by Brian Harper
Made it.
She expelled a ragged breath, then turned toward the helm seat on the starboard side. Ally hugged the wheel, steering like a pro, the throttle jammed fully open.
“You okay” Trish slipped into the cockpit bench seat alongside the girl.
Shaky nod. “What’ll they do now”
Trish looked back. The coupe reversed off the dock and turned, headlights sweeping the beach like comet tails.
“I don’t know. But they’re not through yet.”
52
The Porsche fishtailed as Tyler cranked the wheel. Lake water blurred into beach, then pavement. He gunned the engine.
“Hold on!”
The side door was open. Gage leaping out.
Tyler wanted to ask what the hell. Too late.
Gage kicked up white plumes of sand, then flopped on his knees near a dark, sprawled shape, vaguely human.
Blair, of course. Dead.
The figure moved.
“What do you know,” Tyler said, genuinely surprised. The rookie really hadn’t waxed the little creep after all.
Gage sliced the cord binding his brother. Blair leaned on one arm, coughing, as he unstripped a gag.
“Man, you’re alive!” Gage exulted. “I knew you were!”
Tyler, no sentimentalist, was unmoved by this reunion. “Haul ass, both of you. We can drive around and cut ‘em off!”
“You do that,” Gage called back. “Me and Blair’ll hotwire the other boat and get on their tail.”
Tyler was briefly astonished. The kid had an idea there.
“Right,” he said, wishing he’d thought of it.
He grabbed the pull-strap handle on the passenger door and yanked it shut, then accelerated up the hill.
Distantly he was surprised to realize how much he was enjoying the feel of the fast car under his control-engine throbbing with 247 horses, oversize tires drumming, sports suspension giving him a crisp, firm ride.
Even now, in the heat of action, he appreciated the sleek, angry machine with a connoisseur’s relish.
He would have a Porsche of his own. Red. Or maybe black; he still wasn’t sure.
Either way, he wouldn’t be denied.
“Someone’s coming,” Judy whispered.
Barbara heard it too: a tread of boots in the hall.
She glanced at Charles, hoping vaguely for a look of reassurance or resolve.
He was leaning forward, his gaze fixed on her with peculiar intensity, his mouth drawn taut in a bloodless line.
The thought flashed in her mind that she had seen him look this way before-when he was reaching the climax of a jury trial, closing in for the kill.
Cain moved fast down the hall of the east wing, Lilith beside him, the master suite ahead. The roll of duct tape flashed as he tossed it lazily in one hand.
At the doorway he paused, breathing in, out. Relaxing himself, preparing for the work at hand.
“All right,” he said when he was calm and ready. “Here it comes. Divorce, American style.”
They were donning the ski masks when their transceivers crackled. “Hey, boss. You there Come in, boss.”
“Sounds like good news.” Cain smiled, unclipping his radio. “Talk to me, Tyler. Tell me they’re history.”
“No such luck.”
Cain needed a moment to make the words real. He felt his face sag under the mask.
Tyler was still talking, his normally languid voice spiked with urgency.
“Bitches are taking a cruise. Gage and Blair-he’s alive-they’re trying to hotwire the other boat. I’ll cut around to the park. Open the front gate for me, will you, boss … Boss”
Lilith just stood there.
“Do it!” Cain snapped. “The switch is in the foyer.”
She disappeared down the hall, and Cain stared blankly after her, wondering what else could go wrong tonight.
With Gage’s knife, Blair pried off the ignition switch.
His jaw and chin ached. Hot pain seared his throat. His voice box felt crushed. Nausea bubbled in his gut, the nausea he’d fought to suppress while he lay trussed and gagged, knowing that if he puked he would choke on his own vomit.
Hatred had given him the self-control he needed. Hatred of that blonde bitch who’d outmaneuvered him. Humiliated him.
He pulled out the metal plug, exposing a cluster of wires. No time to find a clasp to bridge the terminals. He did the job quick and dirty, jamming the knife into the switch. The steel blade conducted current across the gap, closing the circuit between battery and coil.
With a rumble the engine kicked in. A second later the stereo system snapped on, a Clarion marine CD player pumping out “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” by Manfred Mann.
Blair liked that song. He cranked the volume to the max.
Waterproof speakers shivered with the pulsing bass as the FireStar shot away from the dock.
The smoked Plexiglas windshield cut his visibility to nearly zero. He stood, peering over the frame. Spray washed his face.
The jet boat had a head start, but the gap would close quickly. Blair knew boats. The Sea Rayder was equipped with a three-cylinder, ninety-horsepower Mercury Sport Jet engine. Carrying two people, the boat had a top speed of maybe thirty-five miles an hour.
The FireStar, on the other hand, sported a V-6 Mer-Cruiser-five cylinders, more than two hundred horses.
No contest.
Ally glanced at the side mirror. “They’re after us.”
Pivoting in her seat, Trish saw a dark blur cresting the lake a quarter mile astern. Music pulsed above the motor’s roar.
As she watched, the blur expanded, its triangular outline sliding into focus.
The second boat, of course. What was the logo she’d seen on the hull FireStar.
The music was louder now as the boat closed in.
Gage climbed into the companion seat. “Some fun, huh”
Blair smiled at that. His baby brother had been plenty scared going into tonight’s operation, but the surge of power from the outdrive had kicked the fear out of him. He was a kid on a roller coaster.
Well, why not Riding a fast boat to a rock beat-it was Hollywood stuff, a celluloid wet dream, and the pistol in Gage’s hand only made it more hip, more contemporary, a violent image for a violent time.
“You know it, bro,” Blair yelled over the engine roar. “Some fun!”
53
Barbara pressed her ear to the crack between the closet doors.
“Gone.” She turned to the others. “They’ve gone.”
She felt an inexplicable lift of relief, as if there had been some personal threat, a menace directed specifically at her, in the remorseless march of boots.
“Do you think they’ll be back” That was Judy, addressing the pointless question to everyone and no one.
Unexpectedly it was Charles who answered. “They’ll be back.”
The words sounded curiously like a threat.
She remembered his agitation a short time earlier, the air of expectation in his body language, his intensely focused gaze. And now look at him-deflated, defeated, almost as if he’d wanted the killers to come.
A shiver kissed the back of her neck, tickling the short hairs at the edge of her coiffure.
For a moment she wondered … she asked herself … if Charles … could he …
He seemed to feel her stare. He blinked at her.
“They’ll be back,” he said again. “They said they’d bring Ally, didn’t they”
Ally. So that was it. That was why he’d leaned forward in anticipation, and why he was slumped and sagging now.
“Of course, dear.” Barbara smiled, dispelling whatever ridiculous notion had teased her thoughts. “Of course they did.”
Cain heard the Porsche howl through the front yard as he joined Lilith in the foyer, her hand still resting numbly on the gate switch.
Together they watched the coupe vanish down Skylark Drive, taillights shrinking.
He deliberat
ed only a moment. “We’re going after him. As backup.”
Lilith blinked. “But … Mrs. Kent”
“She’s lived forty-three years. Another half hour won’t matter.”
“You said the cops might start to figure it out before long. That was fifteen minutes ago.”
“Schedule’s tight, but we can get it done. Robinson and the girl-then Barbara. Come on. We’ll take the van.”
He hustled her out the door, toward the open gate. She pulled off her mask, and he saw her lower lip jutting ominously, a prelude to a tantrum.
“I wanted Mrs. Kent.” She pouted, hands balled into fists. “I was all set.”
“Look on the bright side. Maybe you’ll nail Robinson personally.”
A blink, a sudden smile, everything all right again. “Think so”
Cain shrugged, breaking into a run. “Somebody’s got to.”
Trish checked the Glock’s magazine.
Eleven rounds, plus one in the chamber.
In her gun belt’s dump pouch were two spare mags, one fully loaded, the other partially expended by the sentry she’d subdued.
The chase boat sped closer. She made out two men aboard.
“How far to shore” she asked Ally.
“Another couple miles. Maybe four minutes.”
Trish shook her head. Four minutes was too long. The FireStar would overtake them much sooner than that.
“Keep driving,” she said. “And stay low.”
Blair pushed the boat to its limit, watching the tachometer register five thousand rpm.
He glanced at Gage and caught his kid brother’s infectious smile.
“I’ll steer,” Blair shouted through a mist of spray. “You shoot.”
Swinging out of her seat, Trish crawled over the stem and knelt on the port swim platform. The jet drive throbbed through the fiberglass like a straining heart.
With one hand she clutched the grab handle on her left. With the other she aimed the Glock.
She tried using the laser sight.
No good. The choppy ride made it impossible to direct the beam.
The FireStar loomed nearer, drums and guitars keeping up a steady beat. She could see the passenger leaning over the port side, a pistol shiny in his hand.
Steadying her gun, she fired.
Muzzle flash from the Sea Rayder.
“Bitch is shooting!” Dimly Blair perceived a kneeling figure. “In the stern. The stern!”
Gage leaned farther out, reckless with exhilaration, and returned fire.
From the FireStar, a volley of gunshots.
Bullets slapped the water. Trish threw herself onto the stern’s fiberglass cover, sprawling flat on her belly, legs twisted awkwardly.
Couldn’t be intimidated. Had to keep the chase boat at a distance.
Leaning on her elbows, bracing the gun in both hands, she squeezed off another three rounds.
Blair was closing fast on the Sea Rayder, wild laughter riding on his lips, laughter born of speed and danger and “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” pounding like a movie soundtrack all around him.
He wished he still had his gun or, better yet, an automatic weapon, a machine pistol or an AK-47. Then he could be a real Hollywood hero, ripping bodies with bullets to the wail of a synthesizer in a hectic, garish dance.
Jump cut: Trish Robinson’s throat opening like a second mouth.
Jump cut: Ally Kent screaming, cut down by another spray of bullets.
Jump cut: the Sea Rayder plowing into a sandbar and igniting in a Technicolor whoosh.
Jump cut: Gage twisting backward, then dropping heavily into the companion seat, his Glock cradled loosely in his lap.
Drunk on adrenaline, Blair almost didn’t realize that this last image was no film-clip fantasy.
It was real.
Gage had been shot.
“Jesus,” Blair hissed, the truth clamping hold.
The bitch cop had hit him. Gotten him bad.
The right side of his face was peeled open to red bone. His ear dangled on a flap of skin.
Blair throttled back and leaned over his brother.
“Stay with me. Gage. Stay with me.”
Trish saw the chase boat drop back.
The guy riding shotgun was no longer firing at her. Reloading, maybe.
She glanced over her shoulder, past Ally. A dark land mass approached. The lake’s north shore No, not yet. Only the weedy hump of a small island.
Shore was still far away.
Too far.
Gage blinked, focusing blearily on Blair. His lips moved, but the feeble noises he produced were swallowed by Manfred Mann.
Blair looked ahead. The jet boat had widened the gap.
There was no time for him to minister to Gage-not if he still wanted Robinson.
He rammed the throttle forward and snatched the gun from his brother’s hand.
Facing aft, Trish saw the FireStar surge ahead with frightening speed.
Muzzle flash. The pilot was the one shooting now.
The bullet struck the stern inches away. She averted her face from a shower of fiberglass splinters.
Close.
A second shot slammed into the underside of the boat. The pitch of the engine abruptly lowered as the Sea Rayder bucked.
Hit the motor. He must have hit the motor—
Her left leg jumped.
For a dazed instant she was baffled, wondering why it would jerk that way, like a dead frog’s leg in a science experiment.
Then she felt a sudden curious numbness below her knee, numbness overtaken a heartbeat later by the worst pain she had known in her life.
It was a hot poker lancing her leg.
It was a thousand cigarettes branding her.
It was needles and electrified wires and steel claws.
Shot. Shot. Shot.
That one word caromed off the corners of her mind with dizzying velocity.
Her stomach twisted. She spat up something hot and wet.
Blood Was she hemorrhaging Had the bullet caught her higher than she realized In the gut, the lungs
No, it wasn’t blood. Wasn’t even vomit. Just saliva unspooling from her mouth in a thick, ropy strand.
The boat bounced, jarring her leg, and the pain leaped up, so strong she could hear its screaming whine in both ears, and see it too, a brilliant white glare that fogged her vision, erasing the night.
“We’re losing speed!” Ally’s shout. “I think-“
The breathless pause told Trish the girl had turned in her seat, had seen her.
“Trish-oh, God-look at you-“
“I’ll be okay.” Her mouth was very dry. “What’s our speed”
Ally checked the gauge. “Twenty-five. Still dropping.”
Trish pushed pain away, forced herself to think.
The other bullet must have damaged the jet drive-broken an impeller blade or disabled the pump.
Whatever the specifics, the boat now had no chance of outdistancing its pursuer. And in her present condition she couldn’t hope to hold off another attack.
She scanned the area. On her left lay the island she’d seen earlier, small and dark, barely more than a floating clump of reeds.
“Can you steer” she yelled.
“Think so.”
“Hook left.”
Ally wrenched the wheel to port. The Sea Rayder, cornering sharply, hurled up a brilliant cascade that hung briefly in the air, Niagara’s glistening veil.
The island swung around the boat, briefly eclipsing the FireStar.
“Jog north again,” Trish ordered.
Ally locked the wheel to starboard, then straightened it.
With agonizing difficulty Trish pulled herself into a crouch. She holstered the Glock, fastened the strap.
“Now jump.”
“What”
“Jump-and swim.”
Without waiting for a reply, Trish dived into the lake.
54
The sudden immersion was a heart-stoppin
g shock. Agony sizzled through her left leg. Spirals of lightheadedness wheeled around her, then receded as cold water partially numbed the wound.
Beside her, Ally plunged under the surface in a bright plumage of bubbles.
They broke water together.
The Sea Rayder motored away, and the FireStar, whipping into view, veered north and continued to give chase, trailing a raucous dance-club beat.
“Come on.” Trish turned toward the island.
Ally swept a tangle of brown hair out of her eyes. “Can you make it”
“Just go.”
Ally obeyed, executing a strong breast stroke.
Trish swam without coordination or control. When her slapping palms churned up mud, she realized she’d reached the shallows.
On her good leg she pushed herself upright, then planted her left foot.
Her knee jellied. She collapsed with a hiss of pain.
“Oh, God.” That was Ally, sloshing toward her, the party dress pasted to her body in translucent folds. “Oh, God, oh, God.”
She said it over and over, the words meaningless, infuriating somehow. Sprawled in the ooze, Trish wished the damned girl would just shut up and stop making those awful noises of horror and concern.
An elbow hooked under her armpit. Ally helped her up as Trish bit back an agonized cry.
Together they struggled forward, slogging through mud.
Gage was dying.
Blair knew it, and the knowledge ate at him like acid. As he tracked the Sea Rayder, now creeping at fifteen miles an hour, he kept tossing scared, sickened glances at his younger brother.
Even in the pale light of the instrument gauges, he could see the color draining from Gage’s face as his eyes, half exposed under heavy lids, rolled up white in their sockets.
“Stay with me, bro,” Blair said pointlessly, the words lost in the engine roar.
He’d finally turned off the damn CD player. The night’s action didn’t feel like a Hollywood movie anymore. Whatever had been fun and exhilarating was dust in his mouth.
The mini-jet’s course was erratic, its speed greatly diminished. It seemed increasingly likely that his last volley of shots had hit his targets, either killing them both or at least injuring them badly enough to make operation of the boat impossible.
