by Lee, Rachel
“It’s like this,” Dave said. “You should’ve kept your nose out of my business. Nobody at all had to get killed. They just keep poking their noses in where they didn’t belong.”
“Into what? Who’s poking their noses in?”
“You are. Chase is. And those two guys who took my divers out. If they’d just minded their own business, they wouldn’t have died.”
“What did they do wrong? About what?”
Dave bent and picked up the flare gun, then tossed it over the side. “Keep an eye out over there,” he said to the second man, who was now holding a pistol. Dave pointed to the side of the Lily away from his boat, the side near the buoy. “He’s got to come up over there.” The man followed directions, moving over to where the bar and tank had recently been suspended.
Callie touched Jeff’s arm and began easing in the same direction. Jeff instinctively moved with her, a couple of inches at a time. She had to hope Chase would gauge this situation correctly, and not come up on that side of the boat. If he did, and if she could keep all these men looking in the wrong direction, he might have a chance to do something.
As if the sea were annoyed, the waves returned, beginning to rock the boats and make them bump together. It gave Callie an excuse to stumble and catch her balance even farther over. Jeff came to her aid, and now all the men had their backs to their own boat. She could only hope Chase wouldn’t come up where he was expected.
But she didn’t think he would. God knew he had enough reasons to be paranoid lately. There was no reason he should think the presence of a second boat was innocent.
“What did Rushman and Westerlake do to you?” she asked Dave Hathaway. “They couldn’t have done anything to deserve being murdered.”
“They couldn’t mind their own business,” Hathaway said. “Damn fools. They had to sneak a peek at what my divers brought up.”
Callie took a quick look at Jeff, and saw that his eyes were darting around, as if he was seeking some means of acting. She didn’t know whether to hope he thought of anything, because the least move was likely to get them cut down by that Uzi.
“Just what did they see?” she asked, dragging her gaze back to Hathaway.
He laughed. “You know what they found.”
“No, I don’t. Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on here, except that all of a sudden somebody I don’t know is pointing a gun at me. I think I have a right to know.”
“You don’t have any rights at all.” Hathaway’s smile faded. “But what the hell. It doesn’t matter if I tell you. Diamonds. The divers brought up diamonds. But you already know that, don’t you? That’s what Chase figured out, and you wouldn’t be out here with him if you didn’t know about it. So, which theory are you following? The theory that somebody already has the diamonds, or the theory that they’re still down there?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right.” He shook his head and moved a little closer. “When is Chase due up?”
“Chase isn’t here.”
He shook his head. “Don’t bother lying. My man saw him come out on the boat with you. He took diving gear aboard. When is he supposed to be back up?”
Callie thought frantically. What would be a reasonable time? She had no idea.
“Twenty minutes,” Jeff said. “He’s due up in twenty minutes, if nothing takes longer than he expected.”
Dave Hathaway nodded. “Keep your eye out anyway, Marco.”
“Sure,” said the guy at gunwale who was watching the water.
Callie felt Jeff ease a little away from her. She had to fight an urge to reach out and stop him. “What about Bill Evers?” she said, desperate to distract Hathaway from Jeff. “Did you kill him, too?”
Hathaway shot her a glare. “Nosy little bitch, aren’t you?”
“What difference does it make?” she said. “You’re going to kill us anyway. You might as well tell us why.”
“I already did.”
“But what about Evers? He was on your side, wasn’t he? Do you kill your associates, too?” Much to her pleasure, both of the other men were distracted by that question, and looked at Hathaway before returning their attention to their duties, one watching the water, the other watching Jeff and Callie.
“He became a nuisance,” Hathaway said. “He got really pissed that I changed Chase’s air supply. Hell, it wasn’t my fault Chase reacted that way to the narks. He was just supposed to get woozy and go back up above a hundred feet. How the hell was I supposed to know the guy was going to try to pull his mask off? If it had worked the way I planned, everybody would’ve been okay.” He shook his head. “Christ, nobody had to get killed.”
“So you killed Evers because he was pissed?”
“I killed Evers because he let those two damn fishermen see the diamonds, after the second dive. He never should have given them the opportunity. But he was careless, and Marco had to rub them out. Evers went flaky on me. The deal didn’t include murder, he said. So… I capped him.”
Callie felt her internal chill deepen, and along with it came a frightful sense of resignation. “And now you’re going to kill Chase, too?”
“He should never have started nosing around. He should have just stayed in his backwoods hole. Jesus. I was doing everything I could to keep him out of the way. Even paying a couple of guys to do things that would make him think he was losing it. All he had to fucking do was stay out of the way.”
Hathaway’s temper was rising, and Callie had the distinct sense that he was feeling out of control, that circumstances had snowballed in a way that he had never envisioned, and now he was trapped in a chain of events he couldn’t escape.
Desperately she sought another option to offer him, but nothing occurred to her. He was already implicated in three murders. There was no escape from that, short of killing the three people who could link him to them.
The man with the Uzi spoke. “Let’s just take care of ‘em now, boss. It’ll be less to deal with when the other guy comes up.”
Callie caught her breath and felt panic lace itself tightly around her heart.
“No,” said Hathaway. “I don’t want to do anything that might tip him off.”
“The boat’s already tipped him off,” argued the man.
“No, I don’t think so. We might have been having trouble and pulled alongside. He’ll have to surface to find out what’s going on, and then we’ll get him.”
Desperate to buy time, Callie threw out the only thing she could think of. “You’re not going to shoot us, are you? If our bodies wash up on shore, they’ll know we were killed.”
“They won’t know who did it.”
“You don’t know that. We’ve talked to a lot of people about our suspicions. No, you should drown us.”
Hathaway’s jaw dropped. For an instant, everyone on the boat looked stunned.
“Except,” Callie continued almost wildly, “I really don’t like the idea of being eaten by fish. They take the eyes out first. Look, if you’re going to kill me, don’t I have something to say about how? It won’t make any difference to you, but it’ll make a whole lot of difference to me.”
“Christ,” Hathaway swore. “You’re crazy.”
“I can’t help it. I get nuts at the idea of being eaten by fish. Look, maybe you could just tie us up in the cabin and leave us. We’d die of thirst in a couple of days. You know, tow us way out…”
“The Coast Guard,” said the man with the pistol.
“They won’t find us. They won’t even be looking for us. Without a distress call, they would just ignore the boat if they did see it.”
“You might get loose,” Hathaway said. “Look, this is a stupid discussion. They’ll never know who killed you. I’m going to use Chase’s pistol for the job.”
Panic tightened its grip on Callie, clearing her mind in the strangest way. Grabbing Jeff’s arm, she dragged him closer to the stem.
“Just don’t tie me up and throw me overbo
ard. At least let me swim. I’d never get to shore, but at least I could swim until I’m exhausted. Oh, God, don’t tie me up and throw me over.”
“I said I was going to shoot you.”
“And there’d be blood everywhere…. The thought makes me want to vomit.” Bending over, she grabbed her stomach. “It’s my death,” she said, and gagged. “Don’t I have anything to say about it?”
Chase had surfaced between the boats, the most dangerous place in the world, but the only one where he could be reasonably sure no one was looking for him. He listened until he was sure that everyone was aboard the Lily. Then he swam around the bow of the other boat, and pulled himself onto the foredeck. The cabin concealed him from the view of those aboard the Lily. And as if she understood his need, the sea grew restless, banging the boats together and filling the air with the lap of her waves. Covering any sounds he might make.
He made his way around the far side, peering through the bridge windows so he could see where everyone was on the other boat. They were at the stern, the bad guys facing the other way. He hoped that when Callie and Jeff saw him, they didn’t telegraph his presence by their reactions.
He could hear Callie’s arguments about her preferred method of death and he didn’t know whether to be horrified or laugh, but as he listened he felt a surge of admiration for her. She was buying him time, buying them all time, and he promised himself that if they got out of this alive, he was going to give her a kiss she would never forget. And he was going to kill those men for doing this to Callie.
He peeked around the edge of the cabin and saw that everyone except Callie and Jeff was still facing the other way. He knew that Callie and Jeff saw him, but both of them quickly looked away, and Callie resumed her surreal discussion of modes of death.
Then he recognized Dave Hathaway, and his mouth turned sour with rage. That son of a bitch!
Stepping carefully down into the cockpit, he looked around for weapons. Two of the men on the Lily had guns, one of them an Uzi, and he didn’t fool himself into thinking he could take both gunmen out in one blow. First he had to find a way to get to the guy with the machine gun, because he could do the most damage in the shortest time.
Moving silently, he made his way to the equipment locker and opened it. He could hear Callie talking frantically about how she wished they would kill her first so she didn’t have to watch her baby brother die. Then Jeff chimed in, arguing he didn’t want to watch her die either. Those guys must be feeling they had fallen in with lunatics.
In the equipment locker, he found a flare gun and, wonder of wonders, a speargun. He checked it out quickly, making sure it would still fire. It would. For backup, he loaded the flare gun.
When he straightened, he saw Jeff looking straight at him. Then the young man’s eyes slid over to the guy who was at the side watching the water where Chase would presumably surface, his back to the group. Chase got the message and nodded. Jeff was going to push the guy overboard when Chase made his move.
Lifting the speargun, he aimed it at the guy with the Uzi. The spear did its job, flying across the intervening distance and hitting him in the buttock. The man screamed, and Chase gave a yank on the line attached to the spear. The man went overboard, and the Uzi clattered to the deck.
Jeff whirled around and with a single shove pushed the other gunman over the side. Chase leapt over to the Lily and launched himself at Dave Hathaway, catching him around the knees and throwing him to the deck. Dave swung at him and Chase hauled off and popped him a good one in the jaw. Dave looked stunned.
Callie spoke. “Chase, I’ve got the gun.”
Chase looked up, keeping his hands on Hathaway’s shoulders so the man couldn’t rise.
Jeff was grinning. He leaned over the side. “What do you want me to do about these two guys?”
“Let ‘em swim until I’m ready for them.” He rose and took the gun from Callie, then looked down at his old friend. He had to fight an urge to nail Dave right between the eyes for threatening Callie and Jeff. “Jeff, you know how to use an Uzi?”
“Never had to.”
“It’s easy. Come here.” He showed Jeff just how easy it was, then gave him the gun. “You keep watch. I’m going to tie them up, one by one.”
Jeff took up his post on the flying bridge from where he could see everything. Callie retrieved rope from the locker and helped Chase tie up Hathaway.
“You’ll never prove anything,” Hathaway said. “This kid’s wanted for murder. All I have to do is claim he was hijacking my boat.”
Chase resisted the urge to punch him and satisfied himself by yanking the rope tighter around Hathaway’s wrists. “Shut up, Dave. If the law won’t believe the three of us, then I’ll just have to take care of you myself.”
Hathaway blanched and fell silent.
“That’s right,” Chase said. “And I can make it a lot worse than life in prison.”
When he was sure Hathaway couldn’t get loose, he went and hauled in the man he’d harpooned. The gunman had yanked the spear out and had lost some blood, and that had taken most of the fight out of him. He submitted meekly to being tied up, and even thanked Chase for putting a bandage on his wound.
The third man was a bigger problem. He no sooner hit the deck than he attacked Chase. It took a couple of solid punches to subdue him, but then it was done.
Then, and only then, did Chase sweep Callie into his arms and hug her with all the desperation of a man who had come close to losing someone he cared about. God, it had been so close! She hugged him back, clinging to him with equal desperation.
But Chase was exhausted, not unexpected after a dive. Worse, he felt pain in his joints, joints that hadn’t hurt before.
“Let’s get back to shore as fast as we can,” he said to Jeff.
Callie looked at him and felt her heart climb into her throat.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think… I need to decompress.”
“Can’t you go back in the water and do it?”
He shook his head.
Callie turned to her brother. “I’ll hold the gun, Jeff. Call the Coast Guard. Tell “em we need medical help fast.”
Chase sank down onto the stern and battled down a rising sense of panic. He’d exerted too much. But it wasn’t that bad. It would wear off. It wouldn’t be like last time. He started shivering, and hoped to God he didn’t get an embolism in the brain.
Jeff came down from the flying bridge and gave Callie the gun. “You aren’t supposed to exert right after you come up,” he said. “I read that. You’re not supposed to even help put your own gear away.”
Chase managed a shrug and a tight grin. “Like I had any choice.”
“Just call the Coast Guard,” Callie said again. “They can airlift him out of here.” She turned the barrel of the gun toward Hathaway. “I ought to shoot him,” she said, her voice hard. “I ought to kill him. This is the second time he’s done this to you, Chase.”
“The second?”
“You were right. He messed with your air on your last dive.”
“Hey,” Hathaway said quickly. “It wasn’t supposed to make that happen. All I wanted was to give him a case of narks so he’d come right back up. I never thought he’d pull off his mask. God, he’s my friend.”
“Some friend you are,” Callie said bitterly. She saw Chase shiver again and handed him the gun. “Can you hold this while I get you a blanket?”
He nodded and she ran below, returning a minute later with an old olive drab army blanket. She wrapped it around his shoulders and took the gun back.
“Maybe,” she said, “we ought to make these turkeys swim all the way back.”
Chase managed a chuckle and pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
“Hey,” Callie said, her voice softening and her heart aching. “Hey, you promised me you were going to be okay.”
“I will be. I always keep my promises.” But he was wondering if he was about to break this one.
&
nbsp; Jeff reported that a cutter and a helicopter were on the way. Twenty minutes later a Coast Guard helicopter lifted Chase in a basket and swept him away.
The three men were taken into custody by the Monroe County authorities, and by five o’clock that afternoon all charges against Jeff and Eric were officially dropped. Callie drove to Stock Island with Jeff and picked up Eric, bringing both of them home with her. Eric was elated, but rather subdued, too, as if the experience had marked him in some way he didn’t want to talk about. Callie thought it was better if he didn’t stay alone, and Eric was glad to go home with her and Jeff.
Jeff, on the other hand, was ebullient. He recounted all the day’s excitement to Eric, who wound up grinning almost like his old self.
Callie was feeling something altogether different. Chase had been taken to God knew where, and she had no idea if he was okay. The Coast Guard wouldn’t tell her anything because she wasn’t a relative. Frustration and fear made her want to wring someone’s neck.
Finally, she walked out to the point, feeling that she had to make some attempt to find peace within herself. The sea, she thought, hadn’t hurt Chase. Those men had hurt Chase. The sea had given up its secrets and given up Chase without harm. Except for those men, he’d be just fine. And if he died, it would be their fault, not the sea’s.
Sitting down on the caprock, she wrapped her arms around her knees and let tears of relief, release and fear roll down her cheeks. Her mind kept picking apart the events of the day, wondering if she could have done something different, something that would have prevented Chase from exerting himself. She couldn’t think of a single thing.
Then, like a soft warmth growing in the depths of her mind, she remembered how calm the sea had been, and how rough it had suddenly become when the three men boarded the Lily. The sea had helped them, she realized. The sea had made it possible for Chase to board the other boat without being heard.
And that thought was no crazier than the ones she had had before about the sea being out to get everyone she loved.
