Lily hadn’t watched his progress. Her eyes were shut tight the whole time she was suspended forty-four stories above the ground. She had been rigid, terrified, too scared to move a muscle.
“Breathe,” Michael had kept telling her. “Breathe.”
Michael hadn’t explained what he was doing with his tools.
The installation of high-rise windows requires cranes, suction tools, pulleys, and ropes. The windows were heavier and thicker than residential windows, with an insulated spacer between the glass. Removing such glass required specialized equipment, including hoists. It had never been Michael’s plan to remove the big window, though. The tools he’d purchased at a high-rise window replacement company had served a different purpose.
Michael had used them to loosen the frame surrounding the window.
For ten minutes, he had worked on the frame. Only when he was finished did Michael tell Lily that it was time for them to be leaving. Then he explained that in order to get down to the ground, they would first have to climb up to the roof. That had almost scared Lily senseless, even with a safety harness.
When they reached the roof, Lily thought she was finally safe until Michael explained what came next.
Doing a solo BASE jump from a skyscraper was risky enough; doing a tandem jump was insanity. In the end, Lily put her life in his hands and skills, and they vaulted from the roof. Lily’s scream as they plummeted was so loud, Michael feared it might displace the window he’d been working on.
It hadn’t. That had been left to Max.
“What am I missing here?” Jake asked.
He looked from Michael to Lily, his eyes demanding an explanation.
“Those screams we heard were Max Miller falling to his death,” Michael said.
“And how is it you know that?”
“Educated guess,” Michael said.
“Based on what?”
“While seeing to Lily’s escape, I might have inadvertently not fully secured the window.”
It almost sounded like a reasonable explanation, or perhaps it would have if Jake hadn’t also seen the footage from Max’s full moon parties where he kept throwing himself at the bedroom window over and over again. Even though he was a lawyer, Michael knew to be distrustful of the legal system. Sometimes justice needed a helping hand.
“I want to go home to my mom,” Lily said.
The sounds of sirens began filling the air.
“Let’s go then,” Michael said.
LVII
Mona was there to meet Michael at the entrance of their apartment. As the two of them came together for a long embrace, she said, “Oh, husband, it has been far too long.”
“Yes,” Michael said. His throat was so constricted it was all he could do to get that one word out.
The two of them clung to one another until Mona stepped back from their embrace. “I do not want to leave your arms, husband, but neither do I want to overcook our dinner.”
“We can’t have that, can we? What can I do to help?”
“You can find a vase for those beautiful roses you are holding.”
“This feels like déjà vu,” Michael said. “You were making my favorite meal the night before I left for Las Vegas, and that’s what I’m smelling now, isn’t it? I thought tepsi baytinijan was only for special occasions.”
“It is,” she said.
There was something in his wife’s voice that made Michael take a read of her face. “Am I missing something?”
“Something, and someone,” she said. “Since even before you left on your trip, I have been offering you hints, but you never took notice.”
“What are you saying?”
“Do you remember when you told me of your plans to go to Las Vegas, and I said to you, ‘We will not stand in the way.’”
Michael tried to make sense of what Mona was saying.
“And for the last five days, there hasn’t been a phone conversation where I didn’t tell you, ‘We miss you.’ And ‘we love you.’”
“We?” Michael said.
“We. I made your favorite dinner to celebrate, but when you told me about your trip, I decided the news should wait. Still, I could not resist passing on hints. I half hoped you would pick up on them.”
“We,” Michael said, realizing the import of that word.
The two of them—no, the three of them—embraced.
Once again, dinner had to wait.
LVIII
When Michael’s mother had died, the Air Force had provided him with an extended family and given him a good life, a fulfilling life, but he had always dreamed for more even if he hadn’t been sure what that was. Love stories didn’t usually involve someone recovering from gunshot wounds and the other person having to do his courting with a broken back, but that was his life, and his love story. Somehow, he had come out on the other end of the rainbow.
Mona was showing now. The two of them were planning for their family. Their fairy tale was ready to end with the words, “And they all lived happily ever after.” But Michael was having trouble with the words, “The end.”
Peter Stone, or someone in his employ, had gotten away with murder.
Some days Michael could almost forget that, but it still ate at him. Deke had tried to help him see the big picture, how their actions had improved the lives of so many. Michael tried to see it that way.
Miami Maritime Investigations had just sent over their final report. The firm had tracked down all the movements of the Seacreto until its sinking off of Cape Coral. Their forensics investigation of the wreck had determined that at least five limpet mines had been attached under the hull of the yacht. As their report noted, it wasn’t easy to legally obtain limpet mines, especially as they were a preferred weapon of terrorists. Limpet mines—named for the mollusks that clung to rocks—had been used against US Navy ships and oil tankers.
A last dead end, thought Michael. Dark Ghoul had been cautious from the first. There was nothing to link Darkpool with any of the deaths or destruction. A frustrated Michael had looked at the marina tapes dozens of times. The beginning and ending never changed. There was no footage of any Darkpool employees going onboard the Seacreto. And Karina Boyko had never come back.
The universe is telling me it’s time to move on, thought Michael. Like Deke had told him, he needed to take solace from all the good outcomes their work had yielded. He reached for the report, prepared to put it away in a drawer. It would follow the path of good intentions, he knew, and bit by bit find its way deeper into the drawer. If he was lucky, with each passing day its hold upon him would ease, but to his thinking, what passed for wisdom felt more like capitulation. Michael still wanted to nail the bastards.
Michael took a last look at the pages, then noticed there was a new link to marina footage. According to the time line, on the day after the booze cruise, Vicky Driscoll had visited the marina and had boarded the yacht. Her visit had been a short one.
Curious, Michael decided to look at the footage.
From his computer, he called up the file. In fierce wind and rain, he watched Driscoll moving around a deserted marina where hazardous sea warnings had kept everyone and everything hunkered down in port.
Everyone but Vicky.
In pouring rain and buffeting winds, she made her way to the Seacreto. Although she was wearing a trench coat with a hood, it wasn’t a match for the storm. For extra protection, she’d wrapped a tote bag over her head. To get to the Seacreto, she passed through two locked security gates. The surveillance cameras showed her walking along the dock, but they didn’t offer a vantage point to her movements on the Seacreto. Whatever had brought her out that day didn’t keep Vicky long. She only stayed aboard for five minutes before making her way out of the marina. There appeared to be a slight detour in her route out to the parking lot, but the pouring rain from the fall squall obscured the surveillance footage and blurred her movements.
Still, from what Michael could observe, she paused along the walk-way. With
her back to the camera, and the image grainy, it was all but impossible to see what she was doing, but whatever it was didn’t take more than a minute. Michael tried manipulating the screen to get a better picture, but his efforts didn’t yield much in the way of additional clarity.
He could just make out a white rectangular object next to where she was standing. It had to be a dock box, he decided. Most berths had their own dock boxes, but this box wasn’t located in proximity to the Seacreto. Michael remembered having read something about dock boxes in Miami Maritime’s report and began flipping through the pages. Yes, there it was. Several dock boxes at the marina had been broken into, including the box in front of where the Seacreto was berthed. The break-ins had occurred not long after the fall squall.
Was that just a coincidence? Michael wondered. Or was it something more along the lines of how the Pussy Cat Palace had been burned down and the Seacreto sunk?
Michael reviewed the tape once more. His heart was pounding, even though he didn’t want to get his hopes up. Maybe Vicky had visited the marina for some innocent purpose, but most people don’t go out into pelting rain and forty-mile-per-hour winds without good reason.
He still couldn’t see what Vicky was doing at the dock box. She could have been reading some notice, or adjusting her clothing, before hurrying to get to the safety of her car.
That’s when Michael saw it. Vicky was no longer carrying her tote bag.
For a third time, he followed her route. The bag was covering her head when she went to board the Seacreto, and it was still in her possession when she got off the boat. Now, though, Vicky wasn’t using it as a head wrap. She carried it at her side. To Michael’s eye, it looked as if there was something in the bag.
There was another thing he noticed. Vicky had bypassed the Seacreto’s dock box in favor of using another one. It was likely that no one had known about her second dock box.
Michael ran out of his office.
LIX
“You’re going to want to see this.”
The serious tone of Michael’s voice was enough for Deke to reply in a single word: “Where?”
“Conference room C,” Michael said.
“Five minutes.”
One of the AV specialists had helped Michael set up the DVR in the conference room. Michael now knew the reason for Vicky’s going to the marina on such an inclement day. Unbeknownst to anyone else, there was a secret compartment on the Seacreto that housed surveillance equipment. When she’d ventured out on that blustery, rainy day, she had gone to gather insurance.
I should have known, Michael thought. In all her businesses, Vicky had kept tabs on her employees. He wondered if the Seacreto’s crew had known about the existence of her spy room. I doubt it, he thought. The two crew members hadn’t been seen since the Seacreto had been scuttled. Michael believed it was highly unlikely that they were still alive.
There was no sound with the tape, but that didn’t diminish the brutality of what was on it. Michael was glad he was spared seeing Karina’s struggles in the sea. There was only the wide-angle view that did not encompass the water, but seeing the laughter of Stone and his men was sickening enough. Even some of the women aboard had seemed to take pleasure in Karina’s drowning. Or perhaps they had been too afraid to not go along. Maybe the alcohol and drugs, combined with the shock of what they had witnessed, had caused them to react as they did.
“I’ve seen enough,” Deke said.
Michael stopped the recording. Both men sat for a minute in stunned silence. Finally, Michael got to his feet.
“I’ve got business to attend to. I’ll trust you to put the DVR in lockup when you’re finished with it.”
“Wait a second,” Deke said.
“What?”
“This isn’t a time for another special forces rogue operation.”
Michael seemed at a loss as to how to respond, prompting Deke to speak with that much more forcefulness.
“You’re lucky that what happened in Vegas hasn’t come back to bite you in the ass. You can’t count on that luck a second time. We need to do this the right way. We need to involve law enforcement.”
Michael opened his mouth, but Deke still didn’t let him speak. “No vigilante crap. No frontier-style justice. You hear me? This isn’t some PJ mission.”
“I know that,” Michael said, finally getting an opportunity to talk.
“Then why are you running off? And what are you up to?”
“I’m going to my office, where I’m planning on doing my job.”
“And what job is that?”
“The one you hired me for. I’m a lawyer.”
The words were said with pride. Michael was still a rescue ranger and always would be, even though he now wore a very different uniform.
“And as a lawyer, I need to prepare for what I imagine will be the biggest wrongful death suit this firm has ever filed,” he continued.
Deke had the reputation of being unflappable; Michael’s announcement revealed Deke was flappable.
Stumbling to find the words, Deke managed to say, “That’s— that’s—really good thinking.”
“One thing. I need to be there when Stone’s arrested. I’m going to be the one serving him papers right before he’s handcuffed. I’ll want him to have some good reading material for his send-off to prison.”
“In that case, don’t let me detain you,” Deke said.
* * *
When Michael reached his office, he decided to make a call before beginning his work.
“I’m afraid I won’t be home until late tonight.”
“Are you once again saving the world, husband?”
“Something like that,” he said.
“Then do as you must, and when you get home, we will greet you with open arms.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Michael said.
Epilogue
The yacht Jurisprudence was following the course laid out by a sun making its slow descent into the Gulf of Mexico. With his hands on the wheel, Deke aimed for the trail of light that was setting the emerald water aglow. Miss Prudence, as Deke liked to call her, was nearing her destination.
They had timed their journey to arrive a little before sunset. The day was balmy, with just enough breeze to keep the heat at bay. The dozen passengers aboard Miss Prudence were congregated on the main deck.
Deke caught the eye of the organizer. This was her show.
“Permission to drop anchor, Captain,” he yelled.
Lily smiled. This outing was her idea. She looked around and seemed to test the area with all of her senses, making sure it was just the right spot. After a few moments of surveying, she offered a satisfied nod to Deke and called, “Drop the anchor!”
“Aye, aye,” Deke said.
Almost half a year had passed since Lily’s rescue. She was seeing a therapist three days a week, and her godfather checked in with her once or twice a week, which was probably as much as any teenager could stomach, but she humored him.
The healing process for what Lily had been forced to endure was slow. You don’t walk out of hell unscathed. But his goddaughter was coping, and her support system was doing its best to make sure she had more good days than bad days. During their voyage, Deke had been heartened to hear her laugh a few times. In coming to this place, she was looking for some closure. And Lily wasn’t the only one needing that.
For once, the bad guys hadn’t come out on top and had ended up either dead or in prison. It was rare for the universe to get it right. Peter Stone’s own soldiers had flipped on him and were testifying against him in Karina Boyko’s homicide. It was looking more and more like Stone would spend the rest of his days in prison. And even Geofredo Salazar and all his money hadn’t proved to be immune from retribution. A month earlier, he’d been shot and killed. There had been no witnesses to the shooting.
Karma, Deke wanted to believe.
Lily and Sylvia made their way to the center of the main deck where everyone had gather
ed. Conversations stopped, and the mood suddenly turned somber.
From his vantage point in the wheelhouse, Deke watched Sylvia give her daughter an encouraging shoulder rub. Even though she was among friends, Lily looked nervous. Or maybe she only looked like the uncertain sixteen-year-old kid that she was. For her to just be able to act her age again, Deke thought, was a good thing.
After getting a reassuring nod and smile from her mother, Lily found her voice. “I’m glad you guys are here,” she said.
She looked down at her feet and took a moment to gather her thoughts. When she raised her head, Lily’s eyes were wet.
“Today, I wanted us to come to this place to remember a friend. I never got a chance to know Karina Boyko like I would have wanted to, but because of her, I’m alive. I was a stranger who asked Karina to help me. And just before she died, Karina made a call on my behalf, and someone listened.”
Silent tears coursed down Diana’s cheeks, but she managed a smile for Lily.
“I know it’s kind of a miracle I’m alive, but that’s because of you guys. And because of Karina.”
Lily held up a picture of a red-haired young woman for all to see.
“I was the only one here who had the chance to meet Karina while she was still alive, so her mom sent me this picture to show everyone today. Even though Mrs. Boyko couldn’t be here, Michael and I have been talking with her through a translator, and she wanted everyone to know how glad she is that we are remembering Karina like this.
“Anyway, you can see Karina had really red hair. Because of that, she had this nickname. The other girls called her rusalka, which is like a mermaid with red hair. What sucks, though, is that you only become a rusalka after you’ve violently drowned. That’s the story, at least. But what really, really sucks is that’s how Karina ended up dying. If you believe the tales, most rusalki are pissed off at the world because of how their lives ended, but it’s not only that. The stories say the drowned woman’s soul will forever haunt the waters where she died unless her death is avenged.
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