“Let’s roll it,” Nora said and leaned back and tried to push the craft up, succeeded only in driving herself deeper in the water.
“All right. We can try.” Renee swam closer, dipped under the boat, and braced her hands on the edge, as Nora had. “On three.”
It took them two tries, but they flipped it. The motor was the key; once that weight had shifted enough, it overbalanced the boat and did the rest of the work for them. By the time the boat was finally floating upright, though, they didn’t have the strength left to climb into it. They waited for a few seconds, hanging off the side, and then tried again. This time Nora made it easily, then turned back and got her hand around Renee’s forearm and helped her into the boat.
They sat there on the bottom of the boat, getting their breath back and staring at one another. The water had been freezing, but now Nora felt even colder as the wind fanned over them.
“Where are the others?” Renee reached up and gathered a handful of her hair, ran her hand down it in a fist, squeezing the water out. Her eyes were on the lake, away from Nora.
“On the island. Well, one of them is dead. The guy they left on the boat with me is dead. I think someone shot him. That’s why we tipped over.” Nora took a deep breath, wiped water from her eyes, and said, “And Devin is waiting at Frank’s cabin.”
Renee sat with her hand still wrapped in her wet hair and stared at Nora with a look that made Nora’s neck prickle.
“What did you say?”
“Your husband is waiting at Frank’s cabin.”
Renee said, “You’re confused,” but Nora was already shaking her head.
“He’s alive, and he’s there,” she said. “He’s not in good shape, but he’s alive. Vaughn shot him.”
Renee let go of her hair. Her mouth was parted slightly, her eyes distant. “Vaughn shot him?”
“That’s what Devin said.” Nora watched the other woman’s face, then added, “That’s what Devin said while he put me and Frank into a van at gunpoint and came out here and had an FBI agent murdered at the cabin. The one named AJ killed him with a knife.”
The words slid by Renee without any apparent effect. She said, “Vaughn shot Devin. I’ve been up here with him, and he’s the one who shot Devin. He tried to kill Devin.”
“Yes,” Nora said.
Renee was looking at the lake without seeming to see anything. She said it again. “Vaughn shot him.”
Nora was shivering violently now, the wind and her drenched clothing combining to drop her body temperature.
“Can we start the motor?” Renee said.
Nora turned and looked at it. The thing had been upside down for a while, but it still looked in place, everything as it should be.
“Probably.”
“Try to start it, please.”
“Where are we going?” Nora asked as she moved for the stern.
“To my husband. But first we’re going to stop at that island. I left a gun there.”
When he heard the first shot, Frank was down in the hole with AJ, relieving the body of its gun and the boat key. The sound almost dropped him to his knees, overwhelming him with a sense of defeat. He was too late. Ten minutes had gone by and Nora Stafford was dead. He’d let her die.
Then there was another shot, and a third, and it was this last one that got him moving again, because it hadn’t come from a handgun. He recognized it as a rifle shot, and King didn’t have a rifle.
He was running toward the shots but angled too far to the left and ran into a tangle of undergrowth that he and AJ had not encountered on their walk into the woods. At first he tried to push through it, but that was a bad idea, and he fought his way back out of it and ran parallel to the lake, looking for a gap in the brush that would let him get back down to the shore and to the boat.
He heard voices—it sounded like Ezra—and then there was another volley of shots, three in succession. Who was shooting? He slapped branches aside and cleared the trees, found himself at the top of a muddy bluff, Ezra’s boat screened from sight. Out on the water, the smaller boat, where Nora and King should be waiting, seemed to have overturned and was now floating upside down in the lake. He could see people in the water.
The bluff was steep and slick with wet mud, but he fought his way down it, turning his feet sideways to limit his momentum, his shoes plowing furrows in the soggy earth, and then he was in the water up to his knees, splashing down the shore toward the collection of stumps and trees where he’d left Ezra’s boat.
As he stumbled through the water, something began to happen with the boat out in the lake. It rose in the air once, then twice, and finally it flipped back over, resting upright again. Two people climbed onto it, and even from out here Frank could see that neither one was tall enough to be King. What the hell had happened? Was Ezra out there with Nora somehow? Or Renee?
When he came around the bluff, Ezra’s boat appeared, and he saw Vaughn on board, standing in the stern, using the trolling motor to pull away from the island.
“Hey!” Frank shouted. “Hey!”
Vaughn turned at the sound, lifted a gun, and fired two wild shots that hit in the water some twenty feet to Frank’s right.
“Stop shooting, you idiot! It’s me! It’s Frank!”
Vaughn was still holding the gun, but he stopped firing, hesitating, and Frank yelled, “Bring it over here! I’ve got the key!”
Vaughn looked down at the big, silent engine on the stern and then lowered his gun. He was struggling with the trolling motor, didn’t seem to understand how to use it, and Frank, trying to go out to meet the boat, was now in water up to his chest, holding the gun high to keep it from going under.
Vaughn finally got the boat pointed in the right direction, and when it reached him Frank caught the side, took one deep breath, and heaved up, got his knee on the side, and used that leverage to force his way onto the boat.
He was collapsed on the starboard seat, fighting for breath, when Vaughn let go of the trolling motor and turned to him with the gun held out in a shaking hand.
“Give me the key.”
Frank stared at him. “What? Get that gun out of my face, asshole.”
“Give me the key!”
Out on the lake a motor coughed several times and then caught, and both Frank and Vaughn looked toward the sound and saw that the aluminum boat was in motion again, headed toward another island, away from them. Vaughn kept staring after it, and Frank planted his feet on the floor, then rose and swept Vaughn’s gun down and away, hit him once in the chest with a closed fist. It knocked Vaughn back against the steering console, and Frank locked his left hand around Vaughn’s wrist and twisted until the fingers opened up and the gun fell to the bottom of the boat.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he said, his face close to Vaughn’s, whose entire body seemed to be shaking. “You could have killed me, you stupid bastard.”
Frank knelt and picked up the gun, wedged it beneath the seat, out of the way, and then put the key in the ignition and twisted. As the motor came to life, Vaughn moved away, and Frank straightened and stared out at the departing aluminum boat. It looked like Nora was at the motor. There was no way she’d hear him, so he lifted his arm and waved it in a slow arc. Finally she saw him and lifted her own hand, but kept taking the boat away, toward the other island.
“What’s she doing?” Frank said, dropping to the seat and moving his hand to the throttle.
“Renee was on that island,” Vaughn said.
“I think she’s on the boat now. What happened to the one who was with Nora on the boat, though?”
Vaughn didn’t answer.
“What about Ezra?” Frank twisted the wheel and turned the boat to go in pursuit of Nora and Renee.
“They shot him,” Vaughn said.
Frank spun to face him. “What?”
Vaughn nodded, his jaw trembling. “Somebody shot him. He’s dead.”
“Who shot him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, where is he?”
Vaughn lifted an unsteady hand and pointed at the water.
36
__________
The sickness that had come and gone during those first few shots returned to Frank as he drove Ezra’s boat away from the island where his father’s old friend had been killed, was somewhere in the water now, joining Atkins, their blood spilling into the lake.
He imagined the bodies down there among the weeds and the stumps, fish swimming past, crimson clouds rising from the wounds and dissipating into the gray water, water that slapped gently against the log wall back at the cabin where Devin Matteson waited. It was on Devin, all that blood in the water, two more lives taken, adding to that total that included everyone Frank’s father had killed, included Frank’s father, who’d fired a bullet into his own mouth with the very gun Frank now held in his hand. All of this was on Devin, Atkins and Ezra and even the two thugs Devin had brought with him, the body count rising at his whim while he sat removed from it all, untouched.
That would end today. Frank was going back to that cabin and he was going to kill him. That would be the last of it. He’d kill Devin, and the others could call the police, and then let it end however it would end. He couldn’t think about that, didn’t care about it, nothing mattering anymore but getting back across this damn lake to put a bullet into Devin Matteson’s heart.
“I’m sorry, Ezra.” He whispered it, and if Vaughn heard he did not react. There was some shared responsibility here, and all of his hatred for Devin didn’t blind him to that. Ezra was dead, and Frank had a role in that. He’d come here for blood, and now he’d seen plenty of it, hadn’t he? None from the correct source, though. That was the last thing he could make right, the only thing.
Nora had taken the other boat into the beach of the island, and as they approached Frank could see that she was still in the stern while Renee was onshore.
“What are you going to do?” Vaughn said. He was in the seat beside Frank, hands trembling on his thighs.
“We’re going to get them and get out of here,” Frank said. He’d brought Ezra’s boat in alongside the other, was staring across at Nora, who looked back at him without saying a word. There were red streaks across her face from the tape that had covered her mouth.
“You okay?” he said, dropping the motor to idle, speaking as his boat thumped against hers.
“I’m here,” she said.
“Ezra’s dead.”
She stared at him.
“Vaughn says they shot him. He’s dead.”
Nora didn’t answer. What did he expect her to say, anyhow? He said, “Get in this boat, and we’ll leave that one behind.”
She nodded and got to her feet, and he reached out a hand to help her step over. As he did it, he turned to Renee, who was walking down from the island. She was moving at a fast, confident pace, stepped right into the lake without breaking stride, moving toward his boat, a gun in her hand.
“Hey,” he said. “Get in. We’re leaving.”
She kept walking, the water up to her knees now. She hadn’t even glanced at Frank; her eyes were locked on Vaughn.
“Put that gun down,” Frank said.
She didn’t say a word. Just walked along the boat toward Vaughn. Frank’s own weapon was on the seat, and he turned and reached for it, thinking Vaughn might do the same, but instead Vaughn rose, climbing over the side of the boat and splashing into waist-deep water, moving toward Renee.
“Renee,” he said. He had his hands outstretched, reaching for her. “Forgive me. It was for you. I love you so much, and you could never understand that, you couldn’t see it, baby forgive me I did it because I love you so—”
He was a few feet away, still moving through the water toward her, still reaching for her, when she lifted the gun and fired. The bullet hit him in the temple and knocked him backward, snapped his head back and turned his eyes to the sky before he dropped into the water and then beneath it.
Frank had just gotten his hand on his own gun, and Nora was still standing in the rear of her boat, waiting to step across. She said something, some whispered gasp or oath or prayer, and Frank stood where he was, in a frozen reach for his gun, as Vaughn’s body sank.
“Let go of that.”
Renee’s voice finally tugged Frank’s eyes away from the spot where Vaughn had collapsed into the water, and he saw she was pointing the gun at him now.
“Let go of it and step back,” Renee said. “We’re leaving now. Just like you said.”
Frank opened his fingers and dropped the gun back onto the seat and stepped away.
“Turn off that engine, and go over there and help her in,” Renee said. “I’m not going to hurt either of you. Okay? But you’re taking me back to my husband now.”
Frank cut the engine and walked to the side of the boat and extended his hand for Nora’s. She just stared at him, and Renee said, “Girl, get in the damn boat,” and Nora took Frank’s hand and stepped out of one boat and into the next.
“Okay,” Renee said. “Now help me in. And, please, don’t try to take this gun. We don’t need that. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Frank didn’t move, didn’t speak. Renee stood there in the water holding the gun and staring at him with challenging eyes.
“He shot my husband,” she said. “Shot him, and then brought me up here. I don’t give a damn if you think I was wrong.”
“He deserved it,” Frank said. “Absolutely had earned it.”
She looked at him strangely, and finally nodded. “Yes.”
Her body looked incredibly small under those saturated clothes, her hair plastered against her face and neck, but her eyes were hard and her jaw was set. The gun looked comfortable in her hands, as if she’d held a few before.
“Help me into the boat,” she said. “Now.”
He walked into the bow, and she slogged through the water to get closer. He reached for her and she extended her free hand, grasped his, her palm smooth and slippery with lake water. When he had a firm hold he leaned back and pulled against her weight, not hard, just what was needed to give her an awkward lift and prove she’d need to use the other hand to help. She hesitated, looking once into his eyes as if searching for a sign of treachery, and then she put the gun down on the bow, still in her hand but temporarily useless as she tried to push off and get over the side.
Frank slid his foot over and placed it on her wrist, the fine bones trapped under his heel.
“Don’t,” she said, looking back at him. This time her face changed as she saw what was in his eyes now, what she’d missed in her first study.
“Let go,” he said.
“Stop. I told you I wasn’t going to hurt—”
He shifted his weight, pressed down on her wrist, and her words cut off in a gasp and then her fingers loosened and she released the gun and slid back off the bow. Frank leaned down and took the gun, worked it into his hand before lifting his foot and freeing her.
“Fine,” she said. “You want the damn gun, keep it. I just want to get back to my husband. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
She stretched her hands up to him again, like a child wanting to be held. He stood where he was and looked down into her face.
“You killed Vaughn in cold blood.”
“He deserved it. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, I did. And you believe that what you did was right.”
“Absolutely.” She’d dropped her hands again, was watching him with wary expression.
He nodded. “Good. You and I, we think alike.”
“Okay,” she said. “So let’s go.”
He turned from her and faced Nora, who was standing in the back of the boat watching this all unfold with a horrified expression. There were splatters of blood on her arm. Vaughn’s blood, probably.
“Nora,” Frank said, “I’m going to have to ask you to get back in the other boat.”
“What?”
“Please,” he said,
voice gentle. “If you’d get back into the other boat, I’d like you to take Renee and go to the dam. You know how to get there? Good. There’s a bait shop right there, just down the road. Go there, and call the police.”
“Frank . . .”
“Take the other boat and go get help,” he repeated. “Please.”
“Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Frank, let’s all go get help together. Don’t go back for him. Let the police—”
“Nora.” He spoke with a stronger voice, and the emphasis made him move his gun hand, almost involuntarily. He hadn’t meant it as a threatening gesture, but her eyes went to the gun and fear rode through them, and when she looked at him again he felt sickened.
“It’s safer for you this way,” he said, but she was already moving, had stepped over the side and back into the smaller boat, moving out of fear. Fear of him, of the gun in his hand and what he might do with it.
“Where’s he going?” Renee said, her voice sharp with alarm. “What’s he talking about? Where are you going?”
He didn’t answer, just walked to the steering console and brought the motor to life and pulled away from them, trying not to see Nora, trying not to remember the way she’d looked when he’d moved the gun. He’d turn his mind elsewhere, to the things that needed remembering, things like Ezra’s body under the water and Devin waiting at the cabin.
37
__________
Ezra liked the trees. Loved the trees. They belonged on land, high above the water, but instead they were in it, supporting him, holding him to the surface. The trees didn’t want to let him sink.
He imagined the bottom was way down there, forty or fifty feet at least. Maybe more. The trees that held him were massive. Oaks probably, or maybe birch? They were big boys, that was for sure. He hadn’t realized how high the lake had risen this spring. All the years he’d been out here, the water had never covered fifty-foot trees. Lucky thing for Ezra this was the year. It must have been a hell of a flood. Strange he couldn’t remember it.
Envy the Night Page 30