Cycling between an adrenaline high and a guilty conscience, I crammed myself into the driver’s seat of Arabella’s car, turned the ignition key, and sighed with relief as the engine fired to life. I backed out of the parking spot and headed for Kaminda Lagun, the road that leads to Spelonk.
Traffic was light, and I sped through town, making good time. Several minutes outside of Kralendijk, as I approached the east side of the island, the sea appeared in front of me. The blacktop ended, and I pulled onto the three-mile rock and dirt road leading to Spelonk Lighthouse. I swerved the car from side to side, bypassing large ruts my Wrangler could’ve driven through with ease.
As I maneuvered to miss one rock, I hit an even larger one. The car jerked and bounced hard, slamming my head off the roof. Things blurred for a moment, and I shook off some dizziness but continued to push forward. Then, a short moment later, for no apparent reason, the car shut down and coasted to a stop. Silence engulfed the cab, the only sound being the whistling of the wind as it blew through the open windows.
My mind raced as I sat in horror, muscles stiffening more and more with every passing second. I turned the key several times while pumping the gas. The car didn’t start. I slammed my fist off the steering wheel as my face flushed and I tried in vain to control my breathing. I put an ear close to the steering column. Not sure what a fuel pump sounded like—if it even made a noise—but turning the key generated a slight clicking noise. Nothing else.
I got out and hit Chuck’s speed-dial number on my cell, ending the call with a shake of my head as it went to voicemail.
I was on my own.
No point in opening the hood and nosing around underneath. I couldn’t describe what a fuel pump looked like, let alone where to find it on a vehicle. Car repairs had never been my bag. Being a grease monkey was something I scrapped halfway through my first semester of high school auto mechanics.
Spelonk lay two miles ahead on a dusty dirt road. Only a few random puddles remained from the morning’s rain. The ground on Bonaire was so consistently dry, the water disappeared quickly, soaking into the earth like a dry sponge. Within minutes of a shower, everything was dry and dusty again.
But I had to get there. I would get there. I sighed, knelt, and cinched the laces on my Nikes.
I ran along the road, the midday sun beating down on me, draining my energy. Sweat soaked my face, back, and chest. My forehead ached, pulsing like a bass drum with every rapid heartbeat. On a typical run or swim, I controlled my pace for maximum endurance. But this was no ordinary run. I dug deep and pushed myself harder than I had in years, as close to an all-out sprint as I could manage. I hadn’t sprinted in a long time and never with a bruised rib or a .38 Special tucked between my belt and shorts. I found it easier to run carrying the weapon in my hand.
My chest heaved more and more with every stride as my lungs worked hard to supply oxygen to my aching muscles. I focused on shoving one leg out in front of the other and fought the urge to collapse. A fine layer of brown earth covered my shoes, and grit had found its way to the bottom of my feet. Within a half mile, blisters formed. I pushed forward, knowing they’d soon bleed.
I hadn’t driven out to Spelonk in several years but remembered three roads branched to the left off the main one, none of them leading to the lighthouse. I had passed two of them before the car died and had jogged past the third a few minutes ago.
What I didn’t remember was the Y in the road. I stopped, bent at the waist, and put my hands on my knees. My chest heaved. Go right or go left. With my eyesight blurred from sweat and heat, I squinted and tried to visualize where each road led.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. I imagined Robert Frost having a good laugh. But this was no laughing matter. And both that morning did not equally lay.
The road to the left continued north, and I needed to go easterly. Regardless of the one less traveled by, I chose the one that went right, took a few more breaths, and started running again. After a few strides, lightning bolts of pain shot through my side, spreading to my chest and back. I leaned to one side as I ran.
A half a mile later, the road went over a small ridge and ended, fifty yards from Spelonk Lighthouse. Every stitch of my clothing was soaked and sticking to my skin, and the insides of my shoes were slick with blood. My lounger, the sunset, and a beer sounded good right now.
But saving Arabella sounded better; more important than anything else.
The ground, from the end of the road to the lighthouse and beyond, all the way to the coast, was comprised of cooled volcanic rock, formed millions of years ago. The edges stuck up and sideways, and were jagged, sharp, and uneven, thick with crevasses. I had to be careful. It’d be easy to catch a foot and break an ankle. Basket-sized pockets of thickets and thorn bushes grew randomly in the rocky surface.
The ruins of the abandoned caretaker’s residence, a square, two-story stone building, sat thirty yards apart from the lighthouse. All the windows and doors had long ago been torn out. Over the years of neglect, pieces of the stone structure had fallen off and now lay strewn around the base, along with old wooden planks and pieces of driftwood.
A rough driveway or, better yet, a path ran from where I stood to the caretaker’s place. Deep trenches, the width of a truck bed, ran its distance on both sides. Potholes larger than wheelbarrows, some deeper than the ruts, were strung out like moon craters, leading to the building. A truck, with a seahorse painted on the tailgate, sat tilted sideways in one of the potholes halfway down the driveway, its front left wheel crinkled underneath the axle and lying flat on the ground.
Hands on my knees and breathing deep, I raised my head and looked at the lighthouse, its seventy-foot-tall, white masonry cylinder standing guard over the east coast of Bonaire. “I’ll bet it has a great view,” Tiffany had said. Emptiness grabbed me, making camp in my soul. It does have a great view, and she should be here experiencing it.
Compartmentalize.
I placed the .38 back between my belt and shorts and walked the path as far as possible, eventually needing to venture onto the lava rock toward the lighthouse.
The sharp edges of the hardened lava tried to poke through my thick-soled Nikes, continually jabbing the undersides of my feet. Careful not to fall, I worked my way across the rough ground, the randomness of my stride necessary but unsettling. A few years ago, one of my guests at the YellowRock got careless and fell on this patch of ground. He left the hospital with twenty stitches and a compound fracture of his forearm.
The shoreline along this section of the island was a sharp, ragged drop-off of thirty feet or so. The wind drove the sea against the steep shoreline, causing the water to jet skyward twenty or thirty feet in large columns of foam and spray, falling back to the ground in drops that pooled in the crevasses of the hardened lava. Water flowed between the small pools, eventually finding its way to the shoreline, where it fell back to the sea. On any other day, I might sit motionless for hours, mesmerized by the rhythm and spectacle of the show.
Not today, though. I inched forward, watching the jagged ground with every step. As I neared the lighthouse, two forms emerged from the backside of the structure and stepped out of the shadow. One was male and had a one-arm death grip around the neck of the other, a female.
I drew the .38.
To my surprise, the female wasn’t Arabella.
It was Ruth.
In his other hand, pressed against Ruth’s head, the guy held Wilbur. Ruth’s chest heaved in and out as she stood in front of me, her ripped shirt exposing bruises below the neck on her upper chest. Duct tape sealed her mouth shut and clamped her hands together. Blood ran from her nose and lips, and streaks of mascara and dirt coated her flushed face. Her eyes, red and watery, darted from side to side and up and down. Although scared, her face swam with anger. She had fight left in her.
Spray from a wave misted over us as my eyes moved from Ruth to her captor. The man used the forearm of his gun hand to wipe the spray from his face. He placed the
muzzle back against Ruth’s temple.
“Hello, Conklin,” he said, motioning with his head. Confidence rang in his voice, knowing he had the upper hand. He stood straight and solid, the Chicago Bears hat pulled low across his brow. A crooked smile swept across his face. “Let’s start by having you drop the gun.”
CHAPTER 50
“I SAID DROP the gun.”
I didn’t drop the .38 but held it with the muzzle pointed down. Every police officer is trained to never surrender their weapon. Nothing good ever comes of it. Once empty-handed, the chance of survival—the officer’s and the hostage’s—drops to nil. Countless case studies prove the point.
“I know who you are, Mandy. Or should I call you Wayne?” I extended a hand, palm up. “It’s over.”
“Yeah, it’s over. But not the way you think it is.”
“It doesn’t have to end this way.”
He laughed. “What way do you think it’ll end?”
The remnants of another wave dropped on us. I didn’t answer Mandy’s question, but instead, gave what I hoped was a reassuring look to Ruth. She narrowed her eyes.
Mandy pointed the weapon at me. “I could kill you right now.”
Sweat dripped off my fingertips onto the ground. I worked up as much saliva as I could and swallowed, the spit stinging my dry throat. I’d had guns pointed at me before. It’d been a long time ago, and I had forgotten, until now, how it felt.
Not pleasant, I remembered.
“Why don’t you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “All in good time. But first, I have a surprise for you.”
Having not fired a weapon in years, I regretted not accepting Arabella’s invitations to go to the range. Too risky to try and get a jump on him. The snub-nosed .38 had a short barrel and was inaccurate beyond a few feet. Anything beyond point-blank range was too risky.
My death was one thing, but Ruth shouldn’t have to pay for my stupidity. Too many deaths already. Wilbur was the weapon that killed Malfena, proof that the worn firing pin wasn’t an issue. The gun worked perfectly.
I took a step forward.
“Careful.” He placed the weapon back against Ruth’s head. “Wouldn’t want Blaze here to eat a bullet, would we?”
Ruth twisted and jabbed Mandy in the kidney with her elbow. Mandy winced and tightened his grip.
“Stupid bitch,” he said and smacked Ruth on the head with the barrel of the weapon.
Ruth slumped for a moment, tears running down her cheeks, her chest heaving. She let out a small moan. Steel always wins against flesh and bone, but after a moment, she straightened, angrier than ever.
“Why don’t you let her go?” I said. “I’m the one you want. She means nothing to you.”
“Damn it, man, do you think I’d go for that? You’re not that good, Conklin. Besides, Ruthie here is a means to the end. That’s all.” He raised an eyebrow, as if in thought. “And call me Wayne. My dad would’ve wanted it that way.”
“Okay, Wayne, what’s the plan?”
“We’re going for a ride.”
“You know I—we—can’t do that.”
“Oh … I think we will.” He laughed.
I needed to keep him talking. “The ad was clever.”
“Jeez, good work, Detective. It took you long enough.”
“Your alias, that was … cute.”
“You don’t miss a thing, do you? Especially when it’s all laid out in front of you.”
“But I don’t understand leaving the gun behind at Ryberg’s.”
“It’s the missing link.”
“The missing link? What missing link?”
He raised his head as if in prayer. “God? How stupid did you make this guy?” He refocused on me, all spirituality—if any—abandoned. “It proves my dad was innocent.”
“How?”
He sighed, shook his head. “That was his gun. Don’t you see? He couldn’t have shot that guy if he left his gun at home.” He pointed Wilbur at me. “My mom knew it. That’s why she used it to kill herself. That’s why I used it to kill Ryberg. Because he put an innocent man in jail, destroying my mom.” He wiped his eyes with his arm and gritted his teeth. “You put an innocent man in jail. You killed my mom.”
The last part of his ramble may have been correct. I didn’t know and would never be sure. Wayne Dow may have been innocent of murder and gone to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. But the .357 Magnum had nothing to do with it one way or another.
Mandy—Wayne—was delusional, and now wasn’t the time to argue.
“Wayne, you need to clear his name. I can help you.”
He let out a short laugh. “Clear his name? I’ve done better than that. Everyone to blame is dead.” His face tightened. “Or soon will be.”
“What about Marybeth? Or Malfena? They had nothing to do with any of it.”
“Malfena? Was that her name? That piece of trash from the snack shop?” He mocked a confused look. “Didn’t you hear, Detective? Sadly, she committed suicide. Poor girl.”
“I liked Marybeth,” he continued. “But the look on Ryberg’s face when he saw his beloved wife dead was … priceless.” He tightened his grip on Ruth’s neck. She jerked and pawed at his elbow with her duct-taped hands. Even with tape across her mouth, she gnawed at his forearm, trying to bite him. Mandy jerked her sideways and tightened his grip, forcing her to let up. He returned his attention to me. “At that moment, he knew how it felt to lose a loved one for no reason. Like me when my dad died. Then my mom.” He exhaled and dropped his gun arm to his side and lowered his head. “For no reason at all.”
If I got the chance, I’d try to take him one-on-one. But, so far, he hadn’t given me an opportunity. I took another small step forward and, ever so slightly, raised the .38. Mandy snapped his head in my direction, straightened, and pressed the weapon harder against the side of Ruth’s head.
“Drop the gun. That’s your last warning,” Mandy said. “Next time—” he put his mouth near Ruth’s ear—“Bang!” Ruth flinched, but didn’t scream and tried to elbow him again, but came up short.
Mandy pointed the weapon at me again and moved the barrel up and down. A crooked smile crossed his face. “Not yet, but soon.”
If he planned to kill me, he could’ve easily done it by now. I wasn’t sure what his intentions were, but for the sake of Ruth’s safety, I needed to give in and cooperate with him. At least for now. “Okay, Wayne, you win.” Going against years of training, and with a sweaty, shaking hand, I slowly knelt and laid the .38 on the ground between two small crevasses. Standing, I looked him in the eyes. “And Tiffany?”
“I messed that one up. I had planned to get rid of that dweeb Lester first. I wanted to shack up with her for a few days. Man, that bitch had a nice little body. Could’ve fucked her for days. Would’ve given me a nice little workout. What do you think, Conklin?” He winked at me. “Hey, maybe she would’ve grown to like me. Just like my little redheaded whore, here.” He buried his face in Ruth’s hair for a moment, then kissed her on the cheek. She tilted her head as far from him as possible. “But when she went diving by herself, I figured it was as good a time as any. I think you pros call that a ‘crime of opportunity.’ Or something like that.”
Mandy squinted and glanced at the sun, forcing Ruth forward as he repositioned in the shadow of the lighthouse. I took that moment to make a quick move but stumbled in one of the crevasses. Mandy leveled Wilbur in my direction and shot, the bullet striking the dirt to my right and behind me, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.
My experience told me that people familiar with firearms always checked the ammunition load after picking up a weapon. From habit and training, I had done so with the .38 after Arabella handed it to me in my apartment. Not sure Mandy possessed those instincts. Counting the bullet that killed Malfena and the warning shot wasted at me, Mandy might not realize Wilbur only had two cartridges remaining. If true, I needed to use that to my advantage.
A familiar noise appro
ached from beyond the horizon, and a few moments later, an airplane flew over at low altitude. I couldn’t read the tail number, but a red stripe ran down the plane’s side. Chuck’s mission had slipped my mind.
My jaw dropped as I realized Mandy was Chuck’s client.
That’s all I needed. Or as Arabella might say, “Ook dat nog.”
“Looks like our ride is here,” Mandy said. He motioned with the weapon in the direction of the road. “Let’s go meet him. No hurry. We still have a special guest to arrive before we leave this fucking rock.” He kept his position behind Ruth but stopped to pick up the .38. “Won’t need this.” He smiled and threw the .38 behind him, as far away from me as he could. I hoped to turn that into a mistake on his part.
Always have as much firepower as possible.
“Keep going.” He motioned forward with the weapon again.
I stumbled on the uneven ground, and, in catching my balance, twisted my torso, aggravating the injured rib. I held in a moan and stopped for a moment to press my hand against my side, letting out a long breath through pursed lips.
“Oh, are you hurt?” Mandy said and smiled. “Ain’t that a shame. Not much of a fighter, are you, Detective? You need to toughen up a bit, old man. Maybe hit the punching bag a little and learn to take some punches.”
I fought back a dozen responses. With Wilbur pointed at me, Mandy stood tall and confident in his position of authority. I’d get my chance—just wasn’t sure how to make it happen.
A half mile from us, Chuck banked the plane, made a ninety-degree turn, and lined up for a landing. He navigated the crosswind and planted the main gears on the dirt road, the Tundras working as designed and cushioning the plane from the rough touchdown. He taxied in our direction to a wide spot and killed the engine. We arrived at the edge of the lava surface by the time Chuck had gotten out of the plane and walked around to the front.
He saw Mandy holding the weapon against Ruth’s temple. “What’s going on, R?”
“Stop,” Mandy said when we were ten feet from the plane.
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