by Lis Wiehl
“Get down!” Gordon yelled at Eli. While Charlie and Gordon drew their guns, Eli dropped to his knees and scuttled into the cabin, where Johnny was grabbing a handheld microphone.
“This is the Seattle Police,” Johnny said. His words were broadcast a split second later. “Come out with your hands up.”
Instead, the two men on the yacht—Charlie could see now that one of them was Turner—opened the door and both of them ran down into the yacht’s main living quarters.
They were alongside the other craft now. Johnny cut the engines and ran out on deck. All three of them had their guns drawn.
Where was Mia? Charlie was frantic with worry. Was she tied up inside the boat? Had they hurt her? He moved into the bow and leaned closer to the yacht, squinting as the Harbor Patrol boat bobbed up and down. Through a porthole he saw movement, but it was too hard to tell what he was seeing. He just prayed that she was still alive.
He looked down. Their bow was right next to the yacht’s back deck, which was about the same size as his bathroom at home and had cement blocks stacked in one corner. The waves were two or three feet high, maybe more. That meant the two decks were moving as much as six feet up and down from each other.
Even if Charlie had been a twenty-two-year-old Olympic athlete, the idea of trying to land on the yacht was ridiculous.
He took a deep breath.
And then he stepped over the rail, bent his knees, and jumped.
CHAPTER 67
It was clear to Vin that things were going south in a hurry. He and Oleg stood in the yacht’s tiny living area, staring at each other. Blindingly bright beams of light from the police boat cut through the portholes. Outside, orders blared, telling them to cut their engines. Telling them to come out with their hands up.
Where there was one unit of Harbor Patrol you could bet there would soon be more. Eventually with the addition of the Coast Guard and Homeland Security. It wouldn’t be long until they were surrounded. Any opportunity to escape was quickly slipping away. But Oleg seemed rooted to the spot.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Vin yelled at him.
Oleg shook his head and muttered to himself in Russian. Vin wanted to shake him. If Vin just knew how to drive this stupid boat, they would have been long gone by now.
They both jumped as something heavy landed on the aft deck, shaking the whole yacht. What had the cops tossed on board? Some kind of anchor? A flash-bang grenade to temporarily disable them?
But then the door at the top of the stairs opened and Vin realized it had been a person. All he could see was a black shadow silhouetted against the bright lights. Moving to put Oleg’s bulk between himself and the intruder, Vin raised his gun and fired. Oleg did as well.
The small space of the cabin rang with the sound of multiple gunshots.
Oleg screamed like a girl and crumpled to the floor. The cop tumbled down the stairs and then landed half on and half off a suede banquette. Blood was gushing from his face, and his right arm was twisted at an odd angle.
Neither the cop nor Oleg was moving.
Vin ran for the controls. There were dozens of dials, sliders, switches, and what looked like gearshift handles. The only thing he was sure how to operate was the metal steering wheel. He set down his gun. The engines were still thrumming, but he needed to make the boat go forward. Desperately he began to shove and push at the levers. If he could just get back on land, he might still stand a chance. He didn’t care if he ran this stupid thing up onto the rocks and tore off the bottom. He just had to turn tail and get out of there while there was still time.
But instead of revving, the engines abruptly cut off with a clunk that he felt as much as heard.
No! He was not going to be trapped in here. He was not going to die in a space hardly bigger than a prison cell.
Vin ran out onto the deck, his eyes nearly closed against the blinding light, not paying any attention to the amplified commands being shouted at him.
Someone punched him in the shoulder. Vin spun around to see who it was. But no one was there. His arms pinwheeled as he lost his balance. As he fell back off the deck, he only had eyes for the neat round hole in his chest.
The water closed over his face before Vin even had a chance to be surprised.
CHAPTER 68
Get inside,” Gordon had shouted at Eli when the two men on the yacht started firing. “And get down!”
On his own, Eli had already decided that this was a great idea. This realization had coincided with everyone else’s guns coming out. The last time Eli had spent any real time with a weapon was basic training. Now he realized that fieldstripping a gun and firing at a paper target was no preparation for having someone earnestly trying to kill you. He just prayed that Mia was out of range of the guns. Out of range and safe.
He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the door to the boat’s cabin, flinching each time he heard a bullet whine by. The cockpit seemed like it would offer the most protection, so he huddled as close to it as he could.
A screen next to him drew his eye. The display was made up of different shades of gray. It reminded him of looking at ultrasound pictures when Lydia was pregnant with Rachel. At first you had no idea what you were seeing. And then the lines and curves and shadows resolved and you realized you were looking at a baby on its back, curled up like a shrimp.
Only in this case, what Eli was seeing was . . . was what? Something out on the water. A bright white oval floating above a dark gray background. Two lighter gray lines on either side of it moved slowly back and forth. They were longer and paler, appearing insubstantial when compared to the nearly white oval.
It was like watching a video of a ghost. But what it was, Eli realized, was a real live person. A person as seen through some kind of thermal imager. Judging by levels of brightness, the person’s head was still warm, the arms less so. No wonder, given that their owner was floating in the Puget Sound in November.
And that person must be Mia. If Eli’s guess was right, she wasn’t on the yacht at all. She was in the water on the other side of the Harbor Patrol boat. He squinted. Was she clinging to something? As he watched, the glowing oval drooped forward. And was it his imagination, or was the brightness slowly draining away from it? Eli’s heart contracted. Could he be watching Mia die?
He risked getting to his knees. Peering out over the cockpit, his eyes scanned the water. There! On the left! That must be Mia, floating. But now she seemed motionless. Was she even still alive?
He scuttled back to the door and called out, “Charlie! Charlie!” He risked poking his head out.
But Eli couldn’t see Charlie. He could only see Johnny, standing with his arms out in front of him, his hands steadying his gun. When he heard Eli, he flicked an annoyed glance over his shoulder.
“Get back inside!”
“But I see Mia. I see her in the water. On that imager thing on the dash.”
Just as Eli finished speaking, more gunfire broke out. It sounded muffled, though, not like it was directed at them. Even so, both he and Johnny flinched.
“What!” It wasn’t a question but a verbal swat. “Listen to me. Get back inside and stay down. We can’t worry about that now!”
But Eli was most definitely worried.
He scooted back inside, but once there, he again rose to his knees. He scanned the water until he spotted her again, a black spot on the steel gray of the sea. Mia was about a hundred yards away. She still didn’t appear to be moving. The cold water must be sucking all the heat from her. Even if she was alive, how long could she survive?
Hadn’t he seen a life ring on the other side of the cabin? He crawled back out the door, but this time he scuttled to the far side of the boat. The white life ring was fastened to the railing. He undid it and the coil of rope it was attached to. In one quick motion Eli got to his feet, pulled the ring behind his back, and then hurled it with all his strength toward Mia. As it flew straight through the air, the line played out to its full
length. The life ring landed with a splash.
It was still at least fifty yards short.
Had Mia’s head lifted at the sound, just a little bit? Hope made Eli dizzy. Still, even if she was still conscious, she appeared far too weak to swim to it.
Without giving himself time to think, he toed off his shoes and dived in.
The water was shockingly cold. But Eli was a strong swimmer, and he put all the adrenaline already pumping through his veins to good use.
When he reached her she was lying with her eyes closed, her cheek resting on something black. He realized it was her coat, which was somehow keeping her afloat like an air-inflated pillow.
“Mia!” Eli shouted.
Her eyelids fluttered. “Charlie?”
It was a ridiculous time and place to feel jealous, treading water in the ocean while behind him people were doing their best to kill each other, but Eli did.
“Lie on your back and I’ll tow you.” He left her coat in place—she seemed to be using it as a makeshift flotation device—and grabbed the collar of her shirt. With one arm, he began to stroke through the water, dragging her to the life ring. By the time he finally reached it, his shoulder was burning and his legs were as heavy as if he were wearing lead boots.
“Okay, Mia, here we go. I’m going to get this ring on you.” But when Eli released her, she began to sink. He grabbed for her again, hauling her up out of the water. She didn’t move, didn’t respond in any way. The phrase dead weight popped into his mind. Eli slapped one pale cheek. “Come on, Mia!” She didn’t stir. He slapped again, harder. “Stay awake! Keep fighting! Don’t you quit on me!”
Her head was back, exposing the long ivory column of her throat. Her eyes were open a fraction of an inch, showing the white rim. She was as still as a corpse.
“Mia!” He shook her. Her head wobbled loosely in the water. “Wake up! Gabe and Brooke need you.”
That got a response. Her eyes opened and she feebly began to struggle. He lifted the tied-together arms of the coat over her head and let it slip away. Then he managed to wrestle the ring over her shoulders and arms.
He heard a shout and turned. It was Gordon, leaning over the railing. Johnny was next to him. They began to tow Mia in, hauling the rope in hand over hand. Swimming, Eli followed at a slower pace. If the two cops were helping them, he figured everything else must be under control. He had never been more physically exhausted in his life. When he got to the boat, Charlie was there too, although something about him didn’t look right. Eli was too spent to figure it out or even to care.
Working together, Johnny and Gordon hauled Mia on board while Charlie watched. Eli managed to get his forearms on the back of the boat, but then he just hung there, half in and half out of the water. He was shaking with cold and adrenaline, but he didn’t have enough energy to get himself fully out. Then Gordon offered him a hand, and Eli finally managed to get a knee up, then the other. He crawled forward to where Mia lay on her back.
Johnny was on the radio, requesting assistance, including an ambulance to meet them at the dock. Gordon lifted his fingers from the side of Mia’s neck. “She still has a pulse, but it’s too slow. She’s hypothermic. We’ve got to rewarm her.”
“Get those wet clothes off her,” Charlie said. “They’re sucking all the warmth out of her.” He made no move to help, and then Eli saw why—his right arm hung loose and at an odd angle. At least one of the bones in his forearm looked broken. Charlie’s face was very white and his teeth were gritted against the pain. An ugly red gash marred his chin where something had dug a chunk out of it.
Gordon was already tugging off Mia’s pants. Eli tried to unbutton her blouse, but the buttons were too small and his fingers too clumsy. He gave up and pulled hard, popping the buttons. Against the ivory color of her bra, her skin was tinged with violet. Her lips looked blue. Eli rolled her from side to side to get the sleeves off, then started running his hands up and down her arms, trying to warm her. Her skin was as cold as if she were a corpse in a refrigerated locker.
“Stop that!” Gordon snapped as he stood up. “Leave her arms and legs alone. That’s where the cold blood pools. If you massage them, you could send it right back to her heart and give her a heart attack.”
“But we need to get her warmed up,” Eli said. “Don’t you have some blankets or a sleeping bag?”
“That won’t work,” the cop said as he rummaged in an overhead compartment. “She’s not shivering, so she’s not even generating her own heat anymore.” He came up with three gray wool blankets. “We can’t just wrap her in a cold blanket. We need something to warm her.” He looked from Eli to Charlie. “Two somethings. Both of you get down to your skivvies and cozy up. I’ll wrap these blankets around you.”
Eli ended up having to help Charlie out of his pants. He left the broken arm alone, although he managed—with Charlie swearing a good deal—to bare his other arm and torso.
It was so cold. Eli’s teeth were chattering as he shivered so hard he practically vibrated. Gordon spread one blanket on the deck, rolled Mia into the center, then directed Charlie to lie down on one side and Eli on the other, pressed close together so they were a tangle of arms and legs. The second and third blankets went over the first, and then Gordon tucked them in, wrapping them up like a twelve-limbed papoose. Well, eleven, because he left Charlie’s broken arm free. Even though Eli still felt like he was freezing to death, when he pressed his legs and torso against Mia, he was far warmer than she was. She felt like she still belonged to the sea.
“What happened to the guys who took her?” Eli asked Charlie.
“They’re both dead.” His voice was flat, as if it was a simple fact with no emotion behind it. Eli might be one kind of cold, but Charlie was another.
Eli tried to press himself even closer against Mia and ended up with his mouth resting against her bare shoulder. Come on, he urged her in his thoughts as he pressed his lips against her. Warm up! Live! Live, Mia, Live!
She stirred. Eli went up on one elbow. When Mia’s eyelids flickered and then opened, he felt like he could breathe again. She was alive. She was alive and they were all going to be okay.
But then her eyes focused, not on Eli or Charlie, but on something at the end of the boat. Eli watched as they went wide.
“Watch out,” she slurred. “It’s Vin. He’s here.”
Eli turned to follow her gaze.
“I shot him, Mia,” Charlie said. “He’s dead. You’re hallucinating.”
“No she’s not!” Eli said. The old man with the red face stood on the deck, water sheeting off him, his white hair plastered to his head and his shirt slicked to his torso. There was a small hole in his chest. And a gun in his hand.
Then he raised it and fired.
CHAPTER 69
The King County courtroom was packed. Some of the people crowded into the benches were the media, but most were Mia’s colleagues. She could feel them behind her, feel them silently giving her the strength to do this.
Frank was in the thick of it, shaking hands and accepting praise until the last possible moment to take a seat. He had eked out a victory over Dominic Raines, and even people she was sure had voted against him were now finding it politic to pay their respects. Mia still didn’t know whom she had overheard him talking to that evening at the office, the person who most certainly hadn’t been his wife. She told herself that she didn’t really want to know.
At the back of the courtroom, Charlie sat with his arms folded and his face expressionless, scanning the room. He had gotten his cast off a few days earlier, and the bullet graze on his chin was now marked by shiny pink skin.
From the other side of the room, Eli smiled and gave Mia a little wave.
As she looked from one man to the other, heat climbed her cheeks. She had only vague memories of being sandwiched between the two of them, all of them stripped to their underwear. It was still embarrassing to think about.
Even when down to just his boxers, Charlie had
kept his gun nearby. Which had turned out to be a good thing. After having fallen off the yacht, Alvin Turner—or Vin, as he apparently had gone by in the rest of his life—had grabbed a line hanging off the police boat and then managed to clamber on board with his gun tucked in his waistband. But the bullet Vin had fired at them had missed, and the second time Charlie shot him had proved truly fatal.
Coho County had reopened Scott’s case. The blood drawn from his chest tap had been stored at the medical examiner’s office. Once it was tested, the lab report said it contained massive amounts of opiates. Oleg’s home had yielded ground-up methadone as well as a nearly empty bottle of Everclear—a potent and tasteless alcohol. They had also found evidence linking Oleg to the murder of Elizabeth Eastman, who had also gone by Betty and Bets. She had turned Scott from an employer to a lover, and then when the two of them had met Oleg, she had set her sights on the wealthier man.
On Vin’s computer they had discovered evidence that he had bribed the IRS agent who had been investigating Oleg. Vin had used both the carrot—a cash payout—and the stick—Scott’s death—to help the agent decide which path to take.
Now the crowd started to murmur as Bernard Young entered the courtroom. Mia’s scalp prickled, the hair rising on her head and neck. She fought the urge to run. Young shuffled forward one slow step at a time, his ankles shackled together, his handcuffed wrists connected to his waist with a belly chain. Still, there was a deputy in front of him and a deputy behind, with a half dozen more scattered throughout the room.
Young raised his head and glared at her. Chin held high, Mia matched him stare for stare. He took his place next to his new defense attorney. True to his word, Rolf had refused to continue to represent him.
Judge Rivas took the bench. He nodded at her, the silver hairs in his buzz cut catching the light. “You’re looking well, Counselor. It’s good to have you back in my courtroom under happier circumstances.” He looked over at Trevor. “And special thanks to Mr. Gosden, our courtroom deputy clerk, for making it possible for you to be here today.”
