Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series)

by Evans, Mary Anna

  Amande’s dreams of rescue had been dashed with Justine’s death. Her mother was never going to sweep into her world and fix it, but maybe there was somebody out there who would.

  Something about that speck on the horizon had brought Amande comfort and hope.

  Something about it made her think of Faye.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Faye’s goal was in sight. She had a clear view of the path Steve would take when he returned to the cabin, so she knew that Amande was still in there alone. The only door was on the far side of the cabin, which wasn’t as bad as it seemed. There was no need for her to walk around and go through that door, risking being seen by Steve. The glass had been gone from both windows on her side for years, from the looks of things.

  It wouldn’t be easy to shove Michael through one of them and then crawl through herself, but it wouldn’t be the hardest thing she would do before bedtime, either. The land between her and the cabin was covered with shrubby underbrush and marsh grass where she wouldn’t leave obvious footprints. For once, nature was on her side.

  Faye had lingered in the water until she’d almost worked out a way to get Amande out of there and to get all three of them off the island, but Michael’s presence complicated every plan she tried to make. She was going to have to improvise. She’d never seen an old movie that climaxed with the cavalry topping the hill, coming to the rescue with bugles blaring, while the soldiers cared for the toddlers astride their saddles in front of them. This did not mean that it couldn’t be done.

  Sticking a pacifier in Michael’s mouth and clipping its handle firmly to his shirt, she crept up to the window and manhandled him and herself through it. Her little pocketknife was sufficient to cut through the ropes binding Amande, but it took some time. Finally, the girl was free. It was time to get out of the cabin.

  Faye struggled back through the window, then took Michael from Amande and helped her crawl through. Bowed down by the weight of Michael in a heavy backpack designed for Joe, she could barely stand, but it made more sense to crawl anyway. Only the waving of the underbrush and marsh grasses would give away their position as they made their way back to the boat.

  It would have made sense to shift Michael from her scrawny back to Amande’s broad, strong one, but Faye knew that her last nerve would snap into two ragged pieces if she lost the ability to protect Michael with her own body. Also, Amande looked like she was one adrenaline jolt away from complete collapse.

  They had no choice but to move slowly. Michael was so heavy that Faye regretted every spoonful of baby food that she’d ever shoveled into him. He was enjoying their adventure, burbling constantly, and Faye was grateful that the wind had kicked up. She could barely hear him over its noise. If Steve were to find them, it would be by sight, because he wouldn’t be able to hear them and he damn sure wouldn’t be able to smell them over the pervasive stench of oil.

  Faye found a spot sheltered from view by a low sand dune on the bay side and by vegetation in the other directions. It was a good place to pause and get a bearing on Steve’s location, after having spent a few minutes with her vision blocked. Still on all-fours, she raised herself up enough to peer over the dune. The sight of Steve standing in the water beside her boat was nearly enough to make her lie down and quit.

  The words, “He knows I’m here,” escaped her lips and she wished them back with the adult’s instinct to protect a child from bad news. It was a ridiculous feeling, since there was no way to hide the situation from Amande for long, but she felt it anyway.

  Faye’s world grew even darker when she saw Steve remove the hose that carried fuel from her boat’s tank to its engine. His boat, on the opposite side of the island, was now their only exit.

  Hose in hand, he stormed toward the cabin, passing uncomfortably close to their hiding place. He leaned his entire upper body into one of the open windows, then emerged, stomping and gesturing and, presuming Faye’s lip-reading was accurate, cursing. Now he knew that Amande was gone.

  The wooded area was the only obvious hiding place on the island, so he must be headed past the spot where he’d been digging, deeper into the copse of trees, on the theory that they’d somehow sneaked past him and hidden there. It would take only a few minutes to search that area. If she could get Amande and Michael to Steve’s boat in that amount of time, and if he’d left the keys in the boat, then they were saved.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t think it was possible. The distance was too far. Michael was too heavy. There was no cover on that side of the island, so they would be visible as soon as they got past the cabin. It was entirely possible that Steve would be able to see them from that very moment, and he looked capable of outrunning Faye, even when she wasn’t burdened by a backpack full of her cherished son. She couldn’t know where Steve was or what he could see until she committed herself to making a run for it, and she simply couldn’t take that gamble with the children’s lives.

  Faye needed to make her decision, and she needed to move. She did so.

  “Follow me,” she hissed. “I’m going to hide you two in plain sight. Since he’s already checked the shack, it probably won’t occur to him to search it again.”

  Once through the window, she lifted Michael from her back and handed him to Amande. Shedding the backpack, she took her pocketknife and cut off her own shirttail. Amande followed her, wearing a question mark on her face, as Faye fashioned the scrap of fabric into a tight roll. Moving to the kitchen counter, she opened Steve’s bottle of Jack Daniels. Amande’s expression said she was shocked to see Faye suddenly starting to behave like her drunken relatives.

  Faye doused the roll of fabric with copious quantities of Jack, soaking it through, then she stuck it deeply into the plastic container of sugar sitting beside the liquor bottle. Handing Amande a sugar tit that would have made Miranda proud, she said, “Here. If Steve comes back, Michael cannot make a sound. Not a single solitary sound. He needs to be unconscious. Keep this in his mouth the whole time I’m gone. Put some more whiskey on it, if you need to. Now give me your shirt.”

  As Faye stripped off her own shirt and handed it to her, Amande stood there with the baby on her hip and her mouth agape.

  “I’m going out this window,” Faye said, “and I’m going to get Steve as far from his boat as humanly possible. And I do mean far…way out there in the water.” Faye gestured out the back windows, far into the bay. “When that happens, you take Michael and you go out that door. Get in Steve’s boat and go home.”

  “That would leave you here alone with—” Amande stopped and tried again. “He messed up our boat. If I take that one, you’ll have no way to get off this island.”

  “Yes, I will. You’ll tell Joe and Benoit where I am, and they’ll bring me some help.”

  “That’s too long for you to be out here alone with Steve. He’ll…Faye, he killed Dane. And my grandmother and my uncle, too.”

  “I know.”

  “I won’t leave you here with him.”

  Faye reached up and grabbed Amande by the shoulders, bringing the girl’s face all the way down to hers. “Yes. You will.”

  She let go of Amande with one hand and used it to cradle Michael’s round cheek. “Look at this child. Look at him. He cannot take care of himself. I can, but I have to know that you and Michael are safe first. This is what it means to be a grown-up.”

  Amande was shaking her head and pulling away. Faye gripped her shoulder and brought the panicked girl back down to her level. “You have to help me by getting the two of you off this island. Believe me when I say this: when the turmoil is all over, I’ll still be standing. Now give me that shirt. And give me that purple hat, while you’re at it.”

  Amande pulled off the shirt and hat and her dark curls streamed over the tender skin of her bare shoulders. “Here,” she said, handing them over, tears streaming down her face. “Take this, too.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a stone blade that Faye recognized from Amande’s collection.

  Fay
e handed Amande her own shirt in trade, then grasped the wrist of the hand holding the blade and pushed it back toward her. “No, you might need that. And keep this trowel, too. It won’t help me where I’m going. Don’t worry. I’m armed and I have a plan.” She brandished her pocketknife. “When Steve is completely focused on me—you’ll know when—make a run for his boat. If something goes wrong and he comes here instead of chasing me, take Michael and get in the broom closet. If he doesn’t look for you in there, then you’ll have another chance to escape when he leaves.”

  Faye pulled Amande’s shirt on and drew her hat down low on her forehead, then she kicked off her shoes. She reached out her arms and drew Amande and Michael close, saying nothing but, “I love you both.” Then she went out the window before she had a chance to change her mind.

  ***

  Amande stood at the window and watched Faye run. Wearing Amande’s brightly colored hat and shirt, she’d lingered at the corner of the shack, fully visible in three directions, until Steve came into view. When Faye knew for a fact that he’d seen her, she’d run for the water. Steve had taken off at a run, as Faye had known he would.

  Amande had watched Faye run toward the boat Steve had disabled and past it. He’d followed. She’d kept a hand on her head as if to hold the purple hat on, but Amande could see that her real motive had been to obscure her face. From a distance, it wasn’t completely obvious that she was far smaller than Amande. Were the distinctive hat and shirt enough to convince him that this was the girl he needed to silence? Maybe. They had certainly provoked the desired response. When Steve saw her, he took the bait.

  As she watched, Amande poured more whiskey on the sugar tit and stuck it in Michael’s mouth again. Faye had told her to get in the broom closet with him the instant that Steve headed their direction. It hadn’t happened yet, and maybe it wouldn’t, but she wanted to be ready. If the opposite happened, if he continued chasing Faye in her guise as an Amande decoy, then she was to pick the right time and run for Steve’s boat, keeping the shack between her and Steve. This plan seemed quite workable as a way to get Amande and Michael off the island, but Amande saw no way that it could turn out well for Faye.

  As Faye reached the edge of the water, she kept running. It seemed to take forever for the water to reach her hips, but when it did, she threw off the hat and struck out swimming. Steve lumbered into the water, clumsy but strong, and soon enough he was swimming, too.

  Faye was faster than he was, but what was she planning to do? Swim all day and all night, until she reached help?

  Suddenly, she stopped swimming and Amande could see that she’d reached a spot that was deep enough to tread water. As she hung still in the water, waiting for Steve to catch up, she looked up at the shack as if to catch Amande’s eye. It was her signal to go. But how could she turn and run when Faye was hardly an arm’s-length from a killer?

  Michael gave the sugar tit a weak lick, then laid his head against Amande’s arm. His dark eyes were so trusting. She knew what she had to do.

  Backing away from the window, she kept Faye in sight as long as she could. Then she turned and ran out the door.

  There was no sound but the wind as she ran. No shouts or screams made their way over the slight rise of the island, so there was no way for her to know what was happening to Faye. There was nothing for her to do but save Michael.

  He was so heavy, draped over her shoulder in a sleep so deep that it was one step short of death. She could hardly breathe when she reached the shore, but she had to go further, pushing through thigh-deep water until she reached the spot where Steve’s boat was anchored. Panting, she lowered Michael over the side and climbed in.

  Only then did she know for sure that they were saved. Steve’s keys lay waiting in the captain’s seat. Now Amande knew what utter joy felt like.

  No, that wasn’t true. Utter joy came for Amande when her eyes lighted on the boat’s radio. It would have taken her an hour to go get help and another hour to bring them back. Being able to call for help would cut that time in half. Faye was facing down a killer now, so this radio didn’t solve their problems, but it certainly didn’t hurt. How fortunate it was that Amande knew how to operate both a boat and a radio.

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday, mayday! Who’s out there? Mayday!”

  ***

  Faye assessed her opponent. Steve could handle himself in the water, but he didn’t have the streamlined speed of a slender woman who had spent her adult life living on an island and swimming in open water. Out here, where there was nothing solid to use for leverage, his weight and strength were not the advantage they were on land. There was nothing she could do about his superior reach, but counterbalancing that superior reach was her superior intellect. Steve had been so dead-set on catching her and killing her that he hadn’t even had sense enough to take off his shoes before he ran into the water.

  She kept herself just out of his grasp. As expected, he pulled a big knife and she backed away another few inches to account for its extension of his reach. She held up the fist holding her own pocketknife, and he actually laughed at its inadequacy. Then his knife arced for her throat and she dove for the bottom. She heard the bubbling whoosh of his arm slicing through the water, and she knew that he’d missed her by an inch at most.

  Hovering near the bottom, obscured by the sand Steve had kicked up, she had time to consider her best target before she struck. She buried her short blade in his calf muscle and watched both legs thrash with his pain. Then she made two slashes at his thighs and his buttocks, before propelling herself off the bottom, arching away from him as she came up for air. A thin smear of oil coated her skin, and it stank.

  She saw a blind light in Steve’s eyes. Hatred, murderous intent, madness—whatever it was called, it made a man dangerous, but it did not make him rational. He lunged at her, aiming the knife at her chest this time. He could not conceive of any attack other than a killing blow. She dodged him again, diving to strike at Steve’s exposed skin—at his belly where the shirt had ridden up beneath his armpits and at his back and at the ankles above his shoes.

  Surfacing once more, the oily, salty water dripped down her forehead and stung her eyes. Further out, a huge oil slick made the water shimmer in every color. And just beyond that, Dane’s body was the source of a great plume of blood that was still drawing predators to feed. It was only a matter of time before they smelled Steve and saw the fascinating movements of his legs dangling in the water. Faye’s primary goal now was to avoid letting her own blood be spilled. She was perfectly happy for Steve alone to serve as shark bait.

  When she saw the fins approach, she dove once more and opened up a few more wounds for the sharks to smell, then she pushed hard off the bottom and swam for shore. She needed to get far from this place. The sharks were coming and Steve’s blood was calling them in.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  When the boats appeared on the horizon, Amande didn’t wait to find out whether they were captained by Joe or Benoit or some random boat-owning souls. She gunned the motor and headed around the island, motioning for them would follow.

  She was horrified at the thick layer of oil being blown in from the open water. It was coming from the direction where she knew that Dane’s body must still be floating. She tried not to look there.

  Following the curve of the island, she caught sight of something awful. Idling the motor, she focused her young eyes on the things floating in the water. Was that Dane at the center of the circling fins? Or was it—

  Oh, please don’t let it be Faye.

  Then she saw someone on the shore standing near the shack. That someone was wearing her shirt.

  Giving the sharks a wide berth, she maneuvered closer in, close enough to hear Faye yelling at her. “I told you to go get help!”

  Amande held the radio receiver high. “I did! I got through to the sheriff’s office, and they got me through to Benoit. He and Joe left the marina just after we did. They’re right behind me.” She raised the m
otor and hopped out, dragging the boat onto the sand.

  Looking out into the water where Steve’s body bobbed, Amande asked, “Did you know that my grandmother had a special bond with La Sirene? The mambos say she’s a voodoo goddess who lives in the water. My grandmother would say that La Sirene sent the sharks to you.”

  “Dauphine told me about La Sirene a long time ago. Maybe she did send me the sharks. Or maybe your grandmother did it.”

  Faye deliberately turned her back on the water and on the sharks and on Steve.

  “I thought it would be hours before I saw you,” she told Amande, “so I’ve started poking around in the artifacts Steve had already found and stored in the shack. Come see.”

  Faye led her into the shack and picked something up off the kitchen counter. She held out an open palm so Amande could see. Resting in it was a corroded iron shackle, half the expected size.

  “It was used by slavers, probably while they were transporting children from Africa here to be sold,” Faye said. “There’s no other explanation. There could be a reasonable explanation for adult-sized shackles to confine prisoners or, in those days, the dangerously mentally ill. But what other reason is there to put shackles on a child?”

  Amande took a step back and instinctively turned Michael’s dozing face away from the tiny shackle.

  “Steve didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Faye continued, “but he’d brought some interesting stuff up off the bottom of the bay. A few ballast stones. Broken pieces of pottery that looked like it came from olive oil jars. Lots of glass.”

  “No treasure?”

  “No treasure. I don’t think Dane would have ever found his treasure. I’m not sure he would have ever even found his ship, because he was looking in the wrong place.”