Don't Turn Around (3 page)

“Where the hell did she go?” a guy gasped.

“Damned if I know.” The second voice was deep and guttural, the accent more Rhode Island than Boston. “Wicked fast for a little girl. How’d she get out?”

“Jim was supposed to be watching her.”

A snort in response. “Figures.”

“Cole is gonna go ballistic when he finds out.”

At that, they fell silent. Out of the corner of her eye, Noa saw a smear of blood on the gunwale where she’d stepped on it. She must have left other traces on the blacktop and ladder. She silently prayed that they wouldn’t notice.

A radio crackled.

“I’ll get it,” Rhode Island muttered. After an electronic chirp, he said, “Yeah?”

“We’re meeting in the far east quadrant to regroup.” The voice coming through the radio was authoritative and deadly serious.
Cole,
Noa guessed. He didn’t sound like someone you’d mess with.

“Roger that,” Rhode Island replied. Another chirp, and he laughed. “You believe this guy? ‘Far east quadrant,’ like we’re back in Haji-land.”

“No kidding. Man, I hope this doesn’t take long. I wanted to catch the end of the game,” the other guy said.

The voices started to move away. Noa waited a few moments, then released her held breath. She was ten feet from the door to the main cabin. She crawled forward quickly on her belly, then reached up to turn the handle. The door was locked. She fell back against the deck and gritted her teeth. Finding it open would have been too much to hope for.

Noa scanned the deck for something to pick the lock. She knew from past experience that boat locks were designed more to stymie problem teenagers than experienced burglars. Luckily, she just happened to be both.

The deck was clear except for a small tackle box tucked beneath one of the benches lining the railings. As quietly as possible, Noa eased over and got it open. Scrounging around inside, she found a small fishhook: not ideal, but it would have to do.

It took five minutes to pick the lock. It would have been quicker, but the throbbing in her chest and foot was distracting. Plus she was forced to work at an odd angle, reaching up with her arm. Twice she had to yank it down as more guards passed the boat.

Noa waited another minute, straining to detect anyone nearby, then slowly opened the cabin door and slid inside, shutting it behind her.

Blinds were drawn over the tinted windows, shadowing the interior. She could just make out a plush living room set, leather captains’ chairs, and a solid table. Everything was bolted to the floor, but otherwise could have been straight out of any upscale furniture catalog.

Noa got to her feet and went down a few steps to the lower deck. She was in a narrow hallway, four doors off either side and one at the end. The first door on her left accordioned open to reveal a tiny bathroom. She went in and unhooked the latch for the medicine cabinet. She was in luck: It was fully stocked; apparently the owners didn’t bother clearing the boat out for winter storage. She sat on the toilet seat and examined her foot. A gouge ran along the heel of her right foot: It was long but didn’t look deep. She awkwardly held her foot over the sink, biting her lip as she poured antiseptic over it. After the wound stopped fizzing, she dabbed it with Neosporin and bandaged it with gauze.

She took a deep breath, which sent another spasm of pain through her chest. Reluctantly, she eased up her shirt.

Noa had seen the bandage when she changed into the scrubs, but there hadn’t been time to check under it. Plus, part of her was terrified to look. The oversized bandage was large, rectangular, a few shades darker than her skin. She forced herself to peel back a corner of it.

What she saw made her gasp. There was a three-inch-long incision running down the center of her chest. Small red marks on either side where sutures had been tugged out—she’d had stitches before; she recognized the aftermath. The cut had already scabbed over, but the skin around it was swollen and red.

Slowly, Noa pressed the bandage back into place and lowered her shirt. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. In the light of the tiny fluorescent bulb above the sink, she looked much paler than usual. Dark blue circles under her eyes, hollow cheeks, lips cracked and peeling. She ran a hand through her jet-black hair and it came away greasy, as if she hadn’t showered for days.

Had the doctor been telling the truth? Had she really been in some sort of car accident? Noa shook her head—that didn’t make any sense. Otherwise she would have woken up in a regular hospital, and there wouldn’t be guards after her. No, this was something else.

Not that she had time to figure out what, exactly. She still had to get out of this shipyard somehow. Which wouldn’t be easy—she had no idea where the exit was, and wandering around looking for it was a bad idea.

Noa splashed some cold water on her face and dabbed it dry with a corner of the shirt. Feeling slightly better, she limped across the hall to a tiny bedroom with taupe curtains drawn over the portholes. The queen-sized bed against the bulkhead was stripped down to the mattress. Noa slid open the drawers built into the wall, but they were all empty.

She got lucky in the next bedroom. It was similarly barren, but on the closet floor she found a ratty, faded Wesleyan sweatshirt, baggy black sweatpants, and a pair of rubber fishing boots. Based on the smell, this must be the owner’s designated fishing outfit. Digging through the drawers produced a pair of mismatched sweat socks and a black knit cap.

It wouldn’t really be enough to combat the cold, but it was better than what she had on. Noa changed quickly, then sat on the edge of the bed to puzzle out her next move.

If she stayed on the boat, there was a good chance they’d find her. The shouting had diminished, but that didn’t mean anything. For all she knew, they’d called another hundred guys and were planning on searching every boat.

Why they were devoting so much energy to looking for her was the larger question. Her fingers went to the bandage on her chest. What had they done to her? Noa had heard stories, kind of the foster-kid version of the bogeyman: street kids getting drugged by a stranger and waking up without a kidney, that sort of thing. She’d never put much stock in it—even if the stories were true, she considered herself too smart and experienced to have to worry about it.

But she was wrong. Someone had taken her, and she couldn’t even remember how or when. Besides, the cut was on her chest, not her back. It wasn’t like they could have taken her heart, right? What else was in there?

She might not make it through the next few hours anyway, Noa reminded herself. So worrying about that now was probably a waste of time.

She’d gotten lucky once, though. Maybe it would happen again. Motivated, she got up and went back into the hallway. Next was another empty room, this one with bunk beds. The final door at the end of the hall opened onto the ship’s bridge. It was stocked with an elaborate array of marine equipment and controls. Unfortunately, no sign of a phone or computer.

Then her eyes alit on the ship-to-shore radio. Noa turned the dial, and the receiver lit up. A smile slowly spread across her face.

Peter was choking on a mouthful of carpet. One of the men who’d stormed into his house was driving his knee into Peter’s back while simultaneously pressing his face into the rug. The cloying sweetness of rug shampoo was making him gag, which helped allay some of the shock.

“What do you want?” he asked, trying not to sound as scared as he felt. “There’s no money here.”

No one answered. He started to struggle. The guy on top of him increased the pressure until it felt like he was being driven into the floor like a nail, and his head might actually go through the rug and pop out the other side. Peter went limp. He was terrified. He’d heard about home invasions before. His friend’s dad worked at a bank, and when they were younger two guys held the whole family at gunpoint overnight, then forced the dad to help them rob the bank in the morning. Was this something like that? They seemed official, highly trained. Or maybe it was a kidnapping? His parents were rich; he’d heard about stuff like that happening, too.

The scary thing was that he wasn’t so sure his parents would pay a ransom for him.

It was hard to see, but Peter was pretty sure there were three guys in the room, all dressed identically in black. When they’d first stormed in they had guns drawn, but from what he could tell they’d tucked them away. At least he hadn’t been shot yet, which was probably a good sign. There were others with them; he could hear them moving from room to room, muttering to one another in low voices. They seemed to be waiting for something. Or someone.

“Get off me!” he managed, the words muffled by piling.

A set of loafers entered his line of sight. Black leather buffed to a shine, black suit pants, cuffs broken in a sharp line at the heel: the mark of a pricey tailoring job. Peter followed them up. A tall guy loomed over him, dressed in a full three-piece suit with a red tie. A lawyer, if Peter had to guess; everyone at his mom’s firm looked and dressed like that. That provided a measure of relief. A lawyer wouldn’t let them hurt him. And the guy seemed to be in charge; the mood in the room had shifted when he came in.

Still, he looked peeved, like Peter was an annoyance he’d prefer not to deal with, a piece of gum he’d just discovered stuck to his heel. He was probably in his thirties, dark hair cropped short, cold gray eyes. “Let him up,” the guy said.

Peter felt the pressure release. He got to his feet, trying to hide the shakiness. His back ached where the knee had pushed on it. He tried to sound confident when he said, “Get the hell out of my house, or I’ll call the cops.”

The man in the suit eyed him. After a beat, he said, “You’re the son.”

His voice creeped Peter out; it was completely flat and toneless. Disinterested.

“I’m going to say it one more time. Get out.” Peter went to the phone on the desk and picked up the receiver. Held his breath the whole time, waiting for them to stop him.

The suit appeared amused. “There won’t be a dial tone. We cut the line.”

Peter pressed the on button to double-check. He was right; there was no dial tone. He went for his cell phone, which was tucked in his pocket—hopefully it hadn’t been damaged when they threw him to the ground.

But the suit held up a hand to stop him. “That signal is being jammed, too.”

Jamming a cell signal was no mean feat—as far as he knew, it required the kind of military equipment only governments could afford. Peter left his phone in his pocket. “Who are you?”

“Is anyone else in the house?” the suit asked.

Peter opened his mouth to answer, but paused. Lying seemed like a bad idea. Besides, they were searching the rest of the house so they probably already knew. “No, I’m alone.”

“And this is your computer?” As the suit approached the desk, Peter eased to the other side, keeping it between them. The guy didn’t seem to notice. He flipped it open, and glanced up when it came out of hibernation. “Password?” he asked, looking at Peter.

Peter drew himself up and tried to sound defiant as he said, “No way I’m telling you that.”

The guy shrugged. He unplugged the power cable and started to leave the room, the computer tucked under his arm.

“Hey, wait!” Peter said. “You can’t take that!”

“I just did,” the guy said without turning back.

Peter went after him. The others just watched as he passed them and followed the guy into the hall. The suit was walking briskly, like he had somewhere to be. “That’s mine. You steal it, I’ll call the cops.”

The suit stopped walking. He turned to face Peter, his expression grave. “You won’t do that.”

“Why not?”

The suit’s eyes narrowed. “Because if you do, we’ll come back. And next time we’ll take you,” he said, a note of menace in his voice.

Peter paused at that. It was just a computer, and it was automatically backed up to an external server. Still, the way the guy was acting bothered the hell out of him; like he had the right to do this, and Peter was the one in the wrong. “My folks are going to go nuts when they hear about this,” he said.

The suit smiled. “Give Bob and Priscilla my best. And tell your father to call me at his earliest convenience.”

It took Peter a second to recover from the fact that this guy seemed to know his parents, and well, from the sound of it. “Who are you?”

“My name is Mason,” he said. “Someone will be by shortly to repair the front door.”

Without breaking stride, he marched out the door and into the night.

“I told you, this is a private facility.”

“Yes, sir, I heard you. But we got a call about a fire here, and we’re not leaving without checking it out.”

Crouched beneath a boat trailer fifty feet away, Noa watched two men argue loudly at the entrance to the boatyard. A fire truck was parked in front of the open gate. The sirens had been turned off but the lights still spun, carving a steady red swath through the scene. The rest of the firefighters stood back, watching their chief argue with a security guard.

“Who called it in?”

“The harbormaster.”

“Well, he was wrong.”

“All due respect, we don’t need clearance.” The chief’s eyes narrowed. “We’re the Boston Fire Department. That gives us the right.”

“I’m under strict orders here.” The guard tugged at his shirt collar, as if it were slowly choking him. “I can’t let anyone in.”

“When we get called somewhere, we go. It’s a boatyard, not a nuclear power plant. So what’s the problem?”

“Do you even see a fire?” The security guard gestured behind himself.

The fire chief looked past his shoulder, then snorted. “Yeah, actually, I do.”

The guard pivoted. Halfway through the boatyard an oily plume of dark smoke was rising.

Noa exhaled hard, relieved. If the truck had driven away without coming inside, any hope of escape would have gone with it. She’d waited for the truck to arrive before lighting an improvised fuse: a couple of strung-together candlewicks that led to a stack of oily rags. It was the best she could manage with the limited supplies on the boat.