Blood Kin

by Judith E. French

  Bailey believed her, but there was no longer any need for caution. If she couldn’t reason with the psychopath, maybe she could at least get answers. And what if she did die with a bullet through her head? Right now that seemed more appealing than slowly drowning. “You killed my aunt Elizabeth, didn’t you? Why? What did she do to you?”

  “She paid Forest McCready to find you. She wanted you to come back. She wanted to stir Will Tawes up again, to start up all the questions . . . the gossip. I tried to reason with her, remind her that you were a bastard nobody wanted. You had no business on our island, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “And so you killed her?” The water was colder than Bailey had expected. Something brushed against her ankle, and she flinched. A turtle? A snake? She shuddered and glanced down at the water. It was too muddy to see more than a few inches down. Were there poison snakes in the Chesapeake? She couldn’t remember.

  “I warned Elizabeth to let the past lie, just like I warned you. But no one can tell a Tawes anything. They think they’re so smart, smarter than the Widdow-sons, smarter than anyone. Well, you see who the smart one is now, don’t you?” Grace used the corner of her shirt to wipe down the barrel of her rifle. “I should have thought to bring something to drink. There’s a spring here somewhere, but it’s probably polluted. It didn’t used to be. We all drank from it that day, even Emery, and he was always afraid of his own shadow.”

  “Did he . . . was he with my mother too?” Bailey swallowed. Say no, she willed Grace. For the love of God, say no. Leave me that much to hang on to.

  “That pansy? He couldn’t get it up. Puked his guts out after a few swigs of moonshine. He always was odd, if you catch my meaning. A freak of nature. Not a man, not a woman. As far as anyone knows, he’s never had a partner, male or female. It’s not natural, if you ask me. God made two kinds of people, men and women. I don’t know who made Emma.”

  A small ribbon of happiness curled in the pit of Bailey’s belly. She was shivering now. Cold, despite the heat of the sun on her face. The water had risen to wash against her nipples. Flies bit her neck and face; swarms of mosquitoes threatened to invade her mouth, even her eyes; and she shook her head to keep them away.

  “None of it was true about Uncle Will, was it, Grace?”

  “It was true enough!” Grace flung back. “He used to come into my room at night after my mother was asleep. I pretended I didn’t know he was there when he touched me, when he put his hands between my legs, when he pushed his filthy fingers into my—”

  “Stop!” Bailey cried. “Don’t say that.”

  “I was little, too little to stop him. I tried to tell my mother, but she didn’t believe me. She whipped me for telling lies. He didn’t stop. It got worse until it wasn’t his fingers, but his thing. The first time he rammed it into my mouth I wanted to choke, to bite it, but he said if I did he’d smother me with a pillow. He would have, too. Arney was mean. He beat my puppy to death with a bat because it peed on the rug. And he beat my mother all the time.”

  “Arney? Arney did?”

  “My stepfather. At least, that was what he called himself. I don’t think they ever got married. People said he had a wife on Chincoteague and they never divorced.”

  “You were a little girl. It wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t anything you could do.”

  “By the time I was ten he was doing it all. My step-brother too. And what could I do? Once I tried to tell Matthew’s mother. She was the minister’s wife. She should have helped me, but she went to Ma, and Ma beat me worse than Arney for spreading filth about him. ‘Keep what’s in the family in the family’; that’s what she said. ‘Don’t hang your dirty laundry out for everybody to see.’ ”

  “But you got the best of them,” Bailey said. “And even of Joe, a senator. You showed him.”

  “You got that right, girl. I showed him. I made him pay. Pay for what he did to me, pay to keep his dirty little secret. He wanted to be vice president, did you know that? Joe Marshall from Tawes, a storekeeper’s son and a bully. No better than he should have been. But he paid for years, and he never knew which one of us he was paying to keep quiet.”

  “He didn’t want anybody to know what he had done to my mother?”

  “I told him that you were his bastard daughter. How would that have looked? Senator sleeps with town whore and produces a little by-blow that has to be given away like an unwanted kitten? Oh, he paid, gladly. And he could afford it. I wasn’t greedy. I never took more than my rightful share. No more than was my due.”

  Water lapped against Bailey’s throat, and she clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. She wouldn’t give this madwoman that much. If she had to die, she’d do it with as much dignity as she could. She strained to raise her head. “It’s not too late to stop this,” she said. “Matthew loves you. He’ll forgive you anything. He’ll get you help, and he’ll be there for you.”

  “Shut up!”

  “But I might not be Matthew’s child. I could be Creed—”

  “What did I tell you?” Grace raised the rifle to her shoulder and took aim.

  Bailey gasped as a night heron burst up out of the reeds to the left of the cabin in a flurry of wings, outstretched neck, and long legs. Grace whirled toward the spot where the bird had waded only seconds before. She squeezed off six shots, spraying the area with bullets before diving through the open cabin door.

  Daniel cried out in pain and surprise as the bullets tore through him. One knee crumpled, but he forced himself to fire back, getting off two rounds before Grace vanished inside the solid wooden fortress and pulled the heavy door shut behind her.

  Seconds later the tip of a rifle barrel appeared over the windowsill. “Are you still alive, Will Tawes? Because if you are, I have a surprise for you,” Grace shouted. “You get to watch while the slut drowns. Unless you want to come out like a man and let me finish you off first!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Grace’s rifle cracked two more times. Slowly circles of muddy water tinged with red spread wider and wider before being lost in the steadily rising tide. There was absolute silence from the cabin and the marsh, other than the annoying hum of insects and the rustle of a salt breeze through the interlaced phragmites.

  Bailey’s heart plummeted. She’d never wanted to harm another living soul, but she wanted to get her hands on Grace Catlin’s throat and choke the life out of her. Bailey wanted to murder the demented sociopath who’d destroyed the lives of so many people to satisfy her own needs. She wanted to stake Grace to the muddy beach and let the mosquitoes, blackflies, and hermit crabs eat her alive, bite by bite, inflicting the most agony possible before they devoured her.

  Every primal instinct Bailey possessed urged her to scream, but common sense told her that attempting to communicate with her would-be rescuer would lessen his chances of remaining alive—if he was still alive.

  Just the thought that she wasn’t alone anymore gave her hope. And she knew her invisible ally couldn’t be Will. He’d been badly wounded back at the house. Only one man could have come to rescue her—Daniel. She knew it was Daniel as surely as she knew he was still alive. He might be badly injured, but he wasn’t dead. She could feel his presence, almost hear him whispering her name, telling her to hang on a few minutes longer until he could find a way to get through Grace’s rain of bullets.

  Bailey couldn’t imagine how Daniel had known where to look for her, or how he’d found her in this morass of swamp and black water, but she would have bet her immortal soul that the person who’d fired off those shots at Grace was Daniel. She gritted her teeth to keep from calling to him, but nothing could keep her hands from going numb or the tears from streaming down her cheeks.

  She yanked frantically at the rope binding her wrists together, but the water seemed to have welded the knots. The tide was still coming in, as Grace had told her it would. She could see the water creeping up the mud banks inch by inch, smell the subtle change in the humid air around her as stagnant pool
s filled with the incoming flow.

  Minutes passed, and the restless waves lapped at the underside of Bailey’s chin. She prayed with every fiber of her being for her own safety, and even more for Daniel’s. A hundred questions tumbled through her fear and uncertainty, but nothing could dim her joy that he cared enough to risk his life for hers.

  She had to do something. Will Tawes would have thought of something heroic. She couldn’t imagine her aunt Elizabeth hanging helplessly on this damned post like a worm on a hook and drowning while Grace got off scot-free and maybe killed Daniel in the bargain. If she couldn’t communicate with him, maybe she could distract Grace and give him a better chance to do whatever he was attempting.

  Bailey opened her mouth to shout and was rewarded with a mouthful of muddy water. She choked, spit it out, and inched her way higher on the post with her bare foot, raising herself up out of the mud. She arched her neck back to keep her face as high as possible.

  “Grace? Are you all right?” Bailey managed.

  “I’m fine, you stupid slut. You’re the one who needs help. Remember? Another five minutes and you’ll be inhaling water. It’s probably polluted, but that won’t matter to you. What is the expression? Oh, yes, Cathy Tilghman’s fond of it: ‘That’s a moot point.’ Cathy loves to show off her education in front of the ignorant locals in our Ruth Circle. Fancies herself somewhat of an expert on the Bible.”

  “What will you tell—” Bailey caught herself before saying Matthew’s name. “How will you explain this to him? We left the house together, and only you come back? He’s bound to be suspicious.”

  Silence.

  “Grace!”

  “Shut up and drown, bitch!”

  A green-headed insect the size of a horsefly flitted around Bailey’s temple, lit on her cheekbone, and bit her fiercely. The sting brought tears of pain, and she felt a thin trickle of blood. She lowered her face into the water, trying to rid herself of her tormentor.

  “What will he think?” she shouted when she came up again. “He doesn’t know what you’ve done, does he? He loves you. He’s always loved you. He’s always seen the good in you that no one else has—”

  Grace laughed. “Don’t even try it. I know a little bit about psychology, college girl. My Matthew is a simple man, a good man, but easy to manipulate. Like all the rest, he sees the world in black and white. And all women know that it’s really gray. It’s all gray.”

  A hand clasped Bailey’s ankle, and she bit her tongue to keep from screaming in panic. Scenes from every horror movie she’d ever watched flashed before her eyes. She opened her mouth, but then clamped it shut. She could have sworn her heart stopped before she realized that crabs didn’t have hands. If there was someone under the water, it wasn’t one of the walking dead or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It could only be Daniel, come to free her from this waking nightmare.

  She summoned her nerve and tried again. “What will he do when he gets up and finds you gone, Grace? How will he manage without you?”

  Silence.

  “Grace!” Now water was threatening Bailey’s every breath when she attempted to speak, but the hand tugged at her calf and she felt what might have been a rope loosening on one ankle. She twisted, trying to take breaths between the tiny surges of incoming tide, waves too small and sluggish to be waves. She didn’t look down. She kept her eyes on the cabin window, on the sunlight glinting off the barrel of Grace’s rifle.

  There was another loud crack, and a bullet pierced the surface of the water just to her left. Bailey’s heart leaped, and she couldn’t keep from gasping.

  “Just wanted to remind you that I could put an end to it all quickly, if you’d like,” Grace shouted. “To be merciful. As I said before, I’m not a monster.”

  Bailey strained against the ropes, pulling until she felt as though she’d yank her arms from her sockets. “What do you want from me?” Her eye was beginning to swell just above the place where the giant fly had bitten her. The bump burned like a wasp sting, but one ankle came free, and joy surged in her chest.

  A whisper rose from behind her. “Bailey, listen to me. Do exactly as I say.”

  She moaned, a sound she hoped would tell him that she’d heard—that she would do whatever he asked.

  “How good an actress are you? You’ve got to pretend you’re drowning. Take hold of the rope, under the water, where it’s tied to the post. Can you do that?”

  She coughed. She didn’t have to act. The loss of blood from where Grace had shot her and the dull pain from the wound had sapped every ounce of strength from her body. Another minute and the water would be over her nose.

  “Struggle. Turn to the right as far as you can and pretend to faint. Let your head fall forward into the water.”

  She coughed again.

  “I’m going to cut the rope, and then I’ll give you something to breathe through. Just like a straw. Can you do that?”

  She groaned.

  “Do just as I say, but when I start shooting, dive as deep as you can, and swim to the left and away from the cabin. The water’s deepest there near the far bank. Stay under until you reach the reeds. Do you understand?” he murmured.

  She let her head drop, just a little, just far enough that her nose and her mouth went under, but she could still hear. He was directly behind her, so that her body blocked Grace’s view of him.

  “Don’t try to find your way out of here. Find a deep spot in the marsh and hide. Don’t make a sound until you hear me calling you or you see uniformed police. Help will come with search-and-rescue dogs. Do you understand me?”

  She sighed and let her body go limp. She took a final breath of air, and the last thing she heard before the incoming tide rolled over her head was Daniel’s reassuring voice.

  “Trust me, babe. Go deep.”

  She grasped the rope, realized that she was no longer tied to the post, and pulled herself under. How long could she hold her breath? Not long. What would she do when—

  Something shiny pierced the water in front of her. There was a muted ping but no pain. She did as Daniel had ordered. Panic clawed at her chest and throat. Blood drummed in her head.

  His fingers touched her cheek. Gently Daniel inserted a reed between her lips, and instinctively she sucked. Sweet air filled her mouth and lungs. She grasped his arm, and squeezed it once.

  Abruptly, silently, he was gone. She waited, mentally counting off the seconds as long as she could before taking hold of the reed with one hand and exhaling a second time.

  Suddenly the water around her exploded in a burst of silver rain. A larger gun boomed off to the right. Clutching the precious reed in one hand, she dove for the mud bottom and kicked as hard as she could. Both ankles were free. She opened her eyes, but the water was too muddy to see more than a few inches in front of her, so she closed them again and swam for her life.

  She struck something solid with her left hand, hard enough to hurt, grabbed it, and pushed herself off. She fought her way into the reeds, no longer able to swim, clawing, scrabbling until total exhaustion brought her to a halt, blocked by what seemed like an impossible barrier of foliage that towered over her.

  Shots continued to ring out. The crack of the rifle—the louder boom of a larger-caliber weapon. She tried to pinpoint the location, but water and mud clogged her ears. She raised her head and gulped in mouthfuls of blessed air. Instantly mosquitoes and flies buzzed and circled, landing on her hair and exposed skin, but she paid them no heed.

  Something croaked in the reeds—almost a coughing noise—and Bailey caught the flash of brown feathers as a bird nearly the size of a chicken scurried away into the morass. A duck quacked off to her left, and she realized that the shooting had stopped.

  Bailey waited. Mosquitoes feasted on her cheeks and shoulders until she thought to scoop up handfuls of black mud and smear it over her skin. No-see-ums—tiny biting flies—crawled into the corners of her eyes. She clamped her lids shut and rubbed mud on them. She strained to hear anot
her shot, Daniel’s voice, anything but the ribbit-ribbit of frogs, the incessant drone of insects, and the honking of a vee of geese in the sky.

  Nothing.

  Bailey knotted her fingers around a handful of roots, rested her head on a handkerchief-sized patch of grass, and fell asleep. She didn’t open her eyes again until she heard a helicopter hovering overhead.

  There was a light. It seemed as bright as the moon. The searchlight swept through the marsh. Far off she heard barking. “Here! I’m here!” she cried, but her voice was lost in the whirl of helicopter blades. “Don’t go!” she shouted. “Don’t leave me here!”

  The sound of the helicopter grew fainter. Gradually it faded.

  “No.” She sobbed. “No. Don’t . . .”

  She was alone once more. All around, the marsh seemed alive with the sighing of the wind, the gentle swish of water, the splash of fish, and the rustling of small creatures in the undergrowth. The mosquitoes renewed their assault, and she reapplied her mud armor, flexed her cramped fingers, and shivered in the cold.

  Daniel hadn’t come for her. Either Grace had killed him, or they’d killed each other. The truth was too bitter to face. She might as well have died there in the incoming tide as lie here and be nibbled to death, as she’d wished on Grace Catlin. If Daniel was alive, he would have found her by now.

  Unless he needed her . . . Unless he lay somewhere, bleeding, perhaps looking up at the same stars and wondering why she hadn’t come for him. Bailey struggled up out of the water, ripped off handfuls of leaves from the surrounding grasses, and rubbed her arms and legs until the worst of her shivering ceased.

  She had to go back. The cabin was her point of reference. But she’d lost all sense of direction. How could she find her way if she didn’t know north from south, or up-creek from down?

  She strained to hear the sound of a boat motor, the bark of a dog. Daniel had promised dogs would find her, hadn’t he? He wouldn’t have lied to her. All she had to do was wait until morning, find her way back to the cabin and . . .