Dark to Mortal Eyes (61 page)

“And risk having Josee slip through my fingers? That’s unacceptable.”

“Your men will be guarding her. She won’t try anything funny. Besides, the whole purpose of her trip has been to connect with Kara. She won’t leave her mother behind, not if you hold Kara and me as collateral.”

“You’d willingly place yourselves in my care?”

“Until Josee returns, yes. Then, once you’ve obtained the box’s contents, you’ll have no further reason to keep us, and we can go our separate ways.”

More likely that you’ll kill us, but what’re my options? We’ll take it as it comes
.

The line was silent while Trudi considered his proposal. He heard voices in the background. When Trudi spoke again, her voice was full of irritation. “Where’s the journal? My men have searched every inch of your car. No sign of it.”

“They broke into my rental?”

“We haven’t time to dillydally, as you well know.”

“The bank info’s safe in my head. It’s not going anywhere.”

“Marsh! This was not the plan. What about the key? Did you swallow it? Must we wait for it to pass through your digestive system?”

“Josee has it. I gave it to her earlier. Go ahead. You can send her now so she doesn’t get to the bank after they’ve locked the doors. It’s the best idea. We all maintain some control, and we all hold on to something the others need. What options do you have, Trudi? Without Josee’s key and my knowledge, you’re up a creek.”

“I could’ve inflicted damage long ago!”

“Yeah, but you want to do it the right way—with your father’s poison, the Nazi venom. Isn’t this what you’ve plotted for, been destined for? Why settle for less?”

“Okay,” Trudi surrendered. “I’m sending Josee off now. She has her birth certificate. Yes, she says she has the key, and we need you to tell us where to go.”

“Bank of the Dunes,” he said, “in Florence. Should be there within a half-hour.”

“Marsh, if you fail to provide the correct box number, my men will kill Josee. You had better toe the line. Enjoy your brief solitude with Kara. You are being watched, so don’t try to escape. Others’ll be down shortly to escort you back up to my position.”

“Your position. Where?”

“Up here, on the cliffs by the keeper’s house. We’ll gather for a candlelight family picnic with a special vintage to soothe our palates. From your father’s original harvest—Vintner’s Reserve, Addison Ridge Vineyards, 1951.”

Marsh stepped from the shelter of the trees and saw etched against the darkening sky the elderly woman’s distant wave from a jutting promontory. From there, he realized, the canister had gone over the edge years ago. On the crags beyond her, Heceta Head Lighthouse stood as wary sentinel, beams feathering through the sky.

He turned toward his queen’s form on the beach.
Chess. Pawn promotion
.

Kara’s tears were hot streaks down her face. Her hands and feet were free. Her swollen lip, her bruised cheek, her stained and smelly jeans. She had accepted the fact that she could die there in the cellar, but then she’d seen her daughter. And now here she sat on a strip of driftwood in the salty breath of the Pacific Ocean. Before her, the waves were white-lipped mouths, champing at the sand and the cliffs.

She loved it here. Was it true Marsh’d be joining her? Was this a trap?

She wanted to warn him away. She wanted to hold on to him.

To think that he had been suspected in her disappearance. To think that his father had betrayed them, fashioning them as pieces in a game. What’d been going through Marsh’s mind all this time? He had held Chauncey Addison on a pedestal.

A game of Chance? God, help us bring this evil game to an end
.

From perilous cliffs, the lighthouse scanned the sea and sky.

The key was cold in Josee’s hand. Seated in a red Buick that had waited near the keeper’s house, she weighed her instructions. Pretty basic: If you wish to see your mother and father alive, go to the Bank of the Dunes, sign in at the register, enter the vault to open the safe-deposit box—number to be provided soon—and carefully transfer the entire contents into the carpetbag.

An inheritance.
Could that part be true?

Josee hated the doubts that now nested in her thoughts. At the very moment she’d begun opening up to her parents, Trudi had contaminated her with accusations. The proof was in the deposit box. Regardless of its contents, she would return to the keeper’s house to be with Kara and Marsh. Newfound connections. She couldn’t toss those away based on the words of some bitter old Nazi chick.

“Almost there,” the driver said. “You’re not going to give us any trouble, I hope.”

They descended a long hill, crossed a bridge. She shook her head. “Nope.”

One of the guys leaned forward from the backseat. “Good answer, cutie.”

Forced at knifepoint to crawl across the center console into the driver’s seat, Turney tore the Tahoe through the gravel and speared back toward town. On duty, he gave tickets for this sort of driving, but these circumstances were a bit different. And this fellow riding shotgun … Stahlherz was intense, quiet, his dagger tip poised at Turney’s neck, his eyes roving the mirrors and the road for trouble, his shirt globbed with blood.

By his watch, Turney saw it was 4:57. They’d never make it to the coast in time.

“Turn here,” the wounded man said.

“Here? I thought you—”

“Here!”

Turney slowed. They were at Elks Drive. He made a right, then followed the fork up to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center. Even as he rounded the hillside, he spotted the rescue helicopter on the pad and knew what Stahlherz had in mind.

He pressed on the gas. Maybe he could outrun or outdistance this crazy plan.

“Slow it down.” Stahlherz dug the blade deeper. “Time to take flight with your badge as our ticket. Over there.” He directed them to the helipad, where a pilot circled the white-and-red machine, alternately sipping on a Mountain Dew and making marks on a clipboard.

Turney said, “Without proper clearance, he’ll refuse to lift off. Against policy.”

“And sleep each night with your death on his conscience?” Stahlherz’s snort sprayed blood droplets from his nose onto the dash. “Believe me, he’ll do as I say.”

With his blade hand at the sergeant’s throat, Steele Knight leaned into the big man and did little to fake his own infirmities as they crossed the grass to the helipad. The loss of blood was numbing his body. His bones felt brittle and cold. He snarled into Turney’s ear, demanding action.

“Hey, there,” Turney called out. “You the one flyin’ this bird?”

The pilot looked over his clipboard.

“Got an injured man here. Help me get him on board.”

“I’ve received no such instructions. Got no flight plan.”

“Pilot”—Turney whipped his badge into view—”this is an emergency.”

Training overrode the pilot’s initial suspicion, and he strode forward to assist. He could not ignore a police sergeant and a bleeding man. As he
reached out an arm, he noted the dagger tip in Stahlherz’s hand. “Hey, what’s going on? Listen, I’m not—”

“You are. You’re taking us on a quick ride.”

The man slapped his clipboard against his leg. “No, I’m not! This is my bird, I’m responsible for it, and it’s not going anywhere.”

“Then you’ll live with this police officer’s life on your hands.” Stahlherz allowed the evening’s bitterness—
kreeackk!
—to creep along his arm, to direct the dagger’s edge. The curved talon pierced his hostage’s skin, producing a red trickle.

Turney gurgled in pain.

“You ready to watch?” Stahlherz asked the pilot. “Or ready to fly?”

The pilot cursed, threw his clipboard down on the floor of the chopper, and climbed into his seat. He pulled on a headset and flicked a switch to ignite the motors. The limp rotors jerked to life, then began a lazy spin that accelerated as the engine’s whine grew louder.

Stahlherz swallowed his own blood. Watched his captive do the same.

“Get on board,” he told Turney. “Move it!”

The pilot was speaking into his mouthpiece. As Stahlherz boarded, he snagged the set from the man’s head and demanded radio silence. He flung the object to the grass below and told the sergeant to close the door. He settled into his seat and, to air his wounds, peeled off his black jacket and shoved it beneath the seat. In the cockpit’s cocoon, he imagined the Professor’s surprise when he arrived at the coast.

This is one pawn that won’t go down so easily. Kaw-haahaa!

From the front, the pilot’s invective was relentless, audible over the rotors. He tried to warn Stahlherz of the legal consequences of his actions. He insisted the fuel levels were too low to accommodate an excursion over the coastal mountain range to Heceta Head Lighthouse. He spouted off about his ex-wife and the way she’d robbed him blind in court and how he wasn’t going to be taken advantage of again, especially by some old guy with a broken knife and Shredded Wheat for brains.

Stahlherz said simply, “You’re no different than me.”

“How so?” The pilot glanced over his shoulder.

“We’re both driven by anger and bitter disappointment. We’re both—”

“Don’t feed me a line! Whaddya know? You’re no better than the next guy.”

“And we’re both driven by our respective birds.” At that, Stahlherz cackled. Feather tips, bristling through his head, tickled his thoughts and stirred his acrimonious swill of emotion. “If we let them, oh yes, they’ll swallow us whole.”

“Huh?”

“The descent to hell is easy, my friend. Facilis descensus Averno.”

“Bite me, pal!”

Strapped into the seat behind Turney, Stahlherz absorbed the pilot’s hatred, pressed it to his heart as part of his acidic poultice. He’d been betrayed by Chance—
abandoned at birth!
By Marsh and Esprit—
card trick, ha!
By the Professor—
an empty trunk!

At this point, death and darkness sounded inviting.

Marsh strode the hundred yards to Kara’s thin form. With the Glock tucked into his belt beneath his jacket, he surveyed the broad beach and saw no sign of others. Although he distrusted Trudi Ubelhaar, he was certain she would withhold drastic action until Josee had acquired the items from the deposit box.