Despair gripped Nick. With his smaller boat, Jamie Gainsford could easily play cat and mouse with the much larger Coast Guard vessel.
And then what? What was he planning to do with Lucy? He shivered. The fog was getting thicker. The Glory Anne swerved around a navigational buoy. Nick prayed that Gainsford knew how to follow the color coding. Red meant pass the buoy on its port side; green meant pass the buoy on its starboard side. If Jamie Gainsford went around the buoy on the wrong side, he’d run straight onto rock.
Last summer Nick’s father had taken him along this coast on his yacht, pointing out the shoals. Nick had zoned out. It was only when his father started talking about smugglers and rum-running that Nick paid attention. “There’s a secret passage,” Randall had told Nick, his eyes gleaming. “It’s called Rogue’s Roost.”
He pointed at an island. It looked like many of the islands around Prospect: boulder-shaped cliffs of granite, dotted with sturdy spruce trees. “That’s Roost Island.” A few cormorants dried themselves in the sun.
Didn’t look very exciting. “Is that where we’re going?”
Randall shook his head. “No. The anchorage is behind it. But I’m going to need your help. If we don’t follow the chart exactly, we’ll hit rock.”
It was one of the most exciting experiences Nick had shared with his father in a long time. To get to the famed anchorage of Rogue’s Roost—where it was rumored that smugglers used to hide—the boat had to navigate a very narrow channel between the rocky islands. Yet Rogue’s Roost was a popular spot—partly for the thrill of triumphing over the shoals sitting just feet away from the hull, partly for the illicit history the roost was famous for and partly for the sheltered anchorage it provided from the winds that beat the coast.
Jamie Gainsford didn’t know it, but he was heading the boat to Rogue’s Roost.
And that’s when Nick had the idea. He’d knock Gainsford overboard, steer the boat into Rogue’s Roost and hopefully find some other yachts that could radio for help. Even if there were no boats there, he and Lucy could wait out the fog and swells in relative safety.
All he had to do was get Gainsford off the boat.
70
Tuesday, 2:05 p.m.
Kate saw the truck with the muddied license plate on the end of the wharf and her heart shriveled.
As soon as Randall’s cuffs had been removed by the bailiff, Ethan had intercepted them both. He’d apologized to Randall, but Randall had no time for it.
“Where are they?” Randall demanded.
“We’ve pinged his cell phone. He’s gone to Prospect. Presumably to your mother’s place.”
Randall ran a shaking hand through his hair. “And Nick?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Did Gainsford take Nick, too?”
“We don’t know. The house is empty. We’re assuming he’s with them.”
“What about the Richardson sisters?” Kate interjected. “They were looking after Lucy—”
“Don’t worry.” Ethan gave her a look she hadn’t seen in a long time: tender and compassionate, although his voice was urgent. “They’re okay. Just a bit shaken. Come on, I’ve got a car waiting. I can get you there faster. I’ll fill you in on the way.” His gaze urged her to get Randall to accept his offer.
Kate looked at Randall. His jaw was tight. She knew that if he’d had his car available he never would accept an offer of help from the man who’d accused him of a terrible crime and let the real killer abduct his children.
But, as he’d experienced in spades since his arrest on Friday, he had no choice.
And so Ethan drove them to Prospect like a man crazed—with remorse, Kate guessed. There’d been no sign of struggle at Penelope Barrett’s house, he’d told Randall en route. Penelope, who sat in the backseat with Kate, closed her eyes with relief. Kate could just imagine how hard it must be to know that the home she’d left her grandson in was not the safe haven she believed it to be.
Ethan’s cell rang as they were driving. After a brief conversation, Ethan relayed the news that one of the village residents had seen Nick on the road, shortly before a fishing boat was spotted heading out to sea.
Gainsford had obviously abandoned his truck, and Nick had disappeared around the same time. Had he confronted Gainsford on the wharf?
Had he been knocked into the water and drowned?
Or had Gainsford incapacitated Nick and taken him with him?
But why would Gainsford take Nick? He was a threat.
“Just in case, I’m going up to my house,” Penelope said. “I’m going to check the rocks, see if there’s any sign of him.” She hurried up the road toward her home.
Kate and Ethan strode toward the police team at the end of the wharf. They stood by Gainsford’s truck. One door hung open. A detective peered inside, while another detective kneeled over the edge of the wharf and scanned the water, looking for Nick.
“Gainsford stole a boat,” the heavy-boned detective with a brown ponytail said, pointing to the ropes dangling from the edge of the wharf.
“Was Lucy with him?” Randall asked, his eyes skimming the passenger seat, under the truck, the side of the wharf.
No signs of blood, thank God, Kate thought.
“We believe so,” the female detective said.
“What about Nick? Has anyone found him?”
The female detective exchanged glances with her partner. “No.”
“Why are you standing here? Why aren’t you going after him?” Randall demanded. “What is wrong with you fucking people?”
“The Coast Guard is tracking the boat, Mr. Barrett.”
“So fucking what?” He spun around and jabbed his finger in Ethan’s chest. “Those are my kids. We can’t wait for the fucking Coast Guard.”
“We have no boat.”
“What about that one?” Randall shot back, jerking his head toward a small boat moored just beyond the wharf.
“That’s just a—”
Randall ran past the homicide team and dived into the water.
Kate and Ethan ran to the edge and watched Randall’s head break the surface.
Thank God he hadn’t slammed headfirst into a rock.
He swam toward the dory, his head sleek as a seal’s.
Don’t go without me.
Thought and action were simultaneous as Kate kicked off her high heels, stepped onto the edge of the wharf and jumped.
“Kate—” she heard Ethan cry just as she hit the water.
She pushed up to the surface, gasping for air, the water so black, so cold her body ached with pain. Her dream of Craig Peters, pulling her under the ice, flashed behind her eyes. But it was Randall she saw ahead, Randall who plowed the water with a determined front crawl over to the boat that bobbed placidly at a mooring.
Her suit skirt glued to her legs as she marshaled a front crawl that had been last tested when she was ten years old. The water had been pretty cold in that out door pool, she’d complained bitterly to her parents, but not like this. This was the Atlantic Ocean. It could turn your toe blue in less than a second on a hot July day, depending which shore you were on.
Whatever shore this was, it was friggin’ cold. All of Kate’s muscles rebelled against moving, her body wanting to curl up against the cold invading every orifice. But she remembered that dream. She remembered the urgency to fight.
Right now, she was fighting to save not herself, but two kids whose nightmare had just been cranked up to a whole new level.
Randall heaved himself over the side of the small boat they were about to steal, then turned around and reached his hand out for her. “Hurry!”
She kicked even harder, feeling the seam in her skirt split. She forced her arms to slice through the water. One arm, then the next, no slacking, no time to waste. Her recently healed arm trembled, flopping awkwardly over her head as she pushed her front crawl to its limits. A minute later, her fingers touched the side of the boat.
Randall’s hand grasped her wrist and yanked her upward. Kate
threw herself over the gunwale, rolling into the bottom of the boat. It was just a small dory, only eight feet long with an outboard engine, designed to tootle around the islands of Prospect Bay. Not a boat to take out into open ocean.
Randall jerked the cord of the engine. It sputtered. “Come on,” he muttered. He jerked it again, viciously. It roared to life.
“Untie the mooring!” he yelled at Kate. She crawled to the bow, still gasping for breath, and unhooked the rope from the small cleat on the gunwale.
Randall pushed the engine tiller hard over. The bow tipped up, throwing Kate backward into the wooden plank that was the middle seat. Her spine hit the edge. Biting her tongue, she inched her butt up to the seat and hunched over, clasping her torn skirt around her for warmth, holding on to the gunwales, as Randall opened the throttle.
The ocean, vast and empty, was carrying away his kids.
There was no time to lose.
71
Tuesday, 2:06 p.m.
Lucy lay on the deck, protected by the overhang of the open-ended cabin. She was still deeply asleep…or unconscious. One hand curled by her cheek. The breeze lifted several strands of her hair, and they tangled playfully around her head.
Jamie’s eyes skimmed the ocean stretching out to his right. He longed to take the boat out there, where he could avoid the shoals, but he’d be a sitting duck. He’d have to follow the coastline until he could find a private cove and end things the way he wanted to.
It seemed to be his path in life, to take the treacherous route. No matter how hard he had tried, he could never rid himself of his desire to bury himself in a body that was not quite woman but not entirely child, that was still so innocent, so tight. It excited him to be the one to defile that transcendent purity. To bring it down to its most primitive existence.
He glanced at the girl lying at his feet.
He had nothing to lose. He would die with this young girl by his side. Complete at last.
He opened his soul and, for the first time in his life, let it free.
72
Tuesday, 2:07 p.m.
Nick’s strength inched back into his muscles, spurred by excitement. He had a plan—an audacious plan. But if it worked, he and Lucy would be safe.
If it didn’t…
He only had one chance. And so far, his record of success with only one chance was pathetic. He pushed Charlie out of his mind.
Not this time. Not when Lucy’s life was at stake.
You can do it, Nick.
Just throw yourself at him and knock him overboard. He won’t know what hit him. Then guide the boat into Rogue’s Roost. He hoped he remembered where that big rock was.
He grabbed the ladder rung above his head and pulled himself up. Wind buffeted him, fog unraveling threads of mist around his head. The threads were becoming denser by the minute.
Soon the fog would envelop them all. He needed to get rid of Jamie Gainsford before the fog made it impossible for him to navigate the boat. Because once he threw Gainsford overboard, he didn’t want to stick around.
Nick pulled himself up the ladder and crouched on the lip of the stern.
Ten feet away, Gainsford stood at the wheel, his back to Nick, his feet planted on the deck. Lucy lay by his feet.
Nick’s heart pounded. She wasn’t tied up. So why was she just lying there?
Please don’t let her be dead.
Not her.
Not his little sister.
It was the sight of her lying at the feet of this sicko like some human sacrificial offering that pushed Nick’s body into overdrive. He jumped onto the deck. The boat hit a swell and he stumbled.
Gainsford spun around.
Shit!
Do a running tackle. Hard. Now!
He hurtled himself against Gainsford. “You fucker!”
The boat hit another swell. Gainsford slammed backward into the edge of the cabin.
Nick lowered his head to tackle Gainsford again.
But Gainsford bounced to his feet like a blow-up punching doll. He slammed his fist into Nick’s nose.
Nick keeled backward, pain and blood blinding him. He never saw Gainsford throw the next punch into his kidney. His back exploded into his abdomen. His legs lost all strength. He fell so hard and so fast that he couldn’t put out his hand to break his fall. Hot knives of pain paralyzed him. It hurt to breathe. He lay on the deck, gasping short animal grunts that he didn’t even recognize.
Focus, Nick. Focus.
He’d never felt pain like this before.
Lucy needs you.
He needed the pain to lessen, just enough so he could get back on his feet. And quickly. Before Gainsford threw him overboard.
He’d really screwed this up.
He closed his eyes, willing his muscles to obey him, his cheek pressed against the deck. The water was getting choppy. Every time the boat slammed against a swell, he clenched his teeth from a fresh hit of pain.
The deck is hard. The deck is wet. The deck is cold. He focused on the wood under his bare cheek, anything to distract him from the pain that radiated in fiery waves through his back.
The deck is—
He heard it before Jamie Gainsford.
The whisper of a glacier-carved rock scraping the keel of the boat. His breath stopped in his throat. They were going over a shoal.
By his calculations, it was a shoal off Roost Island.
He’d failed dismally at plan A.
But now he knew he had one more chance. One more.
Don’t fuck it up, Nick.
Don’t.
He used his legs to inch forward, not daring to lift his face from the wood for fear Gainsford would see him move. A splinter slid into his cheek, hot pain jammed the muscles of his back.
But Gainsford hadn’t noticed him.
He reached out with both hands and grabbed Gainsford’s ankle.
Gainsford glanced down, a look of surprise on his face, and shook his leg angrily, viciously. But Nick held on, dragging himself up to his knees, his teeth clenched with pain. He needed leverage for what he was going to do.
Gainsford spat, “Get the fuck off, you little bast—”
With only that one whisper of warning in Nick’s ear, the Glory Anne crashed at full speed onto the shoal. As the fishing boat impaled itself with an almost human screech of protest, Nick heaved his shoulder into Gainsford’s legs, screaming, “You FUCKER!”
The combined forces sent Gainsford flying over the side of the boat.
Nick crashed backward onto the deck.
Water rushed over him, filling the cabin and the bilges below. Nick gasped for breath. The sea rolled directly under him. The boat had lost a chunk of its hull.
With another shudder, the Glory Anne listed heavily starboard and Nick slid straight toward the breaking water. His fingers scrabbled over the deck. Something hard and angular jabbed his back. A cleat. He twisted around, grabbing the metal fitting.
Where was Lucy? The cabin was still above water, the bow pointing upward as the ocean sucked down the stern.
He saw her lying by the inside edge of the cabin wall.
“Lucy! Wake up!”
He scrambled toward her.
The water, stinging and cold, washed over her face.
The boat listed.
And Lucy, still unconscious, toppled into the waves.
73
Tuesday, 2:18 p.m.
The little dory wasn’t the most maneuverable of boats, but Randall put it through its paces, with the result that it thudded over the water, pounding awkwardly into swells.
Kate pointed out the navigational buoys, unsure of what they even meant, but Randall didn’t hesitate.
“There’re shoals everywhere,” he yelled over the engine noise, pointing to a cluster of black, irregular rocks to their left. White foam from crashing waves flew in the air around the rocks. A seagull cruised overhead. “Keep watch.”
The fog gusted closer. How it could move so fast, Kate didn’t kno
w. One minute there was an open stretch of ocean between them and the fog bank, the next minute just ten feet.
Kate shivered. She was freezing. She was terrified. How would they ever find Jamie Gainsford? They didn’t even know which direction he’d gone. Their swim to the motorboat had ruined their cell phones, so Kate couldn’t call Ethan to see if there was any word from the Coast Guard. It was just her and Randall, going full throttle between shoals with only hope at its most blind guiding them.
Nick hurtled himself across the deck and jumped into the water.
He sensed the lack of water beneath him just as he smashed into one of the shoal’s rocks lurking under the water. Pain exploded in his leg. He gasped, inhaling the ocean.
He was drowning.
He thrashed his arms, thrusting off from the submerged shoal with his uninjured leg. A wave caught him as he broke the surface and he knew he was going to be thrown against the rocks again.
Oh, God. He was going to die. And so was his sister. I’m sorry, Lucy—
He crashed against ten-thousand-year-old rock. His breath slammed out of his chest.
But that was all.
He gasped for air, not quite believing he wasn’t dead. Somehow, the wave had buffeted him. Just enough so he hadn’t cracked his head. He wrapped his arms around the edge of one of the rocks, digging his fingers into a crevice and wedging his good leg between another rock.
But the other leg…that was useless. It was worse than useless. Every time a wave pulled at it, he almost blacked out form the pain. His initial euphoria of surviving was chased away by the realization that Lucy was somewhere close by. Unconscious.
And probably being thrown against the shoal right now.
“Lucy!” he called.
But he couldn’t even hear his voice over the waves.
Blackness swam at the edge of his vision. Not the blackness of the sea.
It was the blackness of unconsciousness.
The sea was getting rougher. The dory slammed against the swells, water slapping Randall’s arms, his cheeks, his chest.
Indefensible Page 34
