by Bill Eidson
Below him, the Blue Water 25 was tied up to a piling. He had a coil of Steve’s climbing rope beside him so he could rappel down immediately if Geoff approached by water.
Alex yawned. He wasn’t exactly tired, but he remembered the feeling from his tour in Vietnam: It was the effects of balancing fear and boredom in equal measures.
He and Steve had been waiting all day long. Logic dictated that whatever was going to happen would happen soon, under the cover of night. Assuming the bastard hadn’t already killed Lisa. Alex couldn’t imagine what he would do or say to Steve if the night passed without any hint that she was still alive.
Alex yawned again and rubbed his eyes. He rolled his shoulders and tried to relax. After a moment, he swept the parking lot again with his scope, and realized a van had entered without his noticing. The van pulled into a parking place and a tall man got out.
“See the van?” Alex whispered into his walkie-talkie.
“Got it,” Steve answered.
The need to yawn evaporated as Alex saw the man pull something down over his head. “Trouble coming your way,” Alex whispered. He sighted carefully, putting his crosshairs on the man as he stepped onto the dock heading to Steve’s boat.
Chapter 25
The man had no face.
That’s how it appeared to Steve when the man stepped under the dock lights. Instead of features, there was just blankness under the baseball cap. Then Steve realized the guy was wearing a stocking. And that it wasn’t Geoff; this man was a good couple of inches taller.
Geoff had never suggested he had partners, and Steve’s mind raced with the implications. Did this mean Lisa wasn’t being held against a timer? That Geoff was out of it somehow? Or simply that he sent someone in his place—he didn’t trust Steve not to bring in the police?
Steve was crouched on the narrow finger dock for the boat across from The Sea Tern. The revolver was heavy in his hand.
The guy had an athletic bag hanging over his shoulder. His hand was inside the bag. When he reached the stern of Steve’s boat, he leaned in and said in a hoarse whisper, “Hey, in there. Got something you’re going to want to hear.” He held up the small tape recorder. It hissed loudly and Lisa’s voice came on, sounding shaky and scared: “‘Steve. My kidnapper tells me that you have changed plans on him. He has punished me by turning on the water pump.’ ”
Steve stepped forward quietly and put the gun on the man’s back. “Turn it off.”
Startled, the guy began to resist.
Steve shoved him forward, knocking him against the stern of the boat. The recorder snapped off, but Steve had heard enough. He ground the gun barrel into the guy’s spine. “Convince me I shouldn’t break your back.”
The guy went still. “Take it easy, man. We’ve still got the girl.”
Steve reached into the athletic bag and found a revolver. He put it into his belt and said, slowly and clearly, “It’s this simple: You take me to her and you can walk away with the money. You don’t, and I will shoot off little pieces of you until you do.”
Steve draped the backpack with the cash over the man’s shoulder. “There’s the hundred and fifty thousand.”
The guy seemed to regain himself. “You can’t fuck with me. She’ll drown in that box. My partner will do her if I don’t come back.”
“You’re coming back. I’m going with you.”
“Can’t do it, man. But you’ve got my word we’ll let her go.”
“I already told Geoff that’s not good enough.”
The guy drew breath in sharply and twisted his head around. “You know his name?”
“Of course.”
“You recognized his voice?”
Steve was puzzled. “I recognized him. He came right down to my boat.”
“Without a mask?”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Shit!”
“He’s made no attempt to keep his identity from me.” Steve knocked the man’s hat off and drew the stocking up. “And what’s yours?”
The guy whirled suddenly, knocking Steve’s gun hand aside while reaching for the revolver in his belt. Steve twisted away, clasping the kidnapper’s gun to his waist. The guy shoved him back abruptly and took off down the dock, running.
Grabbing the walkie-talkie, Steve whispered urgently, “Don’t shoot him, Alex. Follow him.”
The kidnapper sprinted.
Steve jogged after him and was in the rental car by the time Alex’s voice came over the walkie-talkie again. “I’m behind him. He just crossed the bridge, heading toward Ninety-three south.”
Across the river, Geoff shook his head. He was disgusted with Jammer. He had just raced over the bridge and run a red light.
Panicked.
Geoff watched the guy under the bridge climb up, apparently using a rope ladder. He took off after Jammer in his pickup truck. Minutes later, a Chevy crossed over the bridge as well. Geoff recognized Steve’s profile.
“Wagon train,” Geoff said, aloud. He swung the Plymouth behind.
The guy is all over the road,” Alex said over Steve’s walkie-talkie. “He’s scared.”
“Are you ready for me to come up?”
“No. I’m going to switch on my plow lights now and turn off the headlights. That should look different enough in his mirror for now.”
“I want to stop him before he goes into a house or building. He’s got the money, it wouldn’t take him but a minute to go in and kill her.”
“I know, buddy. I know.”
A big car swept up beside Steve and his stomach clenched. He took a quick look over. It was impossible to see through the darkened windows. He exchanged the walkie-talkie for the gun quickly. But when the car continued on, doing about eighty, he picked it up again and said, “A big Plymouth just blew by. Watch out for that.”
Alex saw the car in his mirror and he laid the rifle across his legs so that the barrel rested just on the edge of the open window. Not the best arrangement, but the best he could do.
The car slipped by him as well and raced on past the two cars Alex had kept between him and the van. A moment later, the car passed the van, too.
Alex found he had been holding his breath.
Just another speeder, late at night.
Alex’s hands were slippery on the wheel, and he fought the urge to simply pull over and stop this insanity—he was too old and too smart to be playing with guns.
Equally strong was the urge to chase that van down right then and try to force that bastard to tell him where Lisa was being held.
Alex made himself take a deep breath and exhale. He told himself that Lisa’s life depended upon how he and Steve handled themselves.
A few minutes later, the van took the exit for North Quincy.
Lisa finally heard the break in the girl’s voice. “Listen, it won’t be that much longer. Your guy will come through with the money, so just hold out awhile longer.”
Lisa wondered if the girl believed that. She said, “It’s just that I’m so cold.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. It was bad enough before, but now he’s put this water in here and I’m freezing. You’ve got a key. Please get me a blanket.”
The girl swore.
Lisa bit her tongue, letting the silence grow.
A few moments later, she heard the angry click of the girl’s heels on the linoleum and a zipper being opened.
Lisa massaged her right arm vigorously, hoping that neither her cramped muscles nor any squeamishness would keep her from doing what had to be done.
Jammer was in a fever. He tromped on the gas once off the highway and took a hard right, looped around, and then headed off along the river’s edge. He had screwed up, no doubt about it. The scared corporate type Geoff had described didn’t fit with the Steve Dern that Jammer had run into. And Dern knew Geoff’s name, and Geoff knew Jammer’s.
It’d been a mistake trusting Geoff for even a second.
But, the way Jammer was look
ing at it, he could still come out of it just fine. He had managed to get away with the hundred and fifty thousand. Not bad, seeing as Dern was holding the gun on him.
Now all Jammer had to do was close things out with Geoff and turn Carly over to Raul. As for Lisa, even though she hadn’t seen his face, he figured the safest thing was to put her down, too.
“You can do it,” he said into the empty van.
He figured there was a good chance Geoff had broken free of his ropes. Since Jammer no longer had the revolver, he would have to be ready when he went into the house. But as pumped up as Jammer was, he felt he could take on Geoff in a hand-to-hand fight, now that he knew what to expect. Especially if he took along a little advantage.
And that he had.
Steve hit the exit ramp and found the hard right and marina sign that Alex had mentioned. He floored the Chevy, making the tires scream. Moonlight glinted on the water up ahead. There were marshlands just before it, scrubby lots to the right. A warehouse to his left, an occasional house.
Up ahead, he saw Alex’s truck just turn the corner. The walkie-talkie crackled and Alex said, “Okay, he’s pulling in behind a gray house. There’s a mailbox, Eighty Shore Road.”
As Jammer swung the car into the driveway behind the house, he noticed that the kitchen light was still on; all of the others were dark. Just the way he had left the place.
Jammer ran his hand down his chest and left arm, feeling the muscle, the coiled strength. He rested his hand on his belt.
The belt buckle specifically. Junior. He’d had it custom made. A larger-than-fashionable buckle, smoothly contoured with rounded edges. It fit nicely in his palm—and when he pulled the buckle away a four-inch blade gleamed. The blade was curved into a shallow hook, razor sharp on both edges. The way the buckle fit in his palm, the blade stuck out between his fore and index fingers.
So when he punched, he stabbed. And he could slash open a guy’s throat without having to change grip.
He grinned, more confident with the steel in his hand. He slid it back into his belt, figured that if Geoff had managed to get himself free from the chair, a little distraction might be called for. Show him the money with his left hand; then do him with his right.
“I’m good with this, Mr. Mann,” he whispered. “I’m good enough tonight.”
He went into the house, ready to prove it.
Alex heard a woman scream.
He froze.
A quick look in the rearview mirror showed Steve’s car about a half mile back, and closing fast.
The woman screamed again.
Alex cast another look in the mirror before grabbing the rifle. He threw the door open and ran up the driveway. He felt stiff and awkward. He knew he had waited too long. That time sitting in the car waiting for Steve might have been only a few seconds, but that’s all it would take for the man to kill her.
Alex pounded up the stairs of the old house and kicked the door.
It held.
He kicked it again and this time the wood splintered around the lock as the lights of Steve’s car washed over him.
The woman screamed again, her voice loud now that he was in the house. “Lisa!” Alex called.
“Help me!” he heard.
He ran through a dark hallway to the outline of light around a doorway. He kicked the door open and in the sudden harsh light, he saw the red, he saw the blood. It took him a half beat to realize it was one woman stabbing the other. “Hold it!” he cried, bringing the gun up to his shoulder.
And he almost killed her. Almost killed Lisa. He had the gun trained right on her head; he didn’t recognize her until she turned his way. He almost killed her because she was the one attacking the other woman.
She screamed, “Alex, behind you, behind you!”
Too late, he turned. Too late, he saw that the man had a blade, a little thing that seemed to grow out of his hand. The man shoved it into Alex’s side.
Lisa screamed with him.
Alex stumbled, felt suddenly weak. “Steve.”
The man yanked the knife away and punched him in the rib cage with it. He pulled his arm back to do it again and Alex hit him in the face with the gun butt.
That straightened the guy out, made him reel for a second. Alex tasted the blood in the back of his throat. He was badly hurt. Jesus, he knew that. A lung, maybe.
Alex’s knees were wobbly, but he brought his strength to bear again and jabbed the guy in the chest, trying to bring the barrel around.
But the guy slapped the gun barrel away and stepped in close.
Alex called out for Steve once more. The effort made him cough blood. He was desperately short of breath.
The guy punched him hard on the shoulder and twice more in his rib cage. While the blows didn’t hurt so much as the first time, Alex knew he had taken three more stab wounds. He fell to the floor. He tried to raise the gun, but his arms just weren’t working right anymore. The rifle seemed enormously heavy, and he couldn’t get a grip with his blood-slick hands. He fumbled with the gun and then dropped it altogether.
“Alex!” Lisa cried, and she came up behind the man. She took him by the hair, that long ponytail of his. She pulled him back and cut at his neck. He howled, and shoved her away. He screamed to the other woman, “Hold her, Carly, hold her!”
Alex saw the other woman do just that. She threw Lisa up against the wall. The guy put his hand to his neck and then looked at the blood on his hand, wonderingly. “That fucking bitch,” he said. “I’m going to cut her to pieces.”
Alex focused himself. He drew a hideously painful breath and carefully put his hands on the gun and slipped his forefinger inside the trigger guard—and then he lifted that dead weight off the floor.
The big-caliber bullet took off most of his assailant’s head.
Alex tried to swing the gun onto the girl, but someone reached over him suddenly and yanked it away.
“Hell of a job,” the man said, kneeling beside Alex as he lay dying. “You did one hell of a job.”
Chapter 26
Steve came to. He was cold and wet, lying on the floor. He groaned, pushed himself up, and realized that he was lying in water.
There was a whining noise, a mechanical sound. He swayed on his hands and knees. His head ached terribly and he was confused as to where he was and why.
Then he remembered running into the house after Alex, the dark shape that had come just behind him—and the sudden, crashing blow.
And the screams.
The gunshot.
“Lisa!” Steve steadied himself against the wall as he stood. The water flowed down the hallway. He hurried into the lit room, the kitchen. His gun was gone.
“Lisa!”
Blood was splattered on the ceiling and wall. The man Steve had fought down by the boat was lying on the floor, his head a bloody ruin. Steve wouldn’t have been able to recognize him, if not for his clothes.
The water.
The water was pouring from a big floor-mounted freezer. An electric pump was rigged up to it and a big padlock was snapped to the hasp. The water was brimming from the top lid.
Steve lost it momentarily. A sound came from deep in his chest as he fell to his knees and ripped the pump away. Water pulsed across the floor. He called her name repeatedly, expecting no answer and getting none.
The lock wouldn’t give way against his hands. But then he saw a crowbar on the counter. Even in that state, as he ripped the hasp away, he knew Geoff had left the tool so he could find her.
Steve threw the lid open. Water splashed onto his legs, red- tinged water.
He backed away from the horror inside.
It wasn’t Lisa.
Alex was crammed into the tiny space. His body shifted as the lid opened. His head broke the surface of the water.
“That’s the bad news,” Geoff said, behind him. “The good news is Lisa still wants to talk to you even though you showed up late to the party.”
Steve whirled, the crowbar raised.<
br />
Geoff raised the revolver so that it was at eye level. “It’d be suicide.”
Steve hesitated.
“I thought so. You are definitely CEO material. Always thinking. Unlike your poor schmuck of a friend who blew in here and almost saved the day. Alex was his name, right?”
“That’s right.” Steve’s voice was hoarse.
“I was impressed. I told him so, too. Just before he died.”
“You knocked me out.” Steve was still swaying on his feet. He felt stupid and slow.
Geoff slapped his forehead, mockingly. “I forgot to tell him that. He called for you a couple of times. Guess he died thinking you had let him down. My mistake.”
Steve tried to shut Geoff’s words off. He closed his eyes, briefly, then said, “Where is she?”
Geoff nodded toward the window. “Take a look.” He flipped a light switch by the door and a floodlight revealed Lisa and another woman in the backyard. The other woman was aiming a rifle—Alex’s gun—at Lisa. The woman’s neck and shirt were bloody.
“The junior varsity did real well,” Geoff said. “Seems Lisa had a piece of broken glass and managed to cut Carly. Even took on Jammer.”
Steve opened the window.
“Keep your voice down,” Geoff warned.
Steve ignored him. To Lisa, he called, “Are you hurt?”
The way her face broke, the sudden relief he saw there made tears well in Steve’s eyes. He didn’t deserve her.
“I thought he’d killed you,” Lisa said. She started toward the window.
“Get back!” The girl jabbed Lisa with the rifle; hit her hard in the chest. “Give me a reason, you bitch!”
“Carly was soft on Lisa,” Geoff said. “Seems Lisa has been conning us for days. Made us think she was weak. Carly tried to help her out, and Lisa cut her for it. Ugly scar from her ear down. If it had been a little deeper, maybe Lisa would have gotten away.” He looked Steve in the eye. “Now my biggest challenge is to make sure Carly doesn’t kill her unless I give the word.”
