In the Waning Light

by Loreth Anne White

  Not north. And not straight out to sea—not enough fuel for that. And a bad move in this storm. He’d head south. The border. In order to sail south, a mariner would first need to round Hobart’s Reef, a jagged circle of volcanic rock that speared through the sea several miles offshore. Once clear of Hobart’s, he’d probably have to hang several miles clear of shore to avoid the rough storm water. If he didn’t have too much of a lead, there was potential to close in on him in the vicinity of Hobart’s, if there was any visibility.

  Blake blasted his Zodiac through the fierce chop at the mouth, and headed for the big swells, the steel hull slicing into the face of the waves.

  He could be wrong. But he could also be right. Hesitate, and he’d lose the two human beings who meant more to him than anything else in this world.

  He opened the engines to full capacity.

  All he had was speed over size, a small Glock at his back. And his sea smarts.

  Several miles offshore, almost at Hobart’s Reef, Blake’s spotlights caught something orange through the fog and snow. Cortisol fired into his system. He slowed, and aimed his spotlights on the smallish object tossing upon veined swells. As he got closer, he saw it was an orange life raft with a tented cover. He came up alongside the raft, reversing engines to hold steady. The raft bumped against the side of his Zodiac and he grabbed for the rope.

  Blake shined his flashlight into the tented opening. His breath caught.

  Tommy Kessinger.

  Lying on his back. His eyes open and lifeless. Blood pooled at the bottom of the life boat. Blake ran the light over his body. He appeared to have been burned. His upper right arm had been gashed open wide.

  A quiet dread filled Blake as he panned his light into the storm, looking for a second raft. Nothing. Judging by the wind and swell direction, he figured this raft had to have drifted from Hobart’s Reef. He let Tommy go, and goosed the engines again, aiming for the reef.

  As he neared the booming sound of surf on rock, he caught snatches of another noise. He quieted the engines for a moment, trying to identify it, and then it hit him—the bleat of emergency air horn sirens. Terror struck his heart.

  He pushed closer to the reef, and suddenly he saw, through the fog and snow, the white navigation light of a boat’s stern. Tommy’s yacht. It had come aground on the reef, and was listing dangerously over onto its port side and taking on water. Worse, he could smell smoke. He pulled up at the stern, and swung a rope with a grappling hook to catch the railing.

  Sobbing with distress, Meg raised her arms high and slammed the ax back into the door, splintering it only a little more. A grating metal groan sounded as the maw in the hull squashed open further, the whole boat starting to fold under the pressure of the sea. More water gushed in. It was just a matter of time before the side of the boat buckled right in.

  Noah screamed.

  She stilled as she heard something else—another voice. Male. Calling her name. No. It couldn’t be. Not possible.

  “Meg!”

  Blake? No, she had to be dreaming. Voices playing tricks in her head again. She was losing it. She was dying.

  “Noah! Meg! Where are you?”

  Energy exploded through her blood.

  “Blake! Down here! Help!”

  Blake slid down the stairs behind her, landing in water. It was up to their knees now, the yacht listing further. Smoke smelled strong.

  “Noah … he’s in there … fire in the engine room.”

  He grabbed the ax from her. “Go up to the top deck. Find life vests. Find the other raft, unclip it, make sure it has a line attached to the boat, and throw the case overboard. It will float. Let it run out with the swell as you pull the line in. When the line runs out, the case will release, and the raft will inflate. Wait up there for us.” Blake started to hack ferociously at the door.

  Up on the aft deck, Meg found the one remaining fiberglass case containing an emergency raft. The fire was now roaring through the cockpit. Coughing, and with shaking hands, she unclamped the case and noted that the line was attached. She struggled to carry the case over to the gunwale. It was heavy, slippery, wet, awkward. She managed to maneuver it over the side, breathing hard, pain riding her body. It landed with a splosh near the bobbing whale boat that Blake had secured to the yacht. She yanked on the line, spooling it out of the case until it jerked, and the raft exploded from the case and started to inflate with a hiss. She located the life vests in a bench chest, and put one on.

  Defying Blake’s request, Meg went back into the boat, and made it down the stairs now flowing heavily with water.

  Blake had hacked a hole big enough for Noah, and he was pulling his son through. Noah was sobbing. Blake took his son’s shoulders and aimed him for the stairs. “Go up.”

  Meg held her hand out to Noah. As Noah reached for it, the hole in the side of the boat splintered open wide with an explosive crash. Sea gushed in, ice cold, buckling the hull inward. The wall of the head caved in, crushing onto Blake.

  “Put this life jacket on!” Meg screamed, shoving a vest at Noah. “Get up the stairs!” She rushed to Blake’s side and started pulling bits of plank and wood off him. “Give me your hand, Blake.” He reached out to her, and she pulled. He screamed in pain. His eyes held hers. The look in them stopped her heart. Timbers creaked again. Smoke was growing thick.

  “My hand, right hand is crushed.” He gasped in pain as she tried to pull him free again. “Go. Get in the raft. Go.”

  “No, Blake! No!” Tears poured down her face. “Please.” She yanked on his arm again. But he was stuck fast. She hooked her hands under his armpits, and pulled. He screamed, and then bit down on the pain as he tried to speak, his face tight, gray, eyes watering. “Meg. Leave. Please.”

  “I … I can’t.”

  The yacht slipped sideways. There was another crunching sound from the engine room. Alarms still clanged. Water sloshed higher. She ripped away another piece of bathroom. And saw. His hand was crushed between the caved-in paneling and cabinetry. Bleeding badly. Her eyes flared to his.

  “Meg, no time. If you don’t get out now, Noah will drown on his own.”

  Her gaze shot to the stairs—they were caving in.

  “Do it. Please. Go. Save my boy. Get him home safe. Look after him.”

  Her whole body shook. She couldn’t move. The yacht groaned, tilted further. Water came to her waist. Her teeth chattered. Her mind couldn’t work.

  “If you stand there, you will kill Noah. Hurry.”

  “I … can’t.” She grabbed his arm, and yanked again. He screamed. She stopped. She was shaking like a leaf.

  “Go, Meggie.”

  The yacht slipped further, she could feel it going now.

  Desperation burned in his eyes. “Please, do not let me die for nothing. Do not kill my son.”

  She held his gaze. The years they’d shared as kids, friends, as soul mates, lovers; the pain and happiness and loss and betrayal, and joy—all of it, she felt it all now. Swelling between them. And it killed her inside. Because she knew with utter certainty that he was the one she wanted in her life. Always had, on some level. And now he was going. She cupped his face, his rugged face. It was white with pain.

  “Please,” he whispered, tears pooling in his green eyes. “My boy.”

  She swallowed. Kissed his cold mouth. “I love you, Blake Sutton.”

  He nodded. Smiled. “Finally, she says it,” he whispered.

  And Meg felt her heart cleave in two.

  Tears streaming down her face, she made it back up to the aft deck, where she found Noah shivering in his life vest and clutching onto the gunwale as the boat yawed onto its side. Slipping across the wet deck, she reached for the raft line and fought against the push and pull of the sea to drag the inflatable right up to the side of the yacht.

  “Give me your hand,” she said to Noah.

  “Where’s my dad?”

  “He wants you to get into the raft, Noah.”

  He stared at her
, refusing to move. “Not without him.”

  She grasped his hand. “Now. Do it. For him.” Holding Noah’s hand, she guided him down onto the water-covered swim deck, and into the raft. Meg hesitated, trying to hold on to hope a moment longer. But the yacht’s stern started to sink, and she knew if she didn’t get off now, she could be sucked down in the powerful vortex made by the sinking craft.

  She jumped into the raft, and cut the line free with the tool affixed to the rope. They went spinning into the dark, driven by wind and swell. Her mind spun into darkness, too, her brain going utterly numb. Blank. She couldn’t even feel the physical pain of her injuries any longer. Part of her was dead inside. On some level she knew she was in severe shock. Her body was shutting down.

  “Dad! Where’s my dad!?” Noah screamed as the lights of the yacht were swallowed by fog and darkness. “He’s not coming, is he? Where is he!?”

  Functioning on autopilot, Meg closed and secured the flap, cocooning them in tightly against the weather. And in silence, she took Noah in her arms, held tight. So tight. For a while she couldn’t speak at all. All she could see were Blake’s eyes as they’d held hers in the last moments. The rawness. The depth of pain. And love.

  Please. Save my son … don’t let me die for nothing …

  She cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry, Noah.” Her voice choked on a sob. She stroked his wet hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Meg’s eyes flickered open, her lids thick, swollen. Medical smell. Drip next to her bed. A machine making a soft, regular beep. Monitors. She turned her head slowly on her pillow. Pain, maybe medication, dulled her brain. A heaviness swamped her body. She blinked as a face came into focus at her bedside. She tried to squint at it.

  A hand reached for hers. A warm hand. A smile split the face with a row of teeth. Those deep indigo-blue eyes—she knew those eyes.

  “Jonah?” Her voice was a reedy whisper.

  “Shh. Don’t talk.”

  Images slammed through her—the scent of smoke, the feel of ice water. She tried to sit up. “Noah?”

  Jonah restrained her shoulder gently. “He’s fine. Meg. He’s in better shape physically than you. The Coast Guard pulled you both out the night before last. He’s been checked out, treated. Cops have spoken with him. He’s seen a critical-incident counselor, and she’ll visit with him regularly for a while now. He’s with Irene now, in the waiting room. I came as soon as I heard.”

  “Blake?”

  A pause.

  She closed her eyes, a dull cold filling her.

  “I’m sorry, Meg. The yacht went down. No sign of it. Some debris was found down the coast that could match, but there’s a lot of debris out there from the storm. The Coast Guard has been plucking people and bodies out all the way down the coast. The fronts came in way faster than anticipated, and with the surge …” He reached out, and with his handkerchief, he wiped tears from her face. Gentle.

  “Maybe … maybe he took another life raft?” she whispered.

  “There were only two.”

  “It was a reef—the yacht hit a reef. Did they look properly? Maybe they were searching in the wrong place. It was dark—”

  “Noah told them that the yacht struck something. That there was breaking water around. They searched around Hobart’s Reef. There was some diesel spill and fire debris.”

  “What about the whale boat?”

  “They haven’t found that. If the yacht went down, it was heavy; it could have pulled a tethered Zodiac down with it, perhaps. Or it could have broken free. It could have gone miles down the coast in that wind.” He took her hand that had once worn his ring, and clasped it gently.

  “I shouldn’t have left him. His hand was crushed, stuck.” Tears overwhelmed her. She couldn’t speak for a few minutes. “He … he told me to save his son.”

  He moved hair back from her brow. “You did, Meg.”

  “Tommy?”

  “They found his body in the life raft. There’ll be an autopsy, but it appears he died from gunshot wounds and blood loss from injury.”

  “I shot him. I cut him with an ax.”

  He smoothed her brow.

  “I killed him.”

  “Let’s wait to talk to the police. Let them make that decision. Don’t leap to any conclusions.”

  “I killed him and I’m glad.”

  “Meg—”

  “I remember, Jonah,” she whispered, her eyes closed. She was unable to take in light or look at the world. “I remember what happened that day twenty-two years ago on the spit. I saw Henry, Tommy, raping Sherry. Geoff … chased me.” Her voice failed her again. She fell silent as she marshaled control. “I can see it, but I don’t understand it—Henry. Geoff …”

  She opened her eyes. “Geoff?”

  “Don’t know what happened to him, yet.”

  “His car … was at the marina. Blake followed him out into the bay. He left … Noah.” She struggled to sit up again, but Jonah once more gently restrained her. “Shh, easy, or Nurse Ratched will be back.” He smiled. “Believe me, you’ll be wanting to delay that.” He paused. “He’s an amazing kid, you know. Stoic.”

  “Takes after his father,” she whispered, an unbearable crushing weight on her chest … gone. Blake gone.

  “Noah told them how his father came down and got him out. What you did.”

  She tried to sit up.

  “Meg, stop fighting. You have got to rest. You have fractured ribs. Fractured arm.” She realized suddenly her right arm was in a cast. “You’ve suffered a concussion. You have twenty-four stitches on your brow, and staples in your skull. You scared us for a moment there.”

  She lay silent, trying to process.

  “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “I want Noah.”

  “First Dave Kovacs needs a word.” Jonah went to the door, motioned for Dave.

  He came in. Hat in his hands. Big and broken looking. “Meg.”

  “I got him,” she said. “It was never Ty. It was Tommy. I remember everything.”

  He drew up a chair. Jonah slipped out. There was a look in Dave’s eyes that made her tense.

  “I have something to tell you, Meg.” He inhaled. “It was my baby. Sherry was carrying our baby.”

  She stared, her world spinning weirdly. Out of focus. She struggled to absorb his words, the look on his face. “Sherry’s baby was yours?”

  He nodded.

  It came to her then. That day in the alley—that was what she’d been trying to pinpoint when she’d seen a picture of the young Dave in the Shelter Bay Chronicle archives. She’d seen them early that summer—Dave and Sherry together. Dave touching her sister’s face in the alleyway behind The Mystery Bookstore.

  “We had a brief affair. She was … it was a mistake. All round. I … I have no excuses. I was newly married, and I don’t even really know how it happened. She was flirtatious. Sexy. She came on to me.” He cleared his throat. “In retrospect, I think she just needed something. Love. Escape.”

  “Did you know? That she was pregnant?”

  He shook his head. “When you came to interview my father that day … it was a shock.” He leaned forward, the plastic chair creaking under his muscular bulk. “I told my dad about me and Sherry, after the murder. In full disclosure, I told him that I’d been seeing her on and off. Just physical. Although he put that information under his hat, he did factor it into his investigation, Meg. And he didn’t believe it impacted his judgment, or his belief in Ty’s guilt. I also felt that our affair bore no relevance on the crime. But I did not know about the pregnancy. My father kept that from me, from everyone, it seems. I think he suspected it was mine, and that he kept it as quiet as he could to protect me and my marriage.”

  “So many little secrets,” Meg whispered, the scant energy she had left draining from her body. “So many consequences as people tried to protect those they loved, and they all intersected over the years …”

 
“I told my wife last night,” he said. “It was a long time ago, and we’re working through it now. I’ve withdrawn from the sheriff’s race.”

  “Oh, Dave—”

  “Not the time. Maybe next run. I’ve also handed the Sherry case to the state police. They’ve already matched Henry Thibodeau’s DNA to one of the profiles on file. It was his hair on Sherry’s body.”

  “It came from the condom with Sherry’s blood trace on it?”

  He nodded.

  “Did Tommy shoot him?”

  “That’s still under investigation. But it sounds like he’s a key suspect—Lori-Beth texted Tommy her husband’s location after Henry called to tell her that he’d checked into the Blind Channel Motel. According to Tommy’s wife, Liske, he left the house in the dark right after that text came through, saying he had a problem at a job site. And someone saw his vanity plates near the motel that night.”

  “Who told my dad where Tyson Mack was hiding? Tommy?”

  “That’s the assumption right now. Ryan Millar had a close friend who worked admin in the sheriff’s office. She’d seen the report on Ty. They have him in for questioning. The belief is he told Tommy, and Tommy, the ‘bereaved’ almost-son-in-law, riled Jack Brogan up over drinks at the Otter and Goose, after which he went to buy a gun.”

  “Ryan lied. About the alibi.”

  “He’s confessed to that, yes. Tommy has been looking after him in business ever since. He wasn’t directly involved in Sherry’s murder, but he’s complicit, of course. He clearly knew why he was covering for Tommy, but whether he had prior knowledge of Tommy’s intent that day is still in question. His legal counsel is seeking a plea bargain in exchange for more information.” He paused. “It’s over, Meg. It’s over.”

  Closure. The End.

  And what was it worth? So she could emotionally die, finally, and begin again? It was not worth the loss of Blake Sutton.

  “I want to see Noah.”

  Noah placed his little hand in Meg’s. His skin was cool. Their eyes locked. She tried to open her mouth but the emotion was suddenly too huge. It was a tsunami inside her, and it choked her words, and tears streamed, and she started to shake. She fought to hold it all at bay, but couldn’t. While Kovacs had gone to fetch Noah, she’d formulated in her mind how calm she would be for him. What she would say. She would be the strong one. Noah was sensitive. He needed her help.