by Stuart Woods
Holly typed in the password, then confirmed it. A message appeared, confirming the amount and the destination account.
“Print that page,” the man said.
Holly printed it. Immediately, her head seemed to explode. She slumped against the restraining tape as she lost consciousness.
Chapter 56
HOLLY SLOWLY CAME TO, her face pressed against a cool, rough surface that vibrated. Her feet were still taped together, her hands taped behind her and her eyes taped shut. Only her mouth was untaped. Since her ears were still plugged it took her a moment to realize that she was on a boat, and the vibration she felt was from an engine. There was a slight bumping as the boat skimmed over small waves, and it seemed to be traveling fast. She had no idea whether it was day or night, and she had a terrible headache.
Holly thought about her circumstances and concluded that it was not in her interest to move. She thought it likely that she was being driven into deep water, where she would be weighted and thrown into the water. If this were the case she would have to make a move before the weights were attached. If she could somehow throw herself into the water, then she might be able to swim, even bound as she was. Maybe the water would soak the tape and cause it to expand enough for her to get a hand free. She was going to have to work very hard not to panic when the time came.
The boat began to slow, and Holly tried to prepare herself mentally for what was to come. The boat slowed still further. It was in smooth water now, and, judging from the lessened vibration, the engine was at or near idle. She estimated that the time to make her move was as soon as he began to weight her body.
Then, to her surprise, the boat seemed to bump into something; she felt it through the hull, no more than a nudge. She heard a voice.
“Listen to me. I’m going to move you onto another boat, where you’ll be found in the morning.”
She felt his hands under her arms from behind as he lifted her and set her on what felt like the gunwales of the boat.
“Bye, bye,” he said, then pushed her backward.
She grabbed a deep breath, but what she struck was something hard. She had tumbled into another boat. She briefly heard the engine of the boat she had just left, then all was silence.
Holly sat up and leaned against something, probably the side of the boat’s cockpit. She put her face against it and crabbed her body along its length, until she came to an obstruction. She felt the adjoining surface with her face, and it was a pillow. She backed herself into the corner and began pushing up with her feet, slowly working her way to the cushioned surface. Twice, she fell back to the deck below her, but on her third try she made it to what seemed to be a broad, cushioned seat. She struggled upright and leaned against a corner, then she struggled hard against the tape binding her wrists.
Finally, convinced that she was not going to get free of her bonds, she did the only thing she could do: She whistled. Holly had learned, as a little girl, how to whistle very loudly. She could still bring cabs to a screeching halt in New York City with that whistle, and sound carried well over water. She was probably in a boat moored in the harbor, so somebody ashore might hear her. She whistled, then rested, then whistled some more.
BACK AT THE STONE HOUSE, Dino was looking once again at the satellite thermal images that had been sent to Lance from Langley. “Lance, Stone, come look at this,” he said.
Then Daisy, who had been sleeping before the fire, suddenly jerked awake, scrambled to her feet and barked.
Everyone turned and looked at her.
“What is it, Daisy?” Ham asked.
Daisy ran to the door to the terrace and began clawing frantically at it.
Ham got up. “What’s the matter, girl?” He opened the door, and Daisy was gone. Ham ran after her and stopped on the terrace.
Everybody else poured out of the study onto the terrace and stood, watching Daisy run.
“She’s headed down the dock,” Ham said. “Come on!”
The group ran after the dog. Suddenly, Stone could hear a whistle. Daisy had obviously heard it a lot sooner.
“It’s Holly!” Ham yelled and jumped into the picnic boat, where Holly lay bound but not gagged.
“Ham,” Holly was screaming, “is it you?”
Daisy was dancing around her, yelping, trying to lick her face, while Ham dug into a pocket for his knife.
HOLLY SAT IN FRONT of the fire, trying to eat a bowl of soup. Finally, she gave up, picked up the bowl and drank from it until it was empty. “That’s better,” she said. “All I’ve had to eat for days is chocolate bars… Snickers, I think”.
Stone spoke up. “Jesus, I saw Caleb buying a whole box of Snickers in the Dark Harbor Shop.”
“That makes him the guy,” Holly said.
Everyone was gathered around her, watching. Even Seth and Mabel had come in from the kitchen. “What else can I get you, Holly?” Stone asked.
Holly stood up and stretched some more. Apart from being sore after being restrained in one position for a long time, she felt remarkably well. “A drink,” she said.
Dino went to the bar and got her some Knob Creek on the rocks, her favorite.
“Are you ready to talk now?” Lance asked.
“Ready? All I want to do is talk; I’ve had my mouth taped shut for… how long has it been?”
“You’ve been gone a little over four days,” Stone said. “Was it the twins who took you? Did they put you in the boat?”
“Twins? The Stone twins? No, not them. It was one man, and he was very clever. The only time he spoke to me was through some sort of voice-altering device. I never saw him. I have no idea what he looks like. But the Snickers bars makes me think it’s Caleb.”
“Why did he let you go?” Stone asked. “Do you know?”
Holly nodded. “Oh, God. I need a computer.” She got up and ran toward Dick’s little office. The computer was already on. She went onto the Internet and started typing.
“What are you doing?” Lance asked.
“I bought my way out,” she said. “I transferred a million two to his Singapore account”
“What are you doing now?” he asked.
“I’m wiring the money back to my account,” she said. “I memorized the account number, and he gave me a password of PE65000, like the old Glenn Miller recording, Pennsylvania 6-5000, but I entered EE65000, so he won’t be able to access the account until he figures that out. I’m going to send the money back to my account.”
Ham stood in the door. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Where did you get a million two hundred thousand dollars?”
“Jackson left it to me,” she lied. Jackson was her dead fiance.
“Oh,” Ham said.
She typed a few more keystrokes. “There,” she said. Then she started typing again. “I think I’ll change the password back to PE65000,” she said. “That way, when he accesses it, he’ll find it empty. I wish I could be there to see his face.”
Responding to calls from Stone, Sergeant Young arrived simultaneously with Ed Rawls, and they were brought up to date. “Do you have any idea who this man is, Holly?” Young asked.
“No idea at all,” she said.
“Lance, Sergeant,” Dino said, “can you come take a look at the thermal images for a minute? I’ve found something interesting.”
Everybody gathered around the coffee table, where the images were spread out, along with Young’s map of the island.
“Here’s my question,” Dino said, pointing to a structure on one of the thermal images. “What is this? I can’t find it on your map.”
“Well,” Young said, “this is the most recent map of the island, completed less than three months ago, but you’re right, the structure in the image doesn’t appear on the map.”
“Look at this,” Dino said, pointing from one image to another. “We’ve got three days of thermal imaging here, and in every one of them we can see one hot spot—one person—in exactly the same position. It doesn’t move, day or night.”
Holly spoke up. “Or me. I’ve been tied to a bed all that time. Good God, it’s me.”
Chapter 57
CALEB STONE MADE his way back to the obscured creek, past the overhanging brush and slowly up the little waterway to the boathouse. As he approached he could see a glow from a window. Someone had lit a candle.
He tied up his Whaler and went upstairs. Eben and Enos sat on an old sofa, looking tired.
“Hey, Dad,” the boys said simultaneously. They often spoke at the same time.
“Hello, boys,” Caleb replied.
“You got rid of her, huh?” Eben asked. Of the two, Eben was the more assertive.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Caleb dragged up a seedy, overstuffed chair and sat down. “I let her go.”
The twins both sat up. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Enos asked.
“Certainly not, and watch your mouth.”
“Easy,” Eben said to his brother. “I’m sure Dad had his reasons.”
“I certainly did,” Caleb replied. “One more murder on this island and we’d have the National Guard in here. They searched our house, you know.”
“Dad, she’s going to tell on us,” Enos said.
“She doesn’t know anything to tell. She’s been tied to that bed, drugged, her eyes taped and her ears plugged for the past four days, ever since you left. She hasn’t had a moment of consciousness when she could see anything except that computer.” He pointed at the laptop, glowing in the dark.
“I don’t get it,” Eben said. “Where’s the percentage in letting her go?”
“For one thing, they’ll stop looking for her. For another, she paid her way out.”
“Paid?”
“Listen to me, boys. You’ve got to run; there’s no other choice.”
“But why? We haven’t done anything; nobody has anything on us.”
“You’ve killed some people. They’ve eliminated all the other suspects and now they’re focusing on you. They know you weren’t on the boat when it sailed from Nantucket.”
“So, we came back. So what?”
Caleb noted that they didn’t deny the murders, but he didn’t want the details. “How did you come back?”
“We flew the airplane to Rockport, had some dinner and got the last ferry.”
“Where’s your car?”
“At the house; we walked down here.”
“I want you to listen to me very carefully,” Caleb said, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m your father, and I love you, but I’m also speaking to you as a lawyer. You’ve committed several murders, and these days, nobody can get away with that for long.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Eben said.
“Why did you do it?”
“We had our reasons. Anyway, you taught us everything we know.”
“What?”
“You taught us how much fun it is beating up on other people. You beat us up, before we got too big to let you do it. You stood on the sidelines and egged us on when we wrestled and boxed. You always wanted us to kill the other guy.”
“And you took that to mean that murder is all right?”
“As long as you don’t get caught.”
“You’re going to get caught,” Caleb said.
“Why do you think that, Dad?”
“Because murderers always get caught. They’re going to check every minute of your last four or five days, and they’re going to punch holes in your story.”
“We’ve got it covered,” Enos said.
“You think your friends are going to go on covering for you when they find out what the police want?”
“Sure, they will.”
“No, they’ll be dragged into a police station and told that if they lie for you, they’re accessories to multiple murders and that accessories get the same sentences as perpetrators. Haven’t you watched enough TV to know that? They’ll crack to save themselves, and when they do, you’ll find yourselves in jail, then on trial, then…”
“You wouldn’t let us lose a trial, would you Dad?” Eben asked. “Not with your legal connections.”
“I can’t fix a trial,” Caleb said. “And if they have the evidence, you’ll be convicted, and you’ll spend the rest of your lives in prison.” Caleb saw that he wasn’t getting through to them. “They’ll separate you.”
“What?” Enos asked, looking alarmed.
“They won’t let brothers serve in the same prison; they’ll put you in different places.”
Enos looked as if he were going to cry.
“You’ve got to get out of here and tonight,” Caleb said.
“How?” Eben asked. “Where would we go? What would we do for money?”
“I told you, the woman bought her way out.”
“How?”
“I set up a numbered bank account in Singapore; from there you can transfer funds to any bank in the world just by going online.”
“How much did she pay?”
“A million two hundred thousand dollars. It’s already in the account.” He handed them the sheets that Holly had printed. “Here’s all the information.”
The boys held a candle over the pages and read them. “Holy shit,” they said together.
“Here’s what you do: You take my boat and leave here at first light for Rockland. Once there, you take that airplane of yours and fly west, stopping only at small, out-of-the-way airports to refuel. It’ll take you a couple of days, but you’ll fly to El Paso or Laredo, on the Mexican border, in Texas. You’ll cross the border, each in a different city, and you’ll travel separately to the Mexico City airport. From there, you can fly to Brazil, which has no extradition treaty. You can open a bank account there and transfer enough funds from the Singapore account to support you for a year or so.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll research where else in the world you can go, then start a small business. Even a million two won’t last forever. Take the laptop with you and the cell phone, which is a throwaway. I’ll call you from phone booths every now and then to see how you’re doing and give you advice.
“The cell phone may not work in Mexico, so buy another one, same in Brazil. Don’t linger in Mexico City. Never use your credit cards. Leave them with me. I’ll dispose of them. One of you should grow a beard, and you should both dye your hair different colors. Twins your size are too easy to spot. When you travel on trains or airplanes, never sit together; take different hotel rooms. Don’t be seen together in public until you’re safely in Brazil. Your passports are in the computer case.” He took a wad of bills from his pocket. “Here’s eight thousand dollars. That will get you to Rio, then you can draw on the Singapore account.”
Eben took the money. “Where did you get this?”
“I had a couple of thousand in the safe at the house. I’ve been cashing checks and using ATMs for a week; I knew you’d need some cash.”
“So, Dad,” Eben said, “you’ve created a paper trail. When they start looking for us, they’ll look at your bank account and see all these unusual cash withdrawals.”
“I’ll handle that,” Caleb said.
“And how are you going to handle it, Dad? You can’t explain those withdrawals; you won’t have the cash to show them. You’ll be just like our friends. You’ll crack, to save yourself, and you’ll tell them where to look for us.”
“I would never tell them,” Caleb said. “You’re my sons; I would never give you up.”
“Remember that time when we ran away from boarding school? We called you, and you gave us up.”
“Come on, boys. You were kids then; you’d done something crazy.”
Eben stood up, and Enos stood with him. “We’re not kids anymore, and you’d be facing prison. I don’t think you’d spend the rest of your life in prison for us, do you, Enos?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Enos said.
Caleb started to rise, but Eben pushed him back in the chair.
“No,” Eben said. “If we’re going to burn our bridges, we’d better start now.”
Chapter 58
SETH HOTCHKISS SPOKE UP. “I know what that place is,” he said, tapping his finger on the thermal image. “It’s an old boathouse. The main house burned down, I don’t know, maybe fifteen years ago, and they never rebuilt, so it was taken off your map, Sergeant. But the boathouse is still there. There’s a little creek that runs up to it, about right here.” He tapped the map again. “But it’s overgrown, and I don’t know whether it’s navigable.”
