Nail Biter

by Sarah Graves

  Lit from below, the bare branches of the trees reflected my flashlight eerily as if reaching out. But nothing was there and after a moment my heart stopped thundering and I went on more carefully. A sprained ankle wasn't going to advance my cause any.

  Nothing will. The thought came unbidden; I brushed it away.

  Nothing can change what happened to you.

  But I didn't expect it to, did I? Even I wasn't that much of an idiot. Once I'd thought this, the voice in my head fell silent.

  I knew how foolhardy it was coming out here alone, too. But I couldn't risk telling anyone; someone who might follow, meaning only to help. Someone whose presence might provoke Rickert into making good on his threat.

  Or so I told myself, taking another step. Ahead wooden pilings loomed, remnants of the old bridge, now leaning crazily one way and the other like a clump of giant mushrooms growing from a single center.

  I shone the flashlight among them in case someone was hiding there, but no one was. Then I stepped down onto the beach.

  Stones and shells crunched under my feet. Across the water a single house stood silent under a bright white yard light, the fog turning the glow into a wavering nimbus. Beyond the trees to my right, the causeway hummed occasionally in the distance with the passage of a middle-of-the-night car or truck.

  Otherwise nothing. The air smelled of iodine, sharply medicinal, and the fog lay like a cold cloth on my hot forehead.

  I breathed it in, wishing I could spread it on my heart. A girl alone . . .

  I'd never told anyone the real reason why I ran away from my mother's folks, who'd taken me in when she died. The closest I'd gotten was entertaining Ellie with stories about my hound-dog boy cousins, who'd chased me around the packed-earth yard and among the outbuildings of the old farm as if I were a little rabbit.

  What I didn't say was that sometimes they caught me.

  So I shouldn't have come, and I should have woken Wade, and I should have told someone where I was going; elementary. But it might have meant explaining, and that I couldn't do; I'd tried, but the words always refused to come out of my mouth.

  So instead in one pocket I had the gold piece and in the other I had a .22 pistol, courtesy of Wade's gun collection. The Bisley was too big to handle fast enough out here in the dark, and the .22 was plenty.

  My foot slipped on a wet rock. Flailing, I struggled to keep my balance but the other foot hit a mess of seaweed, slick and treacherous as glare ice.

  Oh, this is going to hurt, I thought on the way down.

  But I never landed. Strong hands caught me easily. Relieved not to be bashing my brains out on a boulder, I didn't even struggle until one of the arms tightened around my waist.

  Then a hand pressed something to my face.

  The sweet smell of chloroform rushed into my lungs, filled my chest. Across the water, the fog-shrouded light shriveled to a pinpoint, racing away into a dark tunnel, dragging me along.

  Until the darkness swallowed me whole.

  Chapter

  9

  I woke up groggy, nauseated, and with a headache so bad that it felt as if my skull had been run over by a truck.

  Cold, too; under a rough blanket I was shivering helplessly. Also, I was apparently on a boat: cold spray, rolling waves . . .

  Groaning, I let my head loll over the rail and gave up just about everything I'd ever eaten in my life. After that my stomach felt better but my head felt worse. My teeth kept chattering, and the jackhammer effect this produced in my skull was nothing short of excruciating.

  At the far end of the boat a man operated an outboard motor, its sound a low grumble barely audible in the rush of wind and water. I lay sprawled in the bow feeling the wooden seat dig into the back of my neck. Straight overhead, the clouds were breaking apart enough to let the stars shine through.

  Lots of stars, which meant we were far from any artificial lights. And Eastport was full of them, so where the hell . . . ?

  I sat up, squinting through eyes that felt bruised and swollen. The blanket had begun helping a little, and now that my stomach had nothing in it the cold fresh air was scouring some of the nauseated feeling away, too.

  I spotted the lights of Campobello Island laid out in a long broken line, and in the other direction the dock lights over the tugboats tied up at the fish pier in Eastport. Soon after that, my chloroform-insulted brain came up with three facts:

  (1) We were motoring, without any lights of our own, in an open boat in the middle of Passamaquoddy Bay, (2) the guy in the stern with a hand on the tiller was almost certainly Mac Rickert, and (3) the thing in his other hand was my gun.

  “Bastard,” I muttered. Mac didn't react. Instead he dug into a satchel, then leaned amidships to hand a small tin pillbox and a glass bottle to me.

  That was when I noticed he was wearing a life vest. And that I wasn't. “Wash 'em down,” he advised cryptically.

  Squinting, I saw he'd given me a tin of aspirin tablets and a pint of Wild Turkey. I gathered he thought these would dull the side effects of the anesthesia he'd administered. I thought bonking him with one of the oars lying by my feet would make me feel even better, but there was that basic life-jacket mismatch to consider: him, yes.

  Me, no. And if I went over the side while trying to clobber him I would certainly drown. So I sat where I was and fumbled the tin open, chewing two aspirin before slugging down a mouthful out of the whiskey bottle. When the stuff hit my stomach and stayed there, I took another swallow and put the bottle between my feet.

  Now if I could only get the gun. One in the kneecap should do it. . . .

  “Don't try,” Rickert said as if reading my mind. On his feet were a pair of wading boots, the kind hunters wear when they're out in a marsh hunting ducks. The boots' tops were rolled down, I noticed irrelevantly.

  “Bottled courage won't make up for the weight advantage I've got on you,” he said.

  Unfortunately, he was correct; physics again. “What do you want with me? I thought we were just going to talk.”

  “We are. I didn't know if you were smart enough to go along with my instructions about not bringing anyone, that's all. So I snatched you up quick in case someone was about to join you.”

  Dumb enough was more like it, I thought, ashamed all at once of my own stupidity. What the hell had been the matter with me? Now I was going to end up missing, too, just like . . .

  “Where's Wanda?” I demanded. “What've you done with—”

  “Don't worry about her. You've got bigger problems.”

  A sudden rush of fright nearly swamped me. What was this all about, now, and why hadn't I seen it coming?

  But I knew. I'd wanted to be a heroine, save the day all by myself. That way I wouldn't have to tell anyone what was really going on with me; simple as that.

  “So I guess it was you out on the street the other night. Under my window.” My tongue felt thick; chloroform was a disgusting drug, and where had he gotten it, anyway?

  Then I remembered: he was a drug dealer. He could probably get his hands on plutonium if he wanted some.

  He nodded. “Luanne got in touch, said you'd been over at her place asking about me.”

  Of course. She'd lied about not being in contact with him.

  “Figured I'd have a peek. Nice house you've got,” he said.

  Oh, spare me the small talk.

  “Luanne was afraid I'd be mad at her for mentioning me,” he added. “Had herself an attack of nerves. She thinks I'm dangerous, I guess. Real outlaw type.”

  “Great. Thanks for sharing that. And you got me out here to tell me about it because . . .”

  Hey, even bullies must need to unburden themselves once in a while, I thought bitterly. Lighten the old psychic load. He aimed the boat toward Eastport, waved at one of the few houses with its lights still on in the village.

  “I know the woman who lives there,” he remarked, seemingly apropos of nothing.

  And as if I cared. In the darkness he negotiated
the tide and currents expertly, keeping us heading at a slight angle into the waves to minimize choppiness.

  “Sold me half her oxycontin scrip last week. Now she's up with bone pain, I suppose,” he went on.

  You are a shit, I thought but didn't say. Once in a while a patient of Victor's got bone pain from a tumor.

  “Why would she do that? Sell her pain medicine when . . . ?”

  When she knows that very soon she will need it herself.

  It was another thing I'd learned from Victor. When the time came for painkillers, he'd give you enough to fell a horse if you needed it, and if it wiped out your breathing and blood pressure, well—well, let's just say no one had ever objected to the medication regimens he prescribed.

  “What do you care, anyway?” Rickert wanted to know suddenly.

  “My son's a recovering addict,” I replied. “So I've got my opinions.”

  No answer from Rickert. Then all at once the reality of my situation washed over me and with it another wave of chloroform-muddled terror.

  “My ex-husband just found out he has an inoperable brain tumor,” I blurted.

  Then I upchucked again, the booze and aspirin coming up in a sour rush as if my gut was trying to unload this new knowledge as well. It was what Sam had told me, that when they'd gotten back to Victor's after the dinner party Victor had asked him to come inside, and then he had told Sam.

  “I don't know why I told you that,” I said.

  Sam said Victor had seemed calm and sort of consoling about it when he told Sam. When he got back outside, though, he could see his father through the kitchen window, at the table with his face in his hands.

  “Sorry to hear it,” Rickert said finally, not sounding concerned. “Anyway, the woman I was telling you about, who sold me the pills. Reason she did it is, her daughter's going to a big dance at the high school next week. Needs a dress.”

  He lit a cigarette, cupping the match in his hands so it lit his face for an instant. “And of course there's no money in that house,” he went on, flipping the match away.

  “She asked around, finally got in touch with me, bound and determined she was going to sell those pills.”

  He leaned forward, took the whiskey bottle and drank from it. “I didn't buy 'em, somebody else would. And I didn't bargain her down on the price, either.”

  “Yeah, you're a real Robin Hood. And your brother Joey, he's your faithful sidekick, I guess.”

  But right away I could tell this was the wrong thing to say. His face hardened as his hand tightened on the engine's throttle.

  Too late I remembered that Rickert wasn't a loser like Gene Dibble. Stories of how he was only helping out poor widows aside, he was the genuine article, a guy who would hurt you if he had to.

  Or maybe even if he only wanted to. The notion didn't scare me the way it probably should have, though. In fact, now that my nausea had partly cleared and my head had stopped hammering like the piston on a well-digger's drill, I was feeling better all the time.

  Not about Victor, of course. But about Rickert. The reason being that back in the city when I was a hotshot money manager, I'd dealt with bad guys who by comparison made Mac Rickert look about as dangerous as Howdy Doody.

  And he was hesitating. If he'd wanted to kill me he could've already done it. Gotten away with it, too. Also his body language was all wrong for somebody who was about to commit mayhem.

  In my checkered past, I'd seen people who were about to do things, really bad things that were going to end with other people being stuffed lifeless into car trunks, for instance.

  And their preparation was always the same. They stood or sat up straight, squaring their shoulders and formalizing themselves bodily for the event. On some level it felt important to them, almost religious. Even if they'd done it before, when the moment came to actually go out and do it, they took it seriously.

  As my eyes went on adjusting to the darkness on the water, I saw that Rickert sat sort of hunched over, his head cocked to the side. He was frowning inquisitively at me as if wondering whether or not he could trust me.

  Which told me that, like me, he was caught in the middle of something he didn't understand. And that he didn't quite know what to do about it. So I decided to try easing him back to the crux of the problem.

  “All I care about is Wanda,” I said.

  He lit another cigarette, flicked the match away. In the momentary glow his face was dark, bearded, with bushy eyebrows and a shaggy mane of dark hair under a knitted cap.

  “What do you want, Mac? When I talked to Joey I said I'd pay you for her return, assuming she is unharmed. Have you got me out here to make the deal, or is there something else on your agenda that we need to get out into the open?”

  Risky, cutting to the chase that way. But I had to believe that if I offered him some kind of a solution, he might go for it.

  More silence. Then: “Tell your buddy Bob Arnold to wait,” he uttered abruptly. “Couple days, no longer.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Wait for . . . ?”

  He dragged hard on the cigarette, tossed it away. It hit the water with a little hiss. “There's something I need to finish. When it's done I'm going to turn myself in.” Saying this, he flashed a surprisingly white grin. “Scout's honor,” he said.

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth I remembered: Saint George. The saint on the coin was shown seated astride a white horse, like a knight in his shining armor. And Saint George was the patron saint of . . .

  At the same moment, too, I saw clearly the gun in Rickert's hand.

  . . . Boy Scouts. As for the gun . . .

  The safety was on. Which meant either (a) he wasn't familiar with the weapon, which I didn't believe for a minute—

  Around here, guys like Mac started handling guns about the time they put down their baby bottles and blankies—

  —or (b) he didn't intend to shoot me. This thought, however, might have encouraged me into feeling just a little too confident. “So what exactly do you want me to do besides play messenger?” I asked.

  Because if that was all it was, he could have written Bob Arnold a note. Stuck it under the wiper of the squad car maybe, or had his brother Joey do it.

  “And,” I pressed on, even more unwisely, “why should I believe you haven't killed Wanda already? She must've been a witness to Dibble's shooting, that must be why you kidnapped her in the first place, right?”

  I took a breath. “So why shouldn't I just run screaming to Bob Arnold the minute you put me ashore, when there's still time for him to get out and catch up with you?”

  But my confidence evaporated when in the silence following my remarks he lit another cigarette and by match-gleam I got a glimpse of his eyes.

  “I didn't kidnap her,” he said coldly.

  Not Boy Scoutish. Also, he didn't have to put me ashore. He could shove me overboard and then the only messages I'd be sending would be in the bubbles escaping from my lungs.

  “Right, sure you didn't. But what else do you want from me?” I backpedaled, feeling that I'd better reestablish the notion that I might be useful. And this time he answered my question bluntly.

  “I've already got it.”

  Then it hit me: Wanda's pills. Which—I checked my pockets—he'd already taken, along with the gun.

  “Killed Dibble with one just like this,” he remarked. As he spoke he leveled it at me, thumbed the safety off.

  He'd wanted the pills, that was all. The diabetes medicine; he needed it to keep his teenage captive alive.

  “You son of a bitch.” I heard the words burst from me, felt myself hurtling at him, my fingernails aiming for his eyes.

  And for a glorious instant I had him at a disadvantage; what I was doing was suicide, so it was the last thing he could have expected. With my weight pushing him back on the engine mount, I kneed him hard.

  “Christ,” he grated out, and dropped the .22.

  I scrabbled for the weapon, but where was it? In the dark I couldn'
t find it, and now the water began to make trouble, as well, rolling the little vessel treacherously.

  Rickert's hand flopped ineffectually, searching for the tiller to bring us around. A wave hit, knocking me sideways, and when I fell my head smacked the rail with a sick clunk!

  The gun, where was the gun . . . There. But as I reached for it, his right boot came up, grazing my chin. I landed in the bow, my shoulder first smacking the wooden seat and then sliding halfway under it. I was stunned with pain and as helpless suddenly as a turtle on its back.

  The boat swayed, then settled as with one hand Mac seized the tiller, his other hand reaching down to secure the weapon and aim it at me again. Gunning the engine, he raced us away from the open water, where now that the stars were out there was a chance we might be visible from shore.

  If someone happened to be scanning in our direction, that is. And if they'd alerted the Coast Guard on account of us having no running lights, maybe being in distress.

  But even at this distance I could see the Guard's big orange Zodiac boat, empty and motionless. No cavalry was riding to my rescue. Then the lights of town vanished as we hurtled around the south end of the island, past the cargo docks at Prince's Cove.

  I could have jumped overboard. The trouble was, I couldn't swim to shore. Not in this water, so frigid that a person without a special dive suit would die in twenty minutes, even if they were wearing a life preserver.

  Because the challenge wasn't keeping your head above water; it was getting your body out of it before all the vital systems chilled so low that they shut off entirely.

  Rickert throttled down. The only sound was the engine wetly grumbling in neutral, the only light a distant, diffuse glow from the runway beacons at the airfield, half a mile distant.

  He picked up an oar. For a moment I thought he meant to haul engine and row in, that the rocks here were too numerous for the boat to land under power. But then he spoke.