For the first time since gaining consciousness, Millie realized Foster’s blazer, gun and badge were nowhere to be seen. Which meant whoever had done this to them could be armed with something that had been meant to protect them.
Foster must have seen the new flare-up of worry.
He closed the space between them and leaned his head down. His forehead touched hers. Warm and reassuring. She could even still smell his cologne. With one hand he held her arm, with the other he motioned to the mop handle. His words came out crystal clear.
“If you need to use this on anyone, when you swing don’t imagine hitting them, imagine going through them. Okay?”
Millie nodded. It hurt.
Foster’s face softened, but he didn’t say anything more. He turned back to the door. Millie readied the mop handle like a baseball bat.
She held her breath as Foster tried the door.
It was unlocked. He slid it open slowly but with ease.
Millie tightened her grip on the mop handle, sure someone would be waiting.
Yet, the only thing that came for them was the ambient glow of darkness.
And water.
Millie had been right.
They were on a boat.
A boat that, aside from them, was empty. It was also in the middle of the water. Foster shone the light along a bank and its tree line to their right and then to another bank with more trees to their left. Millie could make out the dark water ahead of them and behind.
“We’re anchored,” Foster finally said. He turned his attention to a chain off the side of the boat. Millie went to the captain’s chair and looked at the engine.
Since she had to have Dramamine in her system to even think about being on a boat, she wasn’t that familiar with their intricacies. Still, it was easy to see the key to the ignition was gone. She said as much, and the two of them lapsed into a confused silence. Foster inspected every nook and cranny while Millie tried not to get sick again.
When he seemed to be done, she asked a few of the several questions she was holding on to.
“Why would someone anchor us here? In the middle of the creek, at night, and alone?”
Foster shook his head then shone his light to the tree line to their left. The bank had more sand than the one opposite it.
“One time I got called to the scene of a homicide while I was off duty. It was pouring rain and I got drenched.” Millie felt her eyebrow raise at the subject change but then he pointed to his shoes. “I was wearing these, and it took almost a full day for them to completely dry out.” He ran his hand along the closest part of the boat to him. Millie realized belatedly that it was wet. It had rained. “They’re dry now, which means we were inside when it rained. That might help us with a timeline later.”
“I guess it also means we never were in the creek,” she added. “So does that mean that someone either drove us here and left us or used another boat to get us to this one, which was already anchored?”
Foster shook his head again. Millie wished there was better light for her to see him. His expression now looked haunted, shadows across his features that pulled at her. She went to him, so close that she could smell that cologne again.
“What do we do now?”
Foster moved the beam of light back to the bank.
“We swim for it, go find help, and then bring the entire sheriff’s department back out here to tear this boat apart to look for any forensic evidence.”
Millie looked out at the dark water.
The motion sickness part of her loved that plan.
The terrified-of-water-she-couldn’t-see-through-never-mind-at-night part of Millie got a little weak in the knees.
Foster must have recognized the shift in her.
He surprised her, a feat considering their current situation, and took her hand in his.
“I’ll be right next to you the entire time.”
Millie would have been lying had she said that didn’t make her feel better.
She nodded and winced at the pain.
“If there used to be a ladder here, it’s not on board anymore,” he said. “Even with the flashlight I can’t see the bottom, so I’m going to try to lower myself over so we can figure out how deep it is before you jump in.”
“Would it be too much to hope that it’s shallow?”
The dark water was a nightmare and a half, waiting with menacing calm.
“Based on the fact there’s an anchor, I’m assuming it’s at least six feet. I just don’t want to take our chances and jump in and break our legs.”
Millie conceded to that, even if she wasn’t a fan.
He squeezed her hand and then let go.
“That’s only about thirty seconds of swimming from here to the bank. We can do this.”
Millie knew the pep talk was for her, so she gave him a smile to let him know it landed. In the dim light they had to work with, Foster’s green eyes still penetrated with ease. She felt a pang of disappointment when they left her to focus on the task at hand.
The flashlight was passed over to Millie as the detective perched on the side of the boat and then swung his legs over. With an impressive amount of upper body strength, he used his arms to lower himself until he was no longer moving himself down but holding on. Millie leaned over and watched him let go.
The darkness went up to his shoulders before he started treading water.
“Can you touch the bottom?” Millie asked with hope clear in her voice.
He dipped down, the water going to his chin, before popping back up.
“No dice. Whoever picked this spot knew it was deep.”
Millie’s fear response might not have liked it but her stomach was reminding her that she needed to get to land sooner rather than later. She passed the flashlight down to Foster and finally let go of the mop.
She had never been the fastest swimmer, but she was pretty sure she was about to temporarily acquire Olympic-level speed as soon as she hit the water.
Knowing she couldn’t do the cool, strong man way of getting in like Foster had, Millie sat on the edge and threw her legs over until she was sitting. Foster stayed close as she did a little hop off.
The water was surprisingly warm. Foster reached out to try to keep her above the water, but Millie’s spaz level at being in the dark water made her move more than she meant to. Her head went under in an instant.
It felt like a second went by.
Just one.
Yet it was enough time to take their already tilted world and turn it upside down.
* * *
FOSTER WASN’T A MAN to believe in luck, good or not. It was an old fight he’d had with his ex-wife, Regina, from age fifteen when she had called him lucky to land a girlfriend like her to the day they signed the divorce papers and she cited their marriage had ended because of bad luck.
Good, bad, or anything in between, luck was just what you called the timing of something based on the outcome.
It wasn’t good luck that Jason Talbot had found Millie alone in her home when he’d gone to question her about Fallon, just as it wasn’t bad luck that he’d shown up minutes before Foster had.
Luck was the ripple effect of actions. Consequences of actions, whether accidental or intentional.
However, in the dark creek water, next to an abandoned boat he’d woken up on—after most likely being drugged—and treading next to a beautiful woman who had just resurfaced, Foster’s disbelief in luck sank to the bottom.
Actual, physical ripples spread across the top of the water, diverting around Millie as she took a breath.
The ripples weren’t coming from her but toward her.
Foster clicked off the flashlight.
Millie made a noise but something else farther off was louder.
Foster propelled himself backward in the wa
ter. Instead of turning toward the bank, he looked around the front end of the boat where the creek remained wide and snaked out of view around a bend of trees.
The fleeting existential crisis of bad and good luck warred within him as he moved back to Millie, careful not to move too much.
Millie’s eyes were wide.
She’d heard it too.
It was good luck that Millie had gone overboard with as little sound as she had.
It was bad luck that they hadn’t left for the woods sooner.
“A boat,” he whispered, water lapping in his mouth while he took Millie’s body in his arms and pulled her along with him. “We need to hide.”
Chapter Ten
The second boat had at least two passengers.
Foster could hear their footfalls as they stepped onto the plastic flooring overhead. They’d docked their boat alongside the craft Foster and Millie had woken up on.
Had they come back for Foster and Millie?
Why had they left them in the first place?
There were too many questions and, while Foster was quick to let everyone know he loved a challenge, this wasn’t what he’d meant.
One set of footsteps came closer to their side of the boat. Foster felt Millie’s entire body tense against him. He probably wasn’t faring much better. His muscles were all working toward two purposes. To keep Millie against the side of the boat as best he could and to be ready if their hiding place was spotted. Though he wished he could tell her with confidence that everything would be okay.
That this was all just some weird misunderstanding. That help was on its way and everything would be fine.
But he couldn’t.
They were in a wild, unpredictable situation.
One he couldn’t have imagined had he sat down at his desk and been told to try.
So if he couldn’t promise her a good ending, he was going to make sure she knew he was going to fight for it at the very least. That included keeping her safe.
He pulled her against him with one hand so she didn’t have to keep treading water and tightened his grip on a small, busted light protruding from the side of the boat.
However, even that play had its set of problems.
If the newcomers—whoever they were—looked out at the bank Foster and Millie had been about to make their way to, they would see nothing but water, sand and trees.
If they looked over the side of the boat and down, they’d see Foster and Millie trying to stay as still as possible in the deep, dark water.
Foster just hoped that they weren’t that thorough. And that the other boat stayed on the opposite side of them.
“Be careful.”
It was a man’s voice, deep and with a thick Southern drawl that saturated the three short syllables. He was the one closer to them. Thankfully, he didn’t seem too interested in inspecting further.
The other set of footsteps softened.
They’d gone down into the cabin.
It didn’t take long for those same footsteps to come back topside.
“There’s no one in there.”
The second voice also belonged to a man. There was less twang to it. Foster also didn’t recognize it.
“I don’t believe it.” The Southern drawl turned angry. His footsteps changed course as he must have gone to double-check his partner. He took a bit longer in his search and was none the happier when he was back outside.
“Someone got sick down there,” he said matter-of-factly. “Which means someone was down there.”
“Well, they sure ain’t there now, are they?”
Foster stared into the warmth of Millie’s eyes as the sound of a punch went through the night air. The receiver of the hit groaned. Foster’s guess was it was the one who had less twang.
“You think this is all some kind of video game, don’t you?” the Southern drawler said, voice raised so much that Foster didn’t have to strain to hear him. “That every little damn hurdle we’ve hit is just a minor inconvenience. That all we have to do is go lay next to a beautiful woman and call it a day and everything resets in the morning.”
There was movement again.
Foster wasn’t sure but he bet it was another hit.
“This ain’t a game, son. If it was, we’d be losing to a much better player.” He muttered something, but it got lost in the distance between him and the water. Though Foster hazarded that it probably wasn’t poetry.
A sigh broke the rant and seemed to help Southern Drawl calm himself down enough not to hit his partner again.
“That woman said she saw those two get muscled into the truck,” he continued. “This is where he took Fallon, so this has to be where he’d have taken them.”
Foster had dealt with the intersection of death and surprise for years during his career in Seattle. He’d been the one to notify a family member of their loved one’s demise, and he’d been the one to take the confession of a killer in the interrogation room. Not every case was so cut-and-dried and not every one was about homicide, but from his time dealing with it all, Foster had picked up a skill that kicked into gear the moment Fallon’s name had been said aloud.
It was knowing the gravity of the look on Millie’s face at the mention of her brother.
That instinctual feeling a person had when something life-changing had been said. That piece of information or string of words that, once spoken, could never be unheard.
Millie had felt it.
And Foster knew the second she had.
Millie had a new lead to go on. An answer, just waiting for a question.
A question she was ready to ask, even if it meant putting herself in danger.
Foster leaned his head over so it pressed against her forehead.
No, he mouthed.
He wasn’t sure if she saw it, but she kept quiet as the men kept talking.
“Someone puked down there so someone was here.” This time it was the second man. The younger man, Foster decided. “He either came back for them or some drunk has been staying here and couldn’t hold his liquor. Either way, what do you want us to do now?”
There was another sigh.
It deflated as fast as Foster heard the third boat.
The engine on it was in no way stealthy and sounded waterlogged and labored in the distance.
It also wasn’t expected by the men above them. The younger one’s voice split between obvious excitement and fear.
“Oh man, do you think it’s him?”
The older man wasn’t as thrilled. He also wasn’t as loud.
Foster could hear that he was whispering but couldn’t hear what he was saying.
Millie nudged his head with hers. He felt her shrug against him.
Even if they could talk, he didn’t have answers for her.
Though that was going to change soon enough.
They waited as the men above them became quiet. Foster wasn’t big on boats, but he knew enough to take a guess that the approaching one was much smaller than both crafts it was steering toward.
The person driving the boat stopped.
Ripples moved across the water.
Millie placed her hand against Foster’s chest.
He didn’t have to hear her to know she was thinking one thing.
Was Fallon the man on the other boat?
Or the man who had brought Fallon here before?
“Howdy there, guys.”
Unlike the other two men, Foster recognized this voice in an instant.
Deputy Carlos Park.
“I was out looking for a buddy of mine and was wondering if you could help me?”
His voice echoed clearly around them. The same as Southern Drawl’s.
“Well, howdy yourself, Deputy. We’re just fishing, is all, I’m afraid. No one but us out here.”
They knew the deputy?
Park asked exactly what Foster was wondering himself.
“I’m sorry but have we met before?” the deputy asked. “What’s your name? The light on your boat isn’t helping me get a clear view of you.”
“Everybody in town knows who the law are,” Southern Drawl replied. “You know, what with everything that’s happened.”
That took the conversation and made it stall. Deputy Park must have been trying to decide on what to do next. Foster wished he could see the men on the boat just like he wished he could see if they were armed.
Also, he might not have liked Deputy Park all that much, but he was a colleague. One who hadn’t been found guilty or run during The Flood.
That should have counted for something.
And it did in Foster’s book.
When the silence overhead saturated the air, fraught with tension he could feel all the way in the water, Foster made a few decisions of his own in rapid succession.
The first required the risk of making noise, but he had a feeling that group of men were focused on their conversation more than the water. He held his breath as he moved the hand he had around Millie and pushed her gently closer to the boat than him.
The ambient light of night had put a slight glow on the woman. Her eyes were still warm in the shadows it created. They let him know in no uncertain terms that she understood what he was trying to convey. Slowly she moved her hand up to the busted light Foster was using as a handhold. He kept her floating until she had a purchase on it.
Then he let go of both her and the light.
The men on the boat had started talking about their lie of fishing while, Foster suspected, Deputy Park was doing his own fishing for information. Or more time.
He could have been stalling, waiting for backup.
Or he could see that one or both of the men were armed and wasn’t comfortable in a shoot-out over the water.
Either way no one seemed to notice the lapping of water as Foster came free of the boat.
Which was good because he needed some surprise on his side.
Stay. Here, he mouthed to Millie.
Uncovering Small Town Secrets Page 8
