The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book 6)

by A W Hartoin

  “No! We lost him!” I screamed, dashing for her, arms outstretched.

  “They know I’m alive!” Angela turned and went over the side a second before I got there. Her foot brushed my hand and I hit the low stone rail with a thump screaming, “Angela!”

  My mom, usually when lecturing me about something stupid I’d done, always said, “Look before you leap.” As usual, my perfect mother was right. Angela Riley didn’t look before she leapt and it didn’t work out for her any better than it did for me.

  I leaned over the railing, a couple hundred people screaming in horror all around me, and saw Angela, not sinking into the Seine but lying on the roof of a tourist boat. She was facedown and not moving, but I’d take it.

  “Thank you, God!” I looked heavenward and then heard yells of protest and then panic. Poinaré shoved his way onto the bridge and he carried a handgun at his side. No. Not a handgun. It looked like a mini machine gun, a Škorpion. I peed my pants a little. He looked at me and then did a sweeping motion with the weapon. I’ve never seen people drop to the ground so fast. I didn’t. I froze.

  Poinaré stalked across the bridge between a Mini Cooper and a Fiat, his cold eyes fixed on me. He made a little motion with the gun. He was telling me to get out of the way. He knew where Angela was. Hundreds of people pointing probably helped.

  He stepped over a crouched man and aimed at me.

  I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do! Shit! Yes, I do.

  I followed Angela’s example. I went over the side. It was a little harder, since I had on a skirt, but the tiny delay gave me a second to think.

  Bend your knees. Roll.

  Jumping from a height when chasing a suspect was one of Dad’s lessons, one I had to pay attention to because he made me jump off our ten-foot fence and the garage, until Mom caught him and he had to sleep in the garage again.

  It worked. Burning severe pain shot through my feet all the way to my eyeballs. I rolled twice down the sloping wooden roof and caught myself inches before I fell off the edge. I hopped up and did a scrambling crab-like run down the length of the boat toward Angela at the bow.

  There was a staccato burst behind me and someone screaming my name.

  Faster! Go faster!

  Another burst and the sound of wood splitting at almost the same time. I dove for Angela, a real diving for home plate kind of dive, and shoved her body off the roof as a spray of blood hit me in the face. I jumped off the roof onto a set of deck chairs and an unconscious Angela. If I thought the screaming was bad on the bridge, it was nothing to the tourists on that boat. I looked through the etched glass windows and realized I was on the boat that Chuck and I had our dinner cruise on or one exactly like it. The interior was filled with potted palms and terrorized people diving under tables.

  I pulled Angela off the chairs with my right hand. My left hung uselessly at my side. I felt no pain and I wasn’t even concerned. I noted it and kept on moving. Angela was bleeding from the mouth, but she was breathing. The gunfire stopped and I stood up, bracing myself on the glass with a bloody hand. That’s when I saw the other boat, one of those big glassed-in jobs with three times the number of tourists. It was going toward the bridge and the staff was in full on panic mode. The tourists were screaming and pointing at me.

  Stop pointing at me, idiots!

  One of the boat’s staff crept around the side and asked me in French what was going on. He held a champagne bottle up, ready to crack me with it.

  My French wasn’t working, so I said, “Terrorist.” It was the first thing that came to mind. I was certainly terrified.

  His young face went white and then became determined. “No more shooting. They must have them.”

  “I hope they—”

  There was a loud thump on the roof and then a clatter.

  “One is on the boat,” whispered the sailor.

  “I know.” I peeked around the edge of the cabin and saw that we’d cleared the bridge. I didn’t see Poinaré, but the other boat’s tourists were now pointing at our stern and yelling. I think I heard, “Get it!” amidst the multitude of languages.

  Get what?

  I couldn’t see anything with all the deck chairs and plants. A side door opened and a man with an enormous fanny pack and a man bun crept out. He grabbed something and flung it over the side to a chorus of cheers.

  “He dropped the gun,” I said.

  “We’re safe,” said the sailor, his shoulders relaxed.

  I shook my head. “He’ll have a spare. We have to hide her.”

  The sailor looked at Angela. “Inside?”

  “No, not close to the others.” I scanned the deck, but there was no place to hide a grown woman. There were life jackets. “Are there any police on board?” I asked. “Military?”

  He shook his head.

  “Help me.” I grabbed a life jacket. This was a terrible plan, the worst plan, but I couldn’t think of another. I’d have to throw a bleeding, unconscious woman overboard and hope to hell I could distract Poinaré long enough to get her out of range.

  We had the life jacket on Angela in a flash and I yelled to the passing boat. “Where is he?”

  Several yelled back in English. “Back deck.”

  I faced the back and motioned, right or left. Right. That’s when the captains of both boats hit the throttle. There was such a surge in speed that I hit the glass so hard, I was momentarily dazed. When I peeked around the corner again, the helpful folks on deck were pointing at our stern. Then they screamed and hit their own deck.

  I looked in the cabin again and saw Poinaré at the door. Somebody had thought to lock it. Good idea, but it was glass. He shattered the door with a wine bottle and reached in to unlock it.

  “Ease her over the side,” I said to the sailor.

  He didn’t question my insane decision, carried Angela’s limp body to the port side, and put her over. He did it so quietly, there wasn’t even a splash. Poinaré had the door open. He stepped in and I ran to the starboard side, picked up a chair, and started whacking a wooden column between two windows. The glass cracked and shattered as I caught a pane with a chair leg. Poinaré saw me and I flipped him off. I’m not a big fan of flipping people off, but there’d never been a more appropriate moment for it.

  Poinaré headed for me and I looked at the sailor. “Run.”

  He shook his head. His hands were shaking, but he was with me. Totally nuts. I stepped sideways out of the shelter of the cabin. Poinaré was at the other end of the boat. He smiled at me and shook his head. “You can’t change this!”

  “I already did!”

  The other boat was past us and starting to go under the bridge. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw somebody jump off the bridge and land on their boat. The screaming went wild and Poinaré’s smile widened.

  “Friend of yours?” I yelled.

  “I have no friends.”

  I glanced at the other boat’s roof and almost peed again. It was Chuck, running the length of the roof. If Poinaré saw him… I was careful not to look at Chuck or react as he dove off the end of the other boat. He came so close to our boat that for a second I thought he might hit the side.

  The assassin started for me, seamlessly reaching down and pulling a small revolver out of his boot. Damn spare.

  Stall. Stall.

  “I’m not surprised,” I said, backing up slowly as he advanced. “You are…”—I waved up and down—“whatever this is.”

  A thick rope that hung over the end of the boat slid to the right. Chuck.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  “Who?” I asked, picking up a chair as a shield and he smiled. His disguise was so complete, even his teeth were different, crooked and stained.

  “I won’t hurt you unless I have to.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I said.

  “This is nothing to do with you.”

  Chuck came over the side, slow and stealthy. He didn’t make a sound as we passed under the Love Locks
bridge and were momentarily cast into shadows.

  “I beg to differ. I led you to her.” I bumped into the broken window on purpose.

  Glass came crashing down, but Poinaré didn’t flinch. “You did.”

  Chuck was five feet away. Four. Three.

  “You can’t have her.” I forced myself to smile with a gun pointed at my chest. “She isn’t here.”

  A look of concern flashed in Poinaré’s eyes as a heavy 35mm camera flew out of the broken window and hit him in the shoulder. I ducked to the right as he looked in the cabin and Chuck pounced. He kicked Poinaré behind the knee and buckled the assassin’s leg. Chuck hooked his left arm around Poinaré’s neck and his right grabbed the revolver. It went off and hit the wooden overhang, spraying splinters. The tourists started screaming again, but with a new ferocity. Everything but the kitchen sink came out of that window. Cameras, wine bottles, plates, glasses, steaks, and duck legs. A pair of false teeth hit Poinaré on the nose as he wrestled with Chuck, trying desperately to break free. Tourists rock.

  Or maybe not. The wine bottles increased. Poinaré took a glancing blow to the head from an empty red. So did Chuck, but his was a big champagne bottle and it was corked. It knocked him to the right and he hit the deck. I threw my chair at Poinaré, but he dodged it and a roast chicken smacked him in the mouth. He fired into the cabin wildly, but the hits just kept on coming. The sailor ran around me and took a swing at the assassin. He knocked the revolver out of his hand and that was it for Poinaré. He ran straight at me, shoving me to the deck. I clutched at his leg, but he shook me off. I grabbed the revolver and jumped to my feet, chasing him to the bow, where he dove off and began swimming to shore, doing a freestyle that would’ve made Michel Phelps jealous.

  It really is hard to hit a moving target, especially when you’re on a boat and can’t use your left hand for support. I wasted the two rounds I had and they didn’t slow down Poinaré one bit. He made it to the Right Bank and clamored up the smooth stone bank, his feet slipping on the algae. A few people were on the lower sidewalk. They stared at Poinaré while some of the tourists screamed at them to stop him. But everyone on shore was too astonished to do anything. Swimming in the Seine wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Poinaré ran down the walkway and up a stairway to the tree-lined avenue unmolested. He never looked back.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Son of a bitch,” said an old man who’d come hobbling out and waved his four-pronged cane. “He got away.” He looked over, seeing me for the first time. “You are something. That hat. Are you an actress?”

  I touched my head. Holy crap. The hat was still on. It belonged in the Hall of Fame for hats.

  “I’m a nurse,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “You’re gonna need one.”

  “Huh?”

  He pointed to my shoulder. “You’ve been shot, honey.”

  I touched the spot and came away with a mess of blood. “Well, that’s not good.”

  “Shot? Who was shot?” Chuck hurried around the corner with the support of the sailor. Behind them, the boat came alive with the tourists and the rest of the crew emerging, some stunned and others weeping.

  “Nobody,” I said, rushing to his side. He had a slit on his temple and streaks of blood down the side of his face. I checked his pupils and they were equal. Thank God.

  Chuck touched his temple. “My head is killing me.” Then he felt the wetness and looked at his bloody hand. “What the fuck?”

  I pulled a chair up behind him and eased him down. “You got hit with a champagne bottle.”

  “Somebody threw a champagne bottle? Why in the hell?”

  The old guy and I exchanged worried glances.

  “I think you have a concussion.”

  Chuck snorted. “Concussion. Bullshit. I’ve had concussions before. This isn’t a concussion.” He frowned. “What did you say?”

  Crap on a cracker.

  “We need to dock, like now,” I said to the sailor. “How far?”

  “I’ll check for you.” He ran into the cabin and then spun around. “You are a nurse?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “We have injured people.”

  I stared at him for a split second and then told the old man to stay with Chuck. “Don’t let him stand up.”

  “I can stand if I want to,” Chuck growled.

  “No, you can’t. Just do what I say.” I ran into the cabin, slipping on broken glass and ignoring the growing burning sensation in my shoulder. “Who’s hurt?” I yelled.

  Eight hands went up and one of the crew waved at me frantically. “This one is shot.”

  Of the three bullets that Poinaré had fired into the cabin, only one had connected. A teenaged girl with big eyes and a blood-soaked abdomen stared at me from her mother’s lap on the far side of the cabin. I knelt beside them and assessed her. Rapid pulse and breathing. Plenty of blood loss and a hard, distended abdomen. If I had to guess from the angle of the entry wound, the bullet had perforated her liver, an amazingly unlucky shot since most of her liver would be hidden under her ribcage because she was so young. But maybe it missed the bowel. That would be good. Maybe it was lucky, after all.

  “Can you tell me your name?” I asked.

  “Trudie,” she whispered with a strong accent.

  “Are you visiting from Germany?”

  “Austria.”

  I nodded while pulling her shirt down over her wound. “I love Austria. So beautiful.” Then I held up my hand to the crew member. He hauled me to my feet with difficulty. I was light-headed and nauseated. “Give me your jacket?”

  He slipped it off and I folded it before putting it on Trudie’s abdomen. “Firm pressure. That’s all,” I told her mother and she nodded.

  “Where’s your captain?” I asked the crew member.

  He led me to the back, where the captain was applying pressure to a head wound. It took me a second to see the bloody oar on the deck next to him. The patient wasn’t fully conscious, but his eyes were fluttering. “He tried to stop him,” said the captain, his eyes flooded with tears.

  Poinaré had hit the man several times, but he was still in better shape than Trudie.

  “We have a gunshot wound. How fast can we dock?” I asked.

  The captain looked into the wheelhouse and a crew man yelled out the window, “Two minutes, mademoiselle.”

  Two minutes. Not ideal, but what was?

  “Have you radioed for emergency services to meet us at the dock?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many wounded did you report?”

  The captain looked confused. “Multiple wounded.”

  “Good. I need you to get back on the radio and tell them we have a gunshot wound to the abdomen.”

  My helper got the radio and said exactly what I said in French. Then he said, “They have told the trauma unit to expect the critically wounded girl.”

  The boat slowed and turned astern before they killed the engine. Multiple sirens pierced the air. I returned to Trudie and checked her vitals again. She was weakening. The crewman lifted me to my feet and I asked if he could translate what I said quickly to the ambulance staff. He put me to shame by saying he spoke six languages fluently and could do whatever I asked.

  Police and medical staff swarmed over the dock as the staff lowered the gangplank. It barely hit the dock before the EMTs were at Trudie’s side and putting her on a backboard. The crewman told them what I said and they had her off the boat in less than five minutes. The crewman with the blows to the head was next. He was talking and complaining about how he could walk, so that was a good sign. Chuck was next and he flat out refused to be strapped down and transported off the boat like, and these are his words, “A damned wussy.” The fact that he was seeing double and nearly pitched himself headfirst off the gangplank made no impression on him whatsoever. The rest of the injuries were cuts from the glass and bruises from falling.

  I stood out of the way, having stuck my left hand in my p
ocket, determined to sneak away before the police could question me. I’d assessed my own wound when nobody was looking and it was a flesh wound through the meat of my shoulder. Extremely painful and swelling like crazy, but not life-threatening.

  When all the wounded had been removed, the police started their questioning. It was a cluster. About forty tourists and fifteen crew remained on board and they all had something to say and all at the same time. I snuck out of the cabin and circled around the deck to try and get off without anyone noticing.

  “There she is!” yelled someone behind me and I flinched.

  Three cops and two EMTs surrounded me.

  “I’m fine,” I said, trying to push past them.

  “Mademoiselle, you are injured,” said an EMT.

  “What is your name?” asked one of the cops.

  His face swam in front of me and someone took me by the waist.

  “Mademoiselle, your name?”

  Lie.

  “Boba Fett,” I said.

  WTF. That’s not even a girl.

  “Ellen Ripley.”

  Better. They’ll buy that.

  A cop held up my purse in front of my face. “Is this yours?”

  I cannot catch a break.

  He frowned at my lack of an answer and dug through my purse. I couldn’t remember having anything incriminating in there. “Her identification says Carolina Watts.”

  Except that.

  They attempted to sit me in a chair, but I wouldn’t bend my legs. “Mademoiselle, please.”

  “No, I have to go. They took—” I faked wooziness and I did it so well I got carried off the boat. They didn’t even wait for a backboard. They stuck me in the back of an ambulance and examined me despite my protests. Oh well. Maybe they’d think my sad attempt at an alias was a result of blood loss. I certainly thought it was. Boba Fett? I’d spent too much time with nerds.

  The next two hours at the hospital were a painful blur. I kept trying to escape my gurney and they kept not letting me. Nobody would tell me anything about Chuck or Trudie or the crew member with the head wound. I had no idea what had happened to Angela. I was afraid to ask and give away our connection. In the snippets of conversations I caught and understood, the consensus was that the boat had been attacked by a terrorist, likely more than one.