chest, then reared up and bucked with everything she had. She felt Roy’s weight shift on top of her, and then slide sideways, as he tumbled over Ken and down the stairs onto the cabin floor.
Her ear was ringing from the blow against the stairs, and she felt dangerously light-headed as she dragged Ken’s body out onto the deck. The wind hit her and she stood for a moment, sucking in big gulps of clean, salty air. She heard Roy’s tortured wheezing as he staggered back up the steps, and realized Ken’s legs were still dangling in the doorway. She bent and rolled them sideways and tried to slam the door, as Roy wedged his hand into the opening between the door and doorjamb and begin to push. She braced her feet and pushed her back forcefully against the door, feeling the door buck against her each time he lunged against it.
She noticed a screwdriver on the deck against the cabin wall. Scooting herself lower an inch at a time to maintain her pressure against the door, she touched the screwdriver with extended fingertips. Teasing it into her grasp, she picked it up and jammed it with both hands into the skin between Roy’s knuckles. He screamed and tried to pull his hand back into the cabin. She used both hands to pull the screwdriver free, watched the bloody hand slither and disappear, then slammed the door and closed the hasp.
The padlock was gone. She’d thrown it overboard.
She stared for an instant at the bloody screwdriver in her hand, threaded it through the hasp, and then backed away, watching in fascination as he lunged against the door, twice. The screwdriver held.
Was she too late for Ken? Apparently not. He was not only breathing, but beginning to stir. No time to let relief slow her down. She had to get off that boat before he saw her.
The blows against the inside cabin door were getting feebler, and it occurred to her that Roy could be the one to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. She couldn’t let him out. She couldn’t just leave him in there. Could she figure out how to turn off the engine? Maybe, but there was probably too much carbon monoxide in the cabin already.
She slid her hand underneath Ken’s body, found his cell phone in his back pocket, and punched in 911 with her thinly gloved forefinger. Using her windbreaker to cover the phone, she made gargly Donald Duck noises that she hoped sounded like a bad connection, interspersed with her lowest possible octave: “—kwee-whech-whech Ken Madigan. We’ve had an accident on kwee-whech-whech Chaucer in Santa Cruz marina. We need kwee-whech-whe . . .” and ended the call. Pathetic, but who cared as long as it got them to come? And wasn’t recognizable as her, hopefully. She dropped the phone next to Ken on the deck. Would they come by boat? Or by ambulance maybe, and then run along the dock? She was afraid to jump off the stern of the boat with the engine still running. She’d have to cross the wooden walkway and jump into the water of the next guy’s berth.
Ken muttered something as she lifted her foot onto the walkway, and as she looked back her glance fell on the screwdriver. She couldn’t leave that bloody screwdriver stuck there in the hasp. It would look like Ken had locked Roy in. But what if she removed it, and then Roy rushed out and killed Ken? Ken muttered again as she ran back, and she fully expected his eyes to fly open and recognize her as she rolled and shoved him up against the door. She heard a siren wailing as she yanked the screwdriver out of the hasp, ran to the end of the walkway, and ju
mped with the screwdriver into the water.
She came to the surface gasping with shock from the cold, and thought she heard the siren turning into the parking lot. Good. At first she could only gulp in air, so it took a moment to orient herself by the sound of the siren and begin swimming in what she hoped was the direction of the parking lot entrance. The water was gritty, and her clinging, draggy clothes were maddeningly claustrophobic. She forced herself to focus on calming her breath as she pulled herself through the water with strong crawl strokes, holding her face out of the stinking black water. After a moment her head cleared. She thought she spotted the next gate over, swam into the adjacent berth behind a dark, bobbing boat, and managed to pull herself with a belly slap onto the little wooden walkway, where the wind rolled over her and immediately set her teeth chattering.
Stealing along the walkway to the gate, she could see the now-silent ambulance pulled up next to the gate closest to the Chaucer, its flashing red light illuminating both the gate and Ken’s car just a few feet beyond. Paramedics were standing by the open back doors of the ambulance, apparently readying a stretcher. Good luck that she’d parked outside the range of that flashing red light. She desperately needed to get to her car and out of this cold wind. That scratchy blanket waiting in the back seat was going to be heaven.
But she couldn’t let the paramedics see her, so she flattened herself on the wooden walkway to get out of the wind while she waited, shivering uncontrollably. What would happen now? She was pretty sure Ken had never seen her, but Roy certainly had. Would he give her away? Assuming he’d recognized her. In that instant before she’d sprayed him, she could have sworn he was thinking “Do I know her from somewhere?”
And maybe he hadn’t even survived. Was it wrong to hope he hadn’t survived?
She heard the ambulance door slam and pulled herself up into a crouch, waiting for the paramedics to disappear through their gate so that she could safely run out through hers. But just as she was about to stand and run, another siren rounded the bend and entered the lot. She threw herself flat and watched a police car pull up behind the ambulance. Too bad, those cops were bound to snoop. Two officers jumped out and disappeared around the driver side of the ambulance. Now she’d have to wait until they went through the gate as well.
By now she was shivering so violently she was afraid someone would hear her body knocking against the wood. If Roy did turn her in, she’d have no way to defend herself. No, wait, she had his confession. She fumbled underneath her, and pulled a drenched, sand-crusted iPhone from her windbreaker pocket. Her recorder seemed to have washed away entirely. She’d try to play the iPhone after it dried out, but she already knew it was hopeless.
She thought of her keys.
Her keys had probably washed away, too, and she’d have no way to get into her car. Watching the back of the ambulance for the cops to reappear, she dug stiff fingers into the pocket of her blazer, touched metal through her cold, wet gloves, and extracted her keys that were nestled in a bed of sand, coated with salt and decorated with a thin strand of seaweed.
The police officers reappeared around the back of the ambulance, turned off their engine and ran toward the gate. Good. She was free to get up now, but really, what was the urgency? Lying there, she wasn’t even really that cold any more. Maybe it was because she was out of the wind that her shivering had pretty much stopped. She was just really tired now, and if she got up she’d feel that terrible wind again. Better lie here instead and get rested. Picture little Katie-Ann in the stables, with that warm late afternoon sunlight slanting in through the door of the barn . . .
She snaked a hand up next to her face and slapped it, hard. Get a grip. She had to stand up now, while she still could. Her father and Katie-Ann were counting on her. She teetered upright, confused and uncoordinated, and began lurching toward her gate.
Then she heard another siren.
Was she hallucinating? She dropped onto the walkway again, and saw a fire engine round the curve from Brommer Avenue into the lot. To her horror, the fire engine pulled in behind the police car, not twenty feet from her escape gate.
Now what? She was pretty sure there was still one more exit gate between her and the end of the marina, but she’d have to go back into the water to reach it. She was so stiff, could she even still swim? She imagined that black, cold water closing over her head forever, with a dozen rescuers less than forty feet way.
With a last glance at the hulking, too-near fire engine, she half crawled and lurched back along her little dock, zipped the sandy car key firmly into the pocket of her windbreaker, checked the zipper twice, and dropped into the black water.
Surprisingly, it was warmer in the water out of the wind, and she began moving her arms and legs, swimming with stiff, jerky strokes until she reached the dock to the final gate. She hung onto the pier a moment, then managed to pull herself one more time out of the water and onto the wooden walkway. This time she staggered to her feet immediately, and began lurching toward the gate, wiping the sandy car key against her pants leg as she went. She had to get to her car and under that wool blanket.
She was already at the end of the lot, rounding the curve onto Brommer Avenue, when she heard another siren. Shrinking back into the shadows, she waited while another ambulance passed. Different siren, and by the flashing light she thought she could make out “Harbor Patrol” on the side. Well, she needn’t have worried about whether her call would get a response. They were having a regular hootenanny in there. She forced herself to count to ten after the ambulance passed, then staggered back out and spotted her parked Subaru with a sob of relief.
She couldn’t tell how much time had passed by the time she’d started her engine, turned the heater on high, peeled off her wet clothes and wrapped her gritty body in the blanket in the back seat. She pulled the windbreaker over her icy hair and tied the sleeves under her chin, pulled her whole head under the blanket, and lay as still as possible, completely out of sight.
After a few moments heat began to fill the car, and her hands and feet began to burn. She was pretty sure that burning was good. She didn’t think the ambulance had come out again. Either ambulance, come to think of it. What was taking so long?
Would Ken remember Roy’s confession? He seemed pretty knocked out by that drug and the carbon monoxide, so maybe he’d never even heard most of it. The wet wool next to her face stank wonderfully of hay and something else (her cat, Blizzard?) and she was shivering again. Was Ken still shivering, or had he warmed up now inside that ambulance? She wished she could reach out and touch his face.
Or Eddie’s chest, with both hands. Or Eddie’s whole body pressed against her, his gray eyes resting on her face. Whoa! That sort of got the blood pumping.
She remembered Roy’s startled face as she stepped around the side of the cabin and Maced him. Again and again she replayed it in her mind, studying his expression, and it really did seem he was trying to place her. Fucking snob never could remember who she was. Ha! Her chattery smile widened into her slightly loony grin, and she heard herself chuckle. Uh-oh, was this the beginning of shock? She really didn’t think so, but she’d have to lie very still and silent until her violent shaking subsided and she could trust her driving. And she wanted the ambulance to pass. The last thing she needed was some wailing ambulance crawling up the Subaru’s backside once she did get on that road.
How much would she tell her father about this? Probably not much. No reason to scare him, really, and why take a chance on putting any of this in writing, ever? What would the cops make of the hole in Roy’s hand? What would Katie-Ann think when Georgia showed up naked with seaweed in her hair?
Through the thick veil of the blanket, she saw pulsing red light, and heard one engine and then another grow louder and then pass. Beyond her, at the end of the street, sirens began to wail again. Sounded like both ambulances. Good. In another minute she’d force her bare arms into the clammy sleeves of her windbreaker, climb into the driver’s seat and get
going. She was still shivering, and sharp needles pierced her feet and hands. But hey, no whining. Shivering might be painful, but it meant she was going to be fine.
Dearest Daddy,
I have had an unpleasant scare. It is all right now, and except for a pesky bout of pneumonia, I am no worse for the wear. I won’t bore you with the details, but I will say that a certain mark turned out to be a more accomplished trickster than I could possibly have imagined, and he very nearly got the better of me. This has taught me not to underestimate my adversary in any enterprise. If and when I next employ my special talents, I intend to incorporate that learning fully.
For the foreseeable future, however, I have regretfully accepted that I cannot allow my special talents to jeopardize my ability to provide a stable home for Katie-Ann. Until she is safely in college, I intend to sacrifice all use of artful deception to the greater good of being here for her, and for some other people. Well, only one other so far, but maybe there could be others. This last may surprise you, Daddy. I have developed a kind of gratitude that extends beyond our own family, and have not quite gotten my mind around it yet.
My other news is also good. Kate (formerly our own Katie-Ann) has earned herself an A- in her geometry class, which is a miracle of focus and determination. She is studying regularly, and has made a friend who is a bit of an animal rights nut, but otherwise satisfactory. The three of us intended to go to a movie this weekend with my new friend, Eddie, but since this pneumonia is proving stubborn, I have decided to let Katie-Ann drive there herself to celebrate her new driver’s license, which I am confident she will handle responsibly. I believe she is maturing nicely, Daddy.