She was right, and I stood in front of the freezers reveling in the cooler air and struggling with the decision. Finally, I walked back to the counter with black raspberry chocolate in one hand and chocolate fudge brownie in the other.
Bless her heart, Gloria didn’t comment. She rang up both half-gallons and slipped them into a plastic bag. She glanced at Frankie who was standing on tiptoe just inside the glass door, craning her neck to watch Highway 14 and, presumably, for the arrival of her date.
“As nervous as a teenager,” Gloria whispered. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of her, but I think I saw her car Thursday night, after it was stolen.”
My mouth dropped open. “Did you see the people driving it?” I whispered back.
“Only enough to notice they were both male — one dark haired, one light brown or dark blond. The blond guy was younger, wearing sunglasses and a Western shirt — you know, the ones with a scalloped yoke and pearlized snaps? The dark-haired man was wearing a gray t-shirt. Both in jeans and cowboy boots.” Gloria shrugged. “Typical. I just figured they were from out of town since no men I know would voluntarily drive a purple — well, you know.”
I nodded. Finney had said the same thing.
“It didn’t cross my mind that it was Frankie’s car since she was at the museum. But how many purple PT Cruisers are there around here? I should have suspected sooner.” Gloria pressed her palms on the counter and frowned.
“Where were they?”
“Parked in that little hollow just west of the store.” Gloria waggled a finger in the right direction. “I was hauling the trash out. Looked like they were taking a smoke break, like they were on a road trip and stopped to stretch their legs, maybe take a leak in the woods.” She rolled her eyes again. “I provide restrooms, but you’d be surprised how many people — men — use a tree out back. How is that more private than a room with a door that locks? Disgusting.”
“So they didn’t stop at the store? Buy gas?”
Gloria shook her head. “They were just hanging out, waiting or resting or something.”
Waiting to time the attack on George? Or waiting for dark in order to dump the car afterward?
“When was this?” I asked.
“6:00, maybe 6:15.”
Beforehand. Sheriff Marge had said the attack was well planned. I wondered if someone in the hospital had tipped them off, suggested a good time to sneak in. If so, it was a bigger, more organized network than I’d assumed. Maybe they’d brought in hired guns for the job.
I wrinkled my nose. I couldn’t believe I was even thinking the term ‘hired guns’ — in cowboy boots no less. What was this — the wild West?
The hollow where they’d parked was protected from view from the highway by scrub and mounding blackberries. They probably hadn’t realized Gloria could spot them from her back door. And they surely couldn’t have known they were hiding out so near where the owner of their stolen car lived. Proof they didn’t know Platts Landing and its residents.
“You told Sheriff Marge?” I asked.
Gloria nodded. “Archie came and checked the area for evidence. He gathered a few cigarette butts, but that’s it.” She pushed the plastic bag toward me. “Guess you better get going before this melts.”
I scooped up the bag. “Behave yourself,” I said to Frankie as I brushed past her in the doorway.
She tittered.
Oh boy.
oOo
The Surely looked desolate with her black scar and shredded railing. There was no sign of habitation. I hurried down the gangplank.
Just as I raised my hand to knock on the galley door, it opened and Pete stood there, blue eyes sparkling. The amazing scent of sizzling peppers, onions and garlic hit me, and my knees buckled. I grabbed the edge of the watertight hatch.
“Wow,” I breathed.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Pete grinned.
I sniffed appreciatively. “What are you making?”
“Eyes at you.”
“Besides that.”
Pete relieved me of the plastic bag. “Come find out.”
He stashed the ice cream in the freezer and moved to stir something in a cast iron skillet on the stove. “It’s hotter in here, but I think it’d be best if we ate out of sight.” He cast a glance at the port window which was open to encourage a cross breeze.
“The deck looks worse today than yesterday. Maybe I was too stunned to realize how much damage she sustained.” I realized I was stroking the Surely’s kitchen counter as I spoke — as if I could comfort her in her pain. I grinned at the thought of kissing away the Surely’s booboo the way you would a little kid’s. Maybe kissing Pete would have the same effect. But he looked as though he was recovering well from the scrapes and bruises sustained yesterday.
“I’m not in a hurry to fix her — at least not until the crew gets here. I’d rather have the bombers think they’ve disabled her so they don’t come back,” Pete said.
“You think they were after the Surely and not you?”
He shrugged. “It was obvious I was working on the engine, so a bomb in the engine well would have a good chance of hitting me as well as crippling or even sinking the Surely.”
My stomach tightened and the image of little bits of Pete splattered all over the Surely’s engine room flickered on my mind’s screen. I gripped the counter and stared at his back. Healthy and strong, very much alive. I had a lot to be grateful for.
Pete wrapped a dish towel around the skillet handle and carried it to the table. He pulled a foil-wrapped packet of tortillas from the oven and uncovered a dish of charbroiled steak strips.
I forgot all about death and mayhem. “Oh, wow.” I slid onto the bench seat and inhaled over the steaming food. My stomach emitted a protracted, plaintive rumble.
Pete scowled. “When did you eat last?”
“Breakfast.”
He pushed a plate toward me. “Fill’er up.”
I consumed an inordinate quantity of food in a very unladylike fashion. Pete kept pace, though. Eventually, I leaned back and sighed.
Pete chuckled. “Feel better?”
I nodded and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. From across the table, Pete’s gaze lingered on my lips.
I slid off my bench and scooted around to his, nestling up snug against his arm. “I didn’t greet you properly when I arrived.”
Pete kicked the table back, placed strong hands around my waist and pulled me sideways onto his lap. “Are you wanting to make amends?”
I was, and I did.
“Mmmm,” Pete finally murmured. “There’s nothing quite like kissing a girl who tastes like fajitas.”
I pinched him. “It’s your fault.”
He raised my hand and pressed his lips against my palm. “You want ice cream?”
I shook my head, smiling into his gorgeous blue eyes. I didn’t want anything to interrupt this.
He tucked my head under his chin and wrapped me up in his warm arms. He ran his thumb in slow circles on my forearm.
I settled still against him, listening to the best sound in the world — his heartbeat.
A few minutes later, I noticed the dual thumps picking up speed.
His arms tightened. “You hear that?” he muttered into my hair.
My eyes widened, but I didn’t move. What did he mean? Was he making his heart beat faster just for me?
Pete straightened on the bench, jostling me, and I struggled to right myself.
“What?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head then tilted a finger toward the window.
I squinted into the growing darkness outside and strained to pick up what he was hearing.
A high-pitched whine, very soft, fading in and out. It sounded as though a motorized craft was darting closer and farther away, but noise carries unevenly across water.
I searched Pete’s face. We hadn’t turned on lights, so it was hard to read what he was thinking in the gloom, but his tenseness i
ndicated the sound was something to worry about.
He eased me off his lap and stepped through the portside hatch, lifting a pair of binoculars from a hook beside the door on the way. I followed him.
“Too dark.” He said in a low voice. “And they’re running without lights, but I ought to be able to see movement.”
“There.” I pointed. Something crossed in front of a red channel marker light, temporarily eclipsing it.
“They’re circling. There’s going to be another delivery tonight.”
“Where’s the tug?” I whispered.
“Coming.”
I concentrated but couldn’t hear the deep throb of a tug’s engines. “You sure?”
“They’ll do it around the bend, not risk getting too close to the sandbar again. They must coordinate locations and times.”
Pete knows the river the same way I know the Imogene — all her curves and eddies, her shallows and underlying currents, her sounds. I can — and have — navigated the museum in the dark, and I think Pete could do the same on the Columbia. But if I were to make a mistake in the museum, the worst that would happen is a scraped shin or maybe a twisted ankle. If Pete makes a mistake, he could drown or sink his tug.
But I trusted his assessment of the situation completely. I moved toward the door. “I’ll call Sheriff Marge.”
“Text.” Pete grabbed my arm. “If we can hear them, they can hear us.”
He must have felt me nod because he released me. I stumbled through the galley and found my purse on the counter. I dug the phone out and pressed a button. The thing lit up like a beacon. I gasped and shoved it under my shirt.
I pulled my collar up over my head and set about texting Sheriff Marge from inside my shirt.
“Babe.” Pete’s voice sounded strangled.
“What?” I hissed from my tent.
He wrapped an arm around my waist and murmured near my ear. “You’re silhouetted quite nicely. Can you dim that?”
“Oh.” What had he seen? What had anyone seen? I nearly fumbled the phone.
“Here.” He slid his hand under my shirt just until he bumped my hand and took the phone from me. I popped my head back out through the neck opening.
Pete pressed buttons, and the phone’s screen quickly faded until it was barely visible. He handed it back to me, his hand shaking a little, and I knew he was trying not to laugh. I cringed, so glad he couldn’t see how fiery red my face was.
I heard him slip through the starboard hatch. His footsteps moved toward the stern.
Sheriff Marge responded immediately. All she typed was Be careful.
I knew it would take a while — at least forty-five minutes and maybe two or three times longer — for a couple deputies to come from wherever in the county they were patrolling and launch their boat. It’d be faster to use civilian watercraft and volunteers, of which there are many. But I didn’t think Sheriff Marge would put their lives at risk knowing the confrontation might involve nerve agent.
I felt my way to the back of the tug. Pete had dropped the lifeboat and was loading a few things under the seats. I knelt on the edge of the deck and hung on to the bowline.
“Go to the Tinsleys’,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll call you later.”
“No way,” I whispered fiercely. “I’m coming with you.”
“Meredith.” There was warning in his tone.
My voice rose. “You are absolutely not going by yourself. I’m sorry, but that sit and stay stuff doesn’t work well on me. You were lucky the first time you tried it.” I sucked in air to calm down. “I’ll not be a burden.”
Pete balanced in the rocking lifeboat, contemplating me for a few silent seconds. “I don’t want you to get hurt.” His voice was soft, deep.
“Don’t you think that’s mutual? But I’d rather ride in the ambulance holding your bleeding body than find out about it later.” I gritted out the words.
Pete exhaled and extended his hand. I grabbed it and clambered down into the dinghy. I perched on a metal bench, and he handed me a lifejacket.
He started the engine then throttled it down to a moderate hum. He cast off, and I pushed hard against the tug’s stern with both hands.
CHAPTER 20
Pete maneuvered out of the port then turned upriver, skirting the bank and keeping in the murky shallows where we were sheltered from view by boulders and overhanging trees. There was no masking the sound of the engine though.
With the lifeboat’s outboard motor thrumming in my ears, I couldn’t hear the distant sounds of the speedboat. I leaned against the boat’s side, squinting into the dark and trying to pick out movement near the channel marker.
When we had fully rounded the bend, Pete sped up and moved farther out into open water. The blunt noses of two barges loomed on the horizon, with the pushing tug’s wheelhouse lit up far behind them — so far I knew there was a second set of barges behind the first, a two-by-two configuration.
Pete let the throttle out all the way, and the light aluminum craft lifted and skimmed the surface. I shivered as spray peppered my face. The rumble of the tug’s advancing engines covered the lifeboat’s rising volume.
I clung to the gunwale as Pete directed the lifeboat straight past the barges — one set, the second set — and finally the tug. We were running without lights too, and I didn’t see any sign that the crew on the tug noticed us.
In fact, the tug’s crew was notably absent. I thought I caught dim green light reflecting off a white face high in the wheelhouse — there had to be someone operating the tug. But no interior lights lit up the tug’s galley or engine room or starboard stateroom windows. Maybe they were all working on the port side.
The tug and barges passed between us and the spot where we’d sighted the speedboat.
Pete cut the lifeboat’s engine until it was barely puttering. He angled out into the middle of the channel and drifted in behind the tug, just beyond the roiling water her props were churning up.
He shifted forward and put a hand on my shoulder. “See anything?” He spoke at almost full volume to be heard over the tug’s engines.
I shook my head. “Is this the same tug as before?”
“No, but the same company. Could be the same crew.” He leaned back and steered the lifeboat to the left.
As soon as I had clear view of the length of the barges’ port sides, I gasped and ducked. Pete saw it too, and quickly dodged the lifeboat into the nook beside the tug but behind the first left-hand barge. The barges linked together are wider than the tug, and the tug is flat-fronted so it can push from anywhere along the back width of the barges. The tug was currently angled toward the right-hand barge, leaving a protected niche at the back of the left-hand barge.
What we’d seen was the speedboat coming straight at us, skimming along the sides of the port-hand barges. I’d caught the silhouette of a man about to throw a line toward the barge. There must have been a deckhand out there to meet them, just like last time.
This close, the tug’s engines vibrated my whole body. But over the roar, I heard the speedboat’s high-pitched whine. They were no longer trying to be quiet.
“Get off.” Pete yelled.
I whirled toward him just as he bumped the lifeboat hard against the tug’s side. I reached up and grabbed one of the tug’s railing posts instinctively, to keep from being toppled over the lifeboat’s side.
“Climb!” Pete jerked the lifeboat out from under me, pivoting to face the oncoming speedboat. “Go.” He gestured wildly.
Hand over hand, I pulled myself up until I could wedge a foot between the lowest rail and the deck. I flung myself over the railing, tumbling awkwardly to a hard landing, but padded by my lifejacket. I wheezed in gasps. I felt like a little kid swaddled in a giant snowsuit, having fallen and unable to get up.
The railing post next to my head pinged loudly, then I heard the report of gunfire. I rolled onto my stomach and tried to get flatter, my heart pounding in my chest. The tug’s wheelhouse lights l
it up the deck and surrounding water like a small city, giving me an excellent, if eerie and long-shadowed, view of what was happening below.
The speedboat had overshot Pete and was looping to return, flinging a brilliant white wake on the dark surface of the river. In the lifeboat, Pete hunkered next to the outboard motor and seemed to be fiddling with something in the bottom of the boat.
Had he been shot? My stomach clenched into a tight knot, and I couldn’t breathe. But the speedboat was closing fast. “Behind you!” I screamed.
Pete hit the throttle, and the lifeboat jumped out into clear water. Then he killed the engine, and the boat drifted to silence just as fast. He was kneeling and lifted a shotgun to his shoulder.
The blast flashed against the dark water and echoed off all the hard surfaces surrounding us. I squeezed my eyes shut — just for a fraction of a second.
When I could see again, the speedboat, still at full speed, was swerving, narrowly missing Pete. The wake sloshed the lifeboat dangerously.
Pete had somehow reloaded in those few seconds and fired another round into the speedboat’s retreating backside. He had moved to draw the speedboat’s attention and so I wouldn’t be in their line of fire.
The speedboat disappeared out of our circle of light. I winced at what I at first thought were more shots fired, then realized the speedboat’s engine was backfiring, choking to death. I rose shakily onto my knees, clinging to the railing.
“Pete,” I croaked, but he was too far away to hear me.
Something grabbed the back of my lifejacket and yanked me to my feet.
I gasped, and a rough hand clamped across my mouth. “Shut up,” a hoarse male voice said, his hot breath bursting on my cheek. He’d had garlic for dinner too.
His other hand was still on the collar of my lifejacket, which left my elbows free. I stepped back fast, throwing my weight against him, and twisted away, punching my right elbow into his side.
He doubled over, and I backed up against the railing.
His hands had been hard, but his middle was squishy. A coarse mop of light brown hair fell over his eyes. He was dressed in a sweat-stained gray t-shirt, jeans and leather boots.
Tin Foil (Imogene Museum Mystery #4) Page 14