Together, Rusty and I headed for the wall locker where the Sat phone was stowed. She reached it first and whipped the door open. Gone. Black zippered case and all. Two spare handheld VHF’s were missing as well. Even our Zeiss binoculars were gone.
“She stripped us bare.”
Rusty wheeled on me and grabbed a handful of my shirt and bulled me backward against the console. I didn’t resist.
“What the hell is this, Thorn? You did something. This is about you.”
I said nothing.
She twisted her fist, grinding her knuckles against my sternum, straining the fabric of my shirt. Then little by little her rage smoldered out and she forced down a breath and relaxed her grip. She stepped away and turned her back to me. When a moment or two of silence had passed, I laid a hand on her shoulder and she didn’t shrug it off.
“I need to know something, Rusty.”
She bent forward and planted both hands on the console and leaned her weight against them, staring out at the distant creek where the bass boat had disappeared. She looked dizzy and faint.
“Why did Teeter lie? Why did he tell the woman he was me?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“It’s not important.” She stared out at the empty bay.
“Tell me, Rusty. Why?”
Rusty swallowed and turned her head just enough to bring me into view.
“Teeter worshipped you. He worshipped your fucking sweat.”
“What?”
“He idolized you. Thorn, man of action. It’s why he quit his job at Ballyhoo’s. When he heard you signed up as my first mate, he gave them notice that same day. It was his big chance to be near you, watch you, learn how to be more like you. It makes perfect sense he pretended he was you. Maybe at the end he was even trying to protect you, take the hit instead of you. Who knows? But whatever he was doing, he was trying to earn your respect.”
I had to blink hard to clear the burn in my eyes.
“Well, he did that,” I said and turned away. “He damn well did that.”
We placed Teeter on his bunk and covered him with the blanket. We stood there for several moments in silence, then Rusty mumbled under her breath, a few phrases with the solemn cadence of a Catholic prayer. I tried to find some parting words for this man who very possibly had given his life for mine. But nothing rose from the dark hollow in my chest.
Rusty kneeled down and kissed him on his broad forehead and swept a hand across his cheek. She pressed the side of her face against his still chest for several moments. Then she rose and headed for the cabin door.
For the next half hour the two of us took an inventory of the vessel, looking for anything we might use in our defense. At one point Milligan tracked us down and informed us that our skiffs were missing. Rusty told him we were aware of that. He demanded an explanation, but neither of us responded. He’d had a few drinks by then, and his eyes were glassed over and his tongue sloppy. His bristling arrogance had subsided, and an awkward whine had crept into his bullyboy bravado like some deposed tyrant who was starting to comprehend his fallen circumstance.
Milligan tagged along for a while longer, badgering halfheartedly, then recognized it was useless and marched back to the salon to join the others.
“We’re going to have to level with them,” I said.
“When we’ve sorted it out.”
Rusty and I were standing on the roof of the ship. Overhead the gray sky seemed within arm’s reach, and the wind had swung around and was coming out of the northwest, churning patches of the bay to froth. Up on that top deck there were plastic chairs for sunset viewing and a small table where we had intended to serve happy-hour cocktails. Fastened to the rear railings with bungee cords were a pair of kayaks. I was staring at them when Rusty stepped in front of me.
“Forget it, Thorn.”
I checked the angle of the sun. It was midafternoon, two, two-thirty.
“If I started now, I could make it back to the docks by eight tonight, nine at the latest. With a little wind at my back, maybe sooner.”
She shook her head.
“No way. The bitch would pick you off in a heartbeat.”
I looked out at the empty bay, the half-dozen coves, the sweep of mangroves. The creek mouth where the bass boat had disappeared was about a half mile off the port quarter.
“Here we are,” I said. “Easy targets. No one’s shooting.”
Rusty swallowed, eyes scanning the distance.
“Relax,” I said. “She thinks she killed her man, her job’s done. She’s gone.”
“Why come back and steal the skiffs?”
“To keep us from chasing. Give her more of a head start.”
“I think she’s still out there,” Rusty said. “I think this is just beginning.”
“Look, if this woman wanted to murder everybody aboard, she could’ve started this morning back in the Broad River. She had the drop on us. It was totally isolated. We were defenseless.”
Even as I spoke the words, they sounded hollow. All three of us could have been armed and ready to return fire for all she knew.
“I’ve been thinking about that line she gave Teeter,” Rusty said. “ ’How long can you hold your breath?’ What the hell is that about?”
I told Rusty I didn’t know. True enough, though I had a growing suspicion. Since Mona’s outburst at the restaurant the night before, I’d been brooding about Abigail Bates’s death, imagining the horror of her last seconds, the grisly act itself. Face-to-face, hand to hand, an intimate murder.
In some echo chamber of my heart, I could even hear the killer’s taunt.
While I hold you under, I will suffer what you suffer, because I know I can outlast you. I’ve bet my life you will succumb before I do, because my will is stronger than your will, my readiness to endure pain greater than yours. I am risking everything to watch you die. All so I might be touching your flesh when it happens.
Standing at the starboard rail, Rusty shivered and lowered her head, and I thought she was finally going to surrender to a long heaving cry. But after a moment more, she straightened, drew a deliberate breath, and her eyes followed the flight of a white pelican as it coasted past us on an oblique angle to the wind. She watched the bird sail across the sky until it dipped below the next stand of mangroves a half mile off.
“We should get back inside,” I said.
Rusty led the way. As we backed down the stern ladder, I heard an osprey make three sharp cries, then three more.
Once in the past, I’d felt the wispy prickle of a telescopic lens pass over my flesh just before a slug exploded nearby. But this time I had no premonition, no signal beyond that osprey’s insistent cry.
Rusty stepped onto the deck, and just as I jumped down beside her I heard the dry crack of a rifle. Above us, a section of the rooftop railing blew apart and a foot-long section twirled past our heads into the bay. I’d been holding on to that chrome handrail moments before.
At the mouth of the distant creek dozens of egrets and herons exploded from their roosts and sailed in a white thrashing cloud toward the west.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rusty ducked inside the crew cabin and I slipped in behind her and shut the door. The tinted windows were dark enough to conceal our movements from a distance. Just the same, both of us stepped away from the glass.
She took a careful breath, then turned back to the door and reached for the handle, but I grabbed her and pulled her away.
“Got to warn the others,” she said. “They’re my responsibility.”
“In a minute,” I said. “Just hold on.”
“What?”
“The shooter’s stopped. That wasn’t about killing anybody.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“She’s not still firing, is she? The woman’s not in any hurry.”
“What, she’s toying with us?”
“Could be calibrating her rifle, or
just trying to scare us.”
“Well, she accomplished that.”
“Or maybe it’s what Teeter said. She doesn’t know for certain if we’re defenseless. She can’t be sure she didn’t miss our weapons stash. We could have our own rifle with a sight. So she takes a shot, then waits to see how we respond. She’s probing.”
“Fine, except we are defenseless.”
“Not really.”
“What?”
“The flares,” I said. “And there’s the Makita, for starters.”
“The reciprocating saw? Christ, Thorn. She’s got a rifle, and we’re going to defend ourselves with a handsaw?”
“It’s something.”
I’d decided to cart along the saw in case we had plumbing issues and needed to plunge-cut into the drywall to access the pipes. It had happened once in the master stateroom head, an L joint coming unglued. The Makita had a six-inch serrated blade and trigger-controlled speed and was a tough piece of hardware.
But Rusty was right. Saw versus rifle, shitty odds.
Without further discussion, we exited the west door onto the deck shielded from the creek mouth and circled the cabins to the stern. With Rusty at my shoulder, I opened the transom tool chest. The killer had missed it. Everything was intact. The battery-powered saw, a crowbar, boxed sets of screwdrivers and socket wrenches, all the Coast Guard safety equipment, including a half-dozen flares, a plastic whistle, an air horn, life jackets for ten.
“Time to lay it out for the others.”
“I’ll do the talking, Thorn. This is my show.”
“Tell me something, Rusty. When you were describing the trip to John and Mona, did either of them ask you exactly where we’d be anchoring up? The name of the bay, anything specific?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
I looked off at that distant creek.
“But Carter Mosley did,” Rusty said. “He wanted the GPS coordinates.”
“Carter Mosley.”
“He said he might fly in, join us for a day or two if he could shake loose from work.”
The rest of our group was assembled in the salon. Hushed, calm. Apparently they hadn’t heard the rifle shot. Behind the bar, Milligan was pouring a Scotch over rocks. A glass of red wine sat on the table before Mona, and she was skimming her finger around its rim squeaking out a high whine. Cross-legged on the couch in front of the TV, Annette was hunched over her keyboard, fingers flying. Luxury Vacation from Hell, by Annette Gordon. In the galley area, Holland had rolled his white watch cap up off his ears, and it sat high on his head like a hip-hop crown. He stood guard over a plate of muffins and was tearing off the crusty lids one by one, taking wolfish bites, then setting the rest of the muffin aside. His camera hung around his neck, dusted with crumbs.
I placed the saw and crowbar and half the flares on the coffee table. Beside them Rusty lay the air horn, whistle, and the rest of the flares.
No one spoke, but there was a collective stiffness in the group, no eye contact, as if the four of them had been hashing out the situation and had reached a decision. A budding mutiny.
“For the record,” Mona said, “I’m totally against this.”
“Against what?” Rusty moved in front of the TV. Some-one had turned it on. CNN was covering a snowstorm in Colorado, airports closed, highways clogged with abandoned cars. Rusty picked up the remote and snapped it off.
Holland tore the lid off a blueberry muffin and crammed it in his mouth.
John reached under the bar and came up with a yellow walkie-talkie. Earlier in the fall when I’d shopped for equipment I’d noticed similar models on the shelves of marine-supply stores for about sixty bucks. Its runty aerial and cheap electronics gave it a range of about a mile—a half step up from a kid’s toy. It wasn’t on the Mothership’s equipment list.
“It warbled,” Mona said. “Kept warbling, the call signal it makes.”
“I tracked it down.” Holland took his lens cap off. “It was on the shelf behind the TV, up there with the Audubon books.”
Milligan set it on the bar beside his drink.
“It’s her,” he said. “She wants to make a deal.”
“The woman?” Rusty edged over to the bar. “You talked to her without giving me a heads-up. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Uncle Johnny is pissed,” Holland said. “Mr. Big Shot’s used to running the show, and you guys blew him off. He’s royally pissed, aren’t you, Uncle Johnny?”
Milligan touched the walkie-talkie with a fingertip. He glanced at his watch, a gaudy Rolex encrusted with tiny diamonds.
“A couple of minutes she’s going to call back for our response.”
“What kind of deal?” I said.
“She wants to talk to you, Thorn.” Milligan picked up his drink and tossed it back.
“Then she lets us go,” Holland said, and snapped two quick shots of my reaction. “You two talk, whatever happens happens, then the party’s over, we get a free pass home.”
Rusty stepped closer to Milligan.
“She thought my brother was Thorn. How did she learn different?”
Milligan’s gaze was trained on his empty glass.
“Uncle Johnny spilled the frijoles. Blab, blab, blab.”
Holland snapped a shot of Rusty’s stunned face.
“Okay, I slipped,” Milligan said. “She wanted to talk to Thorn. I spoke without thinking. I told her you weren’t here. You were up on the roof.”
“You idiot.” Rusty cocked her fist and came for him, but I seized her arm and hauled her to a stop.
“I blew it,” Milligan said. “I had a couple of drinks, I wasn’t thinking straight. But that’s her deal.”
“Bullshit,” Rusty said. “No way in hell is that going to happen.”
“Sounds like a bargain,” Holland said. “Swap muy macho fishing guide for the rest of us. I call that a fucking steal.”
“Holland, you’re a weasel.”
“Hey, Annette, write that down. Lesbo houseboat captain insults internationally esteemed photojournalist.”
“When this is over, kid,” I said to Holland. “When this trip is done . . .”
“Ooooh, my knees are quaking. I’m having palpitations.”
Rusty swung to me. “Like I said, Thorn. It’s just beginning.”
She stepped over to the rear door and peered out toward the creek.
A second later the walkie-talkie trilled, then trilled again.
I picked it up and held it out to Rusty. She snapped it from my hand, gripped it while it made another electronic cheep. She held it to her mouth, but before she could utter a word, the shooter spoke.
“Who am I talking to?” Nothing pushy in her tone, almost deferential.
Rusty extended the walkie-talkie to arm’s length and stared at it as if it were something poisonous. For a moment she seemed ready to fling it across the room. Then she swung around and thrust it toward me.
“Take it,” she said. “I can’t do this.”
I took the unit and pressed the answer button.
“I’m here,” I said.
“Is this Daniel Oliver Thorn?”
I drew a slow breath.
“The name is Thorn.”
Holland was inching his lens closer to my face. Clicking, clicking.
“Get in one of the kayaks,” she said. “Paddle three hundred yards east of the houseboat and wait.”
Mona was staring at me from across the room, something flickering in her eyes, a squint that might have been recognition.
“No,” I said.
“Yes. Fifteen minutes. Paddle out and wait.”
“You want to talk, go ahead. I’m listening.”
I pointed at Mona and waved her over. She got up from the couch and was by my side as the woman spoke again. I tipped the walkie-talkie so she could hear the voice more clearly.
“You paddle out and meet me. Or the others go down, too.”
I mouthed the words to Mona, “You know her?”
She shook her head, paused, then shrugged. Not sure. Maybe.
“Why’re you doing this?” I said. “What’s this about?”
It took several seconds for her to reply.
“How long can you hold your breath, Daniel Oliver Thorn?”
Annette slammed her notebook onto the coffee table and stalked over to my side. Without a word, she snatched the radio from me.
“Listen, whoever you are,” Annette said. “This isn’t funny. This game you’re playing, it’s not going to work. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. There are important people on this boat. I happen to write for a national magazine with a circulation of over two million. Lots of people know exactly where I am. So you stop this prank. Do you hear me? Right now.”
“Give me back to Thorn.” Her tone was impassive, almost bored.
Annette held the radio to her mouth again, about to resume her lecture, then thought better of it and thrust it back at me.
“I’m here,” I said.
“Fifteen minutes to get that kayak into the water. Paddle due east three hundred yards and wait.”
“I’ll give it some thought,” I said. “Get back to you later.”
Before she could reply, I switched the walkie-talkie to off and dropped the unit into my pocket.
“Think about it?” Holland said. “You’re going to think about it?”
I took two quick steps and shoved Holland against the dining table. He reached out to stiffarm me, but I waded in closer and got chest to chest with him, breathing in his face.
Annette may have screamed. Milligan may have made some stern remark. There was such swelling in my ears I wasn’t sure. I unlooped the camera strap from Holland’s neck, swatted his hands away, and went to the rear doorway, pushed it open, and started to lob the bulky camera out into the bay.
Holland yelled at me to stop.
I turned around, shut the door behind me, still holding the camera.
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