by Lee, Rachel
It was the same world now it had been twelve hours ago. He reminded himself of that once again, and forced himself to walk at a normal pace up to his porch, to climb the steps as if he had all the time in the world, and to unlock his door—all without giving in to the crawling sensation that he was being watched from the shadows in the woods.
When he opened his door, though, he faced something else. It was darker inside than outside. Inside there was no starlight to cast a pale light over the world. Inside the house there was nothing at all but a yawning, impenetrable blackness. Just like it had been in the sea…
He could have closed the door and walked away. He even considered sitting on the porch all night. But then he squared his shoulders and decided he was damned if he was going to let the night take over the one haven he had in the world.
He stepped across the threshold. The night closed around him, and for an instant he felt as if he were suffocating. But still he refused to give in to it, and took yet another step into the maw of darkness.
He stood there, forcing himself to endure the blackness, just as he had forced himself to endure the panic when they’d bound him and thrown him into the pool during Hell Week. There were some things in life that you could only master by submitting to them, and fear was one of those things.
Memory snippets from the dive circled his mind like wolves waiting to attack, but he refused to give in to them. He had survived the dive, he reminded himself, and he would survive the darkness.
That was when he heard the porch creak behind him. And that was when the night spoke his name.
CHAPTER 5
After Chase dropped her off, Callie found she couldn’t hold still. She paced the house for a few minutes, but the absolute emptiness and silence were almost terrifying. Her footsteps on the plank floors echoed loudly, reminding her she was alone. Jeff would not come home tonight.
She thought about pulling out her bank statements to verify that she had enough in savings to pay Shirley’s fee, but she didn’t really need to do it because she knew her balance to the penny. She made a list of things she would need to take with her tomorrow, but there was only one item on it: the deed for the house, and that was in a safety-deposit box at the bank, not far from the courthouse.
Chase must be home by now, she thought. It took nearly fifteen minutes to drive between their properties even though it only took five or six minutes to walk the distance around the inlet, because a car had to go all the way back out to the street along a rutted road.
Stepping out onto the porch she looked to see if any of his lights were on. She really needed to go over and apologize to him for not thanking him for the ride. Regardless of how she felt about what he’d said, she had no right to be rude. He had made her angry, but her anger had faded as she accepted at least part of the justice of what he had said. Jeff should share this burden.
And it was as good an excuse as any to avoid spending the next half hour pacing and thinking about Jeff. Even getting angry was preferable. Besides, a brisk walk would probably clear her head better than pacing.
She set out with only the starlight to guide her. Halfway around the inlet, she began to reconsider her decision because there were still no lights on at Chase’s house. Maybe he hadn’t gone home. Maybe he’d gone out to get something from the store, or to visit a friend. She was just about to turn around and head home when she heard an angry shout and commotion.
Without a thought for her own safety, she broke into a dead run toward his house.
Chase whirled around in the darkness and saw the shadowy figure on his threshold. In an instant, skills that had been hammered into him years ago surged. There was no conscious thought involved, just instinctive reaction to threat.
He sprang forward with a shout, grabbing the intruder, whirling him around, and throwing him to the deck flooring. An instant later he had a knee between the man’s shoulder blades, and his arm twisted up around behind him.
The man’s feet kicked uselessly.
“Don’t move or I’ll break your damn neck,” Chase growled. The body beneath him grew instantly still.
That was when he heard the running footsteps pounding toward him out of the darkness. How many were out there? He lifted his head and peered into the shadows, trying to see who was coming.
“Jesus, Chase!” groaned the man beneath him. “It’s me, Dave Hathaway!”
Dave Hathaway. An old acquaintance, the guy who’d been his contact at the insurance company. He hesitated, not sure he was ready to trust anyone, not with those running footsteps still coming his way. “Who came with you?” he asked.
“Nobody. I swear. For God’s sake, what’s wrong with you? Just let me up!”
“Who’s that running this way?”
“How the hell should I know? Damn it, Chase, you keep this up, I’m going to file charges!”
Just then, Callie burst out of the darkness. “Are you okay?” she demanded as soon as she saw the shadows on the porch.
“If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t be either,” Chase remarked. He levered himself to his feet, releasing Dave. “You shouldn’t run head-on into danger that way, Callie.”
“Oh, will you cut it out! I’m sick of your damn advice. When I want it, I’ll ask for it.”
Dave rolled over, groaning, and pushed himself up onto one elbow.
Chase backed up, giving him more room, waiting for the hammering of his heart to slow down and the adrenaline to flush out of his system.
Turning, he stepped once more into the maw of darkness inside his house, but this time he didn’t give himself a chance to feel it. Reaching for the switch, he flipped it, flooding the interior with light.
“Come on in, you two.” He didn’t wait to see if they followed. He went to get the whiskey bottle. “You want a drink, Dave?”
Dave, stepping through the door and rolling his shoulders as if they hurt, said, “Yeah. A beer, if you got it.” He was a small, slender man with a receding hairline.
He looked at Callie, who was right behind Dave.
“Nothing for me, thanks.”
He got Dave his beer, and poured himself a splash of whiskey. Tipping his head back, he downed it in one gulp, feeling the burn all the way to his belly.
Dave pulled out a chair at the table and collapsed into it, reaching for the beer bottle. He took a long swig, followed by a satisfied sigh. “Somebody should have warned me that visiting you is dangerous, Chase.”
“I don’t like it when people come up behind me in the dark. Especially when nobody’s supposed to be there. What the hell were you doing?”
“I thought you knew I was here. I was parked on that little spur off your driveway, just waiting for you to get home.”
“I didn’t see you.” And that didn’t make him happy. He’d been too absorbed in his own thoughts to see something he should have. He was losing his edge.
“Well, I was there,” Dave said. “Got there just before dark, and figured since I’d driven all the way up here, I might as well hang around and see if you came home. Tom Akers said you were spending most of your time holed up here.” He rolled his shoulders again. “Jeez, you scared about ten years off my life.”
Chase didn’t answer. What was the point? He couldn’t undo what had happened, and he wasn’t going to apologize for it.
Callie’s head pivoted as she looked from one man to the other, as if uncertain what to make of them. Chase couldn’t blame her. He was weird enough to perplex anyone.
“Take a seat,” he told Callie. She pulled out a chair at the other end of the table from Dave. Chase sat between them. “Did you want something?” he asked her.
“I was just coming over to say thank you for giving me a lift earlier.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “No problem.”
Dave spoke. “Well, since Chase obviously isn’t going to make introductions, I will. Hi, I’m Dave Hathaway. I work with Chase.”
“I’m Callie Carlson, a neighbor.”
His head li
fted a little. “You related to Jeff Carlson?”
Chase saw the way Callie seemed to shrink a little and tense. “He’s my brother. Do you know him?”
Dave shook his head. “Nah. I just heard about him on the news…”
“Christ, Dave, what’s the matter with you?” Chase couldn’t believe the man had said that to Callie. He wanted to wring Dave’s neck.
“I’m sorry.” Dave held up a hand and looked sheepish. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I guess I’m still a little shook.” He gave Callie an apologetic smile. “Really. I’m sorry.”
Callie nodded, but didn’t quite look at him. “Forget it.”
“The story just caught my attention,” Dave plunged on. “I don’t think the kid did it, you know?”
Chase wished Dave would just take a hint, but Callie suddenly looked hopeful and terribly vulnerable. He had the worst urge to place himself between her and all the rest of the world.
“Why do you say that?” Callie asked Dave.
“Because it doesn’t make any sense. If he killed those guys, why would he bring the evidence home with him?”
Callie suddenly smiled, and Chase realized that in all the time he’d spent with her, he’d never seen her smile that way. It unsettled him, somehow.
“That’s right,” she said. “Jeff isn’t stupid. Besides, somebody had tried to scuttle the boat. Why would he kill the people, scuttle the boat, then salvage it?”
“Good question.” Dave was nodding agreement. “They’re just looking for a scapegoat.”
“Don’t they always?” Chase asked.
“Seems that way,” Dave replied. “Anyway, I figure it was just some drug deal gone bad, and those kids happened to stumble on it, you know?”
“That’s what I think,” Callie agreed fervently.
“It happened what… seven miles out?”
“About that,” Callie agreed. “I’m not sure exactly. It’s probably on Jeff’s log.”
“See?” Dave said, spreading his hands. “Somebody was running drugs and something went wrong. If you want to take a boat out just to scuttle it, you want to get outside territorial waters so nobody can come after you for polluting. I bet somebody was there to pick up a drug shipment from Mexico and instead they got killed.”
Callie nodded. Chase reserved judgment. He was having a little problem, wondering why Dave knew so much about the case and why he was so interested. Although it was not really that big a deal, he told himself. The arrest had probably been headline news even in Miami, where a huge population of boaters made piracy a hot topic, and Dave was just trying to cover his mistake of mentioning it in the first place.
“They’ll figure it out,” Dave said reassuringly. “Once they really start looking over what they’ve got, they’re going to know it doesn’t make sense.”
“I hope so.” She smiled warmly at Dave, then rose. “I really need to be getting home. I didn’t mean to intrude, Chase. I just realized that I hadn’t thanked you for your help this afternoon.”
He again waved away her gratitude. “Let me walk you home, Callie. It’s dark, and it’s getting late.” The offer came automatically, something he would once have done without a second thought. Now, as soon as he spoke, nervousness settled in the pit of his stomach.
“It’s not necessary. I walk along the inlet all the time at night. See you.”
He hated to admit how relieved he was that she didn’t want his company. Because truth to tell, he was about as keen on stepping out into the night again as he would have been to put his hand in a buzz saw. He even found himself tensing when she opened the door, as if he expected something to come springing through it. When it closed behind her, a long breath escaped him.
“You okay, Chase?” Dave asked.
Chase looked across the table at the man who had sent him on the last, fateful dive. They had worked together frequently in the eight years Chase had been a salvage diver, but Chase still didn’t feel he knew him well enough to be answering questions like that. “I’m fine,” he said shortly.
“Well, I know about the nightmares… I mean, the company’s been kept informed of your recovery. Since we’re paying for it.”
A reminder, Chase thought, and it hadn’t been accidental. His antennae started humming as he realized that this was no haphazard social call on Dave’s part. “What’s the point?”
“I’m just concerned about you. And we’d really like it if you’d come to work for us full-time.”
“I was happy being a contractor. I’m not sure I want to get chained to a desk.”
Dave laughed. “I can understand that. Just think about it, okay? It wouldn’t be a full-time desk job anyway. You’d have to go out to supervise recovery operations.”
Chase nodded slowly, watching the man closely. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good. That’s all I can ask. The company feels real bad about what happened to you, even though it wasn’t our fault.”
“I never said it was anybody’s fault.”
Dave gave another laugh. “No, you sure haven’t. Anyway… we’re still wondering, though. Did you remember anything about the dive?”
They kept asking that question, and every time they asked it, Chase’s paranoia increased another notch. “I told you what I remembered. What does it matter anyway? Bill Evers was there. He told you what he found. What difference does it make whether I ever remember anything? And even if I do, my memory would be suspect after what happened. Why? Is someone suing?”
Dave shook his head. “I’m just curious. We’d like to know more about what happened to you down there. It would be nice to actually pin it down, you know? Instead of being stuck with vague possibilities put together by the medicos.”
“Some things can never be known.”
Dave sighed, then sipped his beer. “You’re right about that. I hate uncertainty. I’ve always hated it.”
“Funny for a man who’s in the insurance business.”
Dave threw back his head and laughed. “Hey, we only bet on sure things. Don’t you know that?”
Chase’s hip poked him with another fiery spear, so he stood up and began pacing around the room, trying to work off the pain. “I’d like to remember what happened down there just so I could figure out what I screwed up. But it’s all a blank except for wisps of the hallucinations. I don’t even remember most of the descent.”
“I understand that’s normal.”
“That’s what the docs say. Traumatic amnesia. I’ll probably never get much of anything back.”
“Maybe just as well.”
Chase nodded. “Probably. Except for not knowing what I did wrong. I guess it doesn’t matter, though. I’ll never dive again.”
Dave was silent for a few minutes, sipping at his beer, drumming his fingers absently on the tabletop. “I feel responsible. I sent you out there.”
Chase snorted. “You didn’t make me go. And anyway, nothing should have gone wrong, if I’d done everything right. So whatever happened was my fault. End of discussion.”
“Okay.” Dave stood and stretched hugely. “Guess I oughta be heading home. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine.”
Dave gave him a crooked smile. “I guess that’s all I’m going to get out of you, hmm?”
“That’s all that’s worth saying.”
“It’s a damn shame about that woman’s brother,” he said as he walked to the door. “I take it he didn’t notice anything unusual when he boarded the boat?”
“Apparently not. Other than that somebody put a bunch of holes in the hull. But he didn’t have a whole lot of time to look around. He was too busy keeping it from sinking.”
Dave shook his head. “I can’t imagine climbing onto a sinking boat. Not for any reason.” He paused at the door. “But I also can’t imagine why he was charged. What the hell did they find on that boat to make them think that kid killed two people?”
“A bloody tarpaulin in an equipment locker wo
uld tend to lead to the conclusion that someone had been killed.”
Dave shook his head. “You’re right about that. But only a lunatic would shoot the bottom of a boat and then try to rescue it.” He said good night and stepped out the door.
Chase listened to him drive away, then listened to the night settle in again, still and unbroken. The whispers were still there but not quite as loud or ominous as they usually were. Maybe the night was no longer so sure it could overwhelm him.
He locked the door and headed to the kitchen to find something to put into his stomach. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the whiskey was gnawing a hole in his belly.
So the bottom of the boat had been shot out, he thought, remembering what Dave had said. The affidavit on the search warrant hadn’t said that, just that there were holes in the hull. Apparently they’d found out what had made them. Or maybe the news was just speculating.
But Dave was right. Nobody but nobody would shoot holes in the hull and then try to salvage the sinking boat, and most especially not when it was loaded with evidence of a murder.
He ate his dinner, a thick ham sandwich with Swiss cheese, tomato, and lettuce, then took up his usual station at the table, waiting for the night to be over. The hours crept by on leaden feet while he strained his ears, listening to every sound as if it was a potential threat. After what had happened earlier, he felt stupider than ever for getting this tense just because it was dark outside.
But stupidity didn’t put him to sleep, or ease the tension that filled his body. At least tonight he didn’t feel the need to get out the Beretta. The pain in his hip and back had settled down to a dull roar, and the edge even seemed to be off his fear. Maybe he was getting better?
He nurtured the hope for a while, turning it around in his mind. It was possible. The doctor had said he would gradually improve. For the first time in months he felt the stirrings of hope.
