by Nancy Holder
“Don’t let my father die!” she wailed.
“Look, Mr. Daugherty,” he said, “I can have you topside in a couple of minutes…” He figured he could use a fireman’s carry, and then with the guy draped over his shoulder he could safely beast out. Bethany’s father wouldn’t be able to see his face, teeth, and eyes change, and after he blurred up the stairs, Daugherty wouldn’t remember what had happened or would think he had dreamed it.
The man gripped his arm and squeezed. He shook his head.
Vincent winced, not from the pressure of the man’s hand, which was minimal, but from the predicament he found himself in. They were going around and around in ever smaller circles. Unless he found a way to break the impasse they were all going to die.
“Mr. Daugherty,” he said gravely, “as a physician I have no choice but to get you out of here first. I promise you Bethany is going to be okay. I’ll put you in the care of the ship’s doctor and come right back for her. She’ll be alone five minutes, tops. I’ll leave the lantern here. And she has the shepherd…”
He untied the dog’s leash from the table leg and handed the end of it to Bethany. Then he spoke three more words in clipped German. “The dog is police trained,” he told her father. “He follows direct orders. I just told him to protect her. Are you okay with that, Bethany?”
“Yes, Vincent,” she said.
Her father started to wave his hand in protest.
“I’m sorry but there’s no time for that, Mr. Daugherty,” Vincent said, smoothly pulling the man to his feet as he bent his own knees, then taking Daugherty’s full weight across his shoulders as he straightened up. “Do not leave this room,” he told Bethany. “I’ll be right back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When Cat saw the silenced plastic gun in Cecilio’s hand she lowered her head and bull-charged him, digging in her toes and driving as hard as she could with her legs. In that split second she realized she had no choice but a go-for-broke frontal attack. The lanai was far too small for evasive maneuvers, and he was standing between her and the sliding door.
The business end of the gun swung around at her just as she jumped and kicked. When her right foot hit his center chest, the pistol went off with a hiss. She felt the heat of the near miss on her left shoulder. The impact of the running kick sent Cecilio flying backwards into the overturned chaise, and he fell over it hard onto his back. He made an “Ooooof!” noise as the wind was knocked from his lungs. She ended up with both feet flat on the ground, straddling his thighs. Cecilio fired the automatic erratically, straight up in the air. The muzzle belched yellow flame less than two feet from her face.
Before he could lower the point of aim and hit her, she grabbed his wrist with her left hand, pushing the gun away as she twisted and knee-dropped her full weight onto his throat. Cat was not pulling her punches or her kicks. If she had hit him cleanly her kneecap would have crushed his larynx, which would have swollen up in seconds and shut off his airway. He would have asphyxiated. But somehow he got his chin down and that took the brunt of the impact.
She still controlled his gun hand, but his other was free. They were wrestling on the rain-slick deck. He thrashed under her, trying to get a firm grip on the back of her neck. Cat had lost the advantage of surprise. Having learned his lesson, Cecilio kept twisting and turning his gun hand to keep her from nerve-pinching it. He got hold of her neck with his left hand, squeezed down hard, and started pulling her over backwards, trying to roll at the same time and get on top of her.
Hand-fighting a bigger, stronger opponent with longer arms in close quarters was a losing proposition. Fun and games were over. She used the edge of her forearm to knock his hand from her neck, then smashed the point of her elbow into his temple. One blow wasn’t enough to stop the guy. He grabbed hold of the back of her top and pulled her backwards, again trying to flip her over. She hit him five times in the head with her elbow in rapid succession, and after the fifth strike he let go of the fabric.
Cat still couldn’t get the gun out of his hand—he had a death grip on it—and she was done wrestling. She hit him once more for good measure with everything she had. If that didn’t concuss him, nothing would. She watched his eyes roll back in his head, then jumped to her feet. Sidestepping the chaise lounge and rounding the little table and chairs, she bolted for the sliding door. Once through, she pulled it shut and locked it. She was shivering but she didn’t pause. She raced for the bedroom, grabbed the bag of candy off the floor, and shoved it into her jacket pocket.
As she turned the handle to the stateroom door Cecilio rattled the slider from outside, trying to get it open. She was already running down the corridor when she heard the sound of breaking glass behind her. The ship climbed what had to be a giant swell and she had to steady herself at the stairwell entrance. Vaulting the stairs three at a time as the liner sickeningly dropped, she put distance between herself and Cecilio, scrambling out into the deserted main dining salon. She had found an alternate route, and she was grateful for shelter.
There was no shame in this retreat, she told herself. The killer wasn’t going anywhere, she still had the chip, and when Vincent got hold of him…
Then the floor rocked in a different way.
From within.
And a terrible explosion slammed her ears.
The dishes and silverware on the rug jumped a foot in the air and the glitter ball detached from the ceiling and crashed to pieces.
The main salon’s lights flickered and then they went dark. But there were still lights from above the stairwell leading to the lifeboat deck.
Cat scrambled across the littered floor and up the stairs.
Beyond the archway leading to the muster station, the rain was slanting sideways, driven by a steady howling wind. It was eerie. The deck was still brightly lit, looking almost normal, and beyond the rail, immense surges of white caps rode atop nightmare black seas. The up and down motion of the ocean liner was like an elevator—an elevator leaping up twenty feet, then falling the same distance. Cat’s head spun, her stomach rebelled, and she had to focus on an imaginary horizon line to regain her equilibrium.
She pushed out onto the deck and used the rail to steady herself as she worked her way up towards the bow to their assigned station. The rain was freezing and she was drenched by the time she got there. She expected to see Vincent waiting there for her, a relieved expression on his face when she appeared. But Vincent was nowhere in sight. That realization froze her blood. Where was he? Why wasn’t he there?
The other passengers looked positively green; they were clinging desperately to whatever they could—the rail, the lifeboat, the cradle that held the lifeboat.
A crewman stepped up and tried to get her into a life jacket.
“No!” She pushed him away and shouted into his ear over the gale, “Where is my husband? Where is Vincent? I left him here.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but you have to put on your jacket,” he shouted back. “I don’t know who your husband is.”
“He’s a doctor,” she cried. “He should be here, helping these people…”
“Please put on your life jacket.”
“Mrs. Keller?” said a woman with misted glasses and dripping shoulder-length hair.
“Yes, yes, that’s me.”
“Dr. Keller was here. But a little girl and her father went to get their dog. He left to go find them.”
Sprinkles.
Bethany wouldn’t get in a lifeboat without him. The addition of a one-hundred-fifty-pound canine might be a problem for the crew and the other passengers, but that was a bridge they would have to cross later.
“There was an explosion,” Cat said, her heart clenching.
“He left before that,” the woman said.
“You can’t go down there,” the crewman said. “You have to be ready to abandon ship.”
“Give me that damned flashlight,” Cat shouted at the crewman. She didn’t wait for him to hand it over. She ripped it out of his ha
nd. “We will be back. All of us. Do not let the last lifeboat leave without us!”
“If the captain says launch, we launch,” the man said.
Cat stuck a finger in his face. “You don’t launch until I say you launch. Got that?”
The crewman nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said tightly.
Cat half-skied, half-ran down the deck, catching hold of the archway’s edge and pulling herself under its protection. When the ship leveled out in a wave trough, she headed down the steps to the main salon with flashlight in hand, dreading what she might find in the dark. Vincent was not invulnerable. He could be hurt, or even killed. If they had moved far from the hold where the pets were kept there was a good chance she would never find them. Or she could run into Cecilio again. Or somehow get trapped or lost below deck herself. She pushed those happy thoughts out of her mind—she had a job to do, lives depended on it. She was in her element.
She beelined for one of the stairways that led to the lower decks, the elevator wouldn’t be safe right now.
The flashlight beam wobbled wildly in her hand as the ship’s swaying bounced her around in the stairwell. Over the screeching and moaning of the hull, the klaxon bleated insistently, infuriatingly. There was smoke in the stairwell, but it didn’t smell like an explosion. It rasped in the back of her throat. She wished she’d grabbed a linen napkin to cover her nose and mouth. Too late to worry about that now.
In the confusion of being slammed and stumbling to keep her feet she lost count of the landings she’d passed. The flash beam dead-ended in a cloud of curling smoke not five feet ahead of her.
Then she heard a different sound coming from below. Bellowing. Like a crazed wild animal. Not a beast, though. It wasn’t Vincent. The noise grew louder and closer. When she looked back the way she had come she realized she couldn’t run from it. She leaned against the stairwell wall. It was warm against her back. And braced herself to meet a frontal attack.
Eyes wild, jaws trailing slobber, a familiar face burst through the smoke and rampaged up the stairs.
Sprinkles charged right at her and for a second Cat was caught flatfooted. The huge dog lowered his head and stuck it between her legs, cowering like a baby, his entire body trembling with fear.
“It’s okay, boy,” Cat said, shifting to free herself. “You’re fine. Nobody’s going to hurt you.” She stroked the dog’s head and ears as she found the broken end of his lead. Sprinkles licked her hand gratefully, then nosed the pocket with the candy in it.
“We’re going to go find Bethany. Come on, you know the way.”
Sprinkles happily followed when she started back down the stairs again.
They had only descended one flight when the dog froze. He looked up at her pleadingly then tried to run back up the stairs. Cat had to dig in her heels to hold him. When Sprinkles again tried to bury his head, Cat twisted away. The dog let out a baleful howl.
From out of the smoke burst a different sort of animal, the beast Cat loved. He had what looked like a corpse slung over his shoulder and an oxygen tank in one hand.
“Vincent! Thank God!”
His eyes lost their amber glow and his face changed back to his human appearance.
Sprinkles woofed and wagged his tail at him.
“You found Bethany’s dog,” Vincent said.
“More like he found me.” The man in the fireman’s carry was Forrest Daugherty. She couldn’t see his face because of the breathing mask but he wasn’t moving and appeared to be unconscious. “Is he alive?”
“Mr. Daugherty is in a bad way,” Vincent said. “Bethany is still on Deck Four with the other two dogs.”
When Cat started to protest he held up his free hand. “She wouldn’t leave without Sprinkles. Her father’s critical. Catherine, I had no choice.”
“I get it,” Cat said. “You did the right thing, the only thing. You do what you have to do to help Daugherty. I’ll go get Bethany.” She hesitated. “Terry Milano is dead. I know who it is, Vincent. Cecilio the photographer. I found him in our stateroom.”
His lips parted. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “And the answer is no. He doesn’t have it.”
He took that in. “We’ll meet you back at the lifeboats.”
“Hurry.”
“Of course.”
“I think the explosion put out some of the fires,” he said. “The heat in the stairwell has tapered off. After you get below Deck Seven the smoke pretty much disappears.”
“How far down is that?”
“One and a half flights. I’ll see you up top. I love you.”
“Me too,” Cat said.
Vincent’s eyes flashed and when he snarled it made Sprinkles whimper. With Daugherty on his back, he blurred up the stairs out of sight.
Sure enough, the smoke diminished after Deck Seven. She and Sprinkles lurched and stumbled their way down to Deck Four. The Dane really perked up as soon as they passed through the doorway, and began pulling her along, harder and harder, oblivious to the sickening rise and fall of the ship.
“Easy, Sprinkles. Easy, boy.”
The dog let out a joyful bark.
Then ahead of them, the other dogs started barking back.
A beam of light shot out from an open doorway on the right.
“Sprinkles?” Bethany cried.
The big dog broke loose of Cat’s grip and crashed into his mistress. Jumping up on his hind legs, putting forelegs on Bethany’s shoulders and slurping gleefully at her face.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Cat said, playing the flashlight beam over the girl.
“I’m fine. So are the dogs. Thank you so much for saving Sprinkles.”
Seeing the Dane, the shepherd and the Shih Tzu wagged and wiggled.
“What about my dad?”
“I saw Vincent carrying him up when I was coming down to get you,” Cat told her, purposefully withholding any details on his condition. “By now he’s with the ship’s doctor. You and I need to get topside ASAP. They won’t hold the lifeboat for us forever. Can you handle Sprinkles going up the stairs?”
“Sure. But I’d better take Schmutzie, too.”
“Schmutzie?”
“That’s what I call the shepherd. And I think he’s really German. Vincent talked to him in German. I don’t know what his real name is. Vincent kind of gave him to me, so I think I should hold his leash.”
“Fine. No problem. I’ll take the Shih Tzu.”
“Archer,” Bethany said. “That’s her name for real.”
Going up was a lot harder than going down. When the ship climbed the waves it froze Cat’s legs. No way could she overcome that kind of G-force. The dogs, however, thought it was some kind of race, barking at each other as they scrambled up the steps.
There was more awful-smelling smoke at Decks Seven and Eight. The stairwell felt hotter, too, like the fires on those levels had blossomed again. As they ascended the stairs to Deck Nine, Cat saw a pair of legs on the landing above them. Her flashlight beam revealed a smirking face she never wanted to see again.
Cecilio was holding his gun in one hand and bracing himself on the rail with the other.
“Better stop right there,” he said.
“Who is he?” Bethany said. “Why does he have a gun?”
Schmutzie lowered his powerful body into a crouch and bared his teeth at Cecilio. The hair on the dog’s back bristled from neck to tail.
“He’s a creep,” Cat said. “I kicked his butt a few minutes ago, but apparently it didn’t stay kicked.”
“Give me the chip,” Cecilio said. “Or your sister dies.”
“I don’t have a sister, you moron,” Cat said, sneering. It was a feint.
Cecilio seemed taken aback for an instant; then he grinned. “You have a little friend, though.” He took aim at Bethany’s head. It was a sloppy aim because of the wallowing of the ship. “Give me the chip or I blow out her brains.”
“Remember this candy?” Cat said, taking the bag out of h
er pocket. “It was on the bedside table in our stateroom…”
“Yeah, so…”
“The chip’s in here, wrapped up to look like a Jolly Rancher.”
“A what?”
Cat reached into the bag and held up a candy in a twist of cellophane. “Jolly Rancher. What planet are you from?”
“Give me the chip.”
“I don’t know which one it is,” she said, dropping the candy back in the bag and giving it a shake, “but it’s in here.”
“Find it.”
“No,” Cat said, “that’s your job.” Without another word she inverted the sack, dumping its contents on the landing. The candies scattered across it and tumbled down the steps.
Cecilio looked down in astonishment at the dozens of brightly wrapped sweets. When he started to take aim at Bethany again, Cat launched herself at him.
But the shepherd was already in motion. A brown and black blur shot from the edge of the stairs and hit Cecilio square in the chest, slamming his back against the handrail. Before Cecilio could recover, Schmutzie had his gun hand between powerful jaws and was snarling and twisting his head and body. Cecilio let out a shrill scream. He dropped the gun and it slid down the stairs, but the shepherd did not let go.
Sprinkles wanted in on the fun, and so did the Shih Tzu.
“Come on, Bethany!” Cat said, scooping up the little dog. “Let’s go!”
They raced past Cecilio and the dog that had now pulled him to his knees, and dashed up two flights of stairs to the next landing. Then Bethany turned and shouted over the blare of the klaxon, “Schmutzie! Schmutzie!”
Cat was about to hurry them on when the shepherd appeared, a happy smile on his face. Bethany picked up his leash. They staggered up the steps, towed by the eager dogs.
Vincent was waiting for them in the ruins of the nightclub. Her heart leapt to see him alive and well in the flashlight beam, but the look on his face made it instantly sink. She was sure Mr. Daugherty had died.
“Where’s my dad?” Bethany said.
“Your father is stabilized,” Vincent said.
