In Dark Water (Rarity Cove Book 3)

by Leslie Tentler

  “Related to the investigation?”

  “I’m here to speak to Detective Beaufain, hopefully. He’s awake. From what I understand, he’s extremely groggy but able to communicate somewhat. I plan to ask him if he knows anything that could aid us in finding Detective Ford and your sister.”

  “I won’t keep you then, Detective. Please keep my family updated.”

  “I hope things turn out all right with your mother.” Durand took a few steps on the shiny, tiled floor before turning back to Mark. “Your family’s been through the wringer as of late. I guess I always thought that bad things didn’t happen to people like you.”

  “People like me?”

  Durand shrugged. “You know, being well-off, I mean. No disrespect intended. My wife and I spent our twelfth anniversary at your hotel, by the way. It’s quite the place. It’s a bit rich for a detective’s blood, but she wanted to go all out.”

  He turned again and went down the hall. Mark stared after his departing figure before shifting his gaze to the increasingly gray, late afternoon that was visible through the hospital’s plate-glass windows. Overhead, an intercom system paged a doctor to Oncology. Mark knew that he should get back to the waiting room to be with his family, but he felt on edge and needed to do something besides just sit.

  Apparently, this was the hospital Detective Beaufain had been helicoptered to after the shooting. It made sense, since it was one of the region’s level one trauma centers. It also explained the number of police that Mark had noticed gathered in the hospital’s lobby when they had arrived earlier. Briefly, he rubbed a hand over his burning eyes. Detective Beaufain had been shot at the diner before Mercer had vanished with Noah Ford. Chances of him knowing anything useful was a long-shot, but he had to hold on to something. He thought again about the strange comment that Detective Durand had made. At the least, it was tone-deaf considering his family’s current plight.

  “Mark.”

  He turned to see Carter approaching as others in the corridor—medical staff and visitors alike—stared openly at him. Carter had been in the ER waiting room with the others, but they had been sitting in back in a semi-private alcove. Mark took a tight breath and prepared himself.

  “I came to find you.” Carter seemed oblivious to the buzz of conversation that was focused on him. “You need to come back with me. The doctor’s ready to talk to us about Mom.”

  Standing in the lamplight in the kitchen, Noah removed one of the remaining bottled waters from the pantry. They would have to boil water soon for drinking. They would also need to refill some of the used plastic bottles and take them with them if they decided to set out. Taking a sip from the bottle, he lifted a corner of the window covering, opened the blinds a half-inch and peered out into the slate-colored dusk. He had been outside earlier, and the air had felt pressurized and heavy with impending rain.

  Mercer came up behind him. She slipped her arms around his waist, her body pressed to his. Her nearness seemed to calm some of the tension running through him.

  Another day had nearly passed and no help had arrived.

  “You’re quiet, Noah,” she said softly. “What’re you thinking about?”

  When he didn’t respond, she slipped her fingers inside his. Noah allowed her to lead him to the couch where they sat together.

  “According to Ty, there’s a ranger station about five miles from here,” he said. “With the cuts in federal spending it hasn’t been manned for several months, but there’s a chance there may still be a radio there that we could use to call out. I’m thinking that we should take a chance and hike to it. On Monday or Tuesday, depending on when our food runs out.” Noah’s throat tightened. “If Ty hasn’t sent anyone by then, he won’t be.”

  Mercer touched his knee, and he swallowed before continuing.

  “We’ll be less likely to be seen if we use the trees as cover instead of taking the road. If the station doesn’t have what we need, we’ll keeping heading south. The closest town is another three miles down.”

  Mercer appeared worried.

  “Hey,” Noah said softly. Hoping to lift her spirits, he bent his head closer to hers. “Remember back when you were complaining about not getting exercise? This’ll be your chance.”

  Mercer released a soft breath before speaking. “I know we have to leave here at some point, but we’re going to be okay,” she said as if trying to convince herself. Her eyes searched his. “We have to be, don’t we? We wouldn’t have made it through everything that’s happened…” Her voice faltered. “…for things to end badly.”

  Noah stared down at her fingers that were still tangled with his. Mercer’s hands were finely boned, her fingers slender and elegant, and he once again felt a nearly overwhelming need to protect her. It reminded him of how he had felt when he had been a kid, trying to protect his mother and sister from the man who should have cared the most about them. Just like then, despite his outward bravery, he was worried, too. What he hadn’t told Mercer earlier was that he had been thinking about the number of bullets left in his gun. Six. There had been six men on that dock yesterday. If they ran into them out there, he would have to make every one of those bullets count.

  Noah looked at the cabin’s door, which he had barred from the inside using two sets of eyelet screws, a hand drill, and two steel bars that he had found in the toolshed. The bars could be slipped off the door easily to allow them to exit, but they would keep out anyone who tried to enter, for a while. He had taken on the project earlier today. He had to stay busy or his thoughts came crowding back in on him.

  He wrapped his arm around Mercer’s shoulders and drew her to him. “We’re going to be okay,” he whispered into her hair.

  She settled against him, her head on his shoulder. At least they had this. They had now. The first pings of rain hit the roof over their heads and thunder rumbled, ominous and low.

  Storms around here could be wild, unpredictable things. Noah hoped that it was just the weather exacerbating his worry.

  But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was coming.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Relax, brother—”

  “Don’t call me your fucking brother!” The voice coming through Lex Draper’s cell phone vibrated with rage. “I didn’t have a choice in this!”

  Lex smirked. Everyone had a choice.

  “I’m done this time. You hear me?”

  “You’re done when I say you are.” Disconnecting the phone, he bit down on a smile, maintaining his usual poker face before turning to the others. The men—five of them—sat around a table littered with beer cans and pizza boxes, taking a break after a long day of scouring the water and surrounding land. The house they were currently camped out in, a rundown split-level not far from the lake, belonged to a sympathizer to their cause.

  “Well?” Mike Larkin—known as Big Mike since he stood at six-foot-five—narrowed his eyes inquisitively before spitting a brown stream of tobacco juice into an empty beer can.

  “He came through again,” Lex confirmed. “They’re ours.”

  He moved his gaze to Lonny Cure, another of the men. “Get in touch with your contact at the county registrar’s office. We need coordinates on a remote lake property. The owner’s name is Beaufain.”

  “The county offices are closed by now,” Lonny said.

  Walking to the table, Lex picked up a slice of pizza from the greasy cardboard box. Making a face, he tossed it down again. “So? He’ll find a way to get us what we need if he wants to get paid.”

  Scraping back his chair and reaching into his pocket for his cell phone, Lonny wandered out to make the call.

  Lex looked around at his crew. When he was made the new leader of The Brotherhood—and he believed that he would be once the old man was six feet under—he vowed that everyone in this room would be rewarded for their loyalty.

  Soon, his loose ends would be all tied up.

  Taking out the witness would be merely business. But the cop who wa
s with her was a different story. Killing him would be a pleasure. The pig had taken out two of theirs. Lex’s stomach soured as he ruminated on the men who had died at that diner, both new recruits who had wanted to prove their devotion to him. Noah Ford would pay well for the blood he had spilled.

  Thunder boomed like battlefield cannons overhead. Lex glanced out the window at the tattered rebel flag that flapped from a pole in the rain. It was barely visible in the iron-gray gloaming.

  Eight inches were expected overnight, according to the weather reports. But Lex saw it as the perfect conditions for hunting. He absently caressed the butt of the Smith & Wesson .22-caliber firearm holstered at his side. He and his men had so far eluded the sheriff’s deputies who were out there. That was because they were covering the land fanning out from the site of the car crash while Lex and his men had been south of them. He knew that the lawmen—like the government pussies they were—would call off their search and take shelter indoors until the rain stopped.

  By then, his work would be done.

  Lex looked once again around the room. These men would share in his power. They would be the knights of his very own round table. He cleared his throat. All of them stopped their conversation and looked at him like eager bloodhounds waiting for their master to let them off leash.

  “Get your rest now,” Lex told them. “We’re hunting tonight. And this time, it’ll be by car.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The rain had grown heavier with nightfall. Seated on the couch, Noah listened as it beat a hard staccato on the cabin’s roof. His fingers stroked through Mercer’s hair as she slept, her head in his lap. Although he was currently the one keeping watch, she hadn’t wanted to sleep in one of the beds alone so she had ended up here, curled onto her side, one cheek pressed into Noah’s jeans-clad thigh.

  Her wedding rings lay on the coffee table. They had made love again earlier that evening, right here on the couch, an impulsive thing that seemed almost as much about giving one another comfort as it did sating their shared desires. Noah recalled how his hands had settled at the swell of her hips as she straddled his lap and eased herself down onto him with a throaty gasp.

  He would let that image carry him through these next few hours.

  Noah remained as he was, simply watching her sleep until a sound—somewhere off in the distance—made its way to him through the rainfall. Cars. His skin prickled with foreboding.

  They were coming down the long, dirt road that led to the cabin, their engines growing louder as they approached.

  “Mercer, get up. Now!” Adrenaline catalyzing him, Noah swiftly moved her to a sitting position.

  As he stood and snatched his weapon from the end table, she blinked at him in confusion, apparently still caught in a web of sleep. But a second later, her eyes widened and filled with fear as she heard the approaching cars, too. Noah slid on his shoes as Mercer stood and quickly did the same. There was a chance that Tyson had sent someone to help them, but the twisting in Noah’s gut told him that wasn’t the case. The bag of aluminum cans in the tree came down with a crash as the cars roared into the clearing. Their engines died and car doors—six of them—opened and slammed closed.

  “Noah…oh, God.” Mercer’s breath rasped out of her.

  His mind raced. He didn’t have enough ammunition to wage a standoff. They would get inside here eventually. Their approach had been fast and deliberate, indicating that they had learned of their location, not just stumbled across it. A numbing sense of doom pressed down on him. Still, he touched Mercer’s face. “Do everything I say, all right? We’re going down to the crawl space.”

  The quiet outside the cabin—there was nothing now but the hard fall of rain—tightened his lungs. Moving to the crawl space’s entrance, Noah peeled back the rug and lifted the hinged door. Mercer climbed down the ladder. As Noah began to follow, he flinched at shattering glass, his heart jumping. A crude incendiary device—a Molotov cocktail—had been thrown through the window, the bottle breaking as it hit the floor and bursting into flames that quickly spread outward and leapt onto the blanket that had been nailed to the top of the window frame.

  Noah had been wrong about them coming inside. Their plan was to force them out or burn them alive.

  Unable to take the lantern since its glow would be seen through the cracks between the crawl space’s boards, Noah closed the door over his head as he descended, placing them in inky darkness. He had counted off the steps down here the day before and it served him now. Hunkered over, unable to stand to full height due to the low ceiling, he swept away cobwebs with his gun’s barrel as he moved blindly to the space’s rear, its dirt floor muddy from the rain that had leaked in. Mercer remained close behind him, her breathing fast and shallow and her fingers latched onto a belt loop on the back of his jeans. Once they reached the cabin’s rear, Noah felt the boards until he located the loose one. He moved it an inch and peered out through the downpour. His stomach hardened. One of the men was back there, keeping watch. They most likely had the place surrounded. The man was armed and water dripped from his yellow poncho and baseball cap, his silhouette made visible by car headlights. They illuminated the trees and brush behind the cabin so that if anyone tried to leave using the dirt path, they would be seen. Two other cars to the right of the cabin’s rear also faced out with their headlights pointed in different directions, creating another wide swath of light. Noah watched as the man headed to the toolshed with his gun at the ready and opened the door. Whether his intent was to look for anyone hiding inside or to determine if there was anything valuable to take, Noah didn’t know. But either way, it was his opportunity.

  “Stay here,” he whispered to Mercer.

  He couldn’t see her features in the dark, but she grabbed his free hand and fervently shook her head. Still, Noah slipped his fingers from hers. With the fire above them, they couldn’t stay here in the crawl space for long.

  Now or never.

  He moved the board away and climbed out. The cold rain was a shock on his skin as he moved quickly and soundlessly to the shed. Pressing himself against the structure’s front beside the open door, water running from his hair into his face and his heart slamming against his ribs, Noah waited as lightning speared the sky.

  A second later, the man walked out.

  Noah swung the barrel of his gun as hard as he could, striking the man in the side of the head. He fell to the ground, unconscious. Noah hit him again, needing him to stay out. He dragged him back into the shed and out of sight, then wedged the door closed with a steel bar through its handle.

  Confiscating the man’s gun and tucking it into the back of his jeans, Noah looked to the cabin. The fire hadn’t broken outside of the structure yet, but there was no doubt that it was being engulfed on the inside. He motioned to Mercer, who emerged from the crawl space and ran to him. Noah looked to the cars, wondering whether any of their keys had been left in the ignitions. But the option of going over there to find out was quickly taken away as voices could be heard through the downpour. Men were coming around the cabin’s right side. One of them was giving orders to check the windows. It sounded as though there were three of them, which—based on the sounds of the slamming car doors—meant that two were unaccounted for.

  Grabbing Mercer’s hand, rain beating down on them, they took the path between the cabin’s left side and the shed. But they didn’t get far before Noah saw another of the bright yellow ponchos through the trees farther out, as well as the beam from a flashlight. Another of the men was searching the woods here. He and Mercer both dropped to the sodden earth. The scent of tall, wet grass around them, Noah searched desperately for some way out.

  “Can you swim?” he whispered.

  Her face went a shade paler, but she nodded. Noah kept his voice hushed. “When he turns back to the woods again, we stay low and try to make it to those bushes up there.”

  That would give them a view of anyone who remained at the cabin’s front. They waited, still lying
on their stomachs until the man who was searching this side of the woods turned away from them with the flashlight. Noah and Mercer sprang up and made a run for the bushes’ cover as lightning again lit the sky.

  Kneeling with Mercer behind the foliage, thunder cracking like a gunshot above them, Noah squinted at the cabin’s front. The glow from the cars’ headlights made it possible to make out the sixth man. He stood behind the shelter of a large tree with his gun trained on the front porch, waiting for anyone who emerged. Flames were now visible through the shattered front window and black smoke billowed out.

  Noah toed off his shoes and Mercer did the same.

  “When I say go, we’re going to slip into the water and swim under the dock,” he instructed, keeping his voice low. “It’s high enough, so there should be an air pocket underneath.”

  Her expression tense, Mercer gave a tight nod.

  They would hide there until the men left or Noah saw a chance to climb onto the pontoon boat and get the canoe back into the water. The pontoon would be faster and Noah had the keys on him, but the start of its engine would draw attention and he didn’t think there would be time to get far enough away before the hail of bullets began. Removing the confiscated weapon from the back waistband of his jeans, he handed it to Mercer, who tucked it into the back of her shorts. Noah did the same with his own gun, preparing to swim.

  He peered through the rain at the man who stood guard at the cabin’s front. Just like the one at the shed, he couldn’t take him down with gunfire without giving their location away. He needed a diversion. Feeling around on the wet ground, he located a heavy, palm-sized stone.

  Noah pointed to an area about ten feet from the dock. “We’ll wade in there,” he whispered. “The water’s shallow at first but it drops off fast.”