“Killer Kirt, is that you?” It was a stroke of luck he hadn’t expected.
“Permission to come on board.” Kirt’s gravelly voice sounded much older than Marshall recalled. Which shouldn’t be surprising; it’d been a good ten years since they’d seen each other.
“Of course. I’ve got beer and cigars for all of you.”
The two of them started out as strangers sharing sleeping quarters and grew closer as the years went on. But when Marshall got the jump in rank over Kilpatrick, things didn’t sit so well. Nothing had ever been said, but Marshall felt the hostility. It was a shame. Years of comradeship, ruined over a set of stripes. Last he’d heard Kilpatrick was still in the navy. Some serious shit must’ve gone down for him to be doing a job like this. Not that Marshall would ask. At least, not this night.
Kilpatrick stepped aboard, and Marshall’s first thought was how chubby the guy had gotten. Years back, Kirt had been a champion boxer and would have been disgusted by someone in the shape he was in now. Marshall offered his hand, prepared to let Kilpatrick dominate the squeeze.
“You know you’re outside American waters, Crow.” Kilpatrick strangled Marshall’s fingers in his oversized paw.
“I am?” He edged toward the Calstar that was still feeding out the line.
“Caught you on the radar about twelve miles out.”
“Sorry about that. I’ve got a big one here, lost track.”
“Want to tell me why you have your lights off?”
Two patrol officers climbed on board, along with a big, black German shepherd. Marshall nodded at the two men, who’d halted at Kirt’s side, clearly awaiting instruction.
Marshall pointed at the telescope. “I’ve been doing a bit of star gazing. Works best out here. No lights and all. Check it out.”
Kilpatrick’s dubious expression said it all, yet he didn’t shift his stance.
Marshall held his hand toward to the officer without the dog first. “Hi, Marshall Crow. Nice to meet you fellas.”
He took Marshall’s hand without the pretentious grip Kilpatrick seemed to need to showcase. “Max Tucker.”
The other guard shifted his hold on the dog’s lead as Marshall held his hand toward him. “Tony Livingston.”
“Nice to meet you too.” Marshall strode to his seat, picked up the rod, and began winding in the frozen fish with all the showmanship he could create. “So,” he shot a glance at the men, “how you coping with Killer Kilpatrick here?”
Kirt shot him a glance, and Marshall knew what he was thinking. Kilpatrick might’ve been a killer in the boxing ring, but he got his nickname because of his bodily functions. When you shared sleeping quarters with seven other guys, and one of them could clear the bunks with his rumbling farts, it was not something that you tended to forget.
The two guards looked from him to Kilpatrick.
“Oh.” Marshall continued to pretend he was fighting against a feisty fish. “Hasn’t he told you he was the boxing champion for two years running?”
Kilpatrick’s gaze was as sharp as ice picks. Marshall had just lied, and Kilpatrick was probably wondering what the motivation behind it was.
When Kilpatrick leaned back on his heels and met Marshall’s gaze with a distrustful glare, Marshall’s nerves twanged. He detested the feeling.
“We’re gonna search your boat, Crow.” Kilpatrick raised an eyebrow.
Marshall shrugged. “Sure. Help yourself to a Bud while you’re down there.” He raised his beer bottle and took a swig.
“We gonna find anything we shouldn’t? Drugs?” The curl on Kilpatrick’s lip confirmed he’d enjoy such a find.
“Nope. Mind if I stay here?” He indicated toward the rod. The line was about half a mile out, and if he wasn’t careful, something bigger would come along and take a chunk out of his fish. Marshall eased into the chair, and while he played the part of the excited fisherman hauling in an immense catch, Kilpatrick, the men, and the dog disappeared downstairs. His mind shot to Charlene with half her body dangling in the water beneath the curve of the bow, possibly straining to hear what was going on.
She’d be cold. Even with the wet suit.
He’d always hated the cold. But he hated it even more now that he had a slice of shrapnel still wedged in his collarbone. The damn thing was barely bigger than a maggot, but it stung like a bitch when he got cold.
Charlene wouldn’t have much light down there either, not wedged in under the bow like that.
Cold and dark she could probably handle. But it would be her fear-loaded thoughts that would become the wild card. Her mind would play cruel tricks. He’d seen battle-hardened soldiers crumble under delusional thoughts. It wasn’t pretty. Charlene played a tough game, but this was different. Her life depended on her complete silence. Not an easy ask when you pictured sharks lurking below your dangling bare feet.
How long could she last?
Now he had a new clock ticking in his brain. He guessed she’d been down there about seven minutes. Seven minutes too long.
He cursed himself. What he should’ve done was talk her out of this nonsense before they’d left the marina. But even as the thought blazed across his mind, he knew it would’ve been pointless. She was determined enough to go through with it. Or stupid enough. The jury was still out on which one it was.
Kilpatrick appeared at his side. For a big man, he was light on his feet.
“How’d you go? Find any stowaways?” Marshall offered what he hoped was a cheeky grin.
“What you got on the end of the line?” The question was loaded with suspicion, and Marshall’s gut burned with the ramifications of it.
“Don’t know till I land it, but I’m guessing a tuna.”
“Right. Let’s see it then.”
Shit! Marshall hadn’t even considered this scenario. He was in trouble. First up, he had so much line out there, it’d take a good ten minutes to wind it in. Time that Charlene shouldn’t have to spend in the water. And he’d have to make a show of it, like he was fighting the fish. But that was the least of his problems. Fishermen don’t catch dead fish. The second he got the fish to the surface; they were going to know something was up. And third, if he got it on board and the damn thing was still frozen, they’d be likely to attach electrodes to his balls and question him till sunrise.
They probably wouldn’t, but it pissed him off that his mind went there.
He started winding in the tuna. Fast. But with each spin of the handle, his mind spun through all the possible scenarios. One of the first things he needed to do was create a distraction. “Hey, fellas, down in the cupboard above the sink, you’ll find a box of the best Cuban cigars. Help yourself to a couple.”
The two guards looked to Kilpatrick with hope in their eyes.
“Sure. Why not?” Kirt indicated with his head, and the officer without the dog disappeared down the stairs.
Nine minutes.
“What’s the dog’s name?” Marshall shot a glance at the German shepherd; although it was sitting, its ears were forward, on alert, and he knew from experience that one simple command from the handler would have those canine teeth around his wrist in a heartbeat.
“Pepper. She’s four, still a bit feisty, but she knows her stuff.”
“She looks healthy. I’ve taken in a stray, and I’m working on putting some meat on him. Poor thing looked to be on his last legs when I first found him.”
“This them?” Max returned with a polished wooden box that he held up like the Olympic torch.
“Sure is. Check them out. Light one up if you want. Trust me, they’re the best.”
The three men reached into the box, plucking out a few cigars each. Marshall didn’t care how many they took, as long as they were distracted.
Twelve minutes. He tried to think how long it would take for hyperthermia to set in. The water wouldn’t be that cold, but Charlene didn’t have an ounce of fat on her, not like the last two guys he’d had dangling over the side. She’d be shivering by now. He
r gorgeous lips would probably be blue.
That thought had him winding faster and forcing his brain to make a plan.
“Hey, Holland, send us over a lighter.” Kilpatrick called up to a guy leaning on the railing of the law-enforcement vessel.
During the time it took for the fourth man to board Miss B Hayve, Marshall knocked a plan together. It wasn’t the best plan. It was hardly a plan at all. But it was all he had.
The additional man didn’t bother introducing himself, and while the four of them got busy squirreling away his cigars and lighting them, Marshall simultaneously wound in the frozen fish and rehearsed his intended actions in his mind.
He was about to execute one of the greatest performances of his life.
The fish reached the surface. It was time.
Sixteen minutes.
Usually when either he or his customers successfully lured a fish to the surface, it would be met with much celebration. Not this time. The last thing he wanted was any of the men watching his next move. He put the brake on the line, eased out of his chair, and plucked the gaff from its spot beneath the siding. Marshall leaned over the side, reached for the line, and tugged the fish closer. He contemplated letting the whole lot go, gaff and all, but that’d only make Kilpatrick more suspicious.
Laughter from the men both confirmed their distraction and raised his hopes he’d get away with this.
Normally, he’d drive the hook into the tuna’s shoulder to haul it on board. Generally, that would still have the fish flopping about once it hit the deck. Dead fish don’t flop. Especially frozen dead fish. He needed to look like his gaff had killed it. It’d make him look like an amateur, but that was a label he was willing to risk. Once he’d done that, his only hope was that the tuna had had ample time in the water to defrost enough that it didn’t bounce like a giant hockey puck once it hit the deck.
Another burst of laughter was the trigger he needed.
Taking into consideration the potential for the tuna to still be frozen, Marshall rammed the hook though the fish’s eye and hauled the twenty-pounder out of the water. Rather that his usual flourish, he lowered it to the deck gently. “There you go, boys. Who wants sushi?”
Chapter Fourteen
Charlene’s jaw ached. Her fingers throbbed. And her eyes stung so much, she wouldn’t be surprised if they were bleeding. Yet she held on, hanging there like she’d been committed to some form of evil punishment.
The water hadn’t been cold at first, but as it leeched into her wet suit and settled at the pit of her back, icy serpents began slithering up her spine. They crawled up her neck and entered her brain as tiny, painful daggers. And the paralyzing spread of cold inched through her veins, settling in her extremities like frozen cement.
Each time she unclenched her jaw, her teeth started chattering.
It wasn’t long before holding on became as difficult as believing the situation she’d gotten herself into. But she had gotten herself into this situation. Even if she’d had a year to plan this, she would never have considered this scenario. Sure, she knew what she was doing was illegal. But the ramifications of it had escaped her attention. She was stupid.
Freezing. Scared. And stupid.
Her fingers throbbed out a painful beat, matching the thumping heartbeat in her ears. She took turns peeling her fingers off the rope and repositioning them, like an octopus readjusting its tentacles.
When she couldn’t hang on a moment more, she let one hand go. Her free hand remained in the cramped position, and she had to truly focus to stretch her fingers out. When they did, it was with stiff, jolting movements that shot pain through her knuckles.
A wave came out of nowhere. The force of the water ripped her hand from the rope, and she slammed, nose first, into the hull. Pain shot behind her eyes, stinging her forehead. Her suitcase was yanked from her grip between her legs, and it too banged against the side. She clawed her hair from her eyes, desperate to see again.
But it was pitch-black. Even if she could’ve seen through the stinging and her tears, the complete blackness made it impossible anyway. The stars were tiny pinpricks, tempting with their pretty twinkle but useless for anything else.
Marshall’s brace held her in position, but hanging loose subjected her to the mercy of the water. Waves tossed her around like she was in a washing machine, and her knees, elbows, chin—hell, all of her body—slammed into the boat without warning.
And that wasn’t good.
For either her body or the sound it might have made.
Pushing through the pain, she gripped the rope again and turned her back to the hull; clutching the handle, she guided the case back between her legs.
But it wasn’t just her knuckles that ached now. Her eyes stung so much she had to squeeze them shut. Salty water flooded her mouth nonstop, making her tongue a dry slab, useless at producing moisture. And spasms wracked her back from both cold and dread.
Her bare feet hurt too. She wished she’d thought to put on shoes. Or even socks would have helped. Anything to stop the mental image of creatures lurking in the blackness below, eying her toes as their next meal.
She couldn’t say she was scared of sharks. The truth was that she didn’t know much about them. The closest she’d ever been to one was the glass tunnel at the aquarium in San Francisco. But she’d had six inches of glass separating her from row after row of razor-sharp teeth. Now there was nothing. And the murky blackout around her didn’t help.
Time ticked on.
Waves tumbled in.
And her brain bounced from one awful thought to the next. Sharks. Jail cell. Missing toes. Blindness. None of the thoughts were good. Not one.
A big wave barreled into her, slamming the back of her head into the hull, and it took all her might not to cry out. With stiff fingers, she shoved her hair from her eyes and wiped the salt off her lips with the back of her hand.
The blackness seemed to be getting blacker, and she blinked back the sting in her eyes, fighting the new panic rising within. The bow of the hull made it impossible to look straight up, but when she looked out, the stars were no longer there. A dense layer of clouds were rolling in, covering the minuscule light the stars provided.
As she watched the relentless creep of clouds across the sky, a new sense of foreboding gripped her, and she knew she couldn’t do this for much longer. All of a sudden, the idea of a ten-foot cell became appealing.
The silence too was disturbing. Other than the foghorn that’d had her heart exploding in her chest, the only sounds she’d heard were her own erratic breathing and the tumbling waves.
She had no idea what was going on, but the longer it took, the worse the images her mind produced. Fear gripped her like a murderer strangling a victim, squeezing her life away. She tried to think of good times, like when she and her father had shared a picnic on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. Or horse riding through the lush countryside in Wyoming, or even simple things like being the first to create a trail along a snowy, tree-lined path.
But as the minutes ticked on, the good times failed to come to her, replaced with memories of bad times that leeched into her brain like the freezing water. Sheer exhaustion had her mind and body failing. She couldn’t go on. Not like this.
A burst of laughter jolted her out of her misery.
It had to be a good sign.
The dark clouds gradually shifted, and the stars in their wake were glistening again. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to count the waves pelting into her. At twenty-seven, she’d run out of patience, and she fought the urge to scream.
The roar of an engine broke her despair. Loud at first, it quickly abated, and she glanced up, scouring the boat’s overhang, desperate to see a friendly face. It was several thumping heartbeats before she heard footsteps. The sound was the glimmer of hope she needed.
And there he was. Marshall. Tears pooled in her stinging eyes, and a sob burst from her throat.
“Charlene, are you okay?”
; “No.” Tears streamed down her face, and her nails dug into her palms as she strangled the rope.
“Okay. Okay. I’m coming to get you. We just have to wait a few more minutes to ensure they’ve gone. You’ve done so well. It’s over, Charlene. You did it.”
He continued talking, but she no longer heard. Absolute exhaustion took over. All sense of purpose was gone. The ticking clock persisted. The relentless waves continued their beating. And her tears flowed unabated.
She barely registered the huge splash to her left, and she realized Marshall was in the water only when his hand touched her cheek. “Hey, Charlene, you can let go now.”
She tried to unravel her fingers, but they refused to release. “I can’t.” Her voice was a desperate croak.
Marshall peeled her fingers free, wrapped his arm around her waist, and lifted her up to release the hook and lower her into the water. Her breath caught as the water covered her shoulders, but that was her only response. Marshall wrapped his arm over her chest and guided her to the back of the boat.
“Can you climb the ladder?” He put her hands on the railing.
Her legs were jello, but with Marshall’s help, she climbed aboard. At the top, she hunched over and gripped the rail, and within a heartbeat, he was at her side. He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her body to his, enveloping her in his warmth. “They’re gone, Charlene. You were amazing.”
The comfort of his embrace was overwhelming, yet it also somehow made her feel complete. Her heart danced to a wonderful beat as she allowed his hug to feed life back into her body.
He eased back, and his emerald-green eyes were laced with tenderness. When he cupped her face in his hands, something about the familiarity of his touch squeezed her heart, and it took all her mental power to remind herself that she barely knew him.
“Come on, let’s get you warmed up.” He helped her down the stairs. “Can you take your wet suit off?”
Her arms were like lead weights, and she tried but gave up on reaching the zipper behind her neck.
“Here, let me help.”
Zero Escape Page 12