Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “Rash, could you cut it open for me?”

  “That a waste of a good fish.”

  “Please? I need to know if there’s anything unusual about it.”

  “Hold the phone.”

  I paced around Nick’s bedroom and heard a whoosh and an impressive thwack over the phone.

  “I back,” Rashidi said. “That fish frozen like a rock. I use my machete.”

  “Holy cow, Rashidi, is anything left of it?”

  “Yah mon, I cut it clean in two.” Now I heard his breath as he sucked it in and held it, then exhaled. “Well cheese-and-bread,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “There a bag in the gut of the fish. White powder. Cocaine, I think.”

  Drugs, in a fish that might have been bound for Fortuna’s. What the hell was Bart mixed up in? Or maybe it wasn’t him. Trevor owned a stake in the restaurant. Who was I kidding—if it was happening at Fortuna’s, Bart was involved.

  “Katie? You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Rashidi, I think you better call the police.” An earnest face flashed in my mind. “Call Morris, Jacoby’s partner. I think he’s one of the good guys.”

  “For true, but tell me the rest of this story first.”

  I told Rashidi what I knew about Jacoby’s ill-fated meeting with the Fortuna’s informant, and when he had what he needed, he hung up to call Morris.

  I heard the door to the garage open and shut. Kurt called out, “Anybody home?”

  I checked the time on the monitor. It was two forty-five. Nick had said the raid was planned for three. It was about to go down. You will not think about it, I ordered myself.

  “I’m in Nick’s room,” I called. “Julie’s running errands and Taylor is asleep.”

  “G’anpa!” Taylor yelled.

  “Was asleep,” I amended.

  I walked into the den and met Kurt halfway across it for a stiff but friendly hug, thinking that Nick really was the younger version of his rugged father. Kurt’s skin was weathered from sun and wind, but it looked good on him. The fishing adventure seemed to have warmed things between us. Or maybe he just felt guilty because I’d puked my guts out.

  The door opened and shut again. “I’m back,” Julie announced.

  “We’re in the living room,” I called.

  “G’ama!” Taylor yelled from his crib.

  When Julie walked in, Kurt leaned down to her and she stood on her tiptoes for a kiss.

  “I’ll go get him, if you don’t mind.” Kurt laid his big hand on my shoulder, and I realized he really wanted to.

  “He’ll need a change,” I warned.

  “I’ll help,” Julie said.

  The two of them headed down the hall. Seconds later, I heard Taylor giggling. I went back to the computer and sat down, listening to Kurt’s deep voice, then Taylor shouting “boat.”

  In my mind, crazy images suddenly lurched by of guns firing, men yelling, and tires squealing. I breathed in and out and told myself my mind was playing tricks on me. I ordered it to stop and focused on the screen. There was a surprise in my email.

  To: katie18annalise@gmail.com

  From: avavavoom@hotmail.com

  Subject: I’m sorry

  Oh Katie,

  I heard what happened. I’m sorry for leaving without telling you. I was pretty mad at you, but that’s no excuse. The demo in New York was a bust. I’m in Venezuela with a gorgeous man I met in the airport. I know you’ll understand when I tell you I think he is the one. I probably won’t see you for a very long time, and I will miss you.

  Love,

  Ava

  P.S. I caught the packers drinking beer at your house. They wouldn’t share with me, so I made them stop.

  Huh, I thought. So Ava writes in proper English. It made sense, since she switched back and forth between island patois and Continental English seamlessly when she spoke.

  And then I realized I was thinking about her grammar instead of her words.

  Venezuela? Wow. I knew Nick would tell me it was pure Ava, saying what Ava would say, doing what Ava would do. I tested my emotions with a probe. I loved her, but I was still mad, mad enough that my only sadness about her departure was that it would be harder to find her and kill her for abandoning Annalise and me. I hoped I could find peace about it someday. Maybe if she was gone long enough. A twist of grief shot through me but I pushed it away. I just didn’t have the bandwidth right then.

  The time read 3:30. Why hadn’t I heard from Nick? Surely the raid wouldn’t take very long. It might already be over. Then I remembered that I’d promised to pray for him. I hoped I wasn’t too late.

  Please please please please please God, let Nick and Collin be safe. The prayer slipped through my silent lips over and over.

  I opened my eyes and looked out the window into the front yard and panic washed over me, paralyzed me as I became sure that things had gone horribly wrong. I began to cry. No sobs, just tears, tears following tears, raining down my face. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. What could I do? I was helpless. Marooned on the island of Port Aransas.

  Not completely marooned, I realized after a minute. I could text Nick. He would have his phone on silent, but he might see it, and he could tell me he and Collin were fine. He would answer me, and it would all be better.

  “Scared. Need update.”

  The back door burst open with the help of a powerful wind and a concussive blast of noise hit my ears. I jumped up and flew to the kitchen—and realized it was only Julie and Kurt taking Taylor into the backyard. Everything was all right. Except that it wasn’t.

  “Katie? Katie? Katie, what’s wrong?” Julie asked.

  She was in front of me, both hands on my arms, shaking me gently at first, and then much more forcefully, but I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. I opened my mouth, but still no sound came out. My mind was working, but my mouth wouldn’t set the words free. I was trapped and screaming on the inside.

  “Kurt, come here,” Julie said in a bigger and sterner voice than I’d thought she was capable of. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I answer her?

  Now Kurt’s big hands were grasping my arm and shoulder as he led me to a barstool. Julie whisked Taylor away from watching me go catatonic.

  Kurt stood in front of me. Ah, Nick’s face. “Katie, talk to me, tell me what’s wrong,” he said.

  My fugue passed. I exhaled, I forced myself to speak. “Nick is involved in something crazy today.”

  “What kind of crazy?”

  Nick was going to be mad, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “He and my brother Collin are with the police in Corpus. They’re doing a sting operation on the Chico’s where Derek works, based on a lead Nick developed by tailing Derek. Nick thinks they’re running drugs through there and using Derek’s little brother to sell it at school.”

  “Huh,” Kurt said. He pulled on his bottom lip. “Huh.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “It got the better of me for a minute. I think I’ll feel better if I take a walk. I’ll put Taylor in the stroller and push him down to see the boats at the marina.”

  Kurt nodded, but he looked doubtful. “Ah, yep. If you’re sure you’re OK.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ve just been feeling a little stressed.” Which was the understatement of the year.

  Five minutes later, I was pushing Taylor down the sidewalk from the Kovacs’ house toward the port. I filled my lungs to capacity over and over, willing my heart to slow down and my mind to clear. The breathing helped. Taylor was singing “the wheels on the bus go round and round.” That helped, too.

  We reached the end of the block and I realized I’d forgotten to bring Oso. He would have enjoyed the jaunt. I thought about going back for him, but decided I didn’t have time to do that and make it home for dinner like I’d promised Julie. She expected Nick to be home then. Which I would not think about.

  Taylor stopped singing, so I took over. “Free your mind, and the rest will follow,” I sang under my breath,
keeping my steps in time to the beat in my head. Everything will be all right, I told myself.

  Except that it didn’t turn out that way.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  I’d had a gun pulled on me before, felt that cold, hard steel against my skin, but it was different this time because I didn’t see it coming. Not one bit. A strong arm grabbed me around the waist and someone jammed the barrel of a pistol into my side under the loose edge of my shirt.

  “Long time no see,” an unforgettable voice said in my ear.

  Derek. But Derek was supposed to be arrested by now. Something had gone very, very wrong.

  “Keep walking, bitch,” he sneered with a tightness and pitch that told me the guy had totally lost it. My heartbeat sounded like a racehorse in my ears, but as I listened to Derek, it slowed down, time slowed down, everything slowed down. I put one foot in front of the other and pushed Taylor’s stroller several more yards until Derek said, “Stop here. Get in my truck.”

  His truck? If I hadn’t known my truck was on St. Marcos, I’d have sworn the old red Ford was one and the same. I let go of the stroller and started to get in, hoping I could leave Taylor on the street, that Derek would just take me. Someone would come by and rescue the boy.

  “Don’t be cute. My boy, too.”

  I leaned in close to Taylor. His eyes were wide. “It’s going to be just fine. Come here, sweets, come to Katie.”

  “Ma,” he said. “Ma. Ma.”

  “That’s right, darlin’, come on now.” I lifted him out and pressed him into my chest. He whipped his head around to stare at Derek.

  “Doesn’t say boo to his own father. Poisoned against me.” Derek gestured with the gun. “Now.”

  I opened the door with one hand and clamped Taylor to my hip with the other. He was a good thirty pounds, but I barely felt his weight at that moment. Derek pointed the gun at us until we were in, then walked around to the driver’s side. I reached out to blow the horn, but nothing happened. No power. No keys in the ignition. Shit.

  Derek got in, reached under the steering wheel, and fiddled with the exposed wires. It wasn’t his truck. I prayed someone would recognize it as stolen and call the cops. The engine roared to life and he made a U-turn.

  “Anybody ever tell you I got a brother?” he asked me. “Bobby?”

  I didn’t see a way out of answering, and I didn’t know what the right answer was, so I said, “Yes.”

  “I was at my job today—my worthless, stupid, insulting, pitiful job that I have to do so I can prove I’m a good daddy and deserve all of what is rightfully mine—when some unexpected customers arrived, only they weren’t there to buy shoes so I could make my crappy commission. They busted in, front and back, weapons drawn, like sneaky pigs.”

  He spat on the floorboard and I jerked my feet away involuntarily, which made him laugh and do it again.

  “I heard it all. I heard them scream at my brother and for everyone to freeze. But Bobby is young, he hasn’t been through this kind of shit before, and he ran. The stupid little prick ran. And then, boom, boom, one of those pigs put a bullet in my brother.”

  My mouth went dry. I kept it shut.

  “You’re wondering right now, how can I be here with all that going down back at Chico’s? Am I right?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He stopped at a red light and turned right.

  “The pigs didn’t know there’s a space above the store where we keep inventory. I’d pretended to be a good employee and gone up to get some more shitty shoes right before they came, which is all for show anyway, since I really go up there because that’s where we keep the special merchandise stashed for my brother to sell to his stupid friends.”

  Derek slowed down and turned left into the parking lot of the marina.

  “So I’m up in the attic when I hear all this going down below me, and I decide it’s time for me to get gone, so I did. Here’s where it gets good. It’s all one big attic stretching across the top of the stores on the block, with a window at the end. It was a long jump down. I’m not too happy about what it did to my nice work slacks.” He motioned toward his knees. I couldn’t help but look. His khakis were streaked with ground-in dirt. Derek pulled into a handicapped parking spot nearest the far line of boats.

  “And then I walk down that street, nobody paying attention to me, and I walk away. A car door opens across the street, two doors open, and I see this muscly motherfucker, and I see your boy Nick.”

  He put the truck in park. “He took my woman, he took my son, he took my money, and now he took my brother. Did you know about this?”

  I bit my lip, then shook my head no. But I did know. All of it.

  “Bitch, you’re lying.”

  His right arm shot out and slugged me in the jaw so fast I never saw it coming. I screamed, then bit down hard. My head literally rang. Taylor started to cry and I turned my face back toward Derek, angry now. He grinned, then reached down and disconnected the wires and the truck stopped.

  “After I saw him, I ran like hell, lost ’em both. I am putting two and two together, so I jack a car and head for the marina. Now I’m in a real big hurry, so I skip the ferry and I hotwire one of those cigarette boats. I come across to Port A,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that, I borrow this truck, and here we are. Now, time for a little joyride.”

  There was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going anywhere with him. But something about what he said didn’t make sense. “How did you know we were here?”

  “You’re supposed to be so smart, Ms. Attorney. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  And then I knew. Why I hadn’t seen it before, I didn’t know, because when the realization dawned, it was obvious. I just hadn’t paid attention. My own husband had told me the answer that very morning. The damn rehab. Bart. Slither. Trevor. Derek.

  He saw it on my face, I could tell. “All I had to do was ask Bart where I could find my kid today. Grandma’s, he said. Hey, does your husband know how much you talk to your old boyfriend?”

  Bart. You stupid, stupid man.

  He reached out and tried to trace a finger across my lips, but I jerked my head away.

  “We’re going to have fun. Now get out. And remember I have a gun.”

  I needed to figure out a way out of this, and fast. We were running out of time. I opened the door and lowered myself to the pavement, keeping a tight grip on Taylor. His grip on me was even tighter. Derek made it around the truck in time to meet me with a gun to the ribs again.

  “Walk. We’re the first boat on the left.”

  I walked. All of the amazing moves I could have made to break free wouldn’t work with a toddler in my arms. I knew all too well he couldn’t swim, and I was sure he didn’t repel bullets, either. I stopped at the first boat on the left.

  “Hand me the kid,” Derek said.

  I clutched Taylor tighter. “Why?” I said. Then, “No.”

  “Do it, or I shoot him in the foot. He can always get a new one.” He cocked the trigger.

  Shit. He was insane. I pried Taylor away from me and he started to scream. I handed him to Derek and his screams intensified. Derek held him awkwardly and stepped onto the boat. When he put Taylor down, Taylor scuttled as fast as he could to the far side of the boat, howling.

  As soon as Derek took Taylor, I reached into my pocket for my phone. I had to get a call off to Kurt and Julie. I tried to unlock the screen, but my fingers were wet with humidity. I tried again.

  And then Derek’s foot connected with my phone on its way into my chest. The iPhone flew from my hands and into the water, and I followed it in slow motion, tumbling backwards. I hit the water headfirst, and the shock of the cold felt like a mule kick. Water surged into my sinuses. My jeans and sweatshirt weighed me down and I flailed to find which way was up. There was no light on that dreary day, and all I could see was blackness.

  An enormous rumbling started above me and to my left and I realized it was the boat’s engine. That had to be th
e way up, but I needed to stay clear of the sound. I righted myself and kicked frantically. My hand broke the surface first, then my head, and I coughed and gasped.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Derek had pulled the cigarette boat out of the slip, and it was gliding away from me. Taylor was screaming bloody murder beside him. Derek put the boat in idle and jerked Taylor off the seat.

  “No,” I yelled. Like he could hear me as I thrashed by the pier, trying to swim toward them in heavy, sodden clothes. I watched helplessly as Derek put an adult life jacket on Taylor’s tiny body. His mop of brown hair was the only thing showing out the top. Then Derek grabbed a ski rope and threaded it through the arms of the life jacket.

  What the hell was he doing? Was he going to drag Taylor behind the boat?

  I was only marginally relieved when he sat Taylor roughly in the seat beside him and tied the rope around the seat. When he had him strapped in, he turned to me and yelled, “God, does he ever shut up? This is what happens when you don’t raise a boy to be a man.” He turned from me and put the boat back in gear. It eased forward.

  My completely ineffectual attempt to swim had gotten me to the next boat, which had a swim platform on its stern. I hoisted myself onto it, crawled into the boat, ran to the bow, and jumped onto the pier. The marina was deserted. I could call the police if my iPhone wasn’t at the bottom of the harbor. I didn’t have my purse. I didn’t have a car.

  But Derek did. I ran across the parking lot and yanked open the truck’s door and searched frantically for some form of electronic communication, crawling through the cab, rifling the glove box and cramming my hands under the bench seat. Nothing.

  I was eye level with the steering wheel when the rainbow of electrical wires triggered an idea. The marina was less than five minutes from Kurt’s friend Nate’s house at the mouth of the harbor. Maybe I could get there before Derek did. I didn’t know what I’d do then, but I’d figure it out on the way. For now, I just had to remember how to hotwire the damn truck.

  “Red for power,” I said.

  I held up the red wire and started sticking its end against the ends of the other wires one at a time. Come on, dashboard lights. The horn honked. I tried another. Windshield wipers. Then I tried yellow and the dash lit up.