Mercer’s eyes were large and frightened, but she wiped the rain from her face and again nodded her understanding.
His breath bottled inside his chest, Noah threw the stone. His aim was good. It hit an aluminum trashcan on the far side of the cabin’s porch, creating a loud clang. It got the man’s attention, who walked off in that direction with his gun drawn. Noah took off to the swollen water bank with Mercer close behind. They waded in until their feet no longer touched the lake bottom and then swam under the water’s black surface. Noah came up for air when his hand met the dock’s side. Heart pumping, he looked back as Mercer’s head popped up above the rain-roughened water a few feet behind him. The dock was fixed, not a floating one that rose and dipped with the lake’s depth, and he prayed that even with the rising water there would still be enough air underneath it.
A thunderous explosion rocked the night, causing Noah to look back to shore. His lungs squeezed. The fire had reached the cabin’s propane line. Orange flames licked upward from the structure’s shattered windows, lighting the area and reflecting off the lake. Noah could see Mercer as she treaded water beside him. Her blond hair was matted to her skull, her breath coming hard. He pointed downward, indicating where they would go next. Then, filling his lungs with air, he dove down into darkness, coming up seconds later under the dock. Mercer’s head broke through the water’s surface a few moments after his. Noah wiped at the water on his face as they both clung to one of the dock’s algae-slicked support poles. There was still an air pocket between the water and the dock’s underbelly, but not as large a one as Noah had hoped. His chest tingled, aware that if it continued raining at the current rate, the water would keep rising and they wouldn’t be able to stay here.
The fire on shore created thin fingers of light between the wood planks above their heads.
“What if the alligator’s still here?” Mercer whispered fearfully.
Noah had already considered that. Hopefully, it had moved on. He kept his voice low. “I haven’t seen it around. Compared to what we’re facing up there, I’ll take the odds.”
They clung to the pole in a charged silence for what seemed like forever. Noah’s clothes—jeans and a button-front shirt borrowed from Tyson’s dresser—were weighted by water, making him work harder to remain afloat. Mercer’s shorts and top were lighter, but she still appeared at the point of fatigue. Her teeth chattered. Noah was cold, too. Although the South Carolina autumns were mild, the water under the dock was untouched by the sun and the hard downpour had dropped the temperature further. The deluge of rain drummed on the wood planking above them, accompanied by the roar and crackle of the fire as it continued to consume the cabin. The air around them smelled like wet ash and smoke. Noah hoped that someone was close enough to see the fire or have heard the explosion, that it had been reported to the authorities. But their arrival could still take more time than they had.
The rain showed no sign of relenting, putting their hiding place in jeopardy.
A pain-filled scream reached them over the fire’s roar. It sounded as though it was coming from the woods behind the cabin. Noah’s eyes met Mercer’s as she bobbed beside him in the grainy darkness.
Someone had stumbled over a bear trap.
That left four men.
Noah’s head bumped against the planking, confirmation that the water was rising. He estimated that the distance to the far end of the L-shaped dock where the pontoon was located was about forty yards.
“Stay here,” he told Mercer. “I’m going to swim to the pontoon and try to get the canoe out. We might be able to use it to get away.”
Her hushed words held panic. “Don’t leave me here, Noah! Please!”
“There’s no point in us both taking the risk out there—”
“Why can’t we stay under the dock and make our way to it together?”
“Because there’s netting strung up farther down to keep out debris. When I reach it, I’ll have to come out from under the dock and swim underwater the rest of the way to the pontoon. If I can get the canoe into the water, I’ll come back for you. We can cling to its sides until we’re far enough out, then figure out a way to get into it.”
“You mean if they don’t see you trying to get to it and kill you first! Don’t do this!”
“I don’t have a choice,” Noah said hoarsely. “The water’s rising. You can see that. Our air pocket’s gotten thinner in the fifteen minutes we’ve been under here. We can’t stay.”
As thunder boomed again overhead, his eyes held hers for several strained seconds. Then, jaw set, he dove under the water.
Chapter Twenty-Four
His lungs cramping, Noah broke through the water’s surface at the pontoon’s stern. Holding on to the engine, he caught his breath. Although he couldn’t see the cabin from here, the orange glow filling the sky indicated that it was now fully engulfed. At least it had provided enough light for him to see his way through the murky depths. Gray ash floated on the water around him and the air hung heavy with smoke.
Quietly, he pulled down the pontoon’s ladder, climbed onto its narrow swim platform, and crawled into the body of the vessel. Padded bench seating and railings on the boat’s sides provided partial cover, as did the sunshade and raised helm where the captain’s chair was located midway to the bow. Staying on his knees, Noah could now see the flames that licked hungrily at what was left of the cabin. The sight made his blood run cold. Taking his gun from the back waistband of his jeans, he poured water from its barrel.
He squinted through the rain at the men, four of them, standing on shore with their backs to him, their voices caught within the fire’s roar. Doing his best to stay out of sight, Noah pulled the tarp from the canoe. He would have to push it out, and he hoped that any scraping or splashing sounds it made would be drowned out by the fire’s noise. His sodden clothes stuck to his clammy skin and water snaked from his hair, blurring his vision. Without standing, it was harder to push the canoe. Remaining on his knees, his muscles straining with the effort, it began moving slowly toward the stern.
The voices coming from shore became clearer. Peering cautiously over the railing, Noah tensed. Two of the men were now walking toward the dock. He dropped his head below the railing again. A few seconds later, anguished screams filled the night. Both men had fallen into the pit that Noah had dug and camouflaged. He felt no sympathy. With each pointed stick he had whittled, he had been thinking of Tyson and what this group had done to him, what they wanted to do to Mercer. As the men’s cries and curses pierced the air, Noah heard the shouts of the remaining two as they realized what had happened.
The diversion was his best chance to get the canoe into the water. But it also meant that he would have to stand, at least partially, to turn it on its side to get it past the engine. One end of the canoe had reached the pontoon’s stern. Noah’s heart hammered as he raised up enough to use his body weight to turn the canoe. He had managed to work it halfway past the engine when another bolt of lightning split the sky, illuminating the pontoon. A second later, his heart clenched as a bullet hit the vessel’s aluminum railing, creating a shower of sparks. Noah let go of the canoe and reached for his weapon. But before he could return fire, another shot echoed into the night. He fell backward into the pontoon, his upper left arm burning as if it and the cabin were one.
The air left his lungs as shockwaves traveled through him, trying to shut his body down. Footsteps thudded on the dock. Noah ground his teeth, attempting to clear his vision. Blood, bright red and glistening, bloomed high up on his shirtsleeve, below his shoulder. His gun. It had flown from his grasp. He searched desperately for it in the shadows.
One of the remaining men spoke. “Stay here and make sure no one leaves this dock.”
Noah’s heart squeezed as Lex Draper peered over the pontoon’s railing, a scowl on his hard-featured face and rain dripping from the brim of his cowboy hat. The barrel of his gun was pointed at Noah’s chest as he stepped on board.
“Where is she?” he d
emanded, his voice a low growl.
Noah spotted his Glock. It lay several feet away, just under the crumpled edge of the tarp that had concealed the canoe. Trying to push through the pain, he reached for it but Draper kicked it away, then picked it up and tossed it overboard. It went into the water with a heavy plunk. Noah cried out, black spots filling his vision as Draper viciously kicked his wound.
“I know she’s around here somewhere, pig. You’re going to tell me where.”
Her world turned over. Clinging to the dock’s support pole, Mercer pressed her fingers over her mouth to contain the sob lodged inside her throat.
Noah. Oh, God.
Had he gone down in the gunfire? She could hear the low drone of men talking above her. But then a hard tremor passed through her at the voice that called out to her.
“Show yourself, sweetheart, or he’s a dead man!”
Mercer’s heart dropped into her stomach. She knew the monster shouting to her was Lex Draper.
“Come out now or I’m sending him to meet Jesus—”
“She’s not out here! And you’re going to kill me, anyway!”
Noah. Mercer swallowed hard. He was still alive. He sounded weak, but she knew that he had raised his voice because he wanted to make certain that she heard him.
You’re going to kill me, anyway.
Her jaw clenched in terror. He was trying to tell her that he was a lost cause. To remind her that she had to stay under here until the men left or the last thin space of air was gone. The tears that had been welling in her eyes slipped down her face as her body shook uncontrollably in the cold water.
“Where is she, asshole? You got her stashed out there in the woods somewhere?”
Noah’s moan of pain tore at her. Draper was hurting him.
“Come on out, baby doll! The longer you stay out of sight, the longer he pays for it!”
She heard Draper speak again.
“Go to the car and get my hunting knife. This cop’s lying here like a fish, so we might as well gut him. He’ll start talking soon enough.”
Mercer tried to keep breathing but her lungs wouldn’t obey. The footsteps that sounded above her indicated that the man Draper had given orders to was leaving. But he would be returning soon with a knife.
Do something!
The second gun. Mercer nearly gasped in realization. After swimming under the wood planking, she had taken it from the back waistband of her shorts and laid it on a narrow ledge created by the dock’s construction. Her mind raced along with her runaway pulse. There had been two gunshots fired above her, but she had no way of knowing if either had come from Noah’s weapon. Had his worked after being submerged? Would this one? She reached for the gun and drained the remaining water from its barrel. It felt heavy in her trembling fingers. Something brushed her leg as it squiggled past her in the water, but she had to ignore the revulsion that swept through her. Mercer squinted in the darkness at the menacing weapon, then disengaged what she guessed to be the safety as footsteps sounded again on the dock.
“Big Mike bled out.” The approaching man’s voice was thick with emotion. “That stick hit an artery. Lonny and Paul are hurt bad, too. You make sure that fucking cop feels this blade, Lex!”
If Mercer attempted to swim out to get closer, there was little doubt that she would be seen before she ever got a chance to aim the gun. But she could at least try to stop the man above her. Stop him from delivering his instrument of torture.
A silent prayer on her lips, Mercer let go of the support pole. Cycling her legs to stay afloat, she held the gun tightly in both hands and pointed the barrel upward. She waited, shivering hard from fear and cold, until the sound of footsteps indicated that the man was directly above her on the dock.
She pulled the trigger and fired.
The gun discharged with a deafening explosion, raining down wood fragments and the unexpected force of the kickback submerging her. Her insides sank as the gun slipped from her cold-numbed fingers. Mercer came up a second later, gasping and coughing, her head knocking against the wood planking above her in the ever-thinning air pocket. A high-pitched buzz filled her ears. But the man who had been above her had fallen into the water. She bit back a scream. Through a gap in the dock’s siding, she could see him just a few feet away as he sank below the water’s surface.
The buzz in her ears receded, replaced by thudding footsteps moving rapidly closer. Mercer looked up through the shattered wood. Her heart turned sideways as Lex Draper glared down at her. Quickly submerging herself again, she kicked away but still felt the water’s current as a bullet whizzed past her. She dove downward and began swimming into the dark abyss under the dock, going low enough to touch the lake’s floor. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as Draper continued shooting down through the wood planks, trying to guess where she was. Seconds later, Mercer’s heart suffered another hard jolt. She’d run into the netting that Noah had warned her about, the murky water making it hard to see. She turned and kicked away from it, but panic zinged through her as something held her back.
Her foot had gone through a hole in the slimy, ancient netting, anchoring her into place.
Oh, God.
Lungs begging for oxygen, Mercer fought frantically to work her foot free as bullets continued striking the lakebed around her. When finally, her foot slipped out, she tried to go back the way she had come, but the netting had unfurled around her. She must have partially torn it down in her struggle to free herself.
Please, God, help me!
Battling her way out of it, her need for air now so strong that her vision had begun narrowing into a tunnel, she accidentally came up on the outside of the dock instead of under it. Even as her instincts kicked in and she gulped precious air, grief clawed at her.
Her life and Noah’s would end here.
Mercer dared to look over her shoulder. Terror speared through her. Draper stood in the driving rain on the dock above her, a victorious smile on his hateful face as he aimed the gun.
His chest exploded into flames.
What was happening? She blinked in stunned confusion as Draper howled and stumbled backward. It was as if fireworks were shooting out from his body, as if he were being electrified from the inside out. Screaming, he disappeared off the dock’s other side. Treading water, still in disbelief, Mercer greedily inhaled the cool night air.
She turned again in the water. Noah stood inside the pontoon. The flames from the cabin illuminated the glistening blood just below his left shoulder. His face was pale.
“Noah!”
Swimming to the pontoon’s stern, Mercer used the ladder to climb up. She squeezed past the canoe that lay on its side, wedged between the larger boat’s railing and its engine. Her heart froze. Noah now sat in the pontoon’s hull, his back against one of the padded benches. What looked to be a brightly colored sidearm lay beside him. Mercer knew from her own boating experience that it was a single-use flare gun that he had discharged into Draper’s chest. The seat of another of the padded benches was lifted upward. Various boating supplies were located in its compartment.
“Noah! God!” Mercer fell to her knees beside him, terrified by the blood soaking through his shirt. At her touch, he swallowed, his voice hoarse.
“We’ve…got to make sure Draper’s dead.”
“Of course, he’s dead!” Mercer’s throat tightened. Noah’s skin was cold. Too cold. “You shot that flare into his chest! I shot the other man, too! He fell into the water!”
He tried to get up, but she wouldn’t allow it.
“I need to see Draper,” he persisted.
“I’ll go look then, all right?” She peered at the spot where Draper had last stood. “His gun is on the dock. He’s got to be in the water, too.”
She didn’t want to leave Noah. Still, she rose on wobbly legs and stepped from the pontoon onto the dock. The man she had shot was no longer visible in the water, and she imagined him on the lake’s floor. Mercer forced herself to go farther. Wiping ra
in from her face, she avoided the bullet-shattered wood planks as she crept to the other side of the dock. Her heart squeezed in tightened beats. Draper floated just beneath the water on his back. Bubbles escaped his mouth as air left his lungs, and the gruesome cavern in his chest still glowed with green light. One hand pressed against her stomach, Mercer carefully picked up his gun. On shore, she saw two men hobbling toward one of the vehicles that was parked at the edge of the clearing behind the burning cabin. Both had bloody pant legs and one had his arm wrapped around the other’s shoulders for support. They got into the car. The engine started, the car’s tires spinning in the wet earth before gaining enough traction to speed off.
Mercer returned to Noah, who had managed to stand again inside the pontoon, one hand braced on the railing.
“Draper’s dead,” she confirmed, although her voice quivered. “And the last two men just left by car. They’re both wounded. Noah, you need to sit back down.”
“That leaves the one in the shed. We need to be sure he’s still there.” Noah closed his eyes briefly, as if to gain his equilibrium.
Mercer worriedly touched his uninjured arm. “I’ll go look for you.”
“I have to go with you this time. If he got out, it could be…”
They both stilled at the sound of an approaching engine. Mercer’s wet skin prickled with apprehension. But it wasn’t a car this time. The noise was coming from the water. Noah took Draper’s gun from her as an airboat equipped with a spotlight lit the dock. But a moment later, he lowered the weapon as they heard recognizable voices calling to them.
Mercer nearly sagged with relief. “It’s Remy and Tom!”
That meant that Detective Beaufain must still be alive. The approaching boat seemed to glide over the lake’s roughened surface before coming to a stop beside the dock as the engine was cut.
“That Draper?” Remy asked, looking at the submerged but still glowing body in the water as he stepped from the boat onto the dock. Both he and Tom wore rain gear. Lightning lit the sky as rain continued to fall.
In Dark Water (Rarity Cove Book 3) Page 19
