In the Waning Light (37 page)

“Fuck knows.”

Blake’s mind hurtled back to the night he found his brother in the shed. How complicit was he himself, for not having pushed his brother further, for not telling Kovacs that he’d seen Geoff heading out to the spit that morning? For not mentioning the flotsam sack he’d seen near Meg’s unconscious body? What damage had their respective secrets wrought over the years? If he’d spoken up, would Jack and Tara Brogan still be alive?

“Jesus, Geoff. Why didn’t you just tell the cops?”

“And send my friend to prison for raping a woman he never wanted to rape? For being a victim? I
loved
him. I hated what Tommy was doing to him, what he
let
Tommy do to him. I just wanted to get the hell out of this sick town.”

“You made yourself accessory to murder.”

Geoff coughed, retched again. “Almost got away with it, too.” The boat lurched and he grabbed the gunwale with his free hand for balance. “Except little Meggie-Peg comes home after twenty-two years and all goes to hell in a handbasket.” He launched suddenly to his feet, raised the pistol, aimed it dead at Blake’s chest.

Blake’s skin turned to ice. His mind catapulted through possible scenarios—he could spin the boat sharply, try and tilt Geoff over the side. Or keep him talking while waiting for the right wave to hit them broadside and capsize them. “And if you kill me—how far do you think you’re going to get?”

Geoff abruptly flipped the gun around, stuck the muzzle in his mouth, and squeezed the trigger. The back of his head blew out.

Shock slammed through Blake.

For a nanosecond Geoff’s body seemed to hang there. Then his legs buckled slowly under him. The boat rocked and his brother tipped backward over the stern. Blake heard an oddly innocent-sounding
splosh
.

The boat shuddered as propellers hit the body.

Bile lurched into Blake’s throat.

Meg saw the flickering of flames through the small window that looked into the back of her truck cab. She lunged to unlock the door, then halted. Panic squeezed her brain. What if someone was trying to flush them out? She had to chance it.

“What’s happening?” Noah sat up, confused and thick with sleep.

“Grab your jacket, get over here!” She twisted the door lock free, swung down the handle, pushed. But the door held fast. She shouldered it. Nothing happened. She rammed harder. But it was stuck dead. The scent of smoke thickened. It was seeping in from below the bed. Noah started to cough.

Someone had locked them in. They were trapped—human meat in a tin can about to explode.

Focus. Panic kills. Think. Logic
. . .

Hands trembling, Meg yanked up the blind and struggled to slide open the window. It was stuck. She lunged for the opposite window, breaking nails as she scrabbled to open it. It had been jammed shut, too. Her gaze shot around the interior. Fire extinguisher. She snapped it free and rammed the back of it into the glass of the biggest window over the table. Cracks feathered through the glass. She rammed it twice more, and pieces crumbled outward. Rain, wind, slush blew in, saturating her face.

“Noah, over here.” She smashed the extinguisher along the bottom rim of the window, eliminating sharp edges. Wrapping a blanket around Noah, she helped him onto the bench seat. “I’m going to lower you out, okay? When you hit the ground, run. As far as you can, up to the coast road before this blows. I will find you up there. Go!”

Rain drenched through her sweater as she helped Noah out. His feet hit gravel. He glanced up, white-faced, wide-eyed.

“Go! Run!”

He turned and raced away, a little form on skinny legs into the wet, black storm.

Meg struggled to squeeze herself sideways through the window. Her legs swung down, feet hitting gravel. She reached back inside to get the knife. But as she did, she felt a hard crack at the back of her skull. Her body juddered, went still. Pain exploded through her head and radiated down her spine, to her fingertips. Her vision blurred. She tried to turn around, to put a foot forward, to run, but her knees buckled and she slumped to the ground.

Another blow came sharp at her ribs. She felt a bone crack. Gasping for air, she tried to roll away, to get onto her hands and knees. To crawl. In the periphery of her mind she was aware of flames licking out of her truck, fed by the tearing wind. Smoke roiled, acrid, thickening. Slush beat down. Meg staggered up onto all fours. Her vision was blackening. She had to get away before the gas cylinders exploded. But as she moved one hand forward, someone yanked her up by the hair, spinning her around.

Lightning split the sky. And in that instant she saw.

Tommy.

His eyes met hers. And in that moment, suspended in time and pain, she felt herself sliding back into the dark of time. She was running up the hot, white sand dune, pulled by Sherry’s screams. And as she crested the dune, she saw. Her sister’s naked body spread-eagled in dirt. Her sister had gone quiet. Her head was at an odd angle. Eyes open. Henry was sobbing, pants down around his thighs. He was pulling his penis out of Sherry, and it was glistening, going limp. Tommy had his hands around Sherry’s neck. He glanced up at Meg with wild eyes. Meg was trapped by those eyes, unable to move as someone came over the opposite ridge. Geoff.

“Get her!” Tommy screamed at Geoff. “Get her or we’re all dead.”

She spun around, and raced down the dune.

Meg was jerked back to the present by a sharp jolt of pain. Tommy was dragging her to his vehicle. And she knew. With bilious, oily certainty. She finally had
The End
of her story—and she’d never get to write it.

Because she was as good as dead.

Tommy opened the back door, but stilled as a high-pitched banshee-like scream sliced through the wind and sleet. Noah. He came barreling out of the blackness yelling as he swung a crowbar at Tommy, striking him across the hip. Tommy grunted in pain, stumbling forward as he dropped Meg to the ground. He lunged for Noah.

“Run . . . Noah . . . go . . .” But Meg’s words came out a hoarse whisper. “Please, God, go.” Her vision spiraled inward to a small pinprick of light. Sounds stretched. She tried to reach up, grab Tommy’s pant leg, stop him from going after Noah, but her fingers failed to find purchase, and her hand flopped limp to the ground.

My dear Noah, you should have stayed hidden. Instead you tried to save me. Now he’s seen you . . . now he’ll kill you, too, because you’ve seen him . . .

She heard Noah screaming, far away, in a distant tunnel. She couldn’t see. She clawed the wet gravel, trying to drag her body toward the screams. She moved maybe an inch before an explosion slammed the air around her. Sound died. Pain swallowed her whole. She was floating, floating, falling. Into the blackness.

Blake’s brain went numb. He stared at the bloodied froth on the black water under the glare of his spotlights. His fingers on the controls were icy. He couldn’t seem to make them move. Couldn’t make anything in his body move. All he could see in his mind’s eye was the mutilated body of his brother sinking slowly down, down, down to the seabed that crawled with a live carpet of hungry Dungeness crab.

His boat drifted sideways, toward the rocks, as the image of Geoff’s brain spraying out the back of his skull replayed and replayed in his head. The look in his brother’s eyes at the last, dying moment. Him tipping backward, and over the gunwale. The sound as he hit the sea. The shudder of the boat as the props mashed into his brother’s body. Acid burned in his stomach. He started to shake. His eyes started to burn. Water ran cold down his face.

A wave rose slowly up. He could feel his boat rising with it, tilting toward the starboard side, and panic struck, forcing him back to the present. He swallowed the vomit in the back of his throat, and opened the throttle. Revving the engine he brought his craft around just in time to run ahead of the wave before it broadsided him.

His heart punched against his rib cage. The tears came now, as he aimed for shore. For their marina home, his life unalterably changed.

His brother dead. His brother, who’d let a murderer walk free.

. . . the ways in which we deceive ourselves . . . what misguided action we take in the name of love . . .

Memories of Geoff, as a young boy, a brother, a friend, played through Blake’s mind. He’d loved him. He’d tried to protect him. He’d failed him. On some level both he and his father had utterly failed Geoff.

And now it had cost Blake almost everything.

But as he refocused and steered for shore, Blake was hit with a new fear. Tommy. Meg at his party. His pulse started to race as new
purpose formed—get back to the shore, call the cops, go find Meg . . .

The rain turned fully to snow, and through the fog and swirling flakes, he caught the glimmer of a light on shore. Just one. Burning like a candle in the ancient mariner’s window to guide him in from the storm. Relief punched through him. But as he aimed for the light, he realized all else on land was dark, and it wasn’t just from fog. No lights at all burned along the entire shoreline, save for that one. And as he aimed for it, an orange explosion rent the air. He gasped and jerked backward in shock as a giant ball of roiling flames laced with black mushroomed over his marina. Shock waves slammed across the water. Then another explosion boomed. A fireball began to crackle and roar on the shore, fueled by gale-force winds.

He could smell it. Fuel.

Dread fisted his heart as he raced for the marina. As he neared, his mind fought the horror that sank like lead into his blood.

Meg’s camper. On fire.

CHAPTER 26

Meg came around gradually. Her brain was molasses. She felt herself rolling, pitching. Blood in her mouth. Pain—back of head, temple, scalp. Ribs. Trouble breathing. She tried to move. Shock sparked through her as she realized her ankles and wrists were bound tight.

Slowly, she tried to open her eyes. Light struck the back of her brain. She closed them again. Nausea churned in her stomach. Her clothes were wet. She could hear engines—feel the throb of big diesel machines. She heard the slap and rush of the sea, wind. Oh, God. She was at sea!

Her eyes flared open. She fought to pull her surroundings into focus. Paneling. Expensive yacht. She was in some kind of stateroom. On a bed. She tried to sit, but the boat pitched and she rolled with a thud to the floor. Pain crushed through her ribs and she coughed, spitting blood and saliva from her mouth. She could feel a tooth loose, bleeding gums.

Trying to orient herself spatially, Meg stared up at a small porthole, black water gushing past. She must be on a lower deck.

“Meg?” a voice whispered.

She turned her head. “Noah?” Her heart kicked. “Is that you?”

He clambered down from the big bed and placed his cool little hand on her face. “You’re alive,” he said.

Oh, God. Tommy had taken Noah. She’d put Noah’s life in danger. But he was still alive.
Try to speak. Be strong now, for this child. You have to do this.
“Yup,” she managed to say, and she spat out another gob of blood and spittle. “Help . . . me sit up, will you?”

He lifted her under her armpits as she tried to scoot up and lean against the base of the bed. She saw now that she was tightly bound with duct tape. Noah moved matted wet hair back from her face, which was sticky with blood. “He cut your head open.”

She tried to nod. Pain was overwhelming. She moved her bound hands to her side and pressed against her left pocket. He’d taken her cell. “It’s . . . it’s going to be fine, Noah. . . are you okay, did he hurt you?”

“I hurt him first, with Dad’s crowbar. Then I tried to run, but he caught me. I tried to kick and bite him but he was too strong.”

“Where did he take us—are we on his motor yacht?”

“He took us to that big new marina in Whakami where the party was supposed to be. Everyone was gone. It was all dark.”

Meg’s heart sank. No one knew where they were. Blake was lost at sea. Or he’d been hurt by Geoff.

“I dropped my magic stone on the deck for Daddy to find,” he said. “The one Uncle Geoff gave me, made of sea glass. I dropped it before that man carried me onto the boat.”

Her mind folded in on itself. Poor kid. Anger began to coil low in her gut at the thought of what was happening to Noah. Her anger morphed fast into rage that surged up her chest. And it pumped into her blood. Her brain recoiled at the memory of Tommy holding her sister’s neck while Henry raped her. She didn’t understand—why Henry? It didn’t seem to fit in her mind. But the look in Tommy’s eyes when he’d seen her come over the ridge . . .

Get her! . . . Get her or we’re all dead . . .

Stop, wait, Meggie . . . don’t run . . .

That’s why Geoff must have chased her. And there could be only one reason Tommy had come for her now. To silence her. And Noah, too, because he was a witness. He’d seen Tommy’s face.

Even if no one was coming to help them, she could not,
would not
let Noah down. She’d rather die than let that bastard win. She’d kill him with her own bare hands, the smiling sociopathic shit.

“How . . . how long have we been on the boat?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did you stop hearing the foghorn?”

He thought. “Just a little while ago.”

“Good, good, we can’t be too far offshore. Is there anyone with him?”

“No.”

“Did he speak?”

“No.”

“Not even one word?”

He shook his head.

The boat pitched violently and, unbalanced, she rolled back onto the floor. Shit. She was weak. Lost a lot of blood. She retched again, spat out more blood.

Noah hurried into the bathroom, fetched a towel. He got down on his knees and wiped her mouth. Meg’s heart nearly broke. She struggled back into a sitting position. Using her hands and butt, she edged herself over to the stateroom door. She leaned against it with her back, and slid up the door and onto her feet. She tried the handle with her bound hands. It wouldn’t give.

“It’s locked, Meg. I heard him lock it. I already tried it.”

“Open the bloody door!” she screamed, bashing it with the backs of her bound hands. Blood ran afresh down her face. Down the back of her throat. She gagged.

And she felt Noah watching.

Focus. Stay calm. Panic
will
kill you.

She hopped to the queen bed, and balanced against the edge, trying to breathe through mucus and the blood in her throat, and she wondered if her nose was broken. Her whole head was a ball of pain. “We’ll get out of here, Noah, we
will
get out of here.”

“I want my dad.”

“I know.” Meg’s heart sank again. A sense of defeat weighed heavy. She had no idea how to do this.

Meggie-Peg, you’ve never given up . . . C’mon, you came back to
Shelter Bay. Do this for me. I’m waiting, kiddo. You’re almost there . . . rescuer of little animals and the vulnerable . . . You’re the Amazon inside, Meggie-Peg. If you die, you choose to die fighting. Do it for me. Dad. Mom. Noah. Blake, too. I know you hate him right now, but he needs you, too . . .

“Sherry?”

By God, she felt her sister now, really felt her presence here on Tommy’s yacht. Talking inside her head. “You are here, aren’t you?” she said out loud.

“Who are you talking to?” Noah said.

“My sister. She’s going to help us.”

“She’s dead.”

“Her ghost isn’t. She’s inside me. Ghosts don’t die. You can scrub people and places out, but you cannot destroy the ghosts.”

“Meg . . . I’m scared.”

“Okay, Noah, we’re going to try something. I saw a demonstration once, when I interviewed a former CIA operative. You know what that is?”

“No.”

“A spy.”

“Like a super spy?”

“Like a super spy.”

She had his interest. This was good. She was keeping him engaged. Making him feel as though he had some control over his fate. “This agent showed me how you could get out of duct tape.” She got to her feet, wobbling with the roll and pitch of the waves. She showed Noah her wrists. “Like this.”

She’d never tried it, still didn’t quite believe it could work. Meg raised her arms well above her head, then in one quick movement, with all the force she could muster, swung them down hard to her sides. The duct tape split. She was free.

She stared, dazed that it had worked.

“Wow,” he said.

A wry smile pulled across her mouth. It sparked adrenaline back into her. “Okay, now we look in all these drawers and closets for anything that might help cut the tape off my ankles.”

She started by opening the cupboard closest to her. Noah got to work on the hatches that lined the side of the bed.

She found clothing, underwear. Tommy’s and Liske’s, she guessed. In a drawer at the bottom of the closet was a pouch of documents. She opened the pouch. It was stuffed with legal papers, bank account details, and a
Mexico passporte
.

Meg flipped open the passport cover.

A photo of Tommy stared back at her.

Under
Appellidos
was the surname “Sullivan.” Under
Nombres
was the name “Jack Anthony.”
Nacionalidad
was listed as “Mexicano.”

Tommy Kessinger had a fake Mexican passport. Mexican bank accounts. He’d clearly planned this for years—a last-minute backdoor escape hatch. Without his wife. And right now he obviously felt threatened enough to use it—the sign of a desperate man. Her wager was that he was heading down the coast, for the border. He’d likely get rid of them overboard along the way.

“How about this, Meg?” Noah held up a small pair of nail scissors he’d found in the storage locker next to the bed.

She got to work quickly, the small scissors making slow work of the fibrous duct tape. Finally free, she ripped it off her pants. No time to waste. They needed to find a way out of here.

She looked at the porthole again. Even if she could smash through that glass, the sea was riding over the windows. She’d flood the place, take down the boat. She got up, felt the door. It was solid, reinforced wood. And trying to break through it might
bring him running.

She thought back to everything she’d ever known about the boats,
and motor yachts she’d been in. Many had escape hatches on lower
decks for emergencies, often cleverly designed to blend into paneling.

“Noah, open every cabinet you can find, feel along the edges of paneling for gaps, or levers. Some yachts have escape doors in really unusual places. Start on the starboard side, I’ll start here.” She pocketed the scissors and started fingering along grooves in the paneling. A wave of dizziness made her stumble. She sat on the bed a moment, trying to marshal her brain.

Think. Focus.

She’d seen the outside of Tommy’s yacht. She knew the size and shape and the upstairs layout. The top deck had a salon and bridge area, with wet bar. Tommy had been about to lead her down into what he’d called the lower salon when she’d heard Emma scream. The lower salon must house the galley, because there’d been no galley on the main deck. So this master stateroom must be on the lowest deck, downstairs from the middle deck salon and galley. From the tapering shape of this stateroom, she guessed they were in the prow. The engine room must be on the other side of the locked door. But the small bathroom, to the right of the door, extended beyond. Which meant the back wall of the bathroom was also likely the wall of the engine room. She’d seen two motor yachts of a similar design that had emergency escape hatches leading from the head into the engine room.

She got up, went into the small bathroom area, and felt around the mirror. She started as she caught sight of her own reflection—hair wild and matted with blood, her face streaked with it. A gaping gash along her cheekbone. Don’t think, don’t look.

You look like a witch, Meggie-Peg . . .

Thanks a lot, Sherry. Help me out here, will you . . .

She opened the bathroom cabinet. Among the toiletries inside was a midsize can of hairspray. She slipped the can into her jacket pocket—anything for a weapon. And then she found it—riveted into the wall of the shower, a watertight escape hatch to the engine room
, with an inset key handle. She flipped the handle out, twisted, and the vacuum door popped open with a suction sound. Noise from the big diesel engines drummed through the space and vibrated into her bones. Exhilaration burst through her chest as she peered into the dark hole.

“Noah.” She stepped out of the head. “There was a flashlight in that hatch over there. Pass it to me. Quick.”

Meg flicked it on and panned her beam around the interior of the engine room. Chrome and pipes gleamed. She could smell fuel, oil. At the back of the engine, a chrome ladder bolted into the side led up to what she guessed must be an access hatch that opened out into the aft deck area, right outside the glass sliders.

Anxiety laced into her initial bolt of exhilaration. She ran her flashlight beam over the walls, lighting upon a small fire ax clamped to the side, beside a fire extinguisher.

“Okay, Noah,” she said, exiting the head. “Here’s the plan. You’re
going to stay down here, where you’re safe. Do not move. Do not come
through that engine room, even if you hear bad things, understand?”

He paled. His mouth tightened and the blue vein on his brow swelled. But he nodded.

“I’m going to go through the engine room, and up out of the hatch. And I’m going to see if I can catch him by surprise.”

“What are you going to do to him?”

“I don’t know, Noah. But I
have
to stop him.”
Or he will kill us both as soon as he gets far enough offshore.

Tears pooled and slid soundlessly down his face. He started to shake. Meg held his shoulders steady, and kissed his forehead. “Have faith, Noah Sutton. We’re going to get through this. Got it?”

He nodded.

And she slipped into the head and climbed through the hatch into the engine room. She moved past the droning engines, the smell of machinery and diesel strong in her nostrils. She unclamped the fire ax, and holding it in one hand, biting down on pain, she climbed the ladder, pausing to cling on as the boat yawed violently. At the top, she twisted the handle on the hatch, and pushed. It opened easily on hydraulic arms. The scent of sea and cold slammed into her instantly. Her heart kicked. Mouth dry, body wire tight, she climbed out of the hatch. Wind whipped her. She closed the hatch behind her for fear a wave would crash over the stern and douse the engines.

Shaking with cold, or fear, or adrenaline, she wasn’t sure, she crouched on her haunches, balancing with one hand on the deck, the ax in the other. She peered through the glass sliders. A small row of lights burned in the cockpit area. Tommy sat in one of the two captain’s chairs, hunched forward in concentration as he tried to navigate into the storm. Meg got up slowly, and reached for the door.