by Elaine Viets
“Mindy, move,” Hank said. “The place is on fire.”
“I know it is, lover, and it’s glorious.” Mindy seemed to delight in the destruction of her home. She threw out her arms and shouted, “Welcome to hell!”
There was an odd whump and Mindy’s sheer scarf ignited.
Flames ran down her vinyl catsuit and up into her hair.
Mindy shrieked and beat at the fire with her hands, but the vinyl melted into her skin. Her screams turned to hellish howls. She collapsed on the floor, rolling frantically to smother the flames. Her blazing body tossed and tumbled dangerously close to the computer disk.
“Make it stop!” she shrieked. “Make it stop!”
Hank was paralyzed. Helen could feel the gun pressing harder into her skull, but Hank’s hand was shaking. Mindy gave another inhuman cry and the gun barrel lurched upward, digging a trench in Helen’s scalp.
The pain made Helen look away from the madly screaming Mindy.
“Help meeeee!” But no one could help her now.
Helen had to run for it or she’d burn, too. The way Hank’s hands were trembling, he might miss if he tried to shoot her.
Helen had a chance if she moved fast. But she wasn’t leaving without that disk.
She hit the hot floor and felt around for the disk. She found the toolbox. It was warm. The oven cleaner! Savannah’s oven cleaner was inside. Mindy, burning and screaming, was inches away. If the oven-cleaner can exploded in the fire, the metal toolbox would disintegrate into deadly shrapnel.
Helen heard Hank take quick strides toward her, as she frantically searched for the disk in the smoke. Now he was right behind her.
“Pleeeeeeease,” Mindy pleaded.
Helen started to crawl forward, but Hank’s huge hand grabbed her around the neck. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She heard him draw back the trigger. He was so close, Hank couldn’t miss if he tried.
This is it, Helen thought. I’m dead.
Chapter 28
I can’t hear, Helen thought. He shot me in the head.
The silence was frightening. She could see people screaming, but there was no sound. She didn’t feel any pain.
Helen knew that was shock. The pain would come later.
Hank had let go of her. She sat up.
Helen felt her face for the sticky spurt of heart-pumped blood. Nothing. She checked the back of her head for leaking brains. No squishy mass. Both ears were still attached.
There were no gaping gunshot wounds on her arms, legs or gut.
He didn’t kill me, she realized with dazed wonder. Unless I’m dead and don’t know it. I could be in hell.
Smoke swirled around her. Helen smelled roasting meat, but her mind skittered away from that. A million miles away at the far end of the room, the black velvet curtains flared into yellow sheets of fire. The coffin was a brimstone baptismal font.
A small fireball ran along the floor like a mouse. Helen gawked, then gulped like a goldfish. That cleared her ears.
They opened to unearthly sounds: infernal shrieks of panic, squeals of pain.
Helen heard another shot, and hit the floor. A bullet zinged past her and buried itself in the floor three feet away. Hank wasn’t aiming at her. He was shooting at Mindy.
“Aahhhhgh!” Mindy’s burned lips could no longer make human sounds. Her body bucked and tossed in the flames.
Hank fired two more shots. Both went wild. One hit near Mindy’s smoking shoulder, the other by her fiery hair.
Another shot, and Mindy’s lost-soul wails stopped.
Mindy lay deathly still, tiny flames crackling quietly on her vinyl catsuit. Helen saw the bullet wound in her forehead, a red hole like a third eye.
Even in hell, I will never see anything this horrible, Helen thought.
Hank Asporth had shot his lover. Four of his bullets had gone wild. But the fifth hit the mark. He had one shot left.
Helen could see Hank lurching through the smoke. His big body was hunched like a cave creature. His jaw was slack with shock. His eyes were white and wild in his smoke-smeared face.
Now he pointed the gun straight at Helen. It was a revolver. It looked small in his huge hand, like Det. Lennie Brisco’s little revolver in Law & Order. Helen looked down the short barrel for a long eternity.
“You made me kill her,” Hank said. “I loved her. She’s dead and it’s your fault.”
“No,” Helen said. “No, you don’t—”
Hank pulled the trigger. I’m never going to sleep with Phil, she thought. I’ll burn in hell because my last thought was about boffing the hunk next door. She braced herself for the impact. She heard a loud snap.
Snap? What kind of noise was that?
The gun was empty. Of course. The Law & Order gun was a five-shot snub-nosed .38, not a six-shot at all. Helen nearly collapsed with relief.
Hank threw the useless gun into the smoke, then scooped up Laredo’s disk and began a clumsy splay-legged run for the door.
She couldn’t let him get away. Helen started after Hank, her own gait wobbly and erratic. She coughed and choked on the smoke. Her lungs were dead sponges. They wouldn’t take in any air. She pulled her shirt up over her nose and mouth to help her breathe. That was a little better, but she still couldn’t move with any speed. She could hardly see. The demon doors were in another dimension. She’d never reach them.
You can’t let Hank escape with that disk, she told herself.
Laredo bought it with her life. Helen kept slogging through the smoke-thick air. The demon doors never seemed to get any closer. A short, furry man ran past her. His hairy back was on fire.
Then, just like that, she was out and into the long corridor.
She looked for Hank, but he was too far ahead. The air was better in the hall, but the panicked crowd was more dangerous. People pushed her forward. She could not stop. She’d be trampled if she tried. Helen struggled to stay upright.
Suddenly, she felt a stream of deliciously cool air. Was she near the entrance? No, the fresh air was coming from the tall window. Ten minutes ago, she’d stood there looking down at a lavish party. Now the portable bars were overturned, and the food and flowers were trampled. A naked woman floated face-down in the pool.
A French-rolled brunette shoved Helen so hard her forehead hit the wall. I’m going to die if I don’t get out of here, she thought. The open window was her quickest way out.
She climbed over the sill and nearly lost her balance. It was a fifteen-foot drop to the ground. If she was lucky, she’d land in the soft garden. If she wasn’t, she’d hit the concrete like a watermelon dropped off a roof. She sat on the sill, hoping someone would come along below and help her down.
With a whoosh, a fireball exploded down the hall, turning the panicked pushers and shovers into living torches. The heat scorched Helen’s back. She didn’t hesitate any longer.
She dropped straight down.
Helen landed in the mulch-cushioned flower bed and rolled onto the concrete, knocking her head against a teak chaise longue. She saw stars. Then she saw feet. A man’s feet in neat black Bally loafers.
“I see you fell for me again.” Phil said.
“This is no time for jokes.” Helen brushed the major mulch bits out of her eyes. “Hank Asporth just killed Mindy Mowbry. He shot her in the head. He has Laredo’s disk and he’s headed that way.”
Helen pointed toward the hall entrance. Phil didn’t ask what disk. He took off after Hank. Helen ran after him, but Phil was faster. She could hear sirens in the distance as they ran in the cool night air. The cops could chase Hank better than she could. But she kept running.
Phil raced around the building, Helen trailing after him.
She saw Hank running across the wide lawn toward the dock.
“Phil! He’s heading for the boat!”
Hellfire, the Cigarette boat, was still at the Mowbrys’ dock. The painted flames licking its hull no longer seemed childish. They were a prophecy.
P
hil poured on the speed. Helen tried to run faster, but she was panting like an old dog on a hot day. She hadn’t exercised much while she worked in the boiler room. All those salt-and-vinegar chips slowed her down.
Hank jumped aboard the boat.
“He’s untying the ropes! He’s getting away,” Helen said.
The five-hundred-horsepower twin engines started up.
They sounded like an explosion and Helen was nearly deafened again. She could feel their rumble. Blue-white gasoline smoke poured from the exhaust. Just before the boat shot forward like a rocket, Phil sprang onto the deck with a corsair’s leap.
Helen made a leap, too. She missed the boat, nearly landing in the water. She grabbed a piling to keep from winding up in the drink, and scraped her arm.
“Shit!” Helen said.
The Cigarette boat was gone in a roar of smoke. Helen hauled herself back on the dock and stood there, trying to catch her breath. She was surprised to see that she was still holding her toolbox. She ran to the water-taxi stand.
She was in luck. There was a taxi waiting. It was empty, too. The captain was young and blond and looked like a Coast Guard recruiting poster. He was wearing a white captain’s shirt with four gold bars. His air of authority was undermined by his peach-fuzz cheeks.
Helen jumped on the water taxi. It rocked rudely under her weight, reminding her of that thirty-pound remark.
“Follow that boat!” She pointed at the Cigarette boat disappearing in the distance.
“Sorry, lady. I don’t leave for another four minutes.”
“You’re following that boat.” Helen pulled Savannah’s can of oven cleaner out of the toolbox. “Do what I say or I’ll shoot.”
The captain did not look frightened. “Is that pepper spray?”
“Oven cleaner. Do you know what this can do?”
“No. My oven’s self-cleaning,” the captain said.
“It contains lye. It can blind you. Now get going.”
“Aww, Jesus, lady. Can’t you just carry a gun like everyone else in South Florida?”
“Hurry! They’re getting away.”
“Of course they’re getting away. That’s a Cigarette boat.
This is a tub.”
Helen shook the can. “Try,” she snarled.
“I can’t go fast. It’s a no-wake zone,” the captain said.
“I’ll pay the fine. Now floor it, or whatever you do with boats.” She put her finger on the nozzle. He still didn’t look scared, but at least he got the boat moving. They chugged through a wide, mansion-lined section of the Intracoastal Waterway. The channel was broad, flat and black.
Even a landlubber like Helen could see the captain was right. Their lumbering craft was no match for the sleek Cigarette boat. It seemed to be miles ahead. It barely touched the water, racing through the channel with great leaping belly flops. Whump! Whump! Whump! The Cigarette boat wal-loped along at what looked like a hundred miles an hour.
Water shot up behind it in a curving arc. The powerful engines roared like an army of leaf blowers.
The tubby taxi wallowed along, rolling and shifting. Cold, dirty water splashed through its open sides. The water taxi was doing one thing really fast—falling behind. Helen could barely see the Cigarette boat.
“We’ve got to stop them,” Helen cried. “Call the Coast Guard.”
“I’ve radioed twice, lady. They’re on their way.”
Then, in the distance, they saw a little dinghy crossing in front of the Cigarette boat. It was small, slow and headed for disaster.
“Don’t look,” the captain said. “It’s going to be ugly.”
The Cigarette boat tried to avoid the dinghy. It went into a frantic spin, plowing the water on its side. The passengers in the dinghy took one look at what was heading their way and jumped into the water. The Cigarette boat missed them and hit a dock with a tremendous crack!
“Jesus,” the captain said, as bodies tumbled into the water.
The single word sounded like a prayer.
Helen kicked off her shoes and dove into the churning canal. It was nearly twenty-five years since her Red Cross lifeguard course at the Webster Groves pool. She hoped she remembered what to do.
The water was cold, oily and oddly thick, but Helen felt revived. It cooled the burn on her scorched back. Now she was glad for all those salt-and-vinegar chips. A little extra body fat would keep her buoyant.
The first person she spotted was Hank, floundering in the water. He was still clutching the disk in his hand. Helen grabbed him by his hair.
“Ow!” he yelled. “Those are plugs. Cost a frigging fortune. They’ve just taken root. Don’t pull them out!”
“Give me that.” Helen reached for the disk.
“No way.” Hank would rather be snatched bald than give up that disk. On land, Helen had no chance of defeating him.
But the big man was desperately afraid of the water. She pushed his hair-plugged head under again. Hank came up spluttering and choking.
“Help me. I can’t swim.” Hank grabbed Helen’s arm in a death grip and nearly pulled her under. She could drown with the desperate Hank. She chopped at Hank’s grasping hand until he let go of her arm.
Helen pushed his newly sodded head under once more.
That did it. She pried the disk out of Hank’s hand and stuck it in her pants pocket. Then she let go of Hank.
“Please, don’t let me drown.” Hank kept sinking and swallowing water. Helen grabbed his collar. She started to tow Hank to the water taxi when she saw another body in the canal.
It was Phil, floating face-down.
Helen let go of Hank. When he tried to cling to her, she kicked him hard in the gut. She reached Phil in two strokes and pulled his head out of the water.
“Phil,” she said. “Phil, please talk to me.”
He was unconscious. The back of his shirt was dry. Helen hoped that meant he’d just gone into the water. She tried to turn him over on his back, but his body was too heavy and slippery. All she could do was keep his head clear of the water and try to drag him to the taxi. She forced herself not to think about the things brushing against her legs.
Helen was so exhausted, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold onto him. To keep her concentration, she talked as she towed Phil toward the water taxi.
“All this time, I thought you were invisible,” she said.
“Do you know how hard I tried to see what you looked like?
I’d get up at six in the morning. I’d stay up until three A.M. I didn’t get a glimpse. I called you Phil the invisible pothead.
“When you saved me from that fire, I tried to thank you in person. I even left Cherry Garcia ice cream on your doorstep. You took it and said nothing. Didn’t even give me a peek at your face. What was that all about?”
Phil’s face was like something carved on a sarcophagus.
If she kissed his cold marble lips, would he come back to life? That happened only in fairy tales, not in dirty canals.
Helen kept paddling toward the water taxi, splashing and floundering, but moving forward.
“I even envied your pot-smoking because you could summon your dreams whenever you wanted. I was involved with a couple of jerks. Those guys were real nightmares. It was much harder to make them go away.”
Phil’s eyes stayed closed.
“Please don’t die,” she pleaded. “You’re the only decent guy I’ve met in Florida.”
The man had to be made of stone. Phil was growing heavier. Her fingers were cramping. She was afraid she’d lose him. Helen kept stroking toward the taxi, babbling to distract herself.
“Actually, I’m glad you’re out cold and can’t hear this. I can talk to you better that way. When you rescued me that time from the fire, I still remember how your hands felt. So strong and soft and hard at the same time. I figured a man with hands like that had to be good in bed.”
Helen’s own hands felt like lead. Her arms were logs of dead flesh. Her legs were lump
s of rubber. She bumped into something hard. The boat. She’d reached it at last.
Strong hands lifted Phil into the water taxi while she treaded water. When Phil was safely aboard, she was lifted in. She saw flashing lights and knew the Coast Guard was on its way. She was vaguely aware of three wet-haired women and a sneezing young man huddled under blankets. They must have been in the dinghy.
I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail for hijacking a water taxi, Helen thought. But at least I saved Phil.
He was stretched out on a bench, covered in blankets. His head was pillowed on a life jacket. She sat down beside him.
Phil’s eyelashes fluttered. They were longer than hers. It wasn’t fair to waste lashes like that on a man. Then his eyes opened.
“Phil, you’re OK.”
“Better than OK. Who hauled me out of the water?”
“I did. Now we’re even.”
“Not yet.” Phil pulled her down and kissed her hard. This was no marble man. His lips were warm and deliciously wet.
The boat rocked as the Coast Guard arrived to take her away.
I’ll remember this kiss, no matter how many years I spend in prison, Helen thought.
Chapter 29
That kiss saved Helen.
She was still in a lip-lock with Phil when the Coast Guard arrived, flashing blue lights bouncing off the night-black water. The water taxi was flooded with pulsing color.
Helen didn’t stop kissing Phil. This memory had to last a long time. She was going to jail.
Helen took a peek. She saw two small Coast Guard boats, about the size of Boston Whalers. She counted six men in dark blue uniforms.
Helen heard a soft, cultured voice say, “Are you the Coast Guard?”
That must be one of the rescued women huddled under blankets on the water taxi.
Helen had seen enough. Once the captain started talking, it would be all over for her. Was boat-jacking a capital crime?
She went back to kissing Phil.
“This is Capt. Jack Klobnak,” the rescued woman said, as if she was at a party. She’d bothered to learn his name. Helen had just threatened him.
