by Karen Harper
The Marco Island EMS came first, screaming their sirens onto quiet Goodland. The medics bandaged the now unconscious Colleen before she could bleed out. They started an IV right away, then carried her out on a stretcher. The second group of medics cleaned, salved and bandaged Claire’s neck, bruised and bleeding, like a red necklace, one of them said, turning black-and-blue. They had her on a stretcher too, near where she’d fallen. They told her not to move, that her husband had just arrived and he’d said not to take her to the hospital.
He didn’t tell them why, but she knew. They might want to keep her there for observation and that would ruin their escape. She’d be a sitting duck for Van Cleve or Jesse Winslow to pay a visit to her in a public place, and get her for ruining Ames’s master plan. Colleen would go to trial now, not Haze, and the public forum to praise and promote Ames’s big investment in Youth water was ruined.
Nick rushed in, kneeled by her side and held her hand. She could hardly talk. Her neck and throat still hurt, but she whispered to him, “I’m so sorry. Thought I knew her. Could trust her.”
“Shh, it’s all right.”
“It isn’t. I had to use the cell phone to call you.”
“I’ll take care of things, of you. Just rest, sweetheart. Thank God you’re alive. I’ll be right back.”
She heard his voice outside. He was saying to someone, “No, I told you I’ll have a doctor who’s a friend of mine come to the ship, so I’ll take her with me. Has Mrs. Taylor’s husband been notified?”
“He’s out with his fishing boat somewhere, but we’ll get him soon,” a voice she couldn’t quite place said. “He’s got a ship-to-shore aboard but isn’t answering.”
Oh, she thought. Sheriff Scott. Sheriff Scott had arrived. He’d want to talk to her, and talking hurt. But it hurt more that the murderer was Colleen.
Nick’s voice came again, then yet another one she didn’t know. Despite his comforting words, she hoped she hadn’t ruined their escape tonight at least. The sheriff would want a statement, tell her not to leave, that she’d have to testify against Colleen.
And how long would it take for Van Cleve or Ames himself to find out there would be no show trial to boost the Youth water products and to humble and control Nick to do his bidding? Would Nick’s life be on the line then too?
He came back, kneeling on the bloody floor in his suit and held her hand again. He leaned close over her.
“I’d say ‘good job,’” he told her. “You solved Mark’s murder and Sondra’s too. But we’re going to have to change your hands-on technique, if we want to see our first anniversary, sweetheart.”
“Don’t joke. I just liked Colleen too much. I needed to stay more suspicious of her,” she said, coughing. Not only was her voice raw, but she hurt all over. “Now that there won’t be the court trial Ames wants, you’re in more trouble too.”
“So I’ll disappear with you and stay there, until the feds find him.”
“But the sheriff will make you—us—stay.”
“I called Rod Patterson. He just arrived. I think he’ll make the sheriff see things our way—that is, the FBI’s way. I’m hoping we can be out of here shortly after I can get you home, before word reaches Ames. Wherever he is, I think he’s the one calling the shots. Now, I’ve promised the sheriff he’ll receive your signed statement of Colleen’s attack on you and her confession, so we’ll take care of that and leave it for him. Patterson knows where Van Cleve is right now—in Miami. But I have to get you up and going. Do you think you can walk to my car outside?”
“Just dizzy and exhausted. Nick, I’m fine to go wherever we’re going, just as long as we’re all together.”
“Jace will have a plane at the airport after dark. Bronco will take us there in his trailer. All systems go to Key West, where we’ll board another plane for the longer flight. Key West is just to throw off anyone tailing us since it’s the gateway to points south.”
“But we’re going north?”
He nodded. “I’ll tell everyone when we’re in the air. Jace doesn’t even know our destination yet, only the mileage. I’m going to help you get up. If you want me to carry you, I can. We have a long way to go.”
* * *
The next hours passed in a blur. Claire dictated her statement for the sheriff to Nick, though it was still painful to talk. She signed it, and he had Bronco go out to give it to the deputy waiting in his car. Claire wore her only turtleneck top to hide the black-and-blue circle around her neck so Lexi wouldn’t see it. As soon as it was dark, Bronco with a backpack, and Nita with her small suitcase met them in the lounge. Nick had told Bronco and Nita this was dangerous, but they were loyal—and, obviously, so happy to be together.
Claire hated waiting in the lounge, for she could envision how Colleen strangled the unsuspecting Sondra here, then planned to bide her time until she could kill Mark too. It was possible Colleen had given Sondra the idea of blackmailing or conning Dylan just to frame him as the murderer. It had come out in his trial that the ship’s crew had been given the day off, so, somehow, perhaps Colleen had known that.
In a way, Claire was glad they were leaving this lovely yacht. She still didn’t like Dylan Carnahan, though he’d been helpful and generous. She prayed other people in the vast unknown out there would be too.
Nita had dressed Lexi warmly. A Barbie doll’s head protruded from her bright pink Cinderella backpack, and she carried her stuffed turtle from Grand Cayman. It always reminded Claire of Clayton Ames.
“Is your headache better, Mommy?” she asked. “I’m glad I finally get to go in a plane Daddy is flying. But can we see out the windows if it’s dark?”
Nick, hefting two suitcases for the three of them, told her, “When we get to our surprise vacation, it will be light, and you will like it a lot. In the winter there is snow and sled rides and in the summer lots of horses.”
“This isn’t really a trip to Disney World where they have the pretend sled rides, is it?” Lexi asked.
Nick chuckled, but Claire cried. She could not shake the weight of her fear. Wiping her eyes quickly so no one would see, she turned around to look behind her. The trauma of Colleen throwing that chain over her head haunted her, especially here.
She saw Nick adjust his belt through his shirt and jacket. He had all of their new IDs, credit cards and money strapped around his waist under his clothes in a sort of pouch. In another pack hung around his neck, but hidden by his zipped-up jacket, he had a pistol and ammunition. Another WITSEC agent would meet them at their destination. Claire had even more money in a smaller pouch strapped around her waist. The quickness and amount of detail involved in all this by the FBI had driven home the fact that Ames was definitely a wanted man, more dangerous to the entire country than they could have imagined.
Instead of marching down the gangway and off the dock, even in the dark, they went down the ladder on the yacht’s starboard side in two groups and took the dinghy that had replaced the one ruined when the WaveRunner swamped them. Like refugees fleeing a murderous regime, they gathered again onshore in the parking lot and hurried to Bronco’s Airstream trailer. Huddled inside, they sat down, here and there, as he drove them away.
“This is like a game,” Lexi said. “Isn’t it, Mommy?”
“Yes, sweetheart. More or less.”
“I guess it might be like hide-and-seek.”
In the dim single light inside the trailer, Claire’s gaze slammed into Nick’s. Hide-and-seek, indeed. She blinked back tears again. Nick reached for her and they held hands behind Lexi’s back as the child sat on Bronco’s bed between them.
A half hour later, after Nick had nearly hurt his own neck looking out the back window to see if they were being followed, they turned off Airport Pulling Road toward the Naples Municipal Airport. On its southern border, as a jet roared skyward overhead, Bronco pulled into a trailer court called R
ock Creek. He parked the Airstream in the spot he’d rented for the winter, and they piled out with their baggage. Heck was waiting for them there with a tall backpack on. He hugged Nita and nodded stiffly at Bronco. But their tension over Nita was nothing compared to everything else.
“Clothes and my online gear in this pack,” Heck said to Nick. “Let’s go. I know where the plane’s waiting, just a short hike to that first hangar.”
“If you can take one suitcase and Bronco the other,” Nick told him, “I’ll carry Lexi and help Claire.”
“Because,” Lexi put in, “she has a headache.”
In a line, they straggled onto the airport grounds and headed for the first shadowy hangar. Nick had explained that Jace had thought it better that they get on board the first of the two planes out of sight of the small terminal building.
Inside the hangar, Jace was waiting, pacing. Lexi ran to him for a hug, but he quickly passed her to Nick. “Claire,” Jace said with a nod. She wondered if he knew that she’d almost been killed, and that they might not be under Ames’s protection anymore. Nick hustled her and Lexi up the steps of the jet and told them, “Be right back. I need to talk to Jace.”
Claire strapped Lexi in as the others stowed their gear. She saw Heck would sit up front, Bronco and Nita behind them. Bronco had his arm around Nita. There were empty seats, because this plane that she’d seen was called a Hawker H25 seated ten. But the last row of seats had been taken out and now held their baggage and gear. Obviously, Jace had to take whatever plane he could get without drawing attention. And to think they would leave this plane in Key West and take yet another.
Nick came back to them as Jace entered, closed and sealed the door, then went into the lighted cockpit to continue going through his check off list. She’d seen him walking around the airplane outside, looking it over. He’d always prided himself on safety, and there were even more reasons for that right now.
His hand on the armrests of her seat, Nick leaned close and said, “There’s a seat for a copilot, so I’m going up there with him for now.”
“But I wanted to see him fly us,” Lexi said. “He said one time I could.”
“Not now. You stay with Mommy,” Nick said. “Maybe when we take the next plane and know we’re safe.”
“Aren’t we safe now?” the child asked.
“Of course, we are,” he told them, and bent to kiss Lexi’s cheek, then Claire’s.
Claire held Lexi’s hand as the plane taxied out of the hangar onto the runway and roared off into the darkness.
36
Nick never thought he’d be in this situation. Leaving the business he’d built, his property, though Patterson had his directions for what to say, whom to put in charge and what to cover. But here he was, married with a four-year-old child and depending on his wife’s ex, literally trusting him with the lives of people he cared deeply about. But Ames had to be stopped at any cost, and if he needed the FBI and WITSEC to help with that, so be it.
Nor did he like flying at night, but they’d figured it was their best bet. He’d flown into Key West before on business. In the daylight, the water was gin clear, and he could usually see every snorkeling reef in the area. Tonight, there was utter blackness over the Gulf of Mexico below and then a spattering of ground lights, but the stars seemed to guide them—and the array of instruments that lit Jace’s stoic profile.
Jace spoke, jolting Nick’s thoughts. “Key West is the only airport I’ve been to where the tower controllers demand that you repeat every instruction verbatim or they restate their instructions again, so get ready for some chatter.”
“Fine by me. I don’t mind everyone being sure.”
“It would be nice if we were.”
“Yeah.”
“And don’t panic when it’s a bumpy landing because the Key West runway’s in bad shape. I didn’t tell you, but Rod Patterson arranged for the plane we’ll be flying next. He pulled some strings for us just like he did to get Claire out of Florida without having to stay to testify against Colleen Taylor, so I want to take good care of that plane.”
“Glad we have Patterson on our side. And thanks, Jace. I appreciate your expertise and kindness too.”
They were soon on the ground, and Nick herded everyone into the terminal to use the bathrooms before their longer flight. Jace rushed in to hit the john last while Bronco stood guard over the plane, which was off to the side of the major runway beside a dark field.
The Pilatus PC-12, as Jace called it, was silver with long blue stripes, and seated up to nine passengers. Nick figured he’d sit with Jace for a while on this leg of the journey too, at least until they were over land. Just in case they were being tracked by radar, they were going to make a southwest swing out over the Gulf as if they were heading to South America. Then they would turn due north. South shores had been his home and South Shores his attempt to help others, but it was north shores ahead for now.
* * *
Jace thought the takeoff was smooth, considering the runway. He kept a good eye on his computer screens and readouts. Ironic, how many times he’d sat in a cockpit, flying precious human cargo, wishing he was in the pilot’s seat and now he was. He’d missed Claire and Lexi on those long, transpacific flights. Now he had them with him but they really weren’t his anymore, thanks or no thanks to this man beside him. Here Jace had thought he’d be able to visit his girls outside Florida without Nick around, but Nick was not only going but was staying too.
“I promised everyone I’d tell them our destination,” Nick said, unfastening his seat belt. He’d just explained it to Jace. “Before Lexi falls asleep, be right back. You’re going to have to give her a daylight flight some other time. But on our destination island, you won’t be able to fly or that might help someone to trace you and us. At least you can put this plane down on a small airstrip on the mainland, and we’ll take a ferry over since the water’s not frozen yet. Rod said in the winter, some just drive snowmobiles back and forth across the frozen Lake Huron to the island.”
Jace squinted at a readout that registered fuel in the tanks and fuel pressure. “Yeah, sure, go ahead, tell them where we’re headed. You know, I keep picturing how furious Kilcorse-Ames will be when he figures out you and I are working together on this, when he was banking on just the opposite and that we would only work for him.”
* * *
“Okay, everybody, here’s the word on our final destination,” Nick told them and clapped his hands, as if he needed to have their full attention. He’d left the cockpit door open so Jace could hear too, since he only knew their destination but not about the area.
“We’re going to be living in a beautiful, old home that overlooks Lake Huron on an island called Mackinac Island in northern Michigan,” Nick announced. “We’ll have different names there, which I’ll explain later.”
Lexi piped up. “I still want to be Lexi Britten. Do I have to be Lexi Markwood now?”
“Just listen, honey, okay? We’ll land at a county airport in a city called Cheboygan, Michigan, and take a bus, then a ferry—that’s a big boat, Lexi—to get to our new house. It will be beautiful living there, but the winter will be cold. When spring comes, lots of people come to visit—”
“Mommy, can Aunt Darcy and Jilly come?” he heard Lexi whisper.
“And Lexi will love the carriage rides,” Nick plunged on. “We aren’t sure how long we will be there...”
“Nick!” Jace called from the cockpit. “Can you come here a sec? Now!”
Nick went back in.
“Close the door.”
“What? Not another plane follow—”
“The fuel pressure’s dropping bad.”
“Which means what?” Nick asked, sitting back in the copilot seat. They seemed to be flying steady, but his insides lurched.
“That there’s a
problem. I checked the damn thing, the fuel supply line and its fitting before I went into the terminal. But I’m reading fuel starvation. Can’t get fuel from the other tanks either.”
“We need to turn back? Get it fixed?”
“We’re too far out. I’m hoping it’s an erroneous readout, but listen to me. If the fuel line is loose, all fuel supply to the turbine will be lost and the engine will shut down.”
“What the hell did—”
“Listen to me. I can feather the prop and set up a glide to delay the descent, but if this was sabotage, and the engine quits, we’ll descend at, ah—” he said, looking at his altimeter screen, “about seven hundred feet per minute. That gives us about fourteen minutes before we hit dark water and that’s hard to gauge. It can be worse than a hard, bumpy runway, and I’ll do it with the gear up. But I’ll see the waves only a few seconds before we ditch. Damn, there it goes.”
“The engine? That can’t be. We were so careful not to be followed to Key West. Can’t you restart it?”
“Not without a fuel flow. I’ll radio Miami air traffic control. They’re tracking planes and can hopefully find us at least by morning, but we’re actually closer to Cuba. I just hope and pray someone else isn’t tracking us and finds us first.”
“I can’t believe this—and yet I can.”
“Go back where we stowed the baggage. There are two orange life rafts aft, behind the last seats. Be sure no one pulls the rip cord for those until we’re out the door, though they should inflate their life vests inside. Nick, be certain everyone has a life vest. You do one raft, get your two men on the other. No baggage. You and I guard Claire and Lexi once we’re out...”
Nick wanted to scream that they were already out: out of time, out of solutions, out of courage, out of their minds. He tried to concentrate as Jace rattled off other directions, about opening the door, getting out into the rafts if water poured in—when water poured in. Nick’s fear for the others, let alone himself, screamed so loud he had to fight to listen to Jace, to remember everything he said.
