Tied to the Stern

by Mark Stone

  Another text lit up Jack’s phone.

  We’re a mile and a half out. Are you in position?

  Jack typed his answer to Gwen quickly.

  I’ve been where I needed to be for hours now. Don’t worry about me. Just make sure you do your part. I’ll do mine.

  A familiar sense of uneasiness filled Jack Lacey. It wasn’t that he was unfamiliar with the kind of conflict he was about to jump into headfirst. In fact, after leaving the Coast Guard, he had made something of a name for himself as a private eye, among other things. He had been the best SAR expert the Guard had ever seen. He had the numbers to prove it. It would only make sense that he would put those search and rescue skills to use in the next phase of his life, even if he couldn’t bring himself to continue on with the Guard itself.

  Jac had never met Milton Maines. He had only seen the man in pictures his wife brought to him when, three weeks ago, she came walking into his office with Gwen in tow.

  He had met Gwen before, of course. When you’re in the kind of work Jack did, it was only natural to run across people who beat the same kind of drum. A bounty hunter from down in Alabama, it took all of three days for Gwen to make her presence known, and Jack knew why.

  Though he had only been back in town a few months now, it didn’t take long for word of the return of ‘the Finder’, the name given to both Jack’s boat (by him) and Jack himself (by other people) to spread throughout town. People started coming to him, asking him to look for things, asking him to help them. They would pay, of course. And, because as Eddie reminded him back in the restaurant, he didn’t have the sort of pension he needed from the Guard, he was in no position to turn down money.

  This wasn’t about the money, though. Not entirely. When Gwen brought Mildred’s wife Amber to see him a few weeks ago, it was with a story of woe. Milton had been a lawyer. He had been successful. He was a good husband, and a good father. Then, things changed. Milton got himself in with some bad people. He started doing drugs and, as happens more times than someone might think, he started doing the drugs himself. Now, because anyone with a working brain stem knows you can’t use up all your own product and expect to be successful, the drugs disappeared and there was no money to account for it. He started receiving threats from his new drug-dealing friends. So, in an attempt to make the money back, he started selling baking soda like it was drugs. He got sloppy, and then he got caught.

  And then, as though he hadn’t already been a strong contender for the Husband and Father of the Year Award, he left town after Amber put the house up as collateral for his bail. He wasn’t answer the phone, he wasn’t answering emails, and if he didn’t show back up by the time of his next hearing in two days (or, if the police found out he was unaccounted for), Amber and the children would be without a roof over their heads.

  A quarter of a mile, the next text from Gwen said. Lay them down now.

  Got it, Jack replied.

  Thxs, doll ;) Gwen responded.

  Jack rolled his eyes and groaned. Texting, along with some other things, was a necessary evil of this job. Still, it didn’t mean people couldn’t type like grownups. All this lingo rubbed him the wrong way, and don’t even get him started on the smiley faces.

  Jack walked back to the trunk, popping it, and pulling the line of spikes out. Letting them drag the ground, he walked out into the street.

  When Gwen brought Amber to Jack, she claimed she was being generous. She offered to split Amber’s fee with Jack right down the middle; a sort of a ‘welcome home’ gift. Jack knew better than that, though. He didn’t know Gwen very well, but he knew she wasn’t the type to split her money with someone if she didn’t have to. She had hit a wall, and she was hoping the best SAR expert the Coast Guard had ever seen could held her surmount it.

  It took a little over two weeks and a lot of digging before Jack hit pay dirt. He found out that Milton Maines, that specimen of a human being, had a safety deposit box at a bank down the street. What was in that box was anybody’s guess, but it also wasn’t any of Jack’s concern. All he wanted was to bring that sonofabitch home before his wife and kids were forced out onto the street. And he knew just how to do it.

  Someone who made the sort of bad decisions that Milton did could only be selfish, and selfish people, Jack had learned from experience, didn’t like to share their stuff.

  To that end, Jack went into the bank and asked to take a peek inside Milton’s safety deposit box. The bank kicked him to the curb, of course, but that was the idea. Jack knew the bank would call Milton to inform him that someone was sniffing around whatever prized possession he had locked away, and he knew that a selfish man like Milton would come running to retrieve it.

  To that end, he had Gwen waiting at the most probable road with the description of Milton’s car as well as his license plate for reference. When she saw him, she would let Jack know, and Jack would be ready.

  As he laid the spikes down across the road, stepping out onto the sidewalk and watching as the headlights of Milton’s car grew nearer, Jack Lacey smiled a little. This, he thought, was going to be fun.

  Jack’s jaw tightened as Milton’s car went unexpectantly over the spikes. All four tires blew out, sending him skidding off the road and into the embankment Jack figured was the most likely landing place for Milton’s car.

  Gwen, knowing the spikes would be there, pulled up short and stepped out of her car, a baseball bat in hand.

  A tall, slender woman with blonde hair pulled up into a ponytail and a rounded face, Gwen looked more like a fashionable soccer mom than a bounty hunter. Of course, that was probably part of what made her so dangerous. Where Jack was a burly man, muscular from the Coast Guard as well as his continued work, Gwen was far less foreboding to look at. In fact, she was just the sort of woman most men would go for in a bar or a party. That attribute, Jack knew, had been the downfall of many a mark for the woman.

  “You think he was wearing a seatbelt?” Jack asked, pulling the gun from his waistband just in case.

  “I’m sure I don’t care,” Gwen answered, keeping pace with Jack, her eyes forward as they walked toward the car.

  As they did though, Jack heard a bang. Looking forward, he saw the passenger side window of the car, half hidden and sticking out of the embankment, shatter. He knew what it was before Gwen did, and that was what made the difference.

  “Get down!” Jack yelled, already hitting the pavement. “He’s got a gun in there!”

  Before she could respond, though, another bullet rang out, echoing through the night sky. Jack watched as it slammed into Gwen’s chest. He watched still as the woman fell to the ground beside him.

  Chapter 36

  Instantly, Jack Lacey jumped into action. His years of training with the Coast Guard had taught him that keeping a steady mind and a matching hand was the only way to come out of sea alive. You had to stay focused if you wanted to get the job done. You had to forget about the storm that was raging all around you, forget about the fact that you barely see, forget about the fact that every molecule in your being was telling you that you were not supposed to be here. You had to push through that and keep your wits about you as you did. If you couldn’t, you were a dead man and so was the person you were trying to save.

  With his gun still in his hand, Jack grabbed Gwen. Hearing a few more shots pop out from the lopsided car where Milton sat in his car, apparently willing to commit murder if it meant not having to go back to jail, Jack hoisted Gwen up over his shoulder with one hand as he stood. The woman groaned as he did, and Jack tried not to think bout the idea that he might be causing her more damage than she’d already inflicted by moving her. He couldn’t let her just sit her, though. This was the line of fire, and he needed to get both of them out of it.

  Jack ran as fast as he could, shooting toward the car with one hand and holding Gwen in place with the other. Bullets rang out from his, slapping into the car hard. He was a good shot. He always had been. His father had never been much of a hunter,
but there was math involved with jumping out of a helicopter and into choppy waters. There was aiming involved, too. Both of those things served you well in shooting a gun, and if he had been given the luxury of actually being able to look at where he was firing, he might have hit the unimaginable bastard. As it stood, Jack was happy just to make enough cover to get him and Gwen to relative safety behind his car.

  He knelt behind his car and placed the woman on the pavement. To his surprise, he found her awake and glaring at him. “What’s the next play?” she asked weakly, clearing her throat.

  “The next play is I get you to a hospital,” Jack said, surprised at the woman’s resilience.

  “Not a chance,” she said, pulling her shirt up and revealing a bulletproof vest underneath.

  “You’re wearing?” Jack asked with narrowing eyes.

  “I don’t cross the street unless I’m wearing,” Gwen answered, grunting as she pushed herself up, leaning against the car’s front driver’s side tire. “You should follow that lead, Lacey. Especially in our line of business.”

  Though they weren’t technically in the exact same line of business, Jack let it slide. He had bigger issues to worry about than semantics.

  “The way I see it, there are a couple of ways this can go,” Jack answered. “We’ve made a hell of a lot of noise out here. This street might not be crowded, but it sure as hell isn’t deserted. I’d bet my pinky toes that someone’s already called the police. Time’s not on Milton’s side. All we have to do is wait here, cover the car, and make sure the cops nab him.”

  “And then walk away without the money,” Gwen said. “You know how this works, Lacey. If the cops get here, sirens blaring and guns pointed, they’re getting credit for taking this sonofabitch in, and that means we both get to go home with our tail between our legs and not enough money to buy a damn coffee for our troubles.” She shook her head. “No. I’m been through too much to let it end like that.” She motioned back to the car where Milton was still sitting. “This selfish waste of space shot me.”

  “With a vest on,” I added.

  “Still hurts like hell,” she answered. “Besides, that’s not the point. It’s the principal of the thing.”

  And that was it. For all Gwen’s talk about the money, her last sentence hit the nail on the head. Jack wanted to be the one to bring this man in. He wanted to look at him in his cowardly, beady little eyes and tell him just what he thought of him. He wanted to know just how someone with a wife who loved him and a living, breathing child could walk away from all of it just cause he got himself into a little trouble. He wanted to look Milton square in the face and tell him just how little he thought of him. And then Jack wanted to break that face.

  “Fine,” Jack answered. “We do it now. I counted four shots, and it sounds like a revolver to me. That means, at most, he’s got another five shots in there.”

  “Unless he brought more ammo,” Gwen said.

  “He’d still need time to reload, and we’re not going to give that to him,” Jack answered. “I’m going to make a straight line toward the sidewalk and draw his fire away.”

  “What?” Gwen balked. “Why not just let me do it? I’m wearing.” She, again, pointed to her vest.

  “Because you’ve been shot, and you wouldn’t be fast enough in your current condition,” Jack answered. ‘he’d get you in the leg or in the neck and then your blood would be on my hands. I can’t have that.”

  “At least take the vest,” she said.

  “For what?” Jack asked. “It wouldn’t fit. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I just need you to hold up your end of things while I’m making the distraction.”

  “Okay,” Gwen said, and Jack could sense a little trepidation in her voice. ‘And what would that be?”

  A rueful smile drug itself across the man’s bristled face. “The keys are in the car.”

  A few seconds later, Jack rushed out across the street. As he expected, he heard the pop of gunfire again. It caused his heart to jump just a little, but again, the training kicked in. Steady mind. Steady hand.

  He felt the air change as a bullet whizzed right near him. It passed harmlessly, but it was still way too close for comfort. Luckily, it would be the last shot Milton would get to take at him. He knew as much, because he heard his car crank up.

  Twisting his head, he grinned as he watched Gwen plow his car into Milton’s sending the already lopsided car twisting onto it’s back.

  Jack heard the crunch of metal as he turned, running over to the sight. Bypassing his own car, he caught sight of Milton’s gin on the ground. He was right. It was a revolver. Kneeling down at the window, he came face to face with the man, hanging upside down, blood rushing to his face, as a seatbelt kept him in place.

  “Milton Maines,” Jack grunted, glaring at the man. “We’re here to take you to jail.”

  Milton scoffed at him, his pudgy nose crinkling up in a way that disgusted Jack. “You gonna read me my rights first?” the man asked in an infuriatingly nasal voice.

  “No,” Jack said, grabbing that pudgy nose between his thumb and forefinger, and twisting it until the damn thing snapped, leaving Milton screaming upside down in the seat of his ruined car. “I’m not a cop.”