Tahoe Dark (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller Book 14)

by Todd Borg

  Diamond was to one side of the door, his gun up, but not aimed. He knew that the two women and Spot were both in the way.

  Then Spot appeared. He had his jaws around Jonas’s right thigh and was dragging him backward toward the doorway, away from Evan and Mia. His growl was ferocious.

  I couldn’t see the spear. I reached in past Spot, and grabbed Jonas by his left arm, one hand around his bicep, the other hooking into his belt. Diamond appeared next to me, still holding his gun. With his left hand, he grabbed the spear which Jonas held in his right hand. Diamond jerked the spear away from Jonas’s grasp and tossed it toward the stern of the boat where it clattered toward the stowage bins.

  “Okay, Spot, you can let go,” I shouted.

  He released Jonas’s thigh.

  I jerked Jonas out through the door onto the aft deck. Despite my hold on him, he was as strong as a wild animal, writhing and jerking in unpredictable ways. Spot stayed next to Jonas, snapping and growling. Diamond raised his gun with both hands but hesitated.

  I pulled on Jonas, dragging him away from the pilothouse. He grabbed a support rail. I pulled his hand free. My feet were slipping on the wet deck. The boat was leaning hard to port as it arced around in a sharp left turn. Behind the boat, the canoe was bouncing violently on the waves of the wake, its bow line still hooked on the cleat where Diamond had tossed it. As the big boat turned, it looked like it might ram into one of the other boats that was moored not far away.

  I reached to grab the stern rail for support. Once I could force Jonas down on the deck, Diamond could cuff him.

  But Jonas looked past me toward the following canoe as if thinking that it represented a potential avenue of escape. Like a cornered animal that fights to the death, he lunged again, this time surprising me by leaping toward me using my pull to accelerate himself. Jonas twisted in a way I didn’t expect, and my hand came off his arm.

  Jonas might have succeeded in leaping right past me and into the water. But before I could react, Spot reached out and caught Jonas’s ankle. Spot’s grip was firm and he arrested Jonas’s leap, jerking him back out of the air.

  Jonas crashed backward down onto the edge of the boat, his lungs making a loud whomphing exhalation as he hit, his body bending backward over the gunwale. His feet were on the aft deck surface, the small of his back on the boat’s gunwale edge, and his head bending back and down toward the rushing black water just below. The hockey mask flew off and fell toward the canoe behind us.

  Jonas had his wind knocked out of him. He opened his mouth but could not find air to speak. With great apparent effort, he raised up his head. The look on his face was astonishment. But he wasn’t looking at Diamond or me or even Spot. He was looking at the point of the bloody ski pole spear protruding from his abdomen just below the base of his sternum. He stared at it, trying to comprehend how the ski pole that Diamond had tossed could have fallen into the stowage bin and lodged with the deadly end pointing up.

  Jonas’s eyes didn’t lose their surprise. But even in the dark, we could tell that they lost their seeing. I gave Spot the okay to let go of his leg.

  The racing boat had come full circle and was about to crash into the largest of the moored cruisers.

  Diamond holstered his gun, and we rushed into the pilothouse.

  Diamond jerked back on the shifter, pulling it from Forward to Neutral. He spun the wheel to starboard.

  The big boat straightened out as it slowed. I saw the larger cruiser out the port windows. Diamond continued to turn the wheel. The boat made a glancing blow against the side of the cruiser, then headed away toward open water as we coasted to a stop.

  The mound of yellow raincoats hadn’t moved.

  “Can you find a light?” I said.

  I heard Diamond move. A reading light flipped on at the chart table. It was enough to see.

  I sat on the edge of the bench.

  “Can you hear me, Mia?” I said in a soft voice. “It’s Owen. Everything is okay. The bad men are gone. I’m going to lift off these raincoats. I need to make sure you and Evan are warm. Okay?”

  I peeled back the layers and got down to Mia, who was still draped over Evan. Mia had her arms around Evan. She was crying. She lifted her head and looked up at me. In the dim light, I could see that her eyes were swollen and red, her face wet with tears.

  “Is Evan okay?” Mia asked, her voice cracking with fear and worry. “It’s dark,” she sobbed. “I can’t see if she’s okay. It’s too dark. I’m afraid.”

  “Let me look, Mia.” I pulled back the edge of the hood that was still around Evan’s face. Diamond had found another light switch, and turned it on. The light was another task light at the cockpit, but it cast indirect light toward Evan. Her cheeks had gone from white and cold to red and hot. She was shivering violently.

  “Yes, Mia, Evan is okay. She’s going to be okay.”

  Mia’s face remained concerned, but she made a teary, worried grin and lay back down over Evan and hugged her, squeezing her sister as if she were hugging the essence of life itself.

  EPILOGUE

  A week later, we had an early evening picnic at the Wingfield Park island in the Truckee River in downtown Reno. The river gushed, the combination of outflow from Lake Tahoe 2000 feet above and the snow melt from the mountains near Donner Pass. We walked along the river rapids and found a comfortable place to spread out blankets on the grass. Street pulled out a gourmet dinner of roasted, skinless chicken and a salad of spinach, beet-leaves, and asparagus drizzled with olive oil and fresh lemon. Spot and Blondie lay dutifully to one side. Blondie watched the evening kayakers practicing their moves in the white water park. Spot stared at the food.

  “Your hound is as focused as an eagle watching a bunny rabbit,” Diamond said as he munched chicken wings. “Strange he’s not drooling.”

  “That’s because he understands this to be a human-only dinner.”

  As soon as I said it, Street reached into her carrier and pulled out two rolls of waxed paper. “Chicken burritos for His Largeness and Blondie,” she said. She unwrapped one and held it up in front of Spot. Street was wearing her metamorphosis necklace. The small amber gem dangled at the base of her neck, catching the light and making the butterfly within sparkle.

  “Now he’s drooling,” I said, as Spot watched Street hold out the burrito.

  “Drool ain’t the word,” Diamond said. “More like Yosemite Falls.”

  Street tossed the burrito, and Spot grabbed it out of the air. Saliva flew. Next, she fed a smaller buritto to Blondie who was much more controlled with her enthusiasm. Blondie chewed with a sense of decorum. Spot, who’d already finished his, watched Blondie.

  “Heard Mallory’s boys found the money in the kid’s boat,” Diamond said.

  “Yeah. Like everything in this case, the story that Jonas sold the boat to Flynn was more obfuscation, a ruse to direct suspicion at Flynn. All Jonas did was loosen the drain valve until the boat filled partway with water. That way no one would look in the bilge and see that the second fuel tank was actually filled with money. When the murders were pinned on Flynn, and the interest in the case died down, Jonas probably would have pumped out the boat and figured out how to launder the money. Or he could have just dipped into his fuel tank stash now and then to enjoy his untraceable cash in amounts small enough to avoid notice.”

  “A couple grand a month fun money for the next twenty years,” Diamond said.

  Evan was eating salad. She leaned over toward Street. “This is how you stay so thin. Spinach has no calories.”

  “Yes. And every time I make dinner for Owen, I worry that he stops for a chocolate shake on his way home. Anyway, you’re lean, too.”

  “But not because of my diet,” Evan said. “I have a terrible thing for chips. But it turns out that you can’t eat chips while you clean houses. I know, because I’ve tried. If I ever get into law school, I’ll be in big trouble.”

  “No wonder you get along with Owen. You have the same impulses.�
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  “Speaking of law school,” I said. “I saw Assistant DA Steve Ditmars yesterday. He asked if I had your address. I told him no but that I was seeing you tonight. So he asked me to give you a note.”

  Evan frowned as I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a folded envelope. I handed it to her. “Sorry, it got kind of munched.”

  Evan opened the envelope and pulled out two pieces of paper. She skimmed over the first page, then looked at the second, reading it carefully. She turned back to the first.

  “Everything okay?” I said when I saw tears well up in her eyes.

  She nodded. “Yeah. This is… I don’t know what to say. He says he’s sorry that he misjudged me and underestimated me. He’s written me a letter of recommendation to law school and says he’ll send it to whatever schools I decide to apply to. He also says that when I get out of law school, I should give him a call if I want a job.”

  “Wow, Evan, that’s fantastic!” Street leaned over and hugged her. Then Street turned to Mia. “Mia, your sister is going to go to law school! She’s going to be a lawyer!” Mia’s grin was wide.

  “Owen told me you’re going to follow in the Arabella Mansfield tradition,” Diamond said. “You’re going to be the first college graduate in your family. And soon, house cleaner turned lawyer.”

  “Thanks, but we don’t know that, yet,” Evan said. “Law school is very hard. Who knows if I can get in, and who knows if I can ever pass the bar exam.”

  “I know,” I said. “I believe in you.”

  “Me, too,” Street said.

  “Count me in,” Diamond said. “Whole lotta belief in you going around here. And besides, ain’t no way law school and the bar exam is as hard as that night swim. Takes more time, maybe, and there’s more stuff to know and remember. But not harder. You kicked butt, and that saved your sister.”

  “Me,” Mia said. “Evan saved me.”

  After we ate, we walked back to where we had parked the Jeep and Diamond’s ancient pickup. Blondie and Spot got into the Jeep, where they could snooze away their dinner while we headed out for the rest of our evening. While we walked, Evan and Mia held hands, and I realized that their relationship was something that most people never experience.

  Street and I had a moment to ourselves. We held hands, too.

  “Remember how you asked me to tell you if I wanted help protecting myself from my father?” Street asked.

  “Did you make a decision?”

  “I think so. I don’t want to go all Rambo in preparing for something that may never happen. But I also don’t want to ignore the threat. If he comes to punish me for all those years he spent in prison, I want to be ready.”

  “You want the middle ground approach?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, we’ll begin tomorrow and follow whatever schedule suits you. Alarm system, awareness training, fitness regimen, self-defense practice. You’re already very fit. But in a month, you will be a new woman, not fixated and constantly focused on a potential threat, but ready. In two months, you’ll be primed and practiced. And if he comes for you, the thin, petite, bug scientist will be ready. He will get the surprise of a lifetime.”

  Street nodded. “Thanks. That’s what I want.”

  The five of us walked to the Pioneer Center theater on Virginia in downtown Reno, where they were playing a revival of the musical Peter Pan. The performance had been sold out, but I’d requested that the box office call if they had a cancellation. The next day they called to say a patron had canceled his seats, freeing up seven expensive seats in the center of the orchestra section. I immediately took five of the seats without checking with my proposed theater companions. But when I called them, they all said yes.

  In the lobby before the show, I introduced myself to a distinguished-looking woman whose name tag said she was Alison Brechtel, House Manager. We talked a bit and agreed to meet after the show.

  Mia sat in the center of our block of five seats, with Street to her left and Diamond on Street’s far side. Evan sat to Mia’s right, and I sat next to Evan on the far right.

  I’ve never been a big fan of musicals, but there was no denying the professional level of the singing and dancing and, in the case of Peter, flying.

  The show was based on the 1954 version that starred Mary Martin, the same show as the TV version that Mia had seen dozens of times.

  “Has Mia been to see lots of musicals?” I whispered to Evan.

  “Just on TV. This is her first live theater of any kind.”

  “So this is a kind of big deal for her.”

  “You have no idea how big a deal this is.”

  Mia beamed through the entire show.

  After the show, as the crowd worked their way up the aisles, the manager Alison Brechtel met us in the lobby. She introduced herself to Mia. “Owen McKenna tells me you’re a big fan of Peter Pan and Neverland. I thought you might like to meet Peter and Captain Hook. They’re backstage in the green room. Would you like that?”

  Mia was speechless. She turned and gave Evan a questioning look.

  “Yes, of course, Mia. How exciting!” Evan said. “Let’s go!”

  So Brechtel led the five of us back along a side corridor, through two doors, and into the green room. The actors were still in costume, talking to fans. Street and Diamond and I stayed back as Ms. Brechtel brought Mia and Evan over to Peter Pan and Captain Hook. From our distance, it appeared that Mia was bouncing on her toes. Both of the actors stayed in character as they shook Mia’s hand. Mia was clearly awestruck, her grin was as high-wattage as grins get. Peter Pan reached out and handed Mia something, and then Evan coaxed Mia away.

  As they returned to us, they both seemed like different people than the women we thought we knew. Mia glowed as if she’d been transported to another world. She held out her hand and showed us a clear vial of what looked like iridescent gold dust.

  “Peter gave me fairy dust!” She shook the vial.

  Evan also beamed, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I saw in her face something very much like excitement and anticipation of a new life.

  We all walked out into the desert night, the stars as brilliant as the lights of Reno and Sparks.

  Mia was ahead of us, talking to both Street and Diamond at once, gesturing with her jar of fairy dust. I pointed toward Mia as I bent down and whispered in Evan’s ear, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone happier.”

  “You haven’t,” she said. “And I’ve never been happier, either.”

  Evan reached for my hand and squeezed it hard.

  About the Author

  Todd Borg and his wife live in Lake Tahoe, where they write and paint. To contact Todd or learn more about the Owen McKenna mysteries, please visit toddborg.com

  A message from the author:

  Dear Reader,

  If you enjoyed this novel, please consider posting a short review on Amazon. Reviews help authors a great deal, and that in turn allows up to write more stories for you.

  Thank you very much for your interest and support,

  Todd

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE BLUE FIRE

  “A GRIPPING NARRATIVE...A HERO WHO WALKS CONFIDENTLY IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SAM SPADE, PHILIP MARLOWE, AND LEW ARCHER” - Kirkus Reviews

  “A THRILLING MYSTERY THAT IS DIFFICULT TO PUT DOWN ...EDGE OF YOUR SEAT ACTION” - Elizabeth, Silver’s Reviews

  "TENSION-FILLED AND FULL OF SURPRISE" - Gloria Sinibaldi, Sierra Sun

  "VERY ATMOSPHERIC, THIS IS ANOTHER EXCELLENT THRILLER BY TODD BORG" - Harvee Lau, Book Dilettante

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE GHOST BOAT

  “THE OLD PULP SAVVY OF (ROSS) MACDONALD...REAL SURPRISE AT THE END” - Kirkus Reviews

  “NAIL-BITING THRILLER...BOILING POT OF DRAMA” - Gloria Sinibaldi, Tahoe Daily Tribune

  “A THRILL RIDE” - Mary Beth Magee, Examiner.com

  “BORG’S WRITING IS THE STUFF OF A HOLLYWOOD ACTION BLOCKBUSTER” - Taylor Flynn, Tahoe Mountain News

 
“THE PACE WILL LEAVE YOU BREATHLESS” - Wendy Schultz, Placerville Mountain Democrat

  “ACTION-PACKED IS PUTTING IT MILDLY. PREPARE FOR FIREWORKS” - Sunny Solomon, Bookin’ With Sunny

  “I LOVED EVERY ROLLER COASTER RIDE IN THIS THRILLER 5+ OUT OF 5” - Harvee Lau, Book Dilettante

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE CHASE

  “EXCITING, EXPLOSIVE, THOUGHTFUL, SOMETIMES FUNNY” - Ann Ronald, Bookin’ With Sunny

  “THE LANDSCAPE IS BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED... PACE BUILDS NICELY AND DOESN’T LET UP” - Kirkus Reviews

  “BE WARNED. IT MIGHT BE ADDICTING” - Gloria Sinibaldi, Tahoe Daily Tribune

  “OWEN McKENNA HAS HIS HANDS FULL IN ANOTHER THRILLING ADVENTURE” - Harvee Lau, Book Dilettante

  “I CAN GUARANTEE THAT THE OLD MAN WILL HAVE YOU CHEERING OUT LOUD BEFORE THE END OF THE BOOK” - Cathy Cole, Kittling: Books

  PRAISE FOR TAHOE TRAP

  “AN OPEN-THROTTLE RIDE” - Wendy Schultz, Placerville Mountain Democrat

  “A CONSTANTLY SURPRISING SERIES OF EVENTS INVOLVING MURDER...and the final motivation of the killer comes as a major surprise. (I love when that happens.)” - Yvette, In So Many Words

  “I LOVE TODD BORG’S BOOKS... There is the usual great twist ending in Tahoe Trap that I never would have guessed” - JBronder Book Reviews

  “THE PLOTS ARE HIGH OCTANE AND THE ACTION IS FASTER THAN A CHEETAH ON SPEED” - Cathy Cole, Kittling: Books

  “A FASCINATING STORY WITH FIRST CLASS WRITING and, of course, my favorite character, Spot, a Great Dane that steals most of the scenes.” - Mary Lignor, Feathered Quill Book Reviews